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JOSEPH VON FUHRICH (1800-1876)

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Originally appearing in Volume V11, Page 290 of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.
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JOSEPH VON See also:FUHRICH (1800-1876)  , See also:Austrian painter, was See also:born at Kratzau in Bohemia on the 9th of See also:February r800 . Deeply impressed as a boy by See also:rude pictures adorning the wayside chapels of his native See also:country, his first See also:attempt at See also:composition was a See also:sketch of the Nativity for the festival of See also:Christmas in his See also:father's See also:house . He lived to see the See also:day when, becoming celebrated as a composer of scriptural episodes, his sacred subjects were transferred in numberless repetitions to the roadside churches of the Austrian See also:state, where humble peasants thus learnt to admire See also:modern See also:art reviving the See also:models of earlier ages . See also:Fuhrich has been fairly described as a " Nazarene," a romantic religious artist whose, See also:pencil did more than any other to restore the old spirit of See also:Durer and give new shape to countless incidents of the See also:gospel and scriptural legends . Without the See also:power of See also:Cornelius or the See also:grace of See also:Overbeck, he composed with See also:great skill, especially in outline . His mastery of See also:distribution, See also:form, See also:movement and expression was considerable . In its See also:peculiar way his drapery was perfectly See also:cast . Essentially creative as a landscape draughtsman, he had still no feeling for See also:colour; and when he produced monumental pictures he was not nearly so successful as when designing subjects for woodcuts . Fuhrich's fame extended far beyond the walls of the Austrian See also:capital, and his illustrations to See also:Tieck's Genofeva, the See also:Lord's See also:Prayer, the See also:Triumph of See also:Christ, the Road to See also:Bethlehem, the See also:Succession of Christ according to See also:Thomas a Kempis, the Prodigal Son, and the verses of the Psalter, became well known . His Prodigal Son, especially, is remarkable for the See also:fancy with which the spirit of evil is embodied in a figure constantly recurring, and like that of See also:Mephistopheles exhibiting temptation in a human yet demoniacal shape . Fuhrich became a See also:pupil at the See also:Academy of See also:Prague in 1816 . His first See also:inspiration was derived from the prints of Diirer and the See also:Faust of Cornelius, and the first See also:fruit of this turn of study was the Genofeva See also:series .

In 1826 he went to See also:

Rome, where he added three frescoes to those executed by Cornelius and Overbeck in the Palazzo Massimi . His subjects were taken from the See also:life of See also:Tasso, and are almost solitary examples of his See also:talent in this class of composition . In 1831 he finished the Triumph of Christ now in the Raczynski See also:palace at See also:Berlin . In 1834 he was made custos and in 1841 See also:professor of composition in the Academy of See also:Vienna . After this he completed the monumental pictures of the See also:church of St See also:Nepomuk, and in 1854–1861 the vast series of See also:wall paintings which See also:cover the inside of the Lerchenfeld church at Vienna . In 1872 he was pensioned and made a See also:knight of the See also:order of See also:Franz See also:Joseph; 1875 is the date of his illustrations to the See also:Psalms . He died on the 13th of See also:March 1876 . His autobiography was published in 1875, and a memoir by his son See also:Lucas in 1886 .

End of Article: JOSEPH VON FUHRICH (1800-1876)
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