Johann Wilhelm Baur
(May 31, 1607 - January, 1642) |
|
Art Work
| Name: |
Johann Wilhelm Baur |
| Gender: |
Male |
| Place of Birth: |
Strassburg |
| Nationality: |
German |
| Birth: |
May 31, 1607 |
| Death: |
January, 1642 |
| Website: |
|
| Past Auctions: |
Click Here |
|
|
Quick Facts
| Known For: |
|
| Medium: |
Painter/Etcher |
| Method: |
|
| Style: |
|
| Fine Art Profession(s): |
|
|
|
Biography
| He was active in Italy and Austria. His outstanding miniatures and etchings, introducing new forms of the veduta, were long influential in Germany and Austria. His father and grandfather were respected goldsmiths. In the Strassburg workshop of Friedrich Brentel I he learnt drawing, etching and painting on parchment. His earliest known work, a leaf from an album amicorum with Chronos, Venus and Amor before an Extensive Landscape (?1627; Strasbourg, Cab. Est. & Dessins), already shows an elegance in the modelling of the figures that surpasses Brentel. The drawing was executed in Stuttgart, where Baur probably met Wenceslaus Hollar, Johann Heinrich Schonfeld and Karel Aa‚ kreta.Baur was in Italy by 1630; a small etching of John the Baptist Preaching from that year (Seidlitz, no. 2) shows that he had encountered the art of Adam Elsheimer and his circle. In Naples he experienced the eruption of Vesuvius on 16 December 1631, which he etched (s 29). Some religious cabinet miniatures produced in Naples (two in Vienna, Hist. Mus.) contain architectural elements assimilated from the work of Hans Vredeman de Vries, Jacques Callot and Didier Barra, though the modelling of the figures and the gloomy coloration show the influence of Neapolitan Caravaggism. Two brush drawings of 1632 (Pyramus and Thisbe, reverse: Nymphs and Fauns; Dresden, Kupferstichkab.), echoing the art of Cornelis van Poelenburch, reveal Baurs bent-name: Reger or Reygher (heron). Baurs first series of prints, Battles of Divers Nations (14 etchings, one dated 1633; s 25), also appeared in Naples: he knew the theme of war from Brentels work but was also influenced here by the inventive etchings of Antonio Tempesta. Etchings of the Four Elements (s 5-8) seem also to have been produced in Naples.In 1633, prompted by a letter from Jacques Stella in Rome, Baur left Naples to etch 11 Battle Scenes (s 13-23) for Famiano Stradas De bello belgico (Rome, 1640). His next etchings, the Capricci di varie battaglie (14 scenes, 1634-5; s 24), vary and extend this thematic area. They were dedicated to Paolo Giordano Orsini II, Duke of Bracciano, as was a series of 15 Costumes of Diverse Nations (1636; s 26); the drawing, probably for a cabinet miniature, of a large Panorama of Bracciano in strip form (Chicago, IL, A. Inst.) was also intended for him. In Rome, Baur conquered a new field of activity with the miniature veduta. Previously there had only been etchings of Roman scenes in small format, such as the series of vedute (1629) by Giovanni Battista Mercati (1600-after 1637) that Baur occasionally used as a source for his miniatures. His most famous veduta, the View of the Palazzina Borghese (1636; Rome, Gal. Borghese), shows Baurs sense of architectonic monumentality, exactitude in detail and unusually rich imagination in inventing very varied staffage. The darker colours of the circular Views of St Peters and S Maria Maggiore (Karlsruhe, Staatl. Ksthalle) suggest an early date of c. 1634. Baur also etched five views of Tivoli while in Rome (in Vedute de giardini, 1636; s 31). A new type of picture was developed from Baurs interest in realistic vedute: the veduta ideata, containing many observed details combined in the imagination of the artist, as in the Italian Villa (1634-5; Munich, Residenz), which includes impressions taken from the Orsinis park at Bomarzo.In 1637, aged 30, Baur etched a Self-portrait (s 28) that demonstrates that portraiture was not his forte. That autumn he left Rome to settle in Vienna. A small scrap-book (Strasbourg, Cab. Est. & Dessins) documents the course of his journey as far as Venice. Although he took a close look at Padua and above all Venice, he must have been in Vienna before the end of the year, since he married the widow of a Viennese goldsmith on 13 January 1638. In Vienna Baur worked more or less as a freelancea‚¯he certainly did not become an imperial court painter. The real vedute that had been so successful in Rome are totally absent from his work in Vienna. However, one form of the imaginary veduta, the Mediterranean harbour, aroused great interest. The first impetus for this form probably derives from the early harbour scenes of Claude Lorrain, the final form being influenced by the actual appearance of the Venetian riva: to one side of the picture a series of Italianate palazzi recede steeply behind a broad quay, with brightly coloured staffage in contemporary costume facing a sea full of ships and small boats (early example, 1637; Cambridge, MA, Fogg A. Mus.). In 1640 Baur produced variations on the harbour theme in a series of etchings (s 33).In 1639 Baur etched a large sheet In Homage to the Emperor Ferdinand III (s 44; derived from an engraving by Lucas Vorstermann the elder), and in 1640 an Allegorical Depiction of Olmutz (see K. Roberts, Burl. Mag., cxviii (1976), p. 175). As a painter in enamel, he collaborated with the imperial goldsmith Hans Georg Bramer (1608-61) to produce a massive gold plate (1640; Vienna, Ksthist. Mus.) showing Ferdinand IIIs chief military successes and his coronation. Other displays of his skills were such lavish miniatures as a great Building of the Tower of Babel (1638; Vaduz, Samml. Liechtenstein) and the richly populated Papal Procession to the Lateran and Procession of the Grand Turk (both c. 1638-41; Paris, Louvre). His greatest work as an etcher was produced in Vienna in 1639-41: the 150 illustrations to Ovids Metamorphoses (s 12; preliminary drawings, Vaduz, Samml. Liechtenstein). Here he had finally found a subject that inspired him to original and individual creation. Even where he used other Ovid illustrations, such as those of Antonio Tempesta, he transformed them into something completely personal. His particular achievement lies in bringing the dramatic action to life.Interest in Baurs art survived long into the 18th century, owing partly to the attractiveness of his minutely detailed work and the lavish colour of his miniatures but principally to his talent for individual narration and the creation of lively scenes. Collections of his miniatures and sketches are held inter alia in Paris (Louvre), Vaduz (Samml. Liechtenstein), Vienna (Albertina), Strasbourg (Mus. B.-A.), Cambridge, MA (Harvard U., Houghton Lib.), and Washington, DC (N.G.A.). As well as his own printed works, copies etched by Melchior Kusel of Augsburg (s 1-2, 13-4), who must have owned many of the sketches left by Baur and published a collection of his designs entitled Iconographia (Augsburg, 1670), helped disseminate his works. Baurs and Kusels etchings served as models for copies of all kinds: drawings, miniatures and ceiling paintings in Austrian palaces, as well as glass, enamel and porcelain painting. There are also many imitations of drawings and etchings (e.g. by Franz van den Wijngaerde, 1614-79), but above all of paintings, sometimes wrongly attributed to Baur. |
Samples of Work
|
|
