Full Name: Meyer, Heinrich
Other Names:
- Hans Heinrich Meyer
Gender: male
Date Born: 1760
Date Died: 1832
Place Born: Stäfa, Zürich, Switzerland
Place Died: Jena, Thuringia, Germany
Home Country/ies: Switzerland
Subject Area(s): Italian (culture or style), painting (visual works), Renaissance, Roman (ancient Italian culture or period), Roman sculpture styles, and sculpture (visual works)
Overview
Historian of Roman sculpture and the paintings of Raphael, also painter. Meyer began studying painting in Switzerland under the tutelage of Johann Koella and Johann Caspar Füssli. He traveled to Italy to study Roman sculpture in 1784, where he also dedicated himself to studying the paintings of Raphael. Meyer met Johann Wolfgang von Goethe in 1787, who convinced him to move to Weimar to serve as his artistic advisor. Meyer made copies of Roman art, including the fresco “Aldobrandini Wedding” 1797 and the painting “Odysseus and Nausica” (1789) by Annibale Carraci for Goethe to study in Weimar. As Goethe’s artistic advisor, Meyer decorated Goethe’s house in a Roman style, and painted portraits of Goethe and his family. He went back to Italy to collect information for a history of Italian art that Goethe wanted to complete. Together, the two men published several books and articles. They founded and edited an art magazine entitled Propyläen in 1798. Meyer’s article entitled, “Entwuf einer Kunstgeschichte des achtzehen Jahrhunderts” appeared in Goethe’s Wincklemann und sein Jahrhundert in 1805. In 1806, Meyer became the principal of the Freies Zeichen-Institut in Weimar. He wrote a book entitled, “Neudeutsche religios-partiotische Kunst” with Goethe in 1817, which angered German Romantics and ostracized him from their artistic community.
Selected Bibliography
edited, and Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von. Propyläen: eine periodische Schrift [serial]. 3 vols. (1798-1800). Tübingen: J. G. Cotta, 1798-1800; edited, with Schulze, Johann. Fernow, Carl Ludwig. Winckelmann’s Werke. Dresden: Walther, 1808-20, vols 3-8; and Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von, and and Berendis, Hieronymus Dieterich. Winkelmann und sein Jahrhundert in Briefen und Aufsätzen herausgegeben. Tübingen: Cotta, 1805; and Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von. Ueber Kunst und Alterthum in den Rhein und Mayn gegenden. Stuttgard [sic]: In der Cottaischen Buchhandlung, 1816-1832; Uebersicht der geschichte der kunst bei den Griechen, deren bekanntesten werke und meister sowie die noch vorhandenen und darauf bezug habenden denkmale. 6 vols. Dresden: Walther, 1826.
Sources
German Essays on Art History. Gert Schiff, ed. New York: Continuum, 1988, xxvii mentioned: Waetzoldt,Wilhelm. Deutsche Kunsthistoriker vom Sandrart bis Justi. Leipzig: E. A. Seeman, 1921, vol. I, pp. 179-199; Bazin, Germain. Histoire de l’histoire de l’art; de Vasari à nos jours. Paris: Albin Michel, 1986, p. 525; The Dictionary of Art; Wahl, Hans, ed. Zeichnungen von Johann Heinrich Meyer. Weimar: Goethe-Gesellschaft, 1918
Contributors: LaNitra Michele Walker