Johann Baptist Pflug

Johann Baptist Pflug (13 February 1785, Biberach an der Riß - 30 May 1866, Biberach an der Riß) was a German genre painter.[1]

Statue of Johann Baptist Pflug in Biberach by John Doubleday
Capturing the Robbers (1822)

Life

At the age of twelve, after attending the local elementary school, he became a choirboy at the local monastery where he continued his education and received his first drawing lessons. When the monastery closed, the fathers recommended that he become a church painter.[2] Johann Franz Schefold (1750-1828), a lawyer whose father was a church painter, acted as a sort of patron to Pflug, allowing him access to his library and gallery. In 1806, he went to the Academy of Fine Arts Munich where he studied under Johann Christian von Mannlich, whose instruction consisted largely of having him make copies of the Dutch Masters. At the outbreak of the Tyrolean Rebellion, he returned to Biberach where he passed an art examination and became a teacher at the newly created Biberach Gymnasium, a post he held until 1856.[2]

Beginning in 1813, his painting focused largely on genre scenes and costume pictures of soldiers or robbers. From 1825 to 1830, he published a series of colored engravings entitled "Rural doings in Württemberg" (Ländliche Gebräuche in Württemberg), which established his popularity throughout Germany.[1] As a teacher, he discovered and promoted many young artists who would come to be called "The Biberach School". These included Eberhard Emminger and Anton Braith.

Taken together with his Memoirs (published in 1874), his works offer an almost complete representation of daily life in Nineteenth-century Germany and have great historical value, beyond their artistic merits.

Selected works
  • Lagerszene bei Bergerhausen oberhalb Biberbach: Österreichische Kavallerie und Infanterie, ein Geschütz im Mittelgrund, im Hintergrund Zelte und Train, Oktober 1815 (Camp Scene at Bergerhausen), 1826, Heeresgeschichtliches Museum, Vienna.
  • Die Waldburg mit Blick auf den Bodensee (Waldburg Overlooking the Bodensee), c.1836, Braith-Mali Museum, Biberach an der Riß
  • Die Gefangennahme der Räuber (Rosenbergerbande) (Capturing the Robbers), 1822, Gouache, private collection

Writings
  • Aus der Räuber- und Franzosenzeit Schwabens. Die Erinnerungen des schwäbischen Malers aus den Jahren 1780-1840. (Memoirs) Reissued by Max Zengerle. Weißenhorn: Anton H. Konrad Verlag, 1974, ISBN 3-87437-113-1

References
  1. Paul Beck (1887), "Pflug, Johann Baptist", Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (ADB) (in German), 25, Leipzig: Duncker & Humblot, pp. 678–688
  2. Idis B. Hartmann (2001), "Pflug, Johann Baptist", Neue Deutsche Biographie (NDB) (in German), 20, Berlin: Duncker & Humblot, pp. 357–358; (full text online)

Further reading
  • Gabriele Brugger: Lebensweisen – Genremalerei von J.B. Kirner und J.B. Pflug. (Exhibition Catalog), Kunstmuseum Hohenkarpfen, Beuroner Kunstverlag, Beuron, 2004, ISBN 3-930569-27-2
  • Idis B. Hartmann: Johann Baptist Pflug (1785-1866) Gemälde und Zeichnungen. Biberach, 1985, ISBN 3-924489-30-0
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