Munich school

The Munich school is the realist painting culture that gathered around the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Munich in the second half of the 19th century, when the city was one of Europe's art capitals and a rival to Paris. Under Karl von Piloty the academy prized history painting executed with dark, painterly realism: solid craft, dramatic light and bravura brushwork. The label covers a wide range of pupils and hangers-on, from the uncompromising Wilhelm Leibl, who pushed past studio polish toward blunt, close looking, to Franz von Lenbach, whose dark portraits of Bismarck made him rich, and Franz Defregger's Tyrolean genre scenes. A whole generation of Greek painters - Nikolaos Gyzis, Nikiforos Lytras, Georgios Jakobides - trained in Munich and carried the manner home to modern Greece.

Defining characteristics

• Dark, warm palette with dramatic light and deep shadow
• Bravura brushwork: fluent, confident handling of paint
• Solid academic craft - firm drawing under richly modelled surfaces
• History painting, portraiture and everyday genre scenes with narrative clarity
• Psychological weight and a sombre, sober mood

Key figures

• Karl von Piloty (1826-1886) — History painter and professor who set the academy's realist course
• Wilhelm Leibl (1844-1900) — Realist who stripped the manner down to unvarnished close looking (the Leibl circle)
• Franz von Lenbach (1836-1904) — Society portraitist, the 'painter prince' known for his Bismarck portraits
• Franz Defregger (1835-1921) — Painter of sentimental Tyrolean genre scenes
• Nikolaos Gyzis (1842-1901) — Leading Greek painter of the Munich school

Example works

• Three Women in Church — Wilhelm Leibl (1878-1882)
• Seni at the Dead Body of Wallenstein — Karl von Piloty (1855)

Sources

• Munich school - Wikipedia encyclopedia
• Wilhelm Leibl - Wikipedia encyclopedia

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