Philipp Veit (13 February 1793 – 18 December 1877) was a German

Germany

Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...

 Romantic

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...

 painter

Painting

Painting is the practice of applying paint, pigment, color or other medium to a surface . The application of the medium is commonly applied to the base with a brush but other objects can be used. In art, the term painting describes both the act and the result of the action. However, painting is...

. To Veit is due the credit of having been the first to revive the almost forgotten technique of fresco painting.

Biography

Veit was born in Berlin

Berlin

Berlin is the capital city of Germany and is one of the 16 states of Germany. With a population of 3.45 million people, Berlin is Germany's largest city. It is the second most populous city proper and the seventh most populous urban area in the European Union...

, Prussia

Kingdom of Prussia

The Kingdom of Prussia was a German kingdom from 1701 to 1918. Until the defeat of Germany in World War I, it comprised almost two-thirds of the area of the German Empire...

. He was the son of a banker Simon Veit and his wife Dorothea

Dorothea von Schlegel

Dorothea von Schlegel was a German novelist and translator.-Biography :Dorothea von Schlegel was born in 1764 in Berlin. Oldest daughter of the philosopher Moses Mendelssohn, a leading figure in the German Enlightenment...

, daughter of Moses Mendelssohn

Moses Mendelssohn

Moses Mendelssohn was a German Jewish philosopher to whose ideas the renaissance of European Jews, Haskalah is indebted...

, who subsequently left him to marry Friedrich Schlegel. Veit received his first art education 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....

 and Vienna

Vienna

Vienna is the capital and largest city of the Republic of Austria and one of the nine states of Austria. Vienna is Austria's primary city, with a population of about 1.723 million , and is by far the largest city in Austria, as well as its cultural, economic, and political centre...

. He was strongly influenced by, and joined, the Nazarene movement

Nazarene movement

The name Nazarene was adopted by a group of early 19th century German Romantic painters who aimed to revive honesty and spirituality in Christian art...

 in Rome

Rome

Rome is the capital of Italy and the country's largest and most populated city and comune, with over 2.7 million residents in . The city is located in the central-western portion of the Italian Peninsula, on the Tiber River within the Lazio region of Italy.Rome's history spans two and a half...

, where he worked for some years before moving to Frankfurt

Frankfurt

Frankfurt am Main , commonly known simply as Frankfurt, is the largest city in the German state of Hesse and the fifth-largest city in Germany, with a 2010 population of 688,249. The urban area had an estimated population of 2,300,000 in 2010...

.

In Frankfurt, where his most important works are preserved at the Städel

Städel

The Städel, officially the Städelsches Kunstinstitut und Städtische Galerie, is an art museum in Frankfurt am Main, with one of the most important collections in Germany....

, he was active from 1830 to 1843 as director of the art collections and as professor of painting. From 1853 till his death in 1877 he held the post of director of the municipal gallery at Mainz

Mainz

Mainz under the Holy Roman Empire, and previously was a Roman fort city which commanded the west bank of the Rhine and formed part of the northernmost frontier of the Roman Empire...

. Like his fellow Nazarenes he was more draughtsman

Technical drawing

Technical drawing, also known as drafting or draughting, is the act and discipline of composing plans that visually communicate how something functions or has to be constructed.Drafting is the language of industry....

 than painter, and though his sense of colour was stronger than that of Overbeck

Johann Friedrich Overbeck

Johann Friedrich Overbeck , was a German painter and member of the Nazarene movement. He also made four etchings.-Biography:...

 or Cornelius

Peter von Cornelius

Peter von Cornelius was a German painter.Cornelius was born in Düsseldorf.His father, who was inspector of the Düsseldorf gallery, died in 1799, and the young Cornelius was stimulated to extraordinary exertions...

, his works are generally more of the nature of coloured cartoons than of paintings in the modern sense.

Veit's principal work is the large fresco of The Introduction of Christianity into Germany by St Boniface, at the Städel. In the Frankfurt Cathedral is his Assumption, while the Alte Nationalgalerie

Alte Nationalgalerie

The Alte Nationalgalerie in Berlin is a gallery showing a collection of Classical, Romantic, Biedermeier, Impressionist and early Modernist artwork, all of which belong to the Staatliche Museen zu Berlin. The museum is situated on Museum Island, a UNESCO-designated World Heritage Site.- Founding...

 of Berlin has his painting of The Two Marys at the Sepulchre. An example of his romantic work is Germania

Germania (painting)

Germania is a painting by Philipp Veit created in March 1848 during the Revolutions of 1848. It was used as an allegoric decoration in the National Assembly in Frankfurt's Paulskirche, where it concealed the organ...

, a national personification of Germany, located in the Germanisches Nationalmuseum

Germanisches Nationalmuseum

The Germanisches Nationalmuseum is a museum in Nuremberg, Germany. Founded in 1852, houses a large collection of items relating to German culture and art extending from prehistoric times through to the present day...

 of Nuremberg

Nuremberg

Nuremberg[p] is a city in the German state of Bavaria, in the administrative region of Middle Franconia. Situated on the Pegnitz river and the Rhine–Main–Danube Canal, it is located about north of Munich and is Franconia's largest city. The population is 505,664...

.