Nicolas Guibal

Nicolas Guibal ( born November 29, 1725 in Luneville, † November 3, 1784 in Stuttgart) was Württemberg court painter of French origin. His surviving major works are the ceiling paintings in Schloss Solitude, in the High School and Karl Seeschloss Monrepos.

Home and education

Guibal the son of originating from Nîmes sculptor Barthélemy Guibal was ( 1699-1757 ). He first worked as a sculptor in the service of Duke Leopold of Lorraine in Luneville and from 1733 for Stanislaus Leszczynski in Nancy and around. The mother Marie -Catherine Barthelemy came from a wealthy family at the place.

He received first suggestions in his father's studio. However, he decided to train as a painter and went to Nancy to Claude Charles, the former court painter Leopold of Leopold of Lorraine. In 1740 he moved to Paris; since 1745 he enrolled there at the Académie des Beaux Arts at Charles Natoire one.

Life and work

1749, he was appointed by Duke Carl Eugen at the Württemberg court. He arranged court festivities and created theatrical scenery. 1750 granted him the Duke 200 guilders for a trip to Rome. When the Duke himself traveled to Rome in 1753, Guibal handed him several paintings. They appealed to the Duke; when he was returned to Württemberg, he put him out of an annual pension of 750 florins for his further education in Italy. The pictures painted Guibal in Rome, went up on a 1762 lost in a fire in the New Stuttgart Dresden Castle. This image has been preserved only in copy, as a stitch Karl student. The antique style picture shows the influence of Guido Reni and similarities with a picture of Anton Raphael Mengs, the Guibal had met during his stay in Rome.

1755, after his return from Italy, the Duke appointed him the first painter at the court, for Peintre du Duc de Wurtemberg. In 1758 he completed the large, destroyed in World War II ceiling painting in the stairwell of the New Palace. In that year he was appointed member of the Imperial Academy in Augsburg.

Guibal married 1759 Christine Regina Juliana Greber. The marriage produced five children.

In 1760 the title of a gallery director and the rank of Hofkammerrats he was awarded, earning income of 500 guilders a year, to be conveyed to the half in cash and half in kind, and the right with zweispännigem wagon. In 1763 he attended, together with the court architect Philippe de La Guêpière, for the interior of the newly built lake house, which later became known under the name Monrepos. In the salon, he painted a scene from the Metamorphoses of Ovid. In the same year began the construction of Schloss Solitude. Guibal created by construction of numerous designs, wall elevations, wall and door pieces. 1766 and 1767 were eventually the two large ceiling painting in the Solitude Castle finished: a resurrection scene in the chapel and an allegory of the princely virtues brought about by the prosperity of the country in the main hall. For this work, he stood as an assistant of the painter Adolf Friedrich Harper, as well as students of the Académie des Arts are available. Sculptors and artisans were directed to their specifications. The Duke raised his salary annually to 2,000 guilders.

Around 1770 Guibal was known about the borders of Württemberg addition. On behalf of the Elector Karl Theodor of the Palatinate, he painted in the bathhouse of Schwetzingen Castle, the ceiling fresco Aurora defeated the night - again reminiscent of Guido Reni in a clear reference to the Aurora in Palazzo Rospigliosi in Rome. 1774-1776 he painted two altar paintings for the Cathedral of St. Ursus in Solothurn, which he delivered in person. In 1778 he stayed on for some time in Mannheim and painted there in the house of the baron Joseph Sebastian of Castell on Bedernau an apotheosis of the Elector of the Palatinate. This image also was lost in World War II. At the same time an illustrated catalog of the Düsseldorf art collection of the Elector Johann Wilhelm, which is presently located in the Alte Pinakothek in Munich, was established. Guibal designed for the cover and one each thematic etching for each of the six rooms.

In 1780 he designed for the High Karlsschule five ceiling paintings that he completed until 1782, together with his students. Furthermore, a design for a tribute painting for a Russian delegation at the New Palace, which exported Philipp Friedrich von Hetsch, and sculptural works in Stuttgart, Schwäbisch Hall, Hohenheim and elsewhere in the world in his last years. In 1783 he traveled to Paris to present his award-winning of the Royal Academy of Sciences and Arts in Rouen eulogy on Poussin.

Since the late 1770s, however, his health had deteriorated. In 1781 he had to because of recurrent, severe seizures for a cure to Strasbourg. The doctors diagnosed poisoning by heavy metal colors. On November 3, 1784 Nicolas Guibal died. The funeral was held in the Catholic community Mayrhofen am Neckar on November 5, 1784.

For successor Adolf Friedrich Harper was appointed.

Reception

With its design language and its allegorical image statements Guibal was a late representative of the Baroque. Among his contemporaries, he was highly appreciated. For example, wrote the poet Christian Schubart Daniel a eulogy to him, and also many of his students kept him faithful memory. Nevertheless, he came barely twenty years after his death in oblivion because his art was now considered outdated. Court architect, Nikolaus Friedrich von Thouret left shortly after 1800 in Monrepos castle decorations of Guibal and Philippe de La Guêpière smashed and replaced by those in the Empire style. He was now considered eclectic, among his posthumous critics can be found, among others, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, who accused him of a lack of seriousness and lack of understanding of " well-understood drawing weighted beautiful forms." Already in 1809 examined the painter Eberhard Wächter, and engraver Friedrich August Seyffer vain for his grave.

Heavy casualties suffered his work in World War II, when most of his monumental images as well as many paintings and drawings were destroyed.

Work as a teacher

Between 1761 and 1784 he taught at the Academy of Arts and the High School Charles in Stuttgart. Guibals students were, for example, Johann Heinrich Dannecker, Nikolaus Friedrich von Thouret, Philipp Friedrich von Hetsch, Heinrich Friedrich Füger and Joseph Nicolaus Peroux.