Philipp Otto Runge

Philipp Otto Runge
Self-portrait, ca. 1802, Hamburger Kunsthalle
Born(1777-07-23)23 July 1777
Wolgast, Swedish Pomerania, Holy Roman Empire
Died2 December 1810(1810-12-02) (aged 33)
Hamburg
Resting placeOhlsdorf Cemetery, Hamburg, Germany (moved from the Church of Saint Peter, Hamburg cemetery in 1935)
Known forArtist: painter and draftsman
Notable workThe Hülsenbeck Children, Tageszeiten (Times of Day), The Morning
MovementRomanticism

Philipp Otto Runge (German: [ˈʁʊŋə]; 1777–1810) was a German artist, draftsman, painter, and color theorist. Runge and Caspar David Friedrich are often regarded as the leading painters of the German Romantic movement.[1]: 51 p. [2]: 443 pp.  He is frequently compared with William Blake by art historians, although Runge's short ten-year career is not easy to equate to Blake's career.[3]: 38 pp. [2]: 343 pp.  By all accounts he had a brilliant mind and was well versed in the literature and philosophy of his time. He was a prolific letter writer and maintained correspondences and friendships with contemporaries such as Carl Ludwig Heinrich Berger, Caspar David Friedrich, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe,[4] Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph Schelling, Henrik Steffens, and Ludwig Tieck. His paintings are often laden symbolism and allegories.[5][6]: 37 pp.  For eight years he planned and refined his seminal project, Tageszeiten (Times of Day), four monumental paintings 50 square meters each, which in turn were only part of a larger collaborative Gesamtkunstwerk that was to include poetry, music, and architecture, but remained unrealized at the time of his death.[7]: 71 p.  With it he aspired to abandon the traditional iconography of Christianity in European art and find a new expression for spiritual values through symbolism in landscapes.[1]: 98, 135 pp.  One historian stated "In Runge's painting we are clearly dealing with the attempt to present contemporary philosophy in art."[2]: 450 pp.  He wrote an influential volume on color theory in 1808, Sphere of Colors, that was published the same year he died.[8]

Runge was born in 1777 in Wolgast, a town in northeast Germany on the Baltic Sea (Swedish Pomerania at that time). He contracted pulmonary tuberculosis at an early age and was in frail health throughout his life. As a youth he attended a school headed by Ludwig Gotthard Kosegarten. His father was a successful merchant and ship owner and Philipp and his older brother Daniel were groomed to follow him in his business. Daniel moved to Hamburg to manage a branch of the family business and Philipp soon followed to serve as an apprentice (ca. 1793 – 96). There he began making contact with poets, publishers, and art collectors such as Matthias Claudius, Friedrich Gottlieb Klopstock, Justus Perthes, and Johannes Michael Speckter who encouraged Runge in the arts, philosophy, and intellectual interests. He started taking drawing lessons in Hamburg in 1797 with Heinrich Joachim Herterich and Gerdt Hardorff the Elder and it was only after a several years in Hamburg, in his early twenties, that Runge decided on a career as an artist.[2][7][9][10]

Runge studied painting for three years at the Copenhagen Academy (now the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts), from 1798 to1801 with Jens Juel and Nicolai Abildgaard, where Caspar David Friedrich, three years his senior, had recently preceded him. Runge then attended the Dresden Academy of Fine Arts from 1801 to 1804 studying with Anton Graff and making contact with a broader circle of figures in the burgeoning Romantic movement. The poet and writer Ludwig Tieck was particularly influential in introducing Runge to new literature and the mystical ideas of Jakob Böhme and Novalis. Runge met Pauline Bassenge in Dresden in 1801 when she was 16 years old. They were married in Dresden on April 3, 1804, and soon moved back to Hamburg. They had four children, the youngest born after Runge's death. Runge died of consumption (tuberculosis) in 1810, at the age 33, his life's work spanning little more than ten years. Much of his surviving work was donated to the Hamburger Kunsthalle by his widow Pauline Runge née Bassenge in 1872.[2]: 435, 443–452 pp. [7]: 70–75, 80, & 88 pp. [9][10]

  1. ^ a b Koerner, Joseph Leo. 1990. Caspar David Friedrich and the Subject of Landscape. Yale University Press. New Haven, Connecticut. 256 pp. ISBN 0-300-04926-9
  2. ^ a b c d e Rauch, Alexander. 2000. Neoclassicism and the Romantic Movement: Painting in Europe between Two Revolutions 1789 – 1848. pages 318–479. in Tomam, Rolf, editor. Neoclassicism and Romanticism: Architecture, Sculpture, Painting, Drawings, 1750-1848. Könemann, Verlagsgesellschaft. Cologne. 520 pp. ISBN 3-8290-1575-5
  3. ^ Connelly, Frances S. 1993. Poetic Monsters and Nature Hieroglyphics: The Precocious Primitivism of Philipp Otto Runge. Art Journal. 52(2): 31-39.
  4. ^ Hellmuth Freiherr von Maltzahn (Hrsg.). 1940. Phillip Otto Runges Briefwechsel mit Goethe. Schriften der Goethe-Gesellschaft (Band 51. Verlag der Goethe-Gesellschaft, Weimar, Deutschland. 120 pp. [Hellmuth Freiherr von Maltzahn (editor). 1940. Phillip Otto Runge's correspondence with Goethe: Volume 51 of Writings of the Goethe Society. Goethe Society. Weimar, Germany. 120 pp.]
  5. ^ Jaffé, Hans L. C. 1967. 20,000 Years of World Painting. Harry N. Abrams, Inc., Publication. New York. 418 pp. (page 295)
  6. ^ Miesel, Victor H. 1972. Philipp Otto Runge, Caspar David Friedrich and Romantic Nationalism. Yale University Art Gallery Bulletin. 33(3): 37-51.
  7. ^ a b c Bris, Le Michel.1981. Romantics and Romanticism. Editions d'Art Albert Skira. Geneve/Rizzoli International Publications, Inc. New York. 215 pp. ISBN 0-8478-0371-6
  8. ^ Clay, Jean. 1981. Romanticism. New Jersey: Chartwell Books, Inc. Secaucus. 320 pp. (page 297) ISBN 0-89009-588-4
  9. ^ a b Claudon, Francis. 1980. The Concise Encyclopedia of Romanticism. Secaucus, N.J.: Chartwell Books. 304 pp. (page 105) ISBN 0-89009-707-0
  10. ^ a b Richter, Cornelia. 1981. Philipp Otto Runge, "Ich weiss eine schöne Blume" : Werkverzeichnis der Scherenschnitte [Philipp Otto Runge, "I know a beautiful flower": Catalog Raisonné of the Paper Cuts]. Schirmer-Mosel. Munich, Germany. 143 pp. ISBN 3921375657