Karl August Senff
| Karl August Senff | |
|---|---|
Senff's 1812 landscape, "A View on Narva" (1812)
|
|
| Born |
Karl August Senff 12 March 1770 Kreypau, Kingdom of Prussia |
| Died | 2 January 1838 (aged 67) Derpt, Russian Empire |
| Nationality | Baltic German |
| Education | |
| Known for | Founded school of art at Universität Dorpat in 1802 |
| Signature | |
 |
|
Karl August Senff (12 March 1770 in Kreypau, Prussia – 2 January 1838 in Dorpat, Governorate of Livonia, Russian Empire) was a Baltic German painter, engraver and teacher. He is best known for his etchings of famous German and Estonian military figures in service to the Imperial Russian Army. He served as professor of drawing at the University of Dorpat (now University of Tartu) from its reopening in 1802 until his death in 1838 where he trained some of Estonia's most celebrated artists.
Senff was born in the village of Kreypau, Kingdom of Prussia. The son of Karl Friedrich Senff, a Protestant theologian, he had originally planned to study medicine at Halle but by 1788 had transferred to the Leipzig Academy of Arts to study painting with the German etcher, painter and sculptor Adam Friedrich Oeser. Oeser zealously opposed mannerism in art and was a stout champion of Johann Joachim Winckelmann's advocacy of reform on antique lines. As director of the newly founded academy, he insisted on an aesthetic of austerity in art that was mingled with philosophies of Lutheranism. This approach greatly influenced Senff, and would be made manifest in his work throughout his life as well as later in his treatises on teaching painting and drawing.
In 1795, feeling that he'd reached the limit of his progress under Oeser's supervision, Senff left the Leipzig Academy and traveled to Dresden to continue his studies at the Dresden Art Academy under the tutelage of eminent Swiss portrait artist Anton Graff and his colleague, the German painter and draughtsman Christian Leberecht Vogel.
...
Wikipedia