A BIOGRAPHICAL DICTIONARY OF
Beus and Andromeda ; The Sacrifice of Iphigenia ;
Hercules and Cacus ; Iris at the Bath ; Cephalus and
Aurora ; The Rape of Europa ; Time discovering
Truth; after Lemoyne. Silence; L'Avengle trompe ;
after Greuze. The Fortune-teller; The Venetian
Festival; A Convoy of Equipages ; after Jratteau.
CARSTENS, AsMus Jacoi;, was an historical painter bom at Sankt Jiirgen, Schleswig, in 1754. He displayed considerable natural inclination for drawing and painting at quite an early age, and this was increased by the impression produced on Lim by the picture in the cathedral at Schleswig, painted by Juriaen Ovens, a pupil of Rembrandt. Endeavours were made to place hira with Tischbein at Cassel, but these were unsuccessful, and he was accordingly apprenticed to a wine-merchant at Eckernforde. After spending five years in that capacity, during which his leisure hours were always being devoted to drawing and portrait-painting, he went to Copenhagen in 1776, where the artistic trea- sures of the Royal Gallery made such an impression upon him that he resolved at all cost to become a painter. Ha took at once to studying the antique, not indeed by copying, but by impressing the image on his mind by contemplation, which resulted in his obtaining an extraordinary facility in drawing the round when treating the human figure. He also learnt something of anatomy, but he did not go to the Academy, as his mind already evinced some repugnance to the academical course of training, and he preferred to train himself by making his ovra attempts at composition, by books, by engravings, and by the friendly assistance of other artists. His first large work was the ' Death of .ffischylus,' soon followed by another on a larger scale, '.lEohis and Ulysses,' which was exhibited, and met with a most favourable reception. Mean- time he entered the Academy with a view to obtaining the means of visiting Italy. But this, nevertheless, seems to have been his object rather for the sake of appearances, and the obtaining it a matter of the greatest indifference to him, as he had to retire from it in consequence of having declined to receive the silver medal awarded to him, on the ground of there having been some unfair act in the way the Directorate had treated another member. In fact, he rejected with contumely proposals made to him subsequently to canvass for the great prize, which had a six years' maintenance in Italy attached to it. He then left Copenhagen to satisfy his desire of visiting Rome at the expense of his scanty savings. He started in 1783, but did not get beyond Mantua, where the paintings of Giulio Romano in the Palazzo del Te produced a profound impression upon him ; but he was compelled by lack of funds to return to Germany. He then settled in Llibeck, where he maintained himself by painting portraits. However, he had by this time seen Giulio Romano's works, Leonardo da Vinci's 'Last Supper,' and something of Swiss scenery, and his imaginative powers had thus re- ceived new ideas — ideas which he now began to express in allegories of his own, as well as in com- positions after Homer, .ffischylus, Ossian, and Klopstock.
After nearly five years spent in Liibeck he had the good fortune to make the acquaintance of a wealthy amateur, who placed him in such a position that he was able to visit Berlin in 1787. At that place, as he was following out his determination to paint no more portraits, he was at first in very straitened circumstances, until the success of a composition he exhibited, entitled ' The Fallen Angel,' a design showing extraordinary power of imagination, led to his appointment as professor at the Berlin Academy. Amongst his works at this time, next to Plato's 'Symposium,' which is one of his finest, were the 'Battle of Rossbach,' and the design for an ' Equestrian Statue of Frederick the Great.' But previously, the decoration of an apartment with mythological subjects to the order of the Minister of the day. Heinitz, had brought him to the height of his wishes. On the occasion of its being opened the artist was presented to the king, and he shortly afterwards received a stipend enabling him to visit Rome. It was in the summer of 1792 that he made the journey, halting for a month in Florence, where he produced a fine composition in his ' Battle of the Centaurs and LapithiE,' and reached Rome in September. There he studied more especially the works of Michelangelo and Raphael. His first work from his own design at Rome was the 'Argonauts and Chiron,' a work in which the purity of style and the beauty of the forms manifested the advance which he was making by sojourning at Rome. In 1795 he had a public exhibition of his works, and the judgment of con- noisseurs, who were amazed at the skill he dis- played, and at the extent of the powers of his imagination, was so favourable and so flattering that he considered he should be able to maintain himself for the future at Rome. Nor were his expectations delusive. His pictures found pur- chasers as well as admirers, and a troop of brave artists flocked round him. 'That exhibition, in fact, marks the second revival of modem art at the close of the past century.
The following two years witnessed the production of numerous masterly compositions after Lucian, Philostratus, Homer, Ossian, Sophocles, Pindar, Dante, and Goethe, as well as a series of excellent designs from the history of the Argo- nauts, and from that of (Edipus, as given by So- phocles. The last of these represented 'The Golden Age,' one of the most powerful and graceful productions of the artist's fancy. About this time he was seized with an attack in the chest, which defied all remedies, and he died at Rome in 1798.
Notwithstanding certain imperfections in his drawing and style, and in spite of the violent opposition he met with, Carstens was the founder of the new German school of painters, for which he opened the road — a road that was trodden by the foremost German artists with extraordinary success. Wachter, Kock, Schick, Genelli, and Thorwaldsen, and even the great Cornelius himself, were practically his followers. Of Carstens's works many are in private collections, the best assemblage being in the ducal cabinet at Weimar; there may be seen, amongst numerous specimens, two espe- cially deserving of notice — 'Homer before the assembled Greeks ' (engraved by E. Schaffer), and ' Megapenthes ' (engraved by Julius Thater).
CARTARO. Mario. See Kaetards.
CARTEAUX, Jean Fkan^'ois, a French general, was born at Aillevans (Haute-Saone) in 1751. He was in early life a pupil of Doyen, but is better known as a soldier than as an artist, Bonaparte having served under his orders at the siege of Toulon in 1793. He died in Paris in 1813. There is an equestrian portrait of Louis XVI. by him at Versailles.
CARTER, Ellen, whose maiden name was
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