Knaus, Ludwig

Painter, Draughtsman

born: 05.10.1829 in Wiesbaden

died: 07.12.1910 in Berlin

Knaus already showed a genuine talent for drawing as a child. His teacher, the landscape painter Otto Reinhard Jacobi, introduced the young artist to the renowned Düsseldorf Art Academy. Knaus studied under the portraitist Carl Ferdinand Sohn and the academy director Wilhelm von Schadow. In the revolutionary year of 1848, Knaus, co-founder of the progressive artists' circle "Malkasten", chose the independence of a free artist.

In 1849 he made studies of rural life in Willingshausen. This first of many sojourns in the Schwalm had a fundamental influence on his work. The meticulous studies of figures, interiors and details show him to be a subtle observer and reveal the dominance of drawing in his oeuvre. The sharpness of the psychological characterization in these works distinguished him as an unsentimental realist from the masters of older genre painting. His paintings "Die Falschspieler" (1851) and "Leichenzug im Walde" (1852) met with an extraordinary response. This was followed by an eight-year stay in Paris (1852-60), interrupted by study trips to the Black Forest, Switzerland, England and Italy.

Knaus had a comprehensive repertoire of gestures and facial expressions at his disposal to formulate empathy and subtle allusions, particularly in his original sketches and portraits. Among the much-discussed impressive works are "The Morning after the Feast" (1853) and "The Golden Wedding" (1859). By then, Knaus had already received prestigious awards at the Paris Salons.

His participation in the Paris World Exhibition in 1855 was a highlight for him: he received the First Class Medal for his work "Gypsies in the Forest", and the French state purchased "La Promenade aux Tuileries".

After his return, Knaus remained attached to the metropolitan and bourgeois world. From 1860 onwards, he often spent the summers in his newly built studio house on the Geisberg (now Schöne Aussicht 7) - where Johannes Brahms was to complete his 3rd Symphony in 1883 - and the remaining months in Berlin.

In 1867, Knaus moved to Düsseldorf after he had once again been highly decorated at the World Exhibition in Paris. In 1874, he took up a professorship at the Berlin Academy. However, Knaus' reputation and fame had already largely faded. Works such as "Behind the Curtain" (1880) or "Spring Idyll" (1895) obscure the view of the artist in the freedom of his early years and raise the question of the credibility of the depictions of this most important Wiesbaden painter of the 19th century for his later work.