Wilhelm Heine

Peter Bernhard Wilhelm Heine ( born January 30, 1827 in Dresden, † October 5, 1885 in Kötzschenbroda, today Radebeul, also William Heinemann ) was a German painter, writer and traveler.

Life and work

Heine studied at the Dresden Academy of Fine Arts and at Julius Hübner, then he went to study for three years in Paris. After his return to Dresden, he worked as a theater painter and art teacher. Because of his participation in the uprisings 1848/1849 he had, supported by Alexander von Humboldt in 1849 to flee to New York, where he opened a studio on Broadway. At the invitation of the archaeologist and diplomat Ephraim George Squier, he traveled to Latin America in 1851, represented Squier until he arrived after him as consul, and documented and painted many native plants ( hiking pictures from Central America, 1853). Back in Washington, D.C. he met President Millard Fillmore and Commodore Matthew Calbraith Perry and joined the following year Perry Expedition to Japan. As a member of his staff, he was able to make use of the then still locked for many foreigners Edo drawings. After his return to New York this and many other 1855 were published. This was followed by his memories journey around the world to Japan ( 2 vols, Leipzig, 1856), which later ( 1859) another 3 or supplementary volume under the title The expedition to the lakes of China, Japan and Okhotsk (Leipzig, 1859) followed. Shortly afterwards appeared as a separate work yet " Japan and its people " (Leipzig, 1860), which is also based on experience and studies related to this trip.

In Berlin Heine reached 1860, the invitation to participate as a travel painter Prussian owls mountain expedition to East Asia. During this trip he met in Yokohama to returning to Europe Russian revolutionary Michael Bakunin, after his escape from Siberia.

Back in the USA Heine was one of the Forty- Eighters, who fled because of the 1848 revolution Europeans who mostly participated in the American Civil War on the Union side forces. Heine was as a surveyor ( Engineering ) Captain of the Potomac Army and rose to brigadier general in 1865 to. In between Heine published in 1864 his main work, A global journey to the northern hemisphere in conjunction with the East Asian expedition in the years 1860 and 1861 ( Leipzig, 2 volumes). After the American Civil War, he was consul of the United States in Paris, and later in Liverpool.

Finally, he returned to Dresden in 1871 and wrote his last book Japan, contributions to the knowledge of the country and his residents (Berlin, 1873-80 ). Around 1880, he settled in Niederlößnitz in Augustus Road 7 (now Käthe- Kollwitz -Straße 24 ) down. From 1883 he lived in the Meissner Strasse 45 ( present house number: 269) in Kötzschenbroda. This last residence Heine has since been demolished.

Works

• Hiking pictures from Central America. (Leipzig 1853)
• Around the World. 2 vols (Leipzig 1856)
• The expedition to the lakes of China, Japan and Okhotsk. ( 3rd volume of ' Around the World ', Leipzig 1859, digitized in the Berlin State Library )
• Japan and its people. (Leipzig 1860, digitized at the National Library Slovenia)
• A summer trip to Tripoli. (Berlin 1860)
• A global journey to the northern hemisphere. (Leipzig 1864)
• Japan ( folio ) (Dresden 1873-1875; popular edition: 1880 )