Moritz von Schwind

(b Vienna, 21 Jan 1804; d Niederp?cking, nr Munich, 8 Feb 1871). Austrian painter and illustrator.

He studied at the Akademie der Bildende K?nste in Vienna (1821-3), where he was influenced by the Biedermeier genre painter Peter Krafft and the Nazarene painter Ludwig Ferdinand Schnorr von Carolsfeld. He made copies after the Old Masters at the Belvedere in Vienna, exploring especially D?rer, Albrecht Altdorfer, Raphael and Titian, which completed his early, largely autodidactic experience of art. His friendship with Franz Schubert, the poet and playwright Franz Grillparzer and the painters Ferdinand and Friedrich Olivier, as well as the cultural environment of Biedermeier Vienna in his years there between 1823 and 1828, shaped his spiritual development as a painter. His love of music inspired his later 'symphonic' compositions and flowing linear rhythms. Extensive reading of the work of Romantic writers such as Achim von Arnim, Clemens von Brentano, Ludwig Tieck, Friedrich Heinrich von Hagen and the brothers Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm helped prepare his mature pictorial themes of fairytales, legends and sagas. He was unsuccessful as a painter and eked out a meagre livelihood by drawing naturalistic genre scenes for engravers, while occasionally selling a painting. Walk before the City Gate (1827; Bad Ischl, Dr Ernst Schwind priv. col., see Pommeranz-Liedtke, pl. 1) illustrates his early painting style: it is a descriptive and highly detailed genre scene in which Schwind's powers of observation are combined with Biedermeier charm and a graceful folksiness.

See the Abbreviations for further details.

Schwind, Moritz von (1804–71), Austrian painter, illustrator, and writer, who was famous for his prodigious fairy‐tale paintings and drawings and his fairy‐tale contributions to the Münchner Bilderbogen (Munich Broadsheets), one of the most popular series of broadsheets in the 19th century. After studying art and philosophy in Vienna, Schwind moved to Munich in 1828 and began to make a career for himself as painter and illustrator. He is best known for three cycles of fairy tales that he wrote and illustrated: Aschenputtel (Kinder‐ und Hausmärchen, 1854), an oil painting, Von den sieben Raben und der treuen Schwester (The Seven Ravens and their Faithful Sister, 1857–8), 15 aquarelles, and Von der schönen Melusine (The Beautiful Melusine, 1869), 11 aquarelles. Schwind's work has a classical, monumental quality to it. The lines of his drawings are strong and graceful, and his figures are realistically drawn. His classical style can especially be seen in the eight woodcuts that he did for the Münchner Bilderbogen between 1848 and 1855. Among his best fairy‐tale broadsheets are ‘Puss‐in‐Boots’ and ‘The Juniper Tree’. Schwind's interpretations of the fairy tales were not particularly original. Rather, his illustrations endowed the tales with formidable traditional features.

Bibliography

• Bredt, E. W. (ed.), Moritz von Schwind: Fröhliche Romantik (1917).

— Karen Seago

Schwind, Moritz von (Vienna, 1804-71, Munich), began as a Romantic painter (see Romantik) and developed a grandiose style of historical and allegorical painting, which brought him commissions in Munich (with P. von Cornelius), Karlsruhe, Frankfurt, the Wartburg, and Vienna. His abilities are seen to better advantage in small-scale work such as his illustrations for Robinson Crusoe (1821-3) and Le nozze di Figaro (1825), and for magazines (Münchner Bilderbogen, Fliegende Blätter). He was always fascinated by Romantic and fairy-tale motifs (Die sieben Raben, 1857-8, Die schöne Melusine, 1869-70, both cycles; Rübezahl, c.1860). His correspondence with E. Mörike, ed. J. Bächtold, appeared in 1890.

Moritz von Schwind, c. 1860

In the artist's house, c. 1860

Honey moon, 1867

Moritz von Schwind (January 21, 1804 - February 8, 1871) was an Austrian painter, born in Vienna.

Moritz von Schwind received rudimentary training and spent a happy and carefree youth in Vienna. Among his companions was the composer Schubert, some of whose songs he illustrated. In 1828, the year of Schubert's death, he moved to Munich, where he befriended the painter Schnorr and enjoyed the guidance of Cornelius, then director of the Academy.

In 1834 he was commissioned to decorate King Ludwig's new palace with wall paintings illustrating the works of the poet Tieck. He also found in the same place congenial sport for his fancy in a "Kinderfries". He was often busy working on almanacs, and on illustrating Goethe and other writers through which he gained considerable recognition and employment.

In the revival of art in Germany, Schwind held as his own the sphere of poetic fancy. In 1839 he was entrusted with the new Karlsruhe academy, itself an embodiment in fresco of ideas thrown out by Goethe. He decorated a villa in Leipzig with the story of Cupid and Psyche, and further justified his title of poet-painter with designs from the Niebelungenlied and Tasso's Gerusalemme for the walls of the castle of Hohenschwangau in Bavarian Tirol.

From the year 1844 dates his residence in Frankfurt during which he created some of his finest easel pictures, most notably the "Singers' Contest" in the Wartburg (1846), as well as designs for the Goethe celebration. There were also numerous book illustrations. The conceptions for the most part are better than the execution.

In 1847 Schwind returned to Munich on being appointed professor in the academy. Eight years later his fame was at its height on the completion in the castle of the Wartburg of wall pictures illustrative of the "Singers' Contest" and of the history of Elizabeth of Hungary. The compositions received universal praise, and at a grand musical festival in their honour, Schwind himself was one of the violinists.

In Munich he also worked on some churches, particularly the altar and windows of the Church of Our Lady.^[1]

His exceptionally mature cycle, "Seven Ravens" from Grimm's fairy stories was produced in 1857. In the same year he visited England to report officially to King Ludwig on the Manchester art treasures. So diversified were his gifts that he turned his hand to church windows and joined his old friend Schnorr in designs for the painted glass in Glasgow Cathedral.

Towards the close of his career, with broken health and his powers on the wane, he revisited Vienna. During this time, he created the cycle from the legend of Melusine and the designs commemorative of chief musicians which decorate the foyer of the Vienna State Opera. Cornelius writes, "You have translated the joy of music into pictorial art."

Schwind's genius was lyrical - he drew inspiration from chivalry, folk-lore, and the songs of the people. Schwind died in Pöcking in Bavaria, and was buried in the Alter Südfriedhof in Munich.

References

1. ^  "Moritz von Schwind". Catholic Encyclopedia. New York: Robert Appleton Company. 1913. http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Catholic_Encyclopedia_(1913)/Moritz_von_Schwind. 

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