Evolution Revolution: My Beethoven

Wednesday, December 20, 2017

My Beethoven

I am sharing the series of family masterpieces that were the elements of this years family Christmas Card this week. I have shared my Girl With The Pearl Earring and now it's time for Beethoven.

This year I realized how diverse each of my family members are. Each their own work of art, different strengths and skills like the different skills poured into the iconic paintings they represent by the respective artists. Differences in style, era, and color pallets much like a metaphor to illustrate each individual.

Ludwig van Beethoven is my favorite classical composer. His fury and passion you can feel through his music. He also had a serious hearing impairment and wrote his most famous work, 9th Symphony - Ode to Joy when he was completely deaf. An amazing example of overcoming obstacles associated with "disabilities" and creating a unique masterpiece.

I wanted to present my interpretation of Joseph Karl Stieler's Portrait of Beethoven, painted in 1819, with oil on canvas - 62 × 50 cm (24.4 × 19.7 in)

Journey of the portrait:

*Commissioned by Franz and Antonie Brentano in 1819/20

*Purchased by raffle by the brother of Louis Spohr at a raffle run by the Art Association of Brunswick

* Following Spohr's death it was inherited by his daughter Rosalie, the Countess Sauerma a harpist

* 10 February 1909 Purchased by music company C.F. Peters Henri Hinrichsen

*Mr. Hinrichsen was murdered in Auschwitz 17 Sept 1942 and the painting went to his son

*Walter Hinrichsen took it to New York to hang in his office

*1981 it was sold to Beethoven House in Bonn Germany where it still hangs

(source)

Information about the painting was taken from Beethoven's conversation books, "Stieler was permitted four sittings between February and April 1820. This "concession" - Beethoven considered such sittings to be a kind of penance - was not only due to Stieler's artistic ability but also to Franz and Antonie Brentano, who commissioned the portrait. Beethoven was happy to grant them this concession as he had been close to them since 1809 and once referred to them as his "best friends in the world". source

The painting was created on commission by the married couple Franz and Antonie Brentano, who had been friends of Beethoven since around 1810. Beethoven's conversation [sic] books give rather detailed information on the origins of the painting. The composer was sitting for the painter four times - a very unusual high number of sittings, since Beethoven is said to have been unable to sit still. The hands in the painting had to be painted from the artists memory as Beethoven could not be persuaded to sit any longer.

Stieler's portrait of Beethoven distinguishes itself above all through two novel elements. First of all - in contrast to all other contemporary paintings - it shows the composer while he is performing his art. Beethoven is holding a pen and seems to be working on the Credo of his "Missa solemnis". The face of the manuscript he is holding says: "Missa solemnis / From D # (# stands for Major)"; on the page facing the composer, the word "Credo" can be recognized. Further on, Stieler shows the view to a forest landscape in the background and by doing this, he - for the first time - combines a portrait of Beethoven with the romantic motif of nature. Beethoven's well-known love of nature and his famous "Sinfonia pastoral" op.68, with its haunting musical description of nature, provided him the biographical clues for such a depiction. Both motifs - "Beethoven composing" and "Beethoven in nature" - became very popular during the further course of the 19th and 20th century, and until today, fine artists again and again were depicting those motifs. source