Wilhelm Busch

(b Wiedensahl, 15 April 1832; d Mechtshausen, 9 Jan 1908). German draughtsman, painter and writer. A grocer's son and the first of seven children, he enrolled at the Polytechnische Schule in Hannover to train (1847-51) as an engineer but, while there, decided to become an artist. In 1851 he transferred to the Akademie in D?sseldorf where he remained for a year, attending elementary classes in life drawing with Carl Ferdinand Sohn and studying proportion and anatomy with Heinrich Anton M?cke (1806-91). In May 1852 he moved to the less severely doctrinaire Academy in Antwerp, but the obsessive concern for precision of his tutor, the genre painter Joseph-Laurent Dyckmans (1811-88), did not appeal to him. As he conceded in 1886 in his autobiography, Was mich betrifft, he was assailed by doubts about his talent as a painter, not because of the demands of an academic training but because of the apparently unsurpassable example of Frans Hals and other Old Masters whose works he had studied in the Koninklijk Museum in Antwerp. During this period Busch produced several studies of heads in oils on cardboard that were freer in execution than his work in D?sseldorf, for example Portrait of a Young Man (c. 1852; Hannover, Wilhelm-Busch-Mus.), as well as drawings of views of Antwerp. In May 1853, after an attack of typhoid, he returned home to Wiedensahl, where he lived for the next 18 months, collecting legends and fairy tales of the Weser region and making drawings of gravestones and antiques in the area for a scholar in Berlin. He also painted oil studies of peasants in B?ckeburg and portraits of members of his family, for example Domestic Studies: Otto Busch Reading (c. 1854; Hannover, Wilhelm-Busch-Mus.).

See the Abbreviations for further details.

Busch, Wilhelm (1832–1908), German writer, painter, and poet, who is internationally famous for his Max and Moritz (1865) illustrated stories in verse that served as a model for the American comic strip ‘The Katzenjammer Kids’, which originated in 1897. Busch created other books for children that depicted their comic antics and can be considered forerunners to the 20th‐century cartoon. Early in his career, from 1859 to 1871, he participated in creating many of the humorous broadsheets for the Münchner Bilderbogen. One of his earliest, not included in the Münchner Bilderbogen, was a farcical portrayal of ‘Hansel and Gretel’, printed in Bilderpossen (Farcical Pictures, 1864). Given his sceptical if not pessimistic outlook on life, in part due to the influence of Schopenhauer, Busch was not drawn to the optimistic fairy tale, unless he could sarcastically criticize it and re‐design it to make some biting social commentary. His best work along these lines was his illustrated book Sechs Geschichten für Neffen und Nichten (Six Stories for Nephews and Nieces, 1881). These hilarious tales, told in verse, with simple coloured ink drawings, turn the traditional tales upside down. An example is ‘Die beiden Schwestern’ (‘The Two Sisters’), which is a parody of both ‘The Frog King’ and ‘Mother Holle’ in which Busch portrays the sisters the industrious Kätchen and the vain Adelheid. One day Kätchen goes into the woods and meets a frog who cries out, ‘Pity me and give me a kiss.’ In fact, she gives him three kisses, and he turns into a prince, rewarding her with wealth and marriage. Then Adelheid goes dressed to kill into the woods and meets a prince playing a harp next to a pond. When he asks for a kiss, she consents, but he turns into a water imp and drags her into the pond, where she must spend her life serving him. The tongue‐in‐cheek ending is typical of most Busch stories that, similar to Heinrich Hoffmann's Struwwelpeter, take delight in provocative cruel punishments.

Bibliography

• Bohne, F., Wilhelm Busch (1958).
• Ehrlich, J., Wilhelm Busch, der Pessimist (1962).

— Jack Zipes

Busch, Wilhelm (Wiedensahl, Hanover, 1832-1908, Mechtshausen, Harz), the son of a village grocer, was from the age of nine brought up by his uncle, a pastor in Ebergötzen nr. Göttingen, and subsequently persuaded to train as an engineer. At the age of 19 he succeeded in changing over to the study of art, which he pursued at Düsseldorf, Antwerp, and Munich, the Dutch school of painting being the most decisive factor in his lonely search for self-expression. From 1859 he contributed to the Munich weekly Fliegende Blätter and the Münchner Bilderbogen, in which his first (and most famous) illustrated episodic verse tale (Bildergeschichte) Max und Moritz (1865) appeared. The combination of pungent satire in humorous doggerel verse and bold line drawing with its sure touch of the grotesque, remained with considerable flexibility of mood the hallmark of his art in the tales that followed: Hans Huckebein, der Unglücksrabe (1867), Der Heilige Antonius von Padua (1870), Pater Filucius (1872), an allegory of the Kulturkampf, Die fromme Helene (1872), Abenteuer eines Junggesellen (1875), with its sequels Herr und Frau Knopp (1876) and Julchen (1877) known as the Knopp-trilogy, Fipps der Affe (1879), Plisch und Plum (1882), Balduin Bählamm, der verhinderte Dichter (1883), and Maler Klecksel (1884). Much of Busch's satire is directed against the narrow-minded and hypocritical Biedermeier Kleinbürger; he tends to single out the evil side of human nature and make it ridiculous. In his poetry, however, the influence of Schopenhauer shows in serious vein; it includes the collections Kritik des Herzens (1874), Zu guter Letzt (1904), and Schein und Sein (1909). Busch's prose includes the satirical Eduards Traum (1891) and the autobiographical sketch Was mich betrifft (1886, rev. as Von mir über mich, 1893 and 1894) and Der Schmetterling (1895). Most of these works were written in the seclusion of his native Lower Saxony, where he returned to live in the early 1870s.

