Franz Xaver Winterhalter | |
|---|---|
 Winterhalter in 1865 | |
| Born | (1805-04-20)20 April 1805 Menzenschwand,Saint Blaise Abbey, Duchy of Modena-Breisgau |
| Died | 8 July 1873(1873-07-08) (aged 68) |
| Known for | Painting, litography |
| Signature | |
 | |
Franz Xaver Winterhalter (20 April 1805 – 8 July 1873) was a German painter andlithographer, known for his flattering portraits of royalty and upper-class society in the mid-19th century. His name has become associated with fashionable courtportraiture. Among his best known works areEmpress Eugénie Surrounded by her Ladies in Waiting (1855) and the portraits he made of EmpressElisabeth of Austria (1865).
Franz Xaver Winterhalter was born in the small village ofMenzenschwand (now part ofSankt Blasien), in Germany'sBlack Forest[1], on 20 April 1805.[2] He was the sixth child of Fidel Winterhalter (1773–1863), a farmer andresin producer in the village, and his wife Eva Meyer (1765–1838), a member of a long established Menzenschwand family.[2] His father was of peasant stock and was a powerful influence in his life. Of the eight brothers and sisters, only four survived infancy. Throughout his life Franz Xaver remained very close to his family, in particular to his brotherHermann (1808–1891), who was also a painter.[3]
After attending school at aBenedictine monastery in St. Blasien, Winterhalter left Menzenschwand in 1818 at the age of 13 to study drawing and engraving.[4] He trained as a draughtsman and lithographer in the workshop of Karl Ludwig Schüler (1785–1852) inFreiburg im Breisgau. In 1823, at the age of 18, he went to Munich, sponsored by the industrialist Baron von Eichtal (1775–1850).[5] In 1825, he was granted a stipend byLouis I, Grand Duke of Baden (1763–1830) and began a course of study at theAcademy of Fine Arts, Munich withPeter von Cornelius (1783–1867), whose academic methods made him uncomfortable. Winterhalter found a more congenial mentor in the fashionable portraitistJoseph Karl Stieler (1781–1858). During this time, he supported himself working as lithographer.[6]
Winterhalter entered court circles when in 1828 he became drawing master toSophie, Margravine of Baden, atKarlsruhe.[6] His opportunity to establish himself beyond southern Germany came in 1832 when he was able to travel to Italy, 1833–1834, with the support of Grand DukeLeopold of Baden. In Rome he composed romantic genre scenes in the manner ofLouis Léopold Robert and attached himself to the circle of the director of theAcadémie des Beaux-Arts,Horace Vernet. On his return to Karlsruhe he painted portraits of the Grand Duke Leopold of Baden and his wife, and was appointed painter to the grand-ducal court.
Nevertheless, he leftBaden to move toFrance, where his Italian genre sceneIl dolce Farniente attracted notice at theSalon of 1836.Il Decameron a year later was also praised; both paintings are academic compositions in the style ofRaphael. In the Salon of 1838 he exhibited a portrait ofthe Prince of Wagram with his young daughter. His career as a portrait painter was soon secured when in the same year he paintedLouise of Orléans, Queen of the Belgians, andher son. It was probably through this painting that Winterhalter came to the notice ofMaria Amalia of the Two Sicilies, Queen of the French, mother of the Queen of the Belgians.
In Paris, Winterhalter quickly became fashionable. He was appointedcourt painter ofLouis-Philippe, the king of the French, who commissioned him to paint individual portraits of his large family. Winterhalter would execute more than thirty commissions for him.
This success earned the painter the reputation of a specialist in dynastic and aristocratic portraiture, skilled in combining likeness with flattery and enlivening official pomp with modern fashion.
However, Winterhalter's reputation in artistic circles suffered. The critics, who had praised his debut in the salon of 1836, dismissed him as a painter who could not be taken seriously. This attitude persisted throughout Winterhalter's career, condemning his work to a category of his own in the hierarchy of painting. Winterhalter himself regarded his first royal commissions as a temporary intermission before returning tosubject painting and the field of academic respectability, but he was a victim of his own success, and for the rest of his life he worked almost exclusively as a portrait painter. His success in this field made him rich. Winterhalter became an international celebrity enjoying royal patronage.
Among his many regal sitters was alsoQueen Victoria. Winterhalter first visited England in 1842, and returned several times to paint Victoria,Prince Albert and their growing family, painting at least 120 works for them, a large number of which remain in theRoyal Collection, on display to the public atBuckingham Palace and other royal residences. On display atOsborne House isFlorinda, given by Victoria as a birthday present for Albert in 1852.[9] Winterhalter also painted a few portraits of the aristocracy in England, mostly members of court circles. The fall of Louis-Philippe in 1848 did not affect the painter's reputation. Winterhalter went toSwitzerland and worked in Belgium and England.
Persistence saw Winterhalter survive from the fall of one dynasty to the rise of another. Paris remained his home until a couple of years before his death. In the same year, his marriage proposal was rejected, and Winterhalter remained a bachelor committed to his work.
