Düsseldorf School (painting)
The Düsseldorf School refers to a collective of painters from the mid-nineteenth century, primarily hailing from Germany and the United States, who were trained at the Düsseldorf Academy of Fine Arts in Düsseldorf, Germany. This influential art school, founded in 1762, became prominent under the leadership of directors Peter von Cornelius and Wilhelm Schadow, who emphasized narrative painting drawn from historical and literary sources. Artists associated with the Düsseldorf School are known for their meticulous detail, polished technique, and realistic depictions of light and shadow, reflecting a blend of Romanticism and Realism.
Key figures include German painters like Hans Fredrick Gude and Alfred Rethel, as well as notable American artists such as George Caleb Bingham and Emanuel Leutze. Their works often celebrated themes of daily life, historical events, and landscapes, showcasing a deep engagement with the cultural narratives of their time. The Düsseldorf School significantly impacted American art, introducing stylistic elements that resonated with the nation's artistic identity. Although its prominence waned with the rise of Realism and Impressionism, the Academy continues to operate today, having nurtured many significant artists throughout its history.
Düsseldorf School (painting)
The Düsseldorf school refers to numerous painters of the mid-nineteenth century from various countries in Europe, especially Germany, and the United States who studied early in their careers at the Düsseldorf Academy of Fine Arts in the city of Düsseldorf, Germany. The styles and subjects of these artists were strongly influenced by their study at the Düsseldorf Academy or with artists who had studied there in this period of its greatest prestige and influence. The most important artists influenced by their study at the Düsseldorf Academy include many important nineteenth century German and American painters now associated with romanticism and realism. This influential art school cultivated a broadly distinguishable style and approach to subjects. Paintings associated with the Düsseldorf school often feature meticulously rendered contours, thorough planning of compositions and details, accurate drawing of forms before painting, smooth and polished paint application, believable textures, and realistic effects of light and shadow.
Brief History
The Düsseldorf Academy of Fine Arts was established in 1762 to teach drawing but soon expanded to teach painting, sculpture, and other visual arts. Peter von Cornelius was its director from 1821 to 1826 and he implemented a rigorous, seven-year program of study. He made painting narratives from historical, literary, and Christian sources that were clear, direct and dramatic basic to the curriculum and helped make Düsseldorf one of the most important cities in Germany for art. Wilhelm Schadow was director from 1826 to 1859 and was most responsible for making the Düsseldorf Academy an important and influential institution for studying art. He sustained and further developed many of Cornelius’ ideas about teaching. Cornelius and Schadow were romantic painters who were part of the Nazarene Brotherhood. The Nazarenes wanted to purify art by going back to the clarity, reason, and directness of the Renaissance and "cleansing" art of much of what had developed since the mid-sixteenth century. These ideas can be detected in the stylistic tendencies of many of the artists who studied at the Düsseldorf Academy at this time. When Schadow left the Academy in 1859, realism and naturalism quickly became more influential to the instruction it provided, and it soon ceased to be the driving force in art training that it had been for decades.
The most important German and European artists associated with the Düsseldorf School include Hans Fredrick Gude, Hans Dahl, Wilhelm von Kaulbach, Alfred Rethel, Karl Friedrich Lessing and Anselm Feuerbach. Most of them did narrative paintings, although some also painted landscapes. Dahl was one of Norway’s greatest landscape painters and is best known for his awe-inspiring views of the fjords of his native country. Lessing did landscapes that were influenced by the German romantic painter Caspar David Friedrich, such as Monastery in Snow (1828). His narrative paintings include The Hussite Sermon (1836), which is about the Protestant Reformation in Bohemia (now the Czech Republic). Kaulbach’s Apotheosis of a Good King (1840) is a melodramatic, spiritually luminous glorification of a monarch ascending to Heaven that was essentially propaganda for his patron King Ludwig I of Bavaria. Rethel did romantically nostalgic scenes of German history such as The Visit of Otto III to the Crypt (1847), which depicts the legendary event of Otto visiting the embalmed, seated corpse of Charlemagne in eerie, warm tones. His Nemesis (1837) is an allegory of an angel pursuing pride done in a romantically soothing manner.
