Andreas Achenbach

Andreas Achenbach

Andreas Achenbach^[1] (29 September 1815 – 1 April 1910) was a German landscape painter, associated with the Düsseldorf school of painting.

Biography

Ships in a Storm on the Dutch Coast

Surf on a Rocky Coast

Born in Kassel, he began his art education in 1827 in Düsseldorf under Friedrich Wilhelm Schadow at the Düsseldorf Academy of Painting. He studied at St Petersburg and travelled in Italy, Holland and Scandinavia.^[2] In his early work he followed the pseudo-idealism of the German romantic school, but on removing to Munich in 1835, the stronger influence of Louis Gurlitt turned his talent into new channels, and he became the founder of the German realistic school. Although his landscapes evince too much of his aim at picture-making and lack personal temperament, he is a master of technique, and is historically important as a reformer. He received a medal of the first class in Paris in 1855,^[3] and was named a Chevalier of the French Legion of Honor.^[4] The Chambers Biographical Dictionary says of him that "he was regarded as the father of 19th century German landscape painting."

A number of his finest works are to be found at the Berlin National Gallery, the New Pinakothek in Munich, and the galleries at Dresden, Darmstadt, Cologne, Düsseldorf, Leipzig and Hamburg. Many of his paintings are in galleries in the United States.^[3]

He died in Düsseldorf.

His brother, Oswald Achenbach (1827–1905), was also a painter.

Gallery

• 

  Clearing Up—Coast of Sicily, 1847. The Walters Art Museum.

• 

  Wildbach

• 
• 

  Watermill in Westphalia, 1863.

• 

  Storm on the sea at the Norwegian coast, 1837, Städel Museum

See also

• List of German painters

Notes

1. Encyclopædia Britannica 1911 p142.
2. Chambers Biographical Dictionary ISBN 0-550-18022-2, page 6
3.  Gilman, D. C.; Thurston, H. T.; Colby, F. M., eds. (1905). "Achenbach, Andreas". New International Encyclopedia (1st ed.). New York: Dodd, Mead.
4. The Iconographic Encyclopaedia of the Arts and Sciences: Sculpture and painting, (1887) p 204

References

•  This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Achenbach, Andreas". Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press.
• Ralf Kern: Oswald Achenbach: Ein Düsseldorfer malt Italien. LIT Verlag, Münster 2009, ISBN 978-3-643-10081-8

External links

• Art and the empire city: New York, 1825–1861, an exhibition catalog from The Metropolitan Museum of Art (fully available online as PDF), which contains material on Achenbach (see index)
• Art by Achenbach (museumsyndicate.com)
• Andreas Achenbach (Works in art museums and image archives worldwide – artcyclopedia.com).
• Andreas Achenbach Paitings Gallery (Public Domain Paintings – www.art.onilm.com)