Martin Johann Schmidt
Encyclopedia
Grafenwörth
Grafenwörth is a municipality in the district of Tulln in Lower Austria, Austria....
, lower Austria
Lower Austria
Lower Austria is the northeasternmost state of the nine states in Austria. The capital of Lower Austria since 1986 is Sankt Pölten, the most recently designated capital town in Austria. The capital of Lower Austria had formerly been Vienna, even though Vienna is not officially part of Lower Austria...
- June 28, 1801 at Stein/Danube (now belonging to Krems an der Donau)), was one of the most outstanding Austrian painters
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...
of the late Baroque
Baroque
The Baroque is a period and the style that used exaggerated motion and clear, easily interpreted detail to produce drama, tension, exuberance, and grandeur in sculpture, painting, literature, dance, and music...
/Rococo
Rococo
Rococo , also referred to as "Late Baroque", is an 18th-century style which developed as Baroque artists gave up their symmetry and became increasingly ornate, florid, and playful...
along with Franz Anton Maulbertsch
Franz Anton Maulbertsch
Franz Anton Maulbertsch was an Austrian painter and engraver, one of the most renowned exponents of roccoco painting in the German region....
.
A son of the sculptor Johannes Schmidt
Johannes Schmidt
Johannes Schmidt may refer to:*Johannes Schmidt , German*Johannes Schmidt , Danish, nicknamed Eel-Schmidt...
and a pupil of Gottlieb Starmayr, he spent most of his life at Stein, where he mostly worked in the numerous churches and monasteries of his Lower Austrian homeland. While the evolution of his style after 1750 shows that he had either spent a formative period in northern Italy
Italy
Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...
or had at least had extensive contact with northern Italian works of art prior to that date, his works are also clearly influenced by Rembrandt (visible above all in his etchings) and the great fresco-painters of the Austrian Baroque, Paul Troger
Paul Troger
Paul Troger was an Austrian painter, draughtsman and printmaker of the late Baroque period. Troger's illusionistic ceiling paintings in fresco are notable for their dramatic vitality of movement and their palette of light colors.Paul Troger’s style, particularly in his frescoes, dominated Austrian...
and Daniel Gran.
Despite not having received formal academic training, in 1768 he was made a member of the imperial
Empire
The term empire derives from the Latin imperium . Politically, an empire is a geographically extensive group of states and peoples united and ruled either by a monarch or an oligarchy....
academy
Academy
An academy is an institution of higher learning, research, or honorary membership.The name traces back to Plato's school of philosophy, founded approximately 385 BC at Akademia, a sanctuary of Athena, the goddess of wisdom and skill, north of Athens, Greece. In the western world academia is the...
at 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...
due to his artistic merits, which by that time had already been recognized by a wider public inside and outside of Austria.
Primarily he painted devotional images for private devotion and churches, including a considerable number of large altar
Altar
An altar is any structure upon which offerings such as sacrifices are made for religious purposes. Altars are usually found at shrines, and they can be located in temples, churches and other places of worship...
paintings. His lively and colourful style made him extremely popular with people from all levels of society already during his lifetime. From 1780 mythological and low-life themes became increasingly frequent, only to be replaced by a renewed concentration on religious topics during the very last years of Schmidt's life.
He was at that an important draughtsman
Drawing
Drawing is a form of visual art that makes use of any number of drawing instruments to mark a two-dimensional medium. Common instruments include graphite pencils, pen and ink, inked brushes, wax color pencils, crayons, charcoal, chalk, pastels, markers, styluses, and various metals .An artist who...
and has left numerous etching
Etching
Etching is the process of using strong acid or mordant to cut into the unprotected parts of a metal surface to create a design in intaglio in the metal...
s which clearly show Rembrandt's influence.
While his earlier works typically show a warm chiaroscuro
Chiaroscuro
Chiaroscuro in art is "an Italian term which literally means 'light-dark'. In paintings the description refers to clear tonal contrasts which are often used to suggest the volume and modelling of the subjects depicted"....
, from about 1770 he used increasingly stronger and more lively colours. Simultanueously, both his style and his brush technique became much more free, making him, like Franz Anton Maulbertsch, an important predecessor of impressionism
Impressionism
Impressionism was a 19th-century art movement that originated with a group of Paris-based artists whose independent exhibitions brought them to prominence during the 1870s and 1880s...
. In this aspect, his mature style is completely contrary to neoclassicism
Neoclassicism
Neoclassicism is the name given to Western movements in the decorative and visual arts, literature, theatre, music, and architecture that draw inspiration from the "classical" art and culture of Ancient Greece or Ancient Rome...
, the style which increasingly dominated European art after about 1780.
Further reading
- Garzarolli-Thurnlackh; Das graphische Werk Martin Johann Schmidt's (Kremser Schmidt), 1718 - 1801; Zurich, 1925
- Dworschak, Feuchtmüller, Garzarolli-Thurnlackh, Zykan; Der Maler Martin Johann Schmidt genannt "Der Kremser Schmidt" 1718 - 1801; Vienna, 1955
- Feuchtmüller; Der Kremser Schmidt. 1718-1801, monograph and catalogue raisonné; Vienna, 1989, ISBN 3-7022-1689-8 ISBN 978-3-7022-1689-4