The most important American artists of the Düsseldorf school include George Caleb Bingham, Richard Caton Woodville, Emmanuel Leutze, Carl Wimar, Eastman Johnson, Sanford Gifford, William Stanley Haseltine, and Worthington Whittredge. George Caleb Bingham and Richard Caton Woodville were two of the greatest painters of genre scenes (scenes of daily life) in the United States in the 1840s to 1850s. Bingham depicted life in his native Missouri and on the Mississippi River with a keen eye for social types and current political and economic issues, as in Fur Traders Descending the Missouri (1845), The Jolly Flatboatmen (1846), and County Election (1851–1852). Woodville was from Baltimore and painted lively, socially aware genre scenes such as War News from Mexico (1848), Politics in an Oyster House (1848), and The Sailor’s Wedding (1852). Johnson developed a more vividly detailed and realistic style in his genre scenes that bridge pre- and post-Civil War painting and reflect the maturity of American painting in the middle of the nineteenth century. His most famous painting is Negro Life in the South (1859), one of the greatest paintings of African American slaves ever made with various insightful details that scrutinize the everyday life of slaves while questioning racial stereotypes. It was given the misleading alternate title Old Kentucky Home when it was associated with a popular song of the name, but the scene depicted is set in or near Washington, D.C. Other important works such as The Hatch Family (1870–1871), Cranberry Pickers, Nantucket (1879), and The Nantucket School of Philosophy (1887) show how he developed an increasingly factual, sober, even journalistic style with meticulous handling of gestures, facial expressions, poses, the attire of figures, and the furnishings of architectural settings.
Haseltine and Whittredge were two of the last great landscape painters associated with the Hudson River school. One noteworthy example of an artist rejected by the Düsseldorf Academy is the German American landscape painter Albert Bierstadt, who ended up studying with Whittredge while both were in Düsseldorf. He became one of the greatest painters of the Rocky Mountains and the forests of northern California. Two of his best works are Rocky Mountains, Lander’s Peak (1863) and The Oregon Trail (1869).
Impact
Some of the greatest paintings of historical events in America were made by artists who studied at the Düsseldorf School. These include Emanuel Leutze’sWashington Crossing the Delaware (1851) and Westward the Course of Empire (1861) and Bingham’s Daniel Boone Leading Settlers Through the Cumberland Gap (1851–1852). Washington Crossing the Delaware is an enormous canvas that celebrates Washington and his soldiers in this historic battle during the Revolutionary War with a bombastic, powerful scene that for all of its details has numerous factual inaccuracies, including the American flag that had not yet been designed, the boat that is too small and not the type used, the daylight setting, and Washington’s impossible heroic stance on such a small boat in rough weather. Bingham’s Daniel Boone Crossing the Cumberland Gap celebrates the expansion of the United States in the detailed but nostalgic, idealized, and theatrical way that was typical of the Düsseldorf school. As was common in American art at the time, the impact of this expansion on American Indians and African Americans is ignored.
The Düsseldorf school as a broad stylistic development sustained romanticism in the later years of the movement and rejuvenated the painting of large narratives before the spread of realism and impressionism. Although based in Germany, its greatest influence was in the United States. The Academy itself is still operating, and since the end of its greatest influence 150 years ago it has been the place of study for such important artists as August Macke, Arnold Bocklin, Paul Klee, Peter Behrens, Joseph Beuys, and Gerhard Richter.
Bibliography
Ayres, William, ed. Picturing History: American Painting, 1770–1930. New York: Rizzoli, 1993. Print.
Barratt, Carrie Rebora, et al. Washington Crossing the Delaware: Restoring an American Masterpiece. New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2011. Print.
Baumgartel, Bettina. Des Dusseldorfer Malerschule und ihre Internationale Ausstrahllung. 1819–1918. Munich: Prestel, 2011. Print.
Carbone, Teresa A., et al. Eastman Johnson. New York: Rizzoli, 1999. Print.
Heyman, Joy Peterson. New Eyes on America: The Genius of Richard Caton Woodville. Baltimore: Walters Art Gallery, 2013. Print.
Howat, John K., et al. American Paradise: The World of the Hudson River School. New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1987. Print.
Schapiro, Michael Edward. George Caleb Bingham. New York: Abrams, 1993. Print.
Vaughan, William. German Romantic Painting. 2nd ed. New Haven: Yale UP, 1994. Print.