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The Vienna Academy as an Instrument of Habsburg Foreign and Domestic Policy During the Napoleonic Era

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 February 2009

Seymour Howard
Seymour Howard
Affiliation:
University of California, Davis
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Extract

The development of national academies of art richly served the interests of both artists and politicians. They found not only personal and group identity but prestige, support, self-advertisement, and advancement in these institutions, dedicated to promoting the arts, useful industry, and the general welfare. During the early modern rise of nationalism, such benefits contributed to the rapid growth and proliferation of state academies of art, many of which had begun in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries as casual associations of artists interested in working to elevate their profession.

Type
The Habsburg Empire: Its People, Administration, and Art
Information
Austrian History Yearbook , Volume 19 , Issue 2 , January 1984 , pp. 89 - 95
Copyright
Copyright © Center for Austrian Studies, University of Minnesota 1984

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References

1 Pevsner's, N.Academies of Art (Cambridge: The University Press, 1940),Google Scholar remains the best introduction to the social history of the subject. For the Vienna Academy in particular, see Pevsner, especially chapter 4 f.; Lützow, Carl von, Geschichte der kais:kön. Akademie der bildenden Künste … (Vienna: C. Gerold's Sohn, 1877);Google ScholarWagner, Walter, Die Geschichte der Akademie der bildenden Künste in Wien (Vienna: Rosenbaum, 1967);Google Scholar and, in Romantik und Realismus in Österreich (Schweinfurt: Sammlung Schafer, 1968),Google Scholar the articles of Margarete Poch-Kalous, “Die Wiener Akademie der bildenden Künste und die Anfänge der österreichischen Bildnismalerei,” pp. 25–32, and Jens Christian, “Overbecks Eintritt in die Wiener Akademie und ein Brief von Heinrich Friedrich Füger,” pp. 33–40.

2 A complete catalogue of these and associated works is being prepared. A selection of them was exhibited at Haus zum Rechberg, Zürich; Akademie der bildenden Künste, Vienna; Gabinetto Nazionale delle Stampe, Rome; and Museum, Crocker Art, Sacramento. Seymour Howard, Jacob Mert (1783–1807), trans. Meister, G., catalogue (Zürich: Schweizerisches Institut für Kunstwissenschaft, 1981);Google Scholaridem, Jacob Merz disegnatore (1783–1807), trans. Serandrei, L., catalogue (Rome: De Luca Editore, 1981).Google Scholar

3 Veith wrote a long and episodic biography about his protégé, based largely upon their correspondence and his recollections: Notizen aus dem Leben von Jakob Merz (Tübingen: Cotta, 1810), pp. 1–16Google Scholar (early years). That work apparently was the basis for a slightly earlier account in Füssli's, J. Heinrich revised edition of Füssli's, J. RudolfAllgemeines Künstlerlexikon (Zürich: Füsslin und Compagnie, 1809),Google Scholar pt. 2, sec. 4, p. 846 f. These are the principal sources for subsequent scattered notices about Merz. Veith and family: Türleret, H. et al. , Historisch-biographisches Lexikon der Schweiz (Neuenberg: Administration des Historisch-Biographischen Lexikons der Schweiz, 1937), VII,Google Scholar 206 f.

4 Veith, Merz, pp. 13, 17,19, 174f., prints 22,23,25;,idem, Die dankbare Freundschaft bey Lavalers Tod (1801); idem, Ein Wort über Lavater an meinen Freund Carl Steiner M.D. (Andelfingen: n.p., 1801) (with two prints by Merz). These and over a dozen other short pamphlets by Veith, recorded without publishers' names, are preserved in the Zentralbibliothek, Zürich.

5 For this Austro-Helvetic honeymoon and the cultural and political interests of Archdukes Karl and Joseph, see, for example, the engaging history of Musulin, Stella, Vienna in the Age of Metternich:From Napoleon to Revolution, 1805–1848 (London: Faber and Faber, 1975),Google Scholarchap, l.esp. p. 25 f.

6 Wagner, Akademie in Wien, p. 433 f.

7 Veith, Merz, p. 18. Veith mentions that Delmotte would ease Merz's way. For Merz's lost miniature portrait of Delmotte (1803), see Mezger, J.J., Kunst-Sammlung des sel. Herrn Antistes und Dekan Veith zu Schaffhausen … (Schaffhausen: Rudolf Weigel, 1835), p. 35, no. 64.Google Scholar

8 For example, in his pamphlets Andelfingen Attacke, 25 May 1799, and An mein Vaterland nach den Bedürfnissen der Zeit 1800 (Zurich, 1800),Google Scholar and in his biography of Merz.

9 For Ott and for his Austrian patronage, see H. C. Vogeler, in Brun, Carl, Schweizerisches Künstier-Lexikon (Frauenfeld: Huber, 1908)Google Scholar (reprint Nendeln, 1967), II, 503 (Karl and Albert).

