Architect and Painter Leo von Klenze (1784 - 1864)

Hey everyone, first of all I would like to welcome you to my new post and hope you had a great start to the new week so far! In this article I would like to talk about art history and present an influential personality and I am happy if you can learn new things.

You can see here an authentic work of art by the German painter and architect Leo von Klenze (1784 - 1864) which is supposed to represent the Acropolis in Greece and the artist was inspired by it when he was in Athens to study the buildings in more detail. The term Acropolis comes from ancient Greece and can also be used as a definition for a mountain on which once a castle stood and the Acropolis in Athens is probably one of the best known in the world and was also even declared during the 20th century as a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The history of these buildings goes back thousands of years and is closely connected to mythology and there are even traces that people could already have lived there in the Stone Age and later it was also the seat of some kings and later it was also seen as the place of the gods from mythology like the goddess of wisdom Athena who is said to have lived there. Klenze was in Athens for a few years during his lifetime and was not only inspired for his own works, but even participated in some designs of buildings of the city itself and it was one of the places that opened many paths and should inspire him in many ways.

With his architectural works he was fascinated by the era of classicism and he was already inspired early in his youth by the passion to become an architect and he decided at the age of 16 to go to the city of Berlin to start a study there in which he focussed fully on architecture. In his painting, he also focussed mainly on the representation of buildings from ancient times and his career as an artist was supposed to pick up speed when he was discovered by the former King of Bavaria Ludwig I (1786 - 1868) who was so fascinated by his work that he had decided to bring him to his court and let him work as an architect. The ideology of Ludwig I was to make Munich a magnificent metropolis, which is why Klenze was chosen to design some works for him and he designed buildings there such as the Pinakothek, Monopteros in the english garden or the Glyptothek and he was also active in Russia where he had designed the well-known New Hermitage in the city of St. Petersburg, which was built at the request of Catherine the Great (1729 - 1796).

Many thanks for stopping by and I hope you could learn something new about art! I captured these pictures with my Camera Sony Alpha 6000 plus 55-210 mm lens.