Eugen bracht artist biography

Biography.
Eugen Felix Prosper Bracht was a German landscape painter.
He mostly painted landscapes and was one of the famous painters of the late Romanticism in Germany.

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In a week’s time, I will be marking the centenary of the death of the German landscape painter Eugen Bracht (1842–1921). Although English Wikipedia claims that he died on 5 November 1921, the more authoritative German article gives the date as 15 November, and it appears the latter is correct. This first article looks at his career and paintings in the nineteenth century, at the end of which he had established himself as one of the great Symbolists of Europe.

Bracht’s Symbolist masterwork Shore of Oblivion (Gestade der Vergessenheit) (1889) became so popular that he painted at least six versions. Kaiser Wilhelm II hung his copy next to Böcklin’s renowned Symbolist painting The Island of the Dead. Yet today Bracht and his masterwork are almost forgotten.

Eugen Felix Prosper Bracht was born in Morges, on the shore of Lake Geneva in Switzerland, but his family moved to Darmstadt in Germany, where he became a student at the Karlsruhe Academy of Fine Arts. During the summer of 1860, he painted with Hans Thoma in Schwarzwald. In 1861, he moved to Düssel

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EUGEN BRACHT

Bracht was born in Morges, Waadt (near Lake Geneva in Switzerland) of German parents. Then he moved with his parents to Darmstadt, Germany where he was a pupil of Karl Ludwig Seeger at the Academy of Fine Arts, Karlsruhe. Later he studied under Hans Gude in Düsseldorf. Dissatisfied with his work, in 1864 he moved to Berlin and became a merchant. In 1876 he decided to become a painter after all and he joined his former teacher in Karlsruhe. He mostly painted landscapes and was one of the famous painters of the late Romanticism in Germany.

He was known for landscapes and coastal scenes in North Germany, and in 1880 and 1881, he made a sketching trip through Syria, Palestine and Egypt. In 1882 he became a Professor of Landscape Painting at the Prussian Academy of Arts. In 1885 he painted the Battle of Chattanooga for the "Philadelphia Panorama Company", a cyclorama which was installed in Philadelphia and Kansas City.

Bracht was supported by Anton von Werner, the conservative director of the Berlin Academy, but broke off with him during the affair of the clos

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Eugen Bracht (1842 – 1921) was a German landscape painter known for his dramatic mountainscapes. But he also painted vistas of wide-open plains.

Eugen Bracht, Matterhorn

He painted the Matterhorn many times in various lighting conditions. This one is front-lit, normally a difficult lighting arrangement to pull off. The reflection is neatly placed in the pool of glacial meltwater.

He also found drama in less dramatic motifs, open meadows or heathlands in brooding, cloudy weather.

Although his origins as a painter were academic, Bracht was receptive to impressionist ideas, and he painted scenes like this in the open air.

When he painted scenes from the Near East and north Africa, he liked to interpret the scope and scale of the landscape.

His forest studies explored ways to simplify the immense complexity of the subject, sometimes using mist and atmosphere and broadly applied strokes of paint.

Hoesch iron and steel works, Dortmund 1907

After 1900 he became interested in the moods of the industrial landscape.

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Eugen Bracht on German Wiki