122. Paul Heermann, Autumn, c. 1720.

Marble, 73 x 53 x 29 cm.

Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden, Dresden.

 

123. Paul Heermann, Winter, c. 1720.

Marble, 76 x 52 x 27 cm.

Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden, Dresden.

 

 

Daniel Nikolaus Chodowiecki

The most productive of the realists was the Danzig painter, etcher and draughtsman Daniel Nikolaus Chodowiecki. He came from Gdansk (Danzig) to Berlin in 1743 as a business assistant, made a career there and died as the director of an academy. He was the freest genre painter of his time. When he worked with copper, he could create exact reproductions of his own work. Only in his oil paintings did he bow to the dominating art currents. His painted genre pictures are an echo of the art of Watteau and show other French influences. In contrast, Chodowiecki’s copper engravings and drawings are a unique treasure, without which scholars would know little about life in the time of Frederick the Great.

Chodowiecki was a passionate admirer of the 1757 victories of Frederick at Rossbach and Leuthen in the Seven Years’ War (1753-1763). The painter made great efforts to faithfully portray him in his glory: on horseback, in times of war, and in parades. And yet these engravings or etchings that were bought en masse in Chodowiecki’s time were inaccurate, occasionally even comical. But it can be postulated that these caricatures were not due to artistic failure but were rather simply the painter’s interpretation of reality.