Frankfurt 1749-1832 Weimar,was a German writer and according to George Eliot, "Germany's greatest man of letters and the last true polymath to walk the earth." Goethe's works span the fields of poetry, drama, literature, theology, humanism and science. Goethe's magnum opus, lauded as one of the peaks of world literature, is the two-part drama Faust. Goethe's other well-known literary works include his numerous poems, the Bildungsroman Wilhelm Meister's Apprenticeship and the epistolary novel The Sorrows of Young Werther. Goethe was one of the key figures of German literature and the movement of Weimar Classicism in the late 18th and early 19th centuries; this movement coincides with Enlightenment, Sentimentality (Empfindsamkeit), Sturm und Drang and Romanticism. The author of the scientific text Theory of Colours, he influenced Darwin with his focus on plant morphology. He also served at length as the Privy Councilor ("Geheimrat") of the duchy of Weimar. Goethe is the originator of the concept of Weltliteratur ("world literature"), having taken great interest in the literatures of England, France, Italy, classical Greece, Persia, Arabic literature, amongst others. His influence on German philosophy is virtually immeasurable, having major effect especially on the generation of Hegel and Schelling, although Goethe himself expressly and decidedly refrained from practicing philosophy in the rarefied sense. Goethe's influence spread across Europe, and for the next century his works were a major source of inspiration in music, drama, poetry and philosophy. Goethe is considered by many to be the most important writer in the German language and one of the most important thinkers in Western culture as well.  Related Paintings of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe :. | Aegopodium podagraria | Proliferous Carnation | the composer of rule britannia | Herbarium sheet | Leaf shapes |
Related Artists:
Georg Pencz
Georg Pencz (c. 1500 probably in Westheim near Bad Windsheim/Franconia - 1550 in Liepzig) was a German engraver, painter and printmaker. Pencz travelled to Nuremberg in 1523 and joined Albrecht Dereres atelier. Like Derer, he visited Italy and was profoundly influenced by Venetian art and it is believed he worked with Marcantonio Raimondi. In 1525, he was imprisoned with the brothers Barthel Beham and Hans Sebald Beham, the so-called "godless painters", for spreading the radical views of Thomas Mentzer by asserting disbelief in baptism, Christ and transubstantiation. The three were pardoned shortly afterwards and became part of the group known as the "Little Masters" because of their tiny, intricate and influential prints. In Nuremberg, influenced by works he had seen in Italy, Pencz painted a number of trompe l'oeil ceilings in the houses of patrician families; one, for which a drawing survives, showed workmen raising building materials on a hoist, against an open sky, to create the illusion that the room was still under construction. Around 1539, Pencz briefly returned to Italy, visiting Rome for the first time, returning to Nuremberg in 1540, where he became the city painter and earned his greatest success as a portraitist. As an engraver, he ranks among the best of the German eLittle Masterse. Notable prints include Six Triumphs of Petrarch and Life of Christ (26 plates). The best of his paintings are portraits, such as Portrait of a Young Man , Portrait of Marshal Schirmer and Portrait of Erhard Schwetzer and his wife.
JH Carse
Australian Painter, ca.1819-1900
Zacarias Gonzalez Velazquez
Spanish , Madrid 1763 - 1834