Asmus jacob carstens biography of williams
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The American Cyclopædia (1879)/Carstens, Asmus Jakob
CARSTENS, Asmus Jakob, a German painter, born at Sanct Jürgen, near Schleswig, May 10, 1754, died May 26, 1798. He was a miller's son, and had a youthful passion for painting, but was placed in a mercantile house. After quitting his master he went to Copenhagen, where he supported himself for seven years by taking portraits in red chalk, producing during the time a large historical picture, the “Death of Æschylus,” and another painting, “Æolus and Ulysses.” In 1783 he started for Rome, but his means did not permit him to go beyond Mantua, where he remained a month and then went to Lübeck, where he lived five years in obscurity. He was then introduced by the poet Overbeck to a wealthy patron, by whose aid he went to Berlin, where his “Fall of the Angels,” a colossal picture, containing over 200 figures, gained him a professorship in the academy of fine arts. Two years' labor in Berlin and a
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The New International Encyclopædia/Carstens, Asmus Jakob
CARSTENS, kär′stens, Asmus Jakob (1754-98). A German painter. He was born near Schleswig, May 10, 1754, the son of a poor miller. He was early apprenticed to a wine-merchant, but to procure a better livelihood, he combined with his efforts at trade the drawing of portraits in red chalk. It was in Copenhagen that he first attracted notice by his pictures, “The Death of Balder” and “Ulysses and Æolus.” Carstens was made a member of the Academy in Berlin and received from the Court a pension that enabled him to travel and to study the works of the masters in Dresden and Rome. His “The Argonauts with Cheiron” was painted in Italy. The Weimar Museum possesses many of his fine paintings and drawings. Among them his “Fates, Nemesis, Night, and Destiny” is a good example of his manner and style. Many of his drawings represent scenes from the ancient classic poets, as well as subjects from Dante and Shakespeare. Carstens,
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In 2019 there was a huge, and hugely popular, exhibition of Blake’s works at The Tate in London. This was something of a generational event, a rare chance to see a major exhibition of Blake’s work in the flesh. I visited several times and was moved bygd many things, but sometimes simply bygd being nära images that are such an important part of my life. Everyone judged it a success.
The new Fitzwilliam exhibition fryst vatten different in tone, an earnest ung brother to the blowsy Blake who did the Tate show. The intended effect fryst vatten not chock and awe, but rather the staging of a carefully posed challenge to the popular view of Blake as totally sui generis – as completely original as he was thoroughly idiosyncratic.
T.S. Eliot, being a jerk, but perhaps also reflecting the generally low level of understanding of Blake at the time, said Blake lacked "a ramverk of accepted and traditional ideas that would have prevented him from indulging in a philosophy of his own", a