German Painter, 1785-1841 Painter, draughtsman and lithographer, brother of Heinrich Olivier. The brothers' mother was a court opera singer in Dessau, and Ferdinand's later interest in the German medieval and Nazarene styles owed much to the intellectual climate at the Anhalt-Dessau court, where Leopold III Frederick Francis, Prince of Anhalt-Dessau, had been the first German prince to introduce the Gothic Revival style. Olivier took up drawing in 1801-2 under the tuition of Carl Wilhelm Kolbe and the engraver Johann Christian Haldenwang (1777-1831). In 1802-3 he accompanied his father to Berlin, where he studied woodcut techniques under Johann Friedrich Gottlieb Unger (1755-1804) and may have attended August Wilhelm Schlegel's lectures on belles-lettres and art. It was here, at the latest, that he discovered Herzensergiessungen eines kunstliebenden Klosterbruders (Berlin, 1797) by Wilhelm Heinrich Wackenroder and Ludwig Tieck, and the latter's Franz Sternbalds Wanderungen (Berlin, 1798), two books of vital significance for the painting of the Romantic era. Having decided to make art their career, Ferdinand and his brother Heinrich spent two years (1804-6) in Dresden, where they copied the works of Ruisdael and Claude Lorrain in the art gallery during the summer months. Ferdinand also took lessons from Jacob Wilhelm Mechau (1745-1808) and Carl Ludwig Kaaz, both painters of idealized landscapes, and he was probably introduced to the work of Philipp Otto Runge and Caspar David Friedrich by Friedrich August von Klinkowström (1778-1835), a friend of Runge. In June 1807 Ferdinand's excellent knowledge of French led to his appointment as embassy secretary in Paris, where Heinrich soon joined him. However, after just a few weeks he gave up his diplomatic career in order to devote himself to a study of the Musee Napoleon, which at that time housed art treasures pillaged from all parts of Europe. Ferdinand and Heinrich jointly produced three paintings for Leopold III Frederick Francis of Anhalt-Dessau: a portrait of Napoleon on Horseback (c.1809; W?rlitz, Schloss), and a Last Supper and Baptism (1809-10; Werlitz, Evangel. Ch.) for the Gothic Revival church in Werlitz. Although these last two were supposed to be copies after the 'old German school', the Olivier brothers in fact used 15th- and 16th-century Dutch and Flemish models to create original compositions. At the end of 1809 they returned to Dessau.   Related Paintings of Ferdinand Olivier :. | A Fete at Bermondsey | The Turkish Bath | Erasmus of Rotterdam | Jean Louis Rodolphe Agassiz | The Great Colvary |
Related Artists:
John O Brien Inman
American, 1828-1896
COYPEL, Antoine
French Baroque Era Painter, 1661-1722 director of the French Royal Academy and principal painter of Louis XV. He illustrated many literary works, including editions of Moliere's plays, and was himself a prolific dramatist. Coypel wrote one fairy tale, Agla ou Nabotine (Agla or Little One?), published posthumously in 1779. Coypel weaves several traditional fairy tale motifs into the story of a benevolent fairy who tests the kindness and sincerity of an ugly little girl whose virtue is eventually rewarded with beauty and the love of a handsome young man.
HESS, Heinrich Maria von
German painter b. 1798, Dsseldorf, d. 1863, Mnchen,German painter. After training (1813-17) under Peter von Langer (1756-1824) at the Akademie der bildenden Kenste in Munich, he painted religious subjects under the influence of Peter Cornelius. In 1821 he joined the Lukasbreder, and the circle around Crown Prince Ludwig I of Bavaria, in Rome. Apollo among the Muses (1824; Munich, Neue Pin.), painted for Maximilian I, shows Hess to be among the most gifted of the German artists working in Rome. The influence of Raphael, glowing but carefully harmonized colours, gliding figures and drapery animate this early masterpiece. Among other important works from this time are exquisitely detailed and colouristically sophisticated, intimate character portraits with early Renaissance settings, such as that of Marchesa Marianna Florenzi (1824; Munich, Neue Pin.), as well as fresh and lively Naturalist landscapes from the environs of Rome, for example Campagna Landscape near Ponte Nomentano (1821-6; Hamburg, Ksthalle).