Johann Wilhelm Cordes
Johann Wilhelm Cordes ( born March 14, 1824 in Lübeck, † August 16, 1869 ) was a German painter.
Life
Cordes came from a merchant family; his father Johann Jochim Cordes (1782-1866) was a partner of the Luebeck trading house JG Nöltingk & Cordes, his mother Emilie Christiane, born Grautoff (1790-1849) was a pastor's daughter from Kirchwerder and the sister of Ferdinand Heinrich Grautoff. Though he should continue the commercial tradition of the family and had made it in Wandsbek training as a merchant, he turned to painting at an early stage. He studied at the Academy of Fine Arts, Prague, then in 1842 at the Art Academy in Dusseldorf ( under Carl Friedrich Lessing and Johann Wilhelm Schirmer) and later in Frankfurt with Jacob Becker. In 1848 he participated as a volunteer in Wasmerschen Freikorps at the Schleswig-Holstein survey part.
He specialized in hiking and travel shaped by their own, realistic landscape painting. Hans Fredrik Gude with whom he had met in Dusseldorf, he undertook in 1851 and 1853/54 two North Highlands Tourism, whose impressions he held in northern landscapes. In addition, he painted seascapes and beach pictures, mostly with decoration. Circa 1856, he returned from Dusseldorf to Luebeck back. In 1859, he followed the request of the Grand Duke Carl Alexander of Weimar his friend Count Stanislaus von Kalckreuth to Weimar. Here was his most productive and successful period. He was appointed professor at the Grand Ducal Saxon School of Arts (without teaching ) and received in 1862 the House Order of the White Falcon.
In 1866, he took in the wake of the Oldenburg Infantry Regiment No. 91 on the Main campaign part and then returned sick back to Lübeck, where he sought recreation in Travemünde. He died in 1869 in the house of his friend, Baron von Seydlitz- Kurzbach in Lübeck.
Works
Cordes led in 1854 by hand a catalog of his paintings, which contained fifty entries at his death.
The exhibition of his most famous image, and Hauptwerk Wild Hunt, on which he had worked since 1856, in Berlin in 1868 attracted great attention. The monumental painting (271 cm wide, 180 cm high) was acquired for about 6000 guilders from the Viennese collector Jacob Gsell and slammed after his death in 1871 in the major auction in 1872 when Georg Plach for 9750 guilders a Hungarian magnates. The art historian Otto Grautoff commented on the Wild Hunt:
"It's a moonlight picture, conceived in a picturesque manner: a battle of the pale, greenish shimmering moonlight with the night mist the air. Nowhere something tangible earthly things, just some strange twitching up, withered branches spooky stare up from below, without the eye can follow them to the root; and in between the frantic hunting of wild hunter who then charges at his Teufelsroß by fog steam and moons shine, rings buzzing around all sorts of great rabble, witch stuff, Eulengeflatter and belfernden dogs. The Wild Hunt is one of the masterpieces of Cordes "
The King of Prussia acquired the last honor of the Kunsthalle Hamburg, the heathland. The castaways were purchased in 1861 by St. Petersburg; associated with the purchase was the honorary membership in the local Imperial Academy, which in turn included the elevation to personal nobility. Also, the Grand Duke of Oldenburg bought several paintings by Cordes for his collection.
Discount
Cordes died unmarried and childless. His artistic inheritance, which included 15 paintings and 800 oil sketches, watercolors and drawings, initially inherited by his brother, Councillor and owner of the spa Alexandersbad Dr. Emil Cordes ( 1829-1900 ). This bequeathed him the Lübeck museum, so that today are paintings and numerous sketches in Behnhaus in Lübeck.
Exhibitions
- Lübeck, 1906
- Johann Wilhelm Cordes ( 1824-1869 ). Wild Hunt and vast landscape, museum Behnhaus, March 10 - June 30, 2013