10 Veith, Merz, pp. 20–25, Merz to Veith.

11 Veith, Merz, p. 101, letter to Merz, August 10, 1803. Merz's octavo print portait of Müller is noted by Nagler, G. K., Neues Allgemeines Künstler-Lexikon (Munich: Fleischmann, 1840), IX, 212,Google Scholar “Merz” no. 5, who otherwise repeats the items noted by Veith, Merz, pp. 173–176.

12 On J. Rudolf Füssli (the youngest), see Veith, Merz, pp. 20, 23, 40, and Meyer von Knonan's entry in Brun, Schweizerisches Künsller-Lexikon, I,528. For prints by Billwiler after Merz's Academy faculty portraits, see Füssli, Allgemeines Künstler-Lexikon, p. 847, and Vogeler, in Brun, Schweizerisches Künstler-Lexikon, I, 133.

13 For example, see Veith, Merz, p. 40 f., and passim, for oil portraits and prints. See also Constant von Wurzbach, , Biographisches Lexikon des Kaiserthums Oesterreich (Vienna: Hofund Staatsdruckerei, 1883), XVII,Google Scholar 419 f.

14 Wagner, Akademie in Wien, pp. 420, 433. Pestalozzi, F. O., Joh. Caspar Lavalers Beziehungen zur Kunst und den Künstlern (Zürich: Buchdruckerei Beriechthaus, Kommissionsverlag Beer, 1915), p. 106;Google Scholaridem, “Johann Caspar Lavaters Kunstsammlung,” Neujahrsblatt zum Besten des Waisenhauses in Zürich, LXXIX (1916), 32, n. 2.Google Scholar

15 Veith, Merz, pp. 40–48, Merz to Veith, Summer 1805.

16 Veith, Merz, pp. 53–72, Merz to Veith, Winter 1805.

17 See again note 1. For many intimate illustrations of the images, methods, and ideas representative of instruction at the Academy, see the extensive catalogue and biography by Rozman, Ksenija, Franc Kavčič/Caucig 1755–1828 (Ljubljana: Narodna galerija, 1978).Google Scholar Caucig, a teacher of Merz, apparently introduced him to Canova, his long-time friend in Rome and director of the Academy of St. Luke (Veith, Merz, p. 77, Merz to Veith, Fall 1805, “Professor ‘C’”). For Merz, Caucig, and Canova, see Howard, S., “Jacob Merz's Portrait of Franc Caucig/ Kavčič,” Zbornik za Umetnostno Zgodovino [Archives of the History of Art], XVII (1981), 67–74,Google Scholar figs. 23–37.

18 Veith, J.W.wrote a short history and eulogy about his confrère, Heinrich Lips (Zurich: n.p., 1817);Google Scholar see also the thoroughgoing biography and lists of Lips's prints by Appenzeller, H., in Brun, Schweizerisches Künstler-Lexikon, II, 265–270.Google Scholar

19 For the importance of Fischer's anatomical studies for the Academy curriculum and reputation, see, for example, Wagner, Akademie in Wien, p. 63, and Veith, Merz, p. 22, Merz to Veith, Winter 1802. On Merz's admiration of Fischer and his methods, see Veith, Merz, p. 31, Merz to Veith.

Fischer's anatomical studies were published by the author in two volumes: Erklärung der anatomischen Statue für Künstler (Vienna: Gassler, 1804),Google Scholar and Darstellung des Knochenbaues von dem menschlichen Körper (Vienna: Andreas Grassler, 1806).Google Scholar

20 For Christina, Albert, and Karl, see Musulin, Vienna, p. 28 f., esp. p. 29. On the Canova portraits, see Veith, Merz, pp. 52,77,143,176, prints 42,43. For the Christina Monument and prints, see Veith, Merz, pp. 49–52, 91,176, prints 39,40; Vivere, E.C.J. Van de, Mausoleum oder Grabmahl … Maria Christina (Vienna: Artaria et Comp., 1805),Google Scholar frontispiece; and Selma Krasa, “Antonio Canovas Denkmal de Erzherzogin Marie Christine,”Albertina Studien, V–VI (1967),Google Scholar 68, 94 f., 106, figs. 29–32; the portrait and the monument are also illustrated in Bertuch, Carl, Bemerkungen auf einer Reise aus Thüringen nach Wien im Winter 1805 bis 1806 (Weimar: Verlage des Landes-Industrie-Comptoire, 1808–1810).Google Scholar

21 Veith, Merz, pp. 78, 80, 84 f., 86, 147, 176, nos. 44,45.

22 On the group's formation and the Nazarenes' response to their instructors, see, for example, Andrews, K., The Nazarenes (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1967),Google Scholar and Eitner, L., Neoclassicism and Romanticism (Englewood Cliffs: Prentice-Hall, 1970), 1,35,Google Scholar Pforr to his guardian, March 2,1810.

23 Merz began with the methods and images of a craftsman-guild tradition under Veith and Lips, making copies and improvisations upon early Swiss compositions as well as, eventually, upon Italianate and classical-academic studies. The latter tradition characterizes most of his work in Vienna.