Oswald Achenbach | Düsseldorf school of painting

Oswald Achenbach (1827-1905) was a German painter associated with the Düsseldorf school of painting.

Though little known today, during his lifetime he was counted among the most important landscape painters of Europe.

Through his teaching activities, he influenced the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf.

His brother, Andreas Achenbach, who was twelve years older, was also among the most important German landscape painters of the 19th century.

The two brothers were humorously called "the A and O of Landscapes" (a reference to their initials matching a common German reference to the Alpha and Omega).

Oswald Achenbach was the fifth of ten children.

His parents were Herman and Christine (née Zülch).

There was little about the family to suggest that it would produce two of the century's most important painters.

Hermann Achenbach was employed in a series of jobs, including beer and vinegar brewer, guesthouse owner, and bookkeeper.

During Oswald's early childhood, the family moved to Munich where he attended primary school for at least a short period. At exactly what point his family returned to Düsseldorf is not known.

Achenbach was one of the artists who opposed the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf and became an early member of two Düsseldorf associations, which many like-minded artists had joined.

The first was the "Association of Düsseldorf Artists for Mutual Support and Help" and the association "Malkasten" ("Paintbox") which was founded on 11 August 1848 with Achenbach as one of the original signatories of the founding document.

These Associations jointly staged plays, organized music evenings and put on exhibitions.

At many events, Achenbach took an active part, directing, playing or staging plays.

Achenbach was particularly attached to "Malkasten" and remained connected with it until the end of his life.

In 1850, his paintings were displayed in the exhibitions of the newly founded Düsseldorf gallery of Eduard Schulte.

Schulte's gallery showed the works of artists who were independent of the Academy and played an important role in Achenbach's early economic success.

It developed into one of the leading German galleries and later established branches in Berlin and Cologne.

In the summer of 1850, Achenbach undertook a trip to Italy, including Nizza, Genoa, and Rome. Together with Albert Flamm, he traveled from Rome into the surrounding countryside and visited the areas where earlier landscape painters had been inspired.

On the trip he got to know a number of other painters better, including Arnold Böcklin, Ludwig Thiersch and Heinrich Dreber with whom he spent a long time in Olevano.

Thiersch once commented how differently the artists processed their impressions of the landscapes: Dreber drew elaborate pencil sketches, Böcklin simply let himself experience the environment and recorded relatively little in his sketchbook, while Achenbach and Flamm both painted oil studies outdoors.

Achenbach's surviving studies show that he was not overly interested in details but concentrated on the characteristic colors and forms and the distribution of light and shadow.

He focused on his color impressions, setting layers of paint in different thicknesses over one another to find the desired tone.

On 3 May 1851, Achenbach married Julie Arnz, to whom he had been engaged since 1848. She was the daughter of a Düsseldorf publisher, who published, among other periodicals, the Düsseldorf Monathefte and the Düsseldorf Monatsalbum.

Achenbach contributed to both of these with lithographs of his paintings, sketches, and other works. At the same time he began to take his first students.

Between 1852-1857 the couple had four daughters, followed by a son in 1861.

Achenbach's son, Benno von Achenbach, would be an important innovator in the equestrian sport of combined driving and was ennobled for his contributions thereto by Wilhelm II.

By this time, Achenbach's painting was already well-known internationally. In 1852, at 25, the Art Academy in Amsterdam had admitted him as a member.

Several of his works were displayed the Exposition Universelle of 1855 and were very well received. In 1859, he was honored with a gold medal at the Salon Exhibition in Paris.

In 1861 he was granted an honorary membership to the St Petersburg Academy and in 1862 from the Art Academy of Rotterdam.

Professor for Landscape Painting

After 1860, his technique underwent a change into what is considered his mature style. The paintings were more tactile, the paint was applied with more texture and the brushstrokes were less dependent on the subject matter represented. In parts of some paintings, Achenbach increasingly dispensed with detailed figures. This change in technique may have to do with the influence of Gustave Courbet. His favorite subjects continued to be Italian landscapes and peasant scenes, which he enhanced and idealized with his lighting.

In March 1863, Achenbach became the Professor for Landscape Painting at the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf. Accepting it represented a social elevation and also financial security. It also appears to be in contradiction to his earlier opposition. However, since Friedrich Wilhelm Schadow had left the office of Director in 1859, the conflicts both within the Academy and also between the Academy and the independent artists had diminished. The appointment of Achenbach to a position was a conscious political decision reflecting the new direction of the Düsseldorf Academy, to bring about a conciliation with the independent artists.

