Frankfurt 1749-1832 Weimar,was a German writer and according to George Eliot, "Germany's greatest man of letters and the last true polymath to walk the earth." Goethe's works span the fields of poetry, drama, literature, theology, humanism and science. Goethe's magnum opus, lauded as one of the peaks of world literature, is the two-part drama Faust. Goethe's other well-known literary works include his numerous poems, the Bildungsroman Wilhelm Meister's Apprenticeship and the epistolary novel The Sorrows of Young Werther. Goethe was one of the key figures of German literature and the movement of Weimar Classicism in the late 18th and early 19th centuries; this movement coincides with Enlightenment, Sentimentality (Empfindsamkeit), Sturm und Drang and Romanticism. The author of the scientific text Theory of Colours, he influenced Darwin with his focus on plant morphology. He also served at length as the Privy Councilor ("Geheimrat") of the duchy of Weimar. Goethe is the originator of the concept of Weltliteratur ("world literature"), having taken great interest in the literatures of England, France, Italy, classical Greece, Persia, Arabic literature, amongst others. His influence on German philosophy is virtually immeasurable, having major effect especially on the generation of Hegel and Schelling, although Goethe himself expressly and decidedly refrained from practicing philosophy in the rarefied sense. Goethe's influence spread across Europe, and for the next century his works were a major source of inspiration in music, drama, poetry and philosophy. Goethe is considered by many to be the most important writer in the German language and one of the most important thinkers in Western culture as well.  Related Paintings of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe :. | Plant study | Plant sketch | the composer of rule britannia | one of the most successful opera composers of his time,painted by elisadeth vigee lebrun | Herbarium sheet |
Related Artists:
Charles Jervas
Charles Jervas (c. 1675 - 1739) was an Irish portrait painter, translator, and art collector of the early 18th century. Born in County Offaly,Ireland around 1675, the son of John Jervas and Elizabeth, daughter of Captain John Baldwin of Shinrone Castle & Corolanty, High Sheriff of County Offaly. Jervas studied in London, England as an assistant under Sir Godfrey Kneller between 1694 and 1695. After selling a series of small copies of the Raphael Cartoons circa 1698 to Dr. George Clarke of All Souls College, Oxford, the following year he travelled to Paris and Rome (while financially supported by Clarke and others) remaining there for most of the decade before returning to London in 1709 where he found success as a portrait painter.
STALBEMT, Adriaan van
Flemish painter, Antwerp school b. 1580, Antwerpen, d. 1662
MINDERHOUT, Hendrik van
Flemish painter (b. 1632, Rotterdam, d. 1696, Antwerpen). Dutch painter, active in the southern Netherlands. For unknown reasons, he was known as the 'Green Knight of Rotterdam'. In 1644 he married Margareta van den Broecke, and in 1652 he went to Bruges, where in 1663 he entered the Guild of St Luke; the marine painting that he submitted to the Guild to become a member used to be displayed in the Salle d'Acad?mie as a companion piece to the picture submitted by Rubens on his entry to the Guild. In 1672 van Minderhout moved to Antwerp, where he was admitted to the Guild the same year and where, in return for exemption from all obligations as a guild member, he presented a large canvas representing an Eastern seaport. In 1673 he married his second wife, Anna-Victoria Claus. They had five children, including two sons, Antoon van Minderhout (b 26 Sept 1675; d 22 Dec 1705) and Willem August van Minderhout (b 28 Aug 1680; d 31 June 1752), who also became painters. Hendrik van Minderhout painted mostly sea and harbour views, in the tradition of Jan Baptist Weenix and Johannes Lingelbach. His subjects included the port of Antwerp, as well as imaginary views of Mediterranean harbours and oriental seaports