The Austrian painter and educator, is one of the foremost writers of the Biedermeier period. Adalbert Stifter devoted himself – except next to some decadent early poems – only the prose. His first tales in the work volume “Studies” (1844-1850) established his reputation as a writer. His novels design a contemporary counterpart to the present, in which among other things, a perfect world or a large international community, articulated as a utopian rejoinder to the collapse of the existing order. Stifter was a master of the poetic realism in the descriptions of nature …
Adalbert Stifter was the son of a poor linen weaver and flax merchant, on 23 Born October 1805 in the Bohemian High plot.
His father died when donor was 12 years ancient. He was raised by his grandparents, who also allowed him to attend high school in the Benedictine Abbey of Kremsmünster in the years 1818 to 1826. With graduation he studied law in Vienna in 1826. He broke off his studies and worked beside the Zeichnerei and painting with arithmetic, knowledge and literature. Founders showed much talent as a painter. To earn his living, he taught as a tutor noble sons. In 1843 he still had the son of the Austrian State Chancellor Prince Metternich as a student. In 1837 he married the milliner Amalie Mohaupt. The couple took the two foster daughters, Josephine and Juliane on themselves.
Already with his first tales in the volume “studies” Founder had success, and the acquaintance with the Prague publisher Gustav Heckenast improved its financial situation. In 1848 he went to Linz. Donor was a friend of revolutionary thoughts. But he changed his mind and published in Linz compliant government posts. Two years later he became inspector and 1853 state conservator for High Austria. The school handing out pursued its goal founder, “to benefit humanity and donate for school.” But the realization of this undertaking proved to be hard, as small space was given to him for it. End of the 1850s, the poet fell ill, he suffered increasingly from nervous disorders and liver cirrhosis. During this time, 1858, the foster daughter Josephine died of tuberculosis, and foster daughter Juliane year committed suicide out into the Danube.
Stifter’s health deteriorated further, even different treatments brought no lasting benefit. In 1865 he went into retirement as a Councillor. Donor was exclusively in the report at home, except on a few poems written in the early decadent style. His first small tales than novels he collected in the work volume “studies” from 1844 to 1850. This title such as “Abdias” are “The heath village”, “The High Forest,” “The Narrenburg”, “Brigitta”, “The Condor”, “Field Flowers”, “The High Forest,” “Two Sisters” and “Off the Map My fantastic-grandfather, “summarized. Already the technology based on the romance title signals the founder of literary experimentation and experimentation, yet he had been so excellent results.
The tales are based on different models and types, first to Jean Paul and ETA Hoffmann as romantics, in the Biedermeier Franz Grillparzer and later to the classic Johann Wolfgang von Goethe and others. Its theme is the upheaval in the scientific age and the human consequences. For example, “Brigitta” a report of female self-determination with social and utopian elements. In the follow-on “Coloured Pebbles” (1853) with six other tales in the donor, a new nature and of man is characterized, he justifies his extraordinary style of realistic detail in the presentation, above all in the descriptions of nature.
It is his most well-known work, are in the contain the title of “granite” (1849), “rock crystal” (1845), “Tourmaline” (1852), “Cat Silver Mountain Milk” (1843) and the Entsagungsgeschichte “limestone” (1848) . Here, as ever, he believes, that reveals itself not fantastic, but in miniature the higher order of man and nature. He calls it in the preface to “colored pebbles” that “soft law”. Founders fought for the ideals of humanism in the sense of silence and inconspicuous – so the consistent cataloging of his works, where he worked but also the tragic elements. A counter-image of the ruling also states characterized pen in his novels. The appearance of contemporary phenomena such as mass political movement or the machine age to remain in his novel works headed for the outside before.
“The Indian Summer. A narrative” (1857) is an learning history that is the highlight of his narrative art, with links to Alexander von Humboldt, Johann Gottfried Herder and Johann Wolfgang von Goethe in artistic and philosophical perspective. Already present tendencies of his time in the rift of labor and specialization is as opposed to a holistic approach, which can be achieved through education. In a utopian objective in the design and narrative will be referred back to an ideal world, which also has the helpful aesthetic standards. The historical novel “Witiko” (1865 – 1867) represents a timeless design and turns away from the collapsing order of the contemporary presence, doing a fantastic nation, nations will be summoned.
“Witiko” the establishment of the Czech state discussed in the 12th Century. Stifter’s third novel, “The My Fantastic-Grandfather” will fragment into several versions and is based on an grown-up report. On the other hand, the author brings contemporary phenomena as well as in his works in the “Wiener reports” (1844), in “Tandelmarkt” or the “winter of letters Kirchschlag” (1866) and manifests itself critical to accurate observation about them. Donors used his skills as a painter. Preferably, it represented landscapes, where he initially looked at it and the Romantics. His later pictures are regarded as precursor of Expressionism. Donors are injured in hospital bed with the razor on the neck.
Adalbert Stifter died two days later on 28 January 1868 in Linz.
