HEINRICH MARIA

HESS (1798–1863)—von Hess, after he received a patent of

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• PERSONAL

personal nobility—was

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• BORN, IGNAZ, EDLER VON (1742–1791)

born at

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• DUSSELDORF

Dusseldorf and brought up to the profession of

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• ART

art by his

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• FATHER

father, the engraver Karl

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• ERNST, HEINRICH WILHELM (1814–1865)

Ernst Christoph Hess (1755–1828)  . Karl Hess had already acquired a name when in 18o6 the elector of Bavaria, having been raised to a kingship by Napoleon, transferred the Dusseldorf academy and gallery to Munich . Karl Hess accompanied the academy to its new home, and there continued the education of his children . In time Heinrich Hess became sufficiently master of his art to attract the attention of King Maximilian . He was sent with a stipend to Rome, where a copy which he made of Raphael's Parnassus, and the study of great examples of monumental design, probably caused him to become a painter of ecclesiastical subjects on a large scale . In 1828 he was made professor of painting and director of all the art collections 'at Munich. lie decorated the Aukirche, the Glyptothek and the Allerhellige ncapelle at Munich with frescoes; and his cartoons were seleclted for glass windows in the cathedrals of Cologne and Regensburg . Then came the great cycle of frescoes in the basilica of St Boniface at Munich, and the monumental picture of the Virgin and Child enthroned between the four doctors, and receiving the homage of the four patrons of the Munich churches (now- in the Pinakothek) . His last work, the " Lord's Supper," 'was found unfinished in his atelier after his death in 1863 . Before.; testing his strength as a composer Heinrich Hess tried genre, an example of which is the Pilgrims entering Rome, now in the Munich gallery . He also executed portraits, and twice had sittings from Thorwaldsen (Pinakothek and Schack collections) . But his fame rests on the frescoes representing scenes from the Old and New Testaments in the Allerheiligencapelle, and the episodes from the life of St Boniface and other German apostles in the basilica of Munich . Here he holds rank second to none but Overbeck in monumental painting, being always true to nature though mindful of the traditions of Christian art, earnest and simple in feeling, yet lifelike and powerful in expression .

Through him and his pupils the sentiment of religious art was preserved and extended in the Munich school .