Schwind, Moritz Von

Schwind, Moritz von (mō`rĭts fən shvĭnt), 1804–71, Austrian historical painter and illustrator of the romantic school. Best known for the imagination and strength of his draftsmanship, Schwind created a gay world of dream figures. This air of fantasy was not fully realized in the monumental frescoes commissioned by the king of Bavaria. The scenes illustrating Mozart's Zauberflöte in the Vienna Opera, however, were outstanding.

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Schwind, Moritz Von 

Born Jan. 21,1804, in Vienna; died Feb. 8, 1871, in Munich. Painter and graphic artist; representative of late romanticism in 19th-century German and Austrian art.

Schwind studied at the Vienna Academy of Arts from 1821 and at the Munich Academy of Arts under P. von Cornelius from 1828. He worked mainly in Munich after 1847. His works include genre pictures, for example, The Wedding Trip (1862); cycles of pictures and large watercolors, including Beautiful Melusine (1868–70, Gallery of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vienna); and numerous paintings and illustrations. Motifs from folktales and legends abound in these works, which are idyllic in mood but suffer from a certain measure of academism.

REFERENCE

Pommeranz-Liedtke, G. Moritz von Schwind. Leipzig, 1974.