Basilius von Ramdohr
Encyclopedia
Lawyer
A lawyer, according to Black's Law Dictionary, is "a person learned in the law; as an attorney, counsel or solicitor; a person who is practicing law." Law is the system of rules of conduct established by the sovereign government of a society to correct wrongs, maintain the stability of political...
, art critic
Art critic
An art critic is a person who specializes in evaluating art. Their written critiques, or reviews, are published in newspapers, magazines, books and on web sites...
and journalist
Journalist
A journalist collects and distributes news and other information. A journalist's work is referred to as journalism.A reporter is a type of journalist who researchs, writes, and reports on information to be presented in mass media, including print media , electronic media , and digital media A...
based in Dresden
Dresden
Dresden is the capital city of the Free State of Saxony in Germany. It is situated in a valley on the River Elbe, near the Czech border. The Dresden conurbation is part of the Saxon Triangle metropolitan area....
. From 1806 he was a Prussia
Prussia
Prussia was a German kingdom and historic state originating out of the Duchy of Prussia and the Margraviate of Brandenburg. For centuries, the House of Hohenzollern ruled Prussia, successfully expanding its size by way of an unusually well-organized and effective army. Prussia shaped the history...
n diplomat to Rome and Naples.
Life
Basilius von Ramdohr was born on the family estate, the Ritterburg Drübber (near NienburgNienburg, Lower Saxony
Nienburg is a town and capital of the district Nienburg, in Lower Saxony, Germany.-Geography:Situated on the scenic German Framework Road, Nienburg lies on the river Weser, approximately southeast of Bremen, and northwest of Hanover...
), which was their property between 1686 and 1839. He studied law
Law
Law is a system of rules and guidelines which are enforced through social institutions to govern behavior, wherever possible. It shapes politics, economics and society in numerous ways and serves as a social mediator of relations between people. Contract law regulates everything from buying a bus...
and aesthetics
Aesthetics
Aesthetics is a branch of philosophy dealing with the nature of beauty, art, and taste, and with the creation and appreciation of beauty. It is more scientifically defined as the study of sensory or sensori-emotional values, sometimes called judgments of sentiment and taste...
at the University of Göttingen, before commencing a long and glamorous career as an art-critic and diplomat.
Aphrodite
Aphrodite is the Greek goddess of love, beauty, pleasure, and procreation.Her Roman equivalent is the goddess .Historically, her cult in Greece was imported from, or influenced by, the cult of Astarte in Phoenicia....
"), but mostly for the so-called "Ramdohr Affair" of 1809 (Ramdohrstreit) concerning his attack on the painter Caspar David Friedrich
Caspar David Friedrich
Caspar David Friedrich was a 19th-century German Romantic landscape painter, generally considered the most important German artist of his generation. He is best known for his mid-period allegorical landscapes which typically feature contemplative figures silhouetted against night skies, morning...
. Although he had a high reputation during his lifetime, to many contemporaries like Goethe, Schiller, Schlegel
Schlegel
Schlegel is a name of German origin, related to Schlägel "sledgehammer, mallet". It may refer to:-Places:*Schlegel, Saxony, a village in the district of Löbau-Zittau in Saxony belonging to the town of Zittau...
and Lessing
Lessing
Lessing - German family of writers and artists*Johann Gottfried Lessing pastor primarus in Kamenz, well respected, published theologian, translator and father of Gotthold Ephraim Lessing and Karl Gotthelf Lessing...
he was not to be taken seriously. In his early twenties he had a brief affair with Charlotte Kestner née Buff, the model for Lotte in The Sorrows of Young Werther
The Sorrows of Young Werther
The Sorrows of Young Werther is an epistolary and loosely autobiographical novel by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, first published in 1774; a revised edition of the novel was published in 1787...
. The girl who had rejected Goethe in 1772 found herself rejected by Ramdohr in 1781.
He died at Naples
Naples
Naples is a city in Southern Italy, situated on the country's west coast by the Gulf of Naples. Lying between two notable volcanic regions, Mount Vesuvius and the Phlegraean Fields, it is the capital of the region of Campania and of the province of Naples...
in 1822.
Der Ramdohrstreit
In the 17–21 January 1809 edition of the Zeitung für die elegante Welt he published an article severely criticising Caspar David FriedrichCaspar David Friedrich
Caspar David Friedrich was a 19th-century German Romantic landscape painter, generally considered the most important German artist of his generation. He is best known for his mid-period allegorical landscapes which typically feature contemplative figures silhouetted against night skies, morning...
's painting Kreuz im Gebirge ("Cross in the Mountains", 1808) and the school of Romanticism
Romanticism
Romanticism was an artistic, literary and intellectual movement that originated in the second half of the 18th century in Europe, and gained strength in reaction to the Industrial Revolution...
to which it belonged. He was disturbed by the unacademic style of the painting, having little in common with the traditions established by Claude Lorraine and Jacob van Ruisdael, and deeply indignant that Friedrich should have presented it as an altarpiece
Altarpiece
An altarpiece is a picture or relief representing a religious subject and suspended in a frame behind the altar of a church. The altarpiece is often made up of two or more separate panels created using a technique known as panel painting. It is then called a diptych, triptych or polyptych for two,...
to a private chapel. "Indeed it is a truly presumptuous thing, that Landscape Painting should try to slither into our churches and clamber onto our altars," he wrote. Ramdohr brooked no compromise in denying landscape self-sufficiency. To him, landscapes were formless compositions which could touch the viewer only superficially.
The public response to the article was unfavourable; nevertheless, Friedrich's supporters felt obliged to reformulate their positions more precisely. The debate about the relative merits of unmediated, spontaneous expression versus strict classical form—landscape painting representing the former—began in earnest at this time.
Works
- Kaiser Otto der Dritte, ein Trauerspiel ("Otto III, a Tragedy", anonymous, 1783)
- Ueber Mahlerei und Bildhauerarbeit in Rom ("On Painting and Architecture in Rome", 3 volumes, 1787)
- Charis: Ueber das Schöne und die Schönheit in den nachbildenden Künsten ("Charis, or On the Beautiful and Beauty in the Imitative Arts", 2 volumes, 1793)
- Venus Urania: Ueber die Natur der Liebe, ueber ihre Veredlung und Verschönerung ("On the Nature of Love, its Ennoblement and Beautification", 4 volumes, 1798)
- Moralische Erzählungen ("Moral Tales", 2 volumes, 1799)