Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume XVI.djvu/641

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WIELICZKA degree of grace and elegance to German poetry, and made it more attractive to the cultivated classes. At the same time he greatly promoted classical culture by his translations of Horace's epistles and satires, and his commentaries upon them, and by his versions of Aristophanes and his complete translation of Lucian, which served as a basis for Tooke's in English. He also composed many German imitations after Lucian, edited the Attisches Museum (1796- 1804) and the Neues Attisches Museum (jointly with others, 1805-'9), and at the time of his death had translated and annotated a large portion of Cicero's letters (5 vols., 1808-'12). His most celebrated work is the romantic poem Oberon (1780; new annotated edition by Kohler, 1868; English translation by W. Sotheby, London, 1826). His other works comprise the didactic poems Musarion (1768) and Die Grasien (1770) ; the comic poem Der netie Amadis (1771) ; the novels Geschiehte des Agathon (1766-'7) and Aristipp und einige seiner Zeitgenossen (1800-'l) ; the picture of an ideal state in Der goldene Spiegel, oder die Konige wn Scheschian (1772) ; and the humor- ous Geschichte der Abderiten (1774; English translation, " The Republic of Fools, being the History of the State and People of Abdera in Thrace," by H. Christmas, 2 vols., London, 1861). After his death were published selec- tions from his correspondence (4 vols., Zurich, 1815, and 2 vols., Vienna, 1815), and his Briefe an Sophie La, Roche (Berlin, 1820). Wieland revised his complete works (42 vols., Leipsic, 1794-1802; new eds., 50 vols., 1818-'28, 36 vols., 1839-'40, and 36 vols., Stuttgart, 1851-6). His life has been written by Gruber (4 vols., Leipsic, 1827) and Lobell (Brunswick, 1858). WIELICZRi. See SALT. WIENIAWSRI, Henri, a Polish violinist, born in Lublin, July 10, 1835. His mother was a sister of the composer Eduard Wolff, who carried him at the age of eight to Paris. He was admitted as a pupil at the conservatory in November, 1843, there receiving instruction on the violin from Clavel and Massart, obtained the first prize in 1848, and then took up the study of harmony under Colet. He appeared in concerts at 17, and has since made a reputa- tion in both hemispheres as one of the first of living violinists. He came to the United States with Rubinstein in 1872. He has com- posed much for the violin, and is now (1876) ' a professor at the conservatory in Brussels. WIERTZ, Antoine Joseph, a Belgian painter, born in Dinant, Feb. 22, 1806, died in Brus- sels, June 18, 1865. He was born of poor parents, and received no early instruction, but when only four years old he sketched with rapidity ; at the age of 10 he painted a por- trait, and at 12 engraved on wood and printed his own pictures. He went to Antwerp in 1820, and, after working for several years in poverty, finished his studies at the academy of Antwerp, under Matthew van Bree, and took the grand prize for painting. In 1834 he WIESBADEN 617 went to Rome as a pensioner of the Antwerp academy, and in 1835 sent to Antwerp hi* " Greeks and Trojans contending for the B(.<1 v of Patroclus," painted on a canvas 20 by 30 ft. This picture was sent to the Paris academy for exhibition, and was refused admission, where- upon Wiertz forged his own name on a verita- ble Rubens and sent that to Paris. This also was refused, when the artist revenged himself by writing La critique en matiere d'art, ett- elle possible ? In 1840 his filoge de Itulent received the medal offered by the Antwerp academy for the best essay on Rubens. Con- vinced that trade was death to art, he resolved never to sell any of his pictures, and only oc- casionally did he paint a portrait to procure means of subsistence. His "Patroclus" was quickly followed by "The Brigand," "The Carnival of Rome," "The Revolt of Hell against Heaven," " The Education of the Vir- gin," and " The Triumph of Christ." The last picture, which was on a canvas 50 by 80 ft., was received with so much favor that the gov- ernment built for him a large studio in Brus- sels, after designs made by him from one of the ruined temples at Psestum, on condition that he would leave his pictures to the state. Since his death this has constituted the Wiertz museum, in which all his works are exhibited. Wiertz established himself in it in 1848, and afterward painted some of his most character- istic pictures, dealing largely in the grotesque and the horrible. Among these are " Thoughts and Visions of a Head cut off," "A Second after Death," "Precipitate Inhumation," "A Scene in Hell," "The Child Burned," "Hun- ger, Folly, and Crime," and " The Birth of the Passions." He painted also "Chiist at the Tomb," " The Man of the Future regarding the Things of the Past," and " The Last Cannon," representing the triumph of civilization over war. Many of these pictures are painted in a style invented by him and named peinture mate, combining the qualities of fresco and oil colors. In 1865 a commission appointed by the Belgian government to investigate its merits reported adversely. An essay by Wiertz enti- tled Decolefamandc de peinture, was crowned by the royal academy of Belgium in 1863. He bequeathed his pictures to the nation, but did not leave money enough to pay his funeral expenses. WIESBADEN, a city of Prussia, in the province of Hesse-Nassau, formerly the capital of the duchy of Nassau, in the basin of the Salza, on the S. E. slope of the Taunus mountains, 20 m. W. by S. of Frankfort; pop. in 1871, 35,463, all Protestants excepting 7,000 Catho- lics and about 1,000 Jews. It is one of the great German watering places, and in 1875 was visited by 40,000 tourists and invalids. The Wilhelmsstrasse, half a mile long, lined with trees, leads from the railway station to the Theaterplatz, with a beautiful theatre, op- posite the Kursaal. The latter is a magnifi- cent building on the E. side of a square, the