Sämtliche Werke (8 vols.), ed. O. Nöldeke (Busch's nephew), appeared in 1943, the Historisch-kritische Gesamtausgabe (4 vols.), ed. F. Bohne, in 1959, and Sämtliche Briefe (2 vols.), ed. F. Bohne, in 1968-9.

For the football player, see Willy Busch.

Wilhelm Busch
Portrait painted by Franz von Lenbach, c. 1875
Born	15 April 1832(1832-04-15) Wiedensahl near Hanover, Germany
Died	9 January 1908 (aged 75) Mechtshausen, Germany
Nationality	German Empire
Genres	Caricature Painting Poetry
Notable work(s)	Max and Moritz
Signature

Wilhelm Busch (15 April 1832 – 9 January 1908) was a German caricaturist, painter, and poet who is famed for his satirical picture stories with rhymed texts.

After initially studying mechanical engineering and then art in Düsseldorf, Antwerp, and Munich, he turned to drawing caricatures. One of his first picture stories, Max and Moritz (published in 1865), was an immediate success and has achieved the status of a popular classic and perennial bestseller.

Max and Moritz as well as many of his other picture stories are regarded as one of the main precursors of the modern comic strip. Max and Moritz, for instance, was an inspiration for the Katzenjammer Kids.

Wilhelm Busch also wrote a number of poems in a similar style to his picture stories. Besides that he produced more than 1,000 oil paintings that remained unsold up to his death in 1908. He was also active as a sculptor.

Many couplets from Busch's humorous verses have achieved the status of adages in the German language, such as "Vater werden ist nicht schwer, Vater sein dagegen sehr" ("It is easy to become a father, but being one is rather harder") or "Dieses war der erste Streich, doch der zweite folgt sogleich" ("This was the initial trick, but the second follows quick"). Only Goethe and Schiller are quoted more frequently in German than Busch.

Contents 1 Works 1.1 Recent & Current Publications 2 Museums 3 Gallery 4 Notes 5 External links

Works

Self-portrait

(with the year of publication)

• 1859 Die kleinen Honigdiebe ^[1]
• 1864 Bilderpossen
• 1865 Max and Moritz
• 1866 Schnaken und Schnurren
• 1867 Hans Huckebein, der Unglücksrabe
• 1868 Schnaken und Schnurren, part II
• 1869 Schnurrdiburr oder die Bienen Braun
• 1870 Der heilige Antonius von Padua
• 1872 Schnaken und Schnurren, part III
• 1872 Die fromme Helene
• 1872 Bilder zur Jobsiade
• 1872 Pater Filuzius
• 1873 Der Geburtstag oder die Partikularisten
• 1874 Dideldum!
• 1874 Kritik des Herzens
• 1875 Abenteuer eines Junggesellen
• 1876 Herr und Frau Knopp
• 1877 Julchen
• 1878 Die Haarbeutel
• 1879 Fipps, der Affe
• 1881 Stippstörchen für Äuglein und Öhrchen
• 1881 Der Fuchs. Die Drachen. - Zwei lustige Sachen
• 1882 Plisch und Plum
• 1883 Balduin Bählamm, der verhinderte Dichter
• 1884 Maler Klecksel
• 1891 Eduards Traum
• 1893 Von mir über mich (autobiography)
• 1895 Der Schmetterling
• 1904 Zu guter Letzt
• 1908 Hernach
• 1909 Schein und Sein
• 1910 Ut ôler Welt (legends)

Recent & Current Publications

• Gaus, Andy (2003). Max and Moritz and Other Bad-Boy Tales. New Translation from the German. Rockville, MD: James A. Rock & Co. ISBN 0-918736-17-X. 
• Die beliebtesten Geschichten. Das Grosse Wilhelm Busch Album in Farbe. Remseck, Germany: Unipart Verlag. ISBN 978-3912234122. 

Museums

Museum Wilhelm-Busch-Haus

The Wilhelm-Busch house museum, Mechtshausen, Germany is located in a former rectory, and it served as his residence during the last years of life (1898–1908).

The Wilhelm-Busch-Mill in Ebergötzen, Germany is located in the village where he lived in from 1841 to 1845. His life there and friendship with the millers son, Erich Bachmann, may have been part of the inspiration for the "Max and Moritz" story

The Wilhelm-Busch-Museum in Hannover, [1] is also "Deutsches Museum für Karikatur und kritische Grafik", featuring besides Busch's works a wider collection of satiric graphics, including "Four Hundred Years of Caricature" with an active lecture schedule.

Gallery

Max and Moritz

Schulmeister Lämpel (Schoolmaster Laempel)

Fipps, der Affe (Fipps, the monkey)

Herr und Frau Knopp (Mr. and Mrs. Knopp)

Notes

1. ^ Die kleinen Honigdiebe at the Early Comics Archive

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Wilhelm Busch

German Wikisource has original text related to this article: Wilhelm Busch

• Collection of known works (Projekt Gutenberg-DE)
• Works by Wilhelm Busch at Project Gutenberg
• Biography and works (in German)
• The Virtuoso - a new years concerto at YouTube (Adobe Flash video)

Persondata
NAME	Busch, Wilhelm
ALTERNATIVE NAMES
SHORT DESCRIPTION	German painter and poet
DATE OF BIRTH	April 15, 1832
PLACE OF BIRTH	Wiedensahl near Hannover
DATE OF DEATH	January 9, 1908
PLACE OF DEATH	Mechtshausen

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