After the accession ofNapoleon III, his popularity grew. From then on, under theSecond Empire, Winterhalter became the chief portraitist of the imperial family and court of France. The French EmpressEugénie became a favorite sitter, and she treated him generously. In 1855 Winterhalter painted his masterpiece:Empress Eugénie Surrounded by her Ladies in Waiting. He set the French Empress in apastoral setting gathering flowers in a harmonious circle with her ladies in waiting. The painting was acclaimed and exhibited in theExposition Universelle (1855). It remains Winterhalter's most famous work. The composition shows a marked similarity toFlorinda and this gave rise to scandalous gossip that the Empress and her ladies had poseddéshabillé for the earlier painting.[9]
In 1852, he went to Spain to paint QueenIsabella II withher daughter. Russian aristocratic visitors to Paris also liked to have their portraits executed by the famous master. As the "Painter of Princes", Winterhalter was thereafter in constant demand by the courts ofBritain (from 1841), Spain, Belgium,Russia,Mexico, the German states, and France. During the 1850s and 1860s, Winterhalter painted a number of important portraits of Polish and Russian aristocrats. In 1857, he painted the portrait ofTsarinaMaria Alexandrovna. During this time he also painted portraits of members of the André family, including the art collectorÉdouard André, Henriette André Walther, and Ernest André, which now hang in theMusée Jacquemart-André in Paris.
During the Second Mexican Empire in the 1860s, headed byMaximilian I of Mexico, Winterhalter was commissioned to paint portraits of the Imperial couple. The Empress consort of Mexico,Charlotte of Belgium was the daughter ofLouise-Marie of France, Queen of the Belgians, whom Winterhalter painted at the beginning of his career in France. Some of Winterhalter's paintings of the Mexican monarchs still remain in their Mexico City palace,Chapultepec Castle, now theNational Museum of History.
To deal with those pressing for portrait commissions, many of whom were calling for multiple replicas, Winterhalter made extensive use of assistants. No portrait painter had ever enjoyed such an extraordinary royal patronage as Winterhalter; onlyPeter Paul Rubens,Anthony van Dyck andThomas Lawrence worked as he did in an international network.
Winterhalter sought respite from the pressures of his work with holidays abroad in Italy, Switzerland, and above all Germany. Despite the many years he lived in France, he remained deeply attached to his native country. For all his success and popularity, Winterhalter continued to live simply and abstemiously. In 1859 he bought a villa inBaden-Baden, his favorite vacation spot.
In 1864, Winterhalter made his last visit to England. In the autumn of that year, he traveled to Vienna to execute the portraits of EmperorFranz Joseph and EmpressElisabeth that remain among his most well-known works. As he grew older, Winterhalter's links with France weakened while his interest in Germany grew. He was taking a cure in Switzerland at the outbreak of theFranco-Prussian War, the war that ended theSecond French Empire. After the war, the painter did not return to France, going instead toBaden. He was officially still accredited at the court of Baden, and he settled inKarlsruhe. In the last two years of his life, Winterhalter painted very little. During a visit toFrankfurt am Main in the summer of 1873, he contractedtyphus and died on 8 July. He was 68 years old.
Winterhalter came into his own as a portrait painter during the Second Empire and he painted his best work during the last two decades of his life. He matched his style to the luxury and relaxed atmosphere of the age, itshedonism and gaiety. His female sitters of the 1850s and 1860s inhabit a different physiological climate from those he painted earlier; they are not reticent and reserved. His male sitters inspired few original or memorable compositions.
Winterhalter never received high praise for his work from serious critics, being constantly accused of superficiality and affectation in pursuit of popularity. However, he was highly appreciated by his aristocratic patrons. The royal families of England, France, Spain, Russia, Portugal, Mexico, and Belgium all commissioned him to paint portraits. His monumental canvases established a substantial popular reputation, andlithographic copies of the portraits helped to spread his fame.
Winterhalter's portraits were prized for their subtle intimacy; the nature of his appeal is not difficult to explain. He created the image his sitters wished or needed to project to their subjects. He was not only skilled at posing his sitters to create almost theatrical compositions, but also was a virtuoso in the art of conveying the texture of fabrics, furs and jewellery, to which he paid no less attention than to the face. He painted very rapidly and very fluently, designing most of his compositions directly in the canvas. His portraits are elegant, refined, lifelike, and pleasantly idealized.
Concerning Winterhalter's method of working, it is thought that, practiced as he was at drawing and representing figures, he painted directly onto the canvas without making preliminary studies. He frequently decided upon the dress and pose of the sitter. His style was suave,cosmopolitan and plausible. Many of the portraits were copied in his workshop or reproduced as lithographs.
As an artist, he remained a difficult figure to place; there are few painters with whom to compare him, and he does not fit into any school. His early affinities wereNeoclassical but his style can be described as Neo-Rococo. After his death, his painting fell out of favor, being considered romantic, glossy, and superficial. Little was known about him personally and his art was not taken seriously until recently. However, a major exhibition of his work at theNational Portrait Gallery, London and thePetit Palais in Paris in 1987 brought him into the limelight again. His paintings are exhibited today in leading European and American museums.
_by_Winterhalter.jpg)
_-_Louise%2c_Queen_of_the_Belgians_(1812-50)_-_RCIN_404520_-_Royal_Collection.jpg)
_by_Winterhalter.jpg)
.jpg)
.jpg)
Media related toFranz Xaver Winterhalter at Wikimedia Commons| International | |
|---|---|
| National | |
| Academics | |
| Artists | |
| People | |
| Other | |
