Friedrich Preller the Elder
Also known as: Ernst Christian Johann Friedrich Preller d. Ä.
Biography
Weimar's late classicism outlived the era that produced it largely because Preller did. Born in Eisenach in 1804 and dead in Weimar in 1878, he spent a long career keeping a style alive after the town that invented it had moved on.
Italy, and a friendship that came back with him
As a young painter he reached Italy — Milan and Rome — and it decided what he painted for the rest of his life. There he became friends with the painter Bonaventura Genelli (1798–1868). What Preller brought home from Italy shaped the rest of his output, and Weimar kept him for the next half-century.
The gallery that carries his name, 1869
His most visible work in Weimar is a room. The Grand Ducal Museum of 1869 — today the Museum Neues Weimar — was built complete with the Preller-Galerie he created, and the name has stuck to it ever since. The Klassik Stiftung's own account of late classicism puts his importance plainly: his long life, his artistic power into old age and his pupils together stabilised the late-classical inheritance. He is the reason the style did not simply stop when its generation did.
Questions visitors ask
- What is the Preller-Galerie?
- A room within the Museum Neues Weimar. It was built as part of the Grand Ducal Museum of 1869, complete with the gallery Friedrich Preller the Elder created, and it has carried his name ever since.
- Why does Friedrich Preller matter to Weimar's late classicism?
- His long life, his artistic power into old age and his pupils together stabilised the late-classical inheritance after its founding generation was gone.
- What shaped Friedrich Preller's painting?
- A journey to Italy as a young painter, to Milan and Rome, which decided what he painted for the rest of his life.
- Can I see Preller's work in Weimar?
- Yes, at the Museum Neues Weimar, built complete with the Preller-Galerie he created.
Notable Works & Achievements
The Preller-Galerie in the Grand Ducal Museum, Weimar
Odyssey landscapes
Desenzano (oil on canvas, 1827)
Connected Places in Weimar
Jorge-Semprún-Platz 5, 99423 Weimar
The 1869 building was put up complete with the Preller-Galerie he created, and it still carries his name.
Historical Context
The painter who carried Weimar's classicism through the decades after Goethe — the visual counterpart to what Liszt was doing in music.
Goethe died in 1832, and Weimar had to work out what a town does after its golden age. It decided to keep going, and the answer took eighty-six years — the era the Klassik Stiftung Weimar calls the Silver Age. Music replaced literature as the thing Weimar was for, two royal patrons paid for it, and the schools they founded outlived the monarchy that funded them.
Read more about this period →Quick Facts
1804
1878
German