Frankfurt 1749-1832 Weimar,was a German writer and according to George Eliot, "Germany's greatest man of letters and the last true polymath to walk the earth." Goethe's works span the fields of poetry, drama, literature, theology, humanism and science. Goethe's magnum opus, lauded as one of the peaks of world literature, is the two-part drama Faust. Goethe's other well-known literary works include his numerous poems, the Bildungsroman Wilhelm Meister's Apprenticeship and the epistolary novel The Sorrows of Young Werther. Goethe was one of the key figures of German literature and the movement of Weimar Classicism in the late 18th and early 19th centuries; this movement coincides with Enlightenment, Sentimentality (Empfindsamkeit), Sturm und Drang and Romanticism. The author of the scientific text Theory of Colours, he influenced Darwin with his focus on plant morphology. He also served at length as the Privy Councilor ("Geheimrat") of the duchy of Weimar. Goethe is the originator of the concept of Weltliteratur ("world literature"), having taken great interest in the literatures of England, France, Italy, classical Greece, Persia, Arabic literature, amongst others. His influence on German philosophy is virtually immeasurable, having major effect especially on the generation of Hegel and Schelling, although Goethe himself expressly and decidedly refrained from practicing philosophy in the rarefied sense. Goethe's influence spread across Europe, and for the next century his works were a major source of inspiration in music, drama, poetry and philosophy. Goethe is considered by many to be the most important writer in the German language and one of the most important thinkers in Western culture as well.  Related Paintings of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe :. | who worked in vienna and madrid. he was a fine cellist | Herbarium sheet | Herbarium sheet | Palm and cycad leaves | one of the most successful opera composers of his time,painted by elisadeth vigee lebrun |
Related Artists:
TASSEL, Jean
French Baroque Era Painter, ca.1608-1667 Son of Richard Tassel, with whose works his own were for a long time confused. He trained with his father and by 1634 was recorded in Rome, where he came into contact with his fellow Frenchmen Claude Lorrain, Nicolas Poussin and Sebastien Bourdon. Like the last he was influenced by the Bamboccianti, and he painted a number of low-life genre scenes at this period; these include Singers in a Tavern (Kassel, Schloss Wilhelmshehe) and Travellers Attacked (Warsaw, N. Mus.). He had returned to Langres by 1647, the date of his marriage, and continued to paint genre pictures after this, such as The Sawyers (Strasbourg, Mus. B.-A.) and The Marauders (Langres, Mus. St Didier). Other influences from Rome include Caravaggio, strong in a picture such as the Fortune-teller (sold Paris, Drouot, 1 April 1987, ) but far less apparent in the Presentation of the Infant Jesus (Dijon, Mus. B.-A.) and Tobias and the Angel (Dijon, Mus. B.-A.). However, the most lasting influence was that of the Romano-Bolognese school, seen in later pictures such as the Annunciation
Jacob Philipp Hackert
(September 15, 1737 - April 28, 1807) was a landscape painter from Brandenburg, who did most of his work in Italy. Hackert was born in 1737 in Prenzlau in the Margraviate of Brandenburg (now in Germany). He trained with his father Philipp (a portraitist and painter of animals) and his uncle, before going to the Akademie der Kenste in Berlin in 1758. Later he traveled to Swedish Pomerania and Stockholm, where he painted murals. He spent from 1765 to 1768 in Paris, with the Swiss Artist, Balthasar Anton Dunker, where he focused on painting in gouache. He met and was inspired by Claude Joseph Vernet, who was already famous as a painter of landscapes and seascapes, and the German engraver Johann Georg Wille. In 1768 Hackert left Paris with his brother Georg, and went to Italy, basing himself mainly in Rome and Naples, where he produced many works for Sir William Hamilton. He travelled all over Italy, gaining a reputation as a talented landscape painter. In 1786 he went to work for Ferdinand I of the Two Sicilies in Naples. He advised on the creation of a painting restoration laboratory at the Museo di Capodimonte, and supervised the transfer of the Farnese collections from Rome to Naples. By this time he had an international reputation, and won commissions from empress Catherine II of Russia, king Louis XVI of France and others. When Goethe visited Naples in 1786, he and Hackert became friends.
James Caldwall
British b.1739 d. in or after 1819