Melchior Wyrsch

Statue of Melchior Wyrsch in Buochs by Luc Breton

Johann Melchior Wyrsch (August 21, 1732 – September 9, 1798) was a Swiss painter of the 18th century.

Life

Johann Melchior Wyrsch was born on August 21, 1732 in Buochs Unterwalden. He was honorary citizen of Besançon. Son of Balthazar Francis Xavier, Councellor, bailiff and Diet envoy, and Anna Klara Achermann. Grandson of Johann Jakob Achermann. ∞ 1761 Maria Barbara Keyser, daughter of Kaspar Remigi Keyser. Brother in law of Ludwig Maria Keyser.

Wyrsch began his art studies 1745 as a portrait painter with Johann Michael Suter in Lucerne and Franz Anton Kraus in Einsiedeln as teachers.

Between 1753 and 1754 he spent a study tour in Italy, where he mainly resided in Rome and Naples.

After his art studies in Italy, he returned to Switzerland and began his artistic activity as a portrait and church painter.

In 1768 he moved to Besançon, where he painted many portraits of respected people.

Together with the sculptor Luc Breton, whom he had met in Rome, he founded in 1773 the academy for painting and drawing fr ( Académie de Peinture et de dessin ) in Besançon.

In 1877 he traveled to Paris, and returned to Besançon, where he was appointed in 1784 to its honorary citizen.

In the same year he moved to Lucerne, where he founded a school of drawing in turn [1] .

Johann Melchior Wyrsch proposed to the Council of Lucerne in 1783 to found a School of Drawing with the task to teach talented young students in drawing and modeling.

Due to an increasing blindness, he said | ascribed cataract cataracts, he withdrew to Buochs, where at the Conquest Nidwalden he was murdered by the troops of Napoleon Bonaparte.

In the transition from baroque and rococo on the one hand to classical and romanticism on the other hand Wyrsch participated in the development of portraits for differentiated characterization of a single individual.

He was enshrined in the "enlightened paternalism" of the Old Confederation, however, his work has been on the liberal bourgeois era.

He painted as a religious painter numerous altars in Central Switzerland and the Franche-Comté that are still adorned with his paintings.

He remained a central Swiss painter of the late Baroque.

Exhibitions

Louvre

Ministère de la Culture, Paris: Musée du Louvre: Département des Peintures [2]

Paintings at Louvre

Autoportrait [3]

Portrait (tondo) de Charles Joseph Quirot, chanoine [4]

Autoportrait [5]

Young boy blowing soap bubbles [6]

The childhood of the Virgin [7]

MATHILDE WEY NEE GAMEL (1762-1839) [8]

Portrait of Charles-Etienne Perron, watchmaker [9]

Portrait of Claude Barbe Droz Rozet, born Bourbévelle Guillet (1755-1785) [10]

Portrait of Pierre-François Pâris [11]

Portrait of the architect Claude-Joseph-Alexandre Bertrand [12]

Portrait of the wife of Claude Joseph Alexandre Bertrand [13]

Portrait of Nicolas Nicole [14]

Portrait of a man wearing a breastplate [15]

François-Antoine Wey (1751 - 1815), [16] 1784

Switzerland

Schweizer Meister. Swiss Masters. Publikation zum 75-Jahr-Jubliäum der Bernhard Eglin-Stiftung, Lucerne, Kunstmuseum Luzern, [17] 31.5.2008-5.10.2008

Glückliche Tage? Kinder in der Schweizer Kunst vom 18. Jahrhundert bis zur Gegenwart, Schaffhausen, Museum zu Allerheiligen, [18] 18.5.2008-21.9.2008

Mixing Memory and Desire, Lucerne, Neues Kunstmuseum Luzern, [19] 20.6.2000-24.9.2000

3 x Wyrsch, Lucerne, Raum für aktuelle Kunst, [20] 22.8.1998-13.9.1998

«Der Maler Johann Melchior Wyrsch (1732-1798) und seine Zeit», Stansstad, In der Sust, [21] 21.6.1998-11.10.1998

Gepudert und geputzt. Johann Melchior Wyrsch (1732-1798) als Porträtist und Kirchenmaler, Stans, [22] 6.1998-10.1998

Zeichnungen des 18. Jahrhunderts aus dem Basler Kupferstichkabinett, Basel, Öffentliche Kunstsammlung Basel, [23] 28.10.1978-14.1.1979

Der unbekannte Winterthurer Privatbesitz 1500-1900, Winterthur, Kunstmuseum Winterthur, [24] 5.9.1942-5.11.1942

Die Erwerbungen der Bernhard-Eglin-Stiftung, Lucerne, Kunstmuseum Luzern, [25] 15.12.1935-8.1.1936

Retrospektive Abteilung der Saffa. Katalog, Bern, Kunstmuseum Berne, [26] 26.8.1928-30.9.1928

Paintings in Switzerland

Flight into Egypt, [27] 1759

Franziska Traxler-Achermann (1739-1764), [28] 1759

Portrait Elisabetha Heidegger, [29] 1760

Portrait of John Heidegger, [30] 1760

Children portrait Wilpert Heidegger, [31] 1760

Children portrait Maria Barbara Heidegger, [32] 1760

Portrait of Rudolph Emanuel Godt, [33] 1761

Portrait of Heinrich Näf, [34] 1762

Self-Portrait at the Easel, [35] 1767

Nicolas-François Renard (1719-1780), [36] 1768

Jean Baptiste de la Chancellerie Bruand Trésorier de Besançon (1724-1795), [37] 1773

Anne Claude Demoustier de Bermont (1748 -....), [38] 1773

Franz Aloys Achermann (1708-1779), [39] 1776

Maria Barbara Wyrsch-Kayser (1741-1803), [40] about 1779

Pierre-Louis-Bonaventure de Montrichard, [41] 1779

Self-portrait, [42] about 1780

Portrait of Captain Peter Ludwig Guldimann, [43] 1783

Portrait of a lady [44]

Honors

Besançon

As an honorary citizen of Besançon a street was named after him (Rue Jean Wyrsch) [45]

Painters influenced by Wyrsch

In 1780 the abbot of Disentis, Columban Sozzi, paid attention to the talent of Felix Maria Diogg (1762–1834), and enabled him to travel to Wyrsch in Besançon.

Literature

• Matthias Vogel, Regine Helbling, Marianne Baltensperger (Eds.): [46] Powdered and cleaned. Johann Melchior Wyrsch 1732-1798. Portraitist and church painter , Schwabe, 1998. ISBN 379651085X
• Dr. Paul Fischer: [47] The painter Johann Melchior Wyrsch of Buochs, 1732 - 1798 | His Life and Work , commission publishing, bookstore C. Bachmann, Zurich 1938
• Johann Kaspar Fuessli: History of the best artists in Switzerland Johann Melchior Joseph Würsch (page 102-109), Orell, Gessner, Füsslin and Comp, Zurich, 1779
• Wyrsch, Johann (Jean) Melchior Joseph (Josef) [48], Swiss Institute for Art Research, Hans-Peter Wittwer

References

Historisches Lexikon der Schweiz [49]

• This article was initially translated from the German Wikipedia.

Melchior Wyrsch
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