Georg Friedrich Kersting Biography | Oil Painting

Georg Friedrich Kersting family was large and poor. After working and saving a little money, he went to Denmark at the age of twenty and studied at the progressive Copenhagen Academy between 1805 and 1808 and was awarded a silver medal in draftsmanship. After finishing school, Kersting moved to Dresden in 1808, joining the Lützow Free Corps, a voluntary force of the Prussian Army, in 1813. He moved to Poland in 1814 to work as a drawing teacher, returning to Meissen four years later, where he married and had four children. That year he became the chief artist at a Biedermeier porcelain manufacturer in Meissen and remained there until life's end.

Georg Friedrich Kersting was a friend of Caspar David Friedrich, the leading German Romantic painter, his style was influenced by Friedrich, and shared his romantic attitude, but in a more subjective manner. The two friends went on many walking tours of the Riesengebirge in 1810 and during their hikes they painted many sketches from nature. He painted the staffage (people or animals in a scene) in some of Friedrich's early work, such as Morning in the Riesengebirge.

He was also a friend of the painter Louise Seidler and often served as his model. In 1813 Seidler helped Kersting send some of his works to Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Goethe was impressed and recommended that the Grand Duke Charles Augustus buy his work The Embroiderer.

Georg Friedrich Kersting's most enduring works are his figures in interiors that borrow from seventeenth-century Dutch genre painting. These works of art, all things considered, feel contemporary because of the situations depicted. The subjects are often viewed from the back, as in Friedrich's work, and the scenes provide hints of the narrative of the figure's activities. The painting On Sentry Duty depicts three Rangers, including the artist Ferdinand Hartmann and the writer Theodor Körner, who fought with Kersting and died in wars against the French.

Art Movement: Romanticism.
Artists Influencing Georg Friedrich Kersting: Caspar David Friedrich.
He Traveled To Denmark, Poland.
Artist's Biography compiled by Albert L. Mansour at The World's Artist, with text adapted from Wikipedia.