In the same year, Achenbach was named a Knight of the Legion of Honor by Napoleon III and from 1863-1868 his painters were shown at the Salon in Paris.

Alongside the Order of Guadelupe from Emperor Maximilian I of Mexico i 1866 and the Knights Cross, First Class from the Order of St. Michael from the jury for the International Art Exhibition in Munich in 1869, this was among the greatest honors hof his career.

Such recognition for artists during this period was not uncommon, but they contributed significantly to Achenbach's fame, confirmed his recognition as an artist and were important for his commercial success.

Themistokles von Eckenbrecher, Arnold Forstmann, Theodor Hagen, Louis Kolitz, Ascan Lutteroth, and Karl Seibels.

To his students, he emphasized above all the decisive role of light and dark for the composition of paintings.

For him it was more important than the choice of subject. Consequently he advised his students to familiarize themselves with the paintings of J.M.W. Turner.

He also recommended the works of his brother Andreas.

During his professorship, Achenbach continued to undertake many trips. These included long stays in the Teutoburg Forest and Switzerland.

In 1871 he and his family spent almost nine months in Italy, including Castellammare di Stabia, Amalfi, Capri, and Ischia, and several weeks in Sorrento.

During this time Theodor Hagen and Albert Flamm took his place at the Academy.

After 1860, his technique underwent a change.

The paintings were more tactile, the paint was applied with more texture and the brushstrokes were less dependent on the subject matter represented.

In parts of some paintings, Achenbach increasingly dispensed with detailed figures.

This change in technique may have to do with the influence of Gustave Courbet.

His favorite subjects continued to be Italian landscapes and peasant scenes, which he enhanced and idealized with his lighting.

Turner and Courbet

On many occasions, Achenbach recommended British painter J. M. W. Turner as a model. It is possible that he had never seen originals of Turner's work since he never took a trip to England.

He probably knew Turner's paintings primarily from the steel engraving prints published in the art books of the time.

Achenbach died in Düsseldorf on 1 February 1905, on day before his 78th birthday.

He was buried in the North Cemetery in Düsseldorf, where is grave is preserved to this day.

For Turner, as with Achenbach, light played an important role.

Two paintings by Turner, "Mercury and Argus" and "Dogana, and Madonna della Salute, Venice" were already reproduced in prints by 1843.

They present landscapes in which individual forms and objects are only loosely depicted.

Achenbach was never as radical as Turner but especially in his paintings after 1860 uses a similar painterly style in the depiction of objects.

By contrast, Achenbach likely had many opportunities to study the originals of Gustave Courbet's works.

Until the Franco-Prussian War from 1870-1871, Achenbach was in close contact with the Paris art scene.

At the Exposition Universelle in Paris in 1855 when Achenbach's paintings were shown, there were also eleven paintings by Courbet on display.

Courbet also had forty paintings in the "Pavilion of Realism" at the same time.

Courbet's radical Realism gained a lot of attention and it is very likely that Achenbach also saw the exhibition of the Frankfurt Art Association from spring 1858 to February 1859 that showed works by Courbet and also the first big Courbet retrospective that ran parallel to the International Exposition of 1867.

Similar to Courbet, one finds in Achenbach's works often bring together lone elements that differ significantly in distance from the perspective of the painter.

However, while Courbet used a more even surface, Achenbach's painting was more relief-like.

Courbet's radical Realism inspired Achenbach and a number of other German painters.

The so-called "Leibl-Circle" (after painter Wilhelm Leibl), including Wilhelm Trübner, Carl Schuch, Johann Sperl and for a while also Hans Thoma had intensely debated Courbet's works among themselves and were inspired to adopt a "pure painting" technique.

In particular Leibl developed a brushwork technique by which the particular material of the object represented was ignored, thereby already pointing in the direction of abstraction.

By contrast, Achenbach was radical in his brushwork and application of paint but maintained the formal criteria of traditional composition.

This leads to a very different art historical classification of Achenbach.

Some see him as an artist who persisted in a fully developed style and for that reason stagnated.

Other art historians cast Achenbach in a mediating role because he presented traditional values in his own style and moved in the direction of modernity.

It is undisputed that his early landscapes were pioneering.

However, as early as the start of the 20th century, he was seen as a painter who in his later works catered to public tastes and turned into a typical representative of the Gründerzeit period.

Achenbach's work consists of around 2,000 paintings. Approximately two-thirds are privately owned. His works are in the collections of many museums, mainly in Germany but also across Europe and America including the Musee d'Orsay and the Hermitage in Saint Petersburg. | Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Achenbach, Andreas". Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.) Cambridge University Press.