Adolf Zimmermann

Adolf Gottlob Zimmermann (1 September 1799, Lodenau, Upper Lusatia – 17 July 1859, Breslau) was a German painter. He belonged to the Düsseldorf branch of the Nazarene movement.

His father was a servant of Count Adolf Friedrich Abraham von Gersdorf at Schloss Lodenau, who received a plot of land in nearby Neusorge as a reward for faithful service. The Count also sponsored and provided an education for Adolf, who became a student at the Moravian Pädagogium in Niesky, where his artistic talent was encouraged. Nevertheless, he was originally destined for an apprenticeship in a craft but, perhaps at the urging of the Count's family, was able to attend the Dresden Academy of Fine Arts. From 1818 to 1825, he studied with Ferdinand Hartmann and Johann Carl Rößler (1775–1845).

After graduating, on the recommendation of the Academy's Director, Count Heinrich Vitzthum von Eckstädt (1770–1837), he obtained a Royal Scholarship for the purpose of making a study trip to Italy. In the Fall of 1825 (following a secret marriage), he and his friend Carl Gottlieb Peschel undertook the trip, making several stops along the way to visit with other artists. He remained there until 1829.

Although he wrote to his wife that he was leaving Rome because he didn't have the financial means to remain or bring her there, it is believed that, being an Evangelical Protestant, he chose to leave due to religious disagreements with his fellow painters in the Nazarene movement, who felt that Catholicism provided a better basis for historical Bible painting.

On his return, he settled in Pirna, where he taught drawing and painted portraits. His desire to paint historical and religious themes remained great however and, despite his belief that "the number of artists increases in the same proportion as the public's interest decreases", he decided to move back to Dresden in 1834. While there, he met Wilhelm von Schadow, the Director of the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf. Schadow was a Romantic who wanted to encourage a return to naturalness in painting so, in 1835, Zimmermann became a teacher of "Divine Art" at the school. Once there, he became entangled in another dispute between Protestants and Catholics.

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