Carl Rottmann 1797–1850, Court painter of King Ludwig I. 30 January – 13 April 1998 Carl Rottmann is still best known today as the painter of the two monumental picture cycles of Italian and Greek landscapes for the court garden of the Munich Residenz. At that time, King Ludwig I commissioned young artists to decorate many of the new public buildings that had just been built, including the Residenz, with wall frescoes of historical content. The most important of these were the major commissions awarded to Rottmann and the frescoes by Peter Cornelius in the ballrooms of the Glyptothek. While the latter, as well as almost all other wall and ceiling paintings created in Munich at that time, were destroyed in the last war, those by Rottmann have largely survived. They immediately became widely famous at the time and contributed decisively to Munich’s early fame as the first art center in Germany. Life of Rottmann Born on January 11, 1797 in Handschuhsheim near Heidelberg, Rottmann received his first drawing lessons from his father, who, as a university drawing teacher, also had access to the fine arts circles of the tradition-rich university town. Among his students were also the painters Karl Philipp Fohr and Ernst Fries, who were so important at that time and with whom Rottmann was friends from a very early age. Since 1821 in Munich, he educated himself at the academy, but mainly on extended study trips to the foothills of the Alps and Salzburg. Great Landscape Following his artistic ideas of “great landscape”, he was drawn to Italy, where he set off in the spring of 1826 to study in front of nature. Protected by Leo von Klenze, he received a commission in Rome to paint a picture of “Palermo” for the king. This further journey to Sicily is financed for him. Back in Munich, after having passed the rehearsal in 1829, this time with a scholarship, he starts the journey for a second time, in order to now specifically take up motifs for the Italy cycle of the western Hofgarten arcades, which at the request of Ludwig I. is created in 28 murals al fresco in 1830-34, each provided with a distych composed by the king himself. Subsequently, Rottmann travels again by order of King Ludwig to Greece in 1834/35, where he collects study material for the planned Greece cycle. Originally planned for the northern Hofgarten arcades, this 2nd cycle is finally installed – due to wanton damage to the Italian frescoes – in a hall specially constructed for this purpose in the Neue Pinakothek. Overview of the creative process In a representative selection different stages of Rottmann’s creative process could be seen in the exhibition, as well as – arranged according to motif groups – a large number of pictures from Bavarian regions, from Italy and Greece, which were partly repeated and varied by him several times for the needs of the big market. Break from Idealism With Rottmann’s so-called Historical Landscapes the final break from the traditional conception of art of Idealism is made. No longer arcadian states of human history are presented, but we find here the early sites of our occidental culture in their time-subjected state of decay recalled with all their unbroken significance for the present. In addition, phenomena of the earth’s history are visualized, as if the breath of the world’s creation could be felt here. A cooperation The retrospective in the Kunsthalle der Hypo-Kulturstiftung, organized jointly with the Bayerische Staatsgemäldesammlungen, brought together 150 paintings, watercolors and drawings from many public and private collections. In addition, several recently restored murals of the monumental Greek cycle were on view in the nearby Residenz, along with the cycle Historical Landscapes from Italy and related cartoons. Christoph Heilmann was responsible for the catalog and exhibition concept. More Less Exhibition Leaflet Past exhibitions of the Kunsthalle
