1789-1872 Austrian Jakob Wassermann was born on March 10, 1873, in Furth, the son of a Jewish merchant. After a childhood with many restrictions, he began his career as an office clerk, in Munich and then in Freiburg. In 1898 he moved to Vienna and eventually established himself as a writer. Derivative and imitative, Wassermanns novels showed from the outset a strong dependence upon Fyodor Dostoevsky - particularly in his fondness for the psychological probing of criminals and social outcasts - as well as the influence of the master of the romantic horror and detective story, E. T. A. Hoffmann. Wassermanns first significant work is Die Juden von Zirndorf (1897, The Jews of Zirndorf), in which his deep knowledge of his own community in F??rth and Nuremberg stands him in good stead. As in many of his other works, Wassermanns preoccupation with innocence and redemption is here interleaved with a somewhat crass depiction of depravity and superstition. Der Moloch (1902) pays tribute to the contemporary literary cult of the great city (here Vienna), seen as an all-devouring monster of sin and perversion. Caspar Hauser (1908) is probably the authors best novel; the book, based on fact, deals with the case of the mute youth who appeared one day in 1828 on the streets of Nuremberg. Resemblances to Dostoevskys The Idiot may also be noted in this tale of the rejection and contamination of innate purity by corrupt society. After Caspar Hauser Wassermanns novels and short stories become increasingly preoccupied with bizarre and perverse anecdotes and intrigue, often initially drawn from biography or the newspapers. Das Gansemannchen (1915; The Goose Man) illuminates the problem involved in simultaneous cohabitation with two wives. Christian Wahnschaffe (1919) exploits the theme of the rich mans son who rejects the world to turn toward Buddhism. Der Fall Maurizius (1928, The Mauritius Case) is a type of detective novel made colorful by excursions into hypnosis but also weighed down by a tedious mass of psychological dissection. Like Honor?? de Balzac, whom he imitated, Wassermann introduces the same characters into different novels; thus Etzel Andergast (1931) is a sequel to The Mauritius Case, and its hero, Joseph Kerkhoven, reappears in Joseph Kerkhovens dritte Existenz (1934, Joseph Kerkhovens Third Existence). Wassermann is a somewhat uneven and labored writer, and he cannot in any sense be considered a stylist. His novels are often marred by diffuseness and miasmic obscurity. At the same time his extensive output is of considerable historical interest and illuminates rather well the consequences of marriage between the new depth psychology and the popular novel of sensation and crime. He died on Jan. 1, 1934, in Alt-Aussee.  Related Paintings of Jakob Alt :. | Children's Games | The Little Bullfight:'Bravo Toro' | Savoy Hotel (mk43) | Under the Hollies,Roundhay Park,Leeds | Carl Gustaf Tessin |
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Augustyn Mirys
(1700-1790) was a Polish painter.
Pietro Fragiacomo
(Pirano deIstria (Trieste), 1856 - Venice, 1922) was an Italian painter. Born at Pirano deIstria near Trieste, Fragiacomo moved with his family to Venice, where he enrolled at the Academy of Fine Arts in 1878 after a period as a worker in Treviso. He then abandoned his studies barely one year later to devote himself more freely to painting from life, often in the company of his friend the painter Giacomo Favretto. He won a bronze medal at the Universal Exhibition of 1889 in Paris and took part in the Munich International Exhibition of the same year, as well as later editions. Drawing inspiration from the Venetian lagoon and always characterised by a crepuscular sense of nature, his landscapes took on Symbolist overtones at the end of the century. He won the Prince Umberto Prize at the Milan Triennale of 1891 and was a regular participant from 1895 to 1922 at the Venice Biennale, which held a solo show of his work in 1910 and a posthumous retrospective in 1924.
De Scott Evans
1847-1898 was an American artist who worked in Indiana, Ohio and New York. He was known for portraits, still lifes, landscapes and other genres. Born in Boston, Indiana to David S. and Nancy A. (Davenport) Evans. His father was a physician. Evans changed his signature to D. Scott Evans and later to De Scott Evans. He also signed paintings with the names David Scott, S. S. David, and Stanley S. David. He attended Miami University's preparatory school in the 1860s, studying with professor Adrian Beaugureau at Miami and later in Cincinnati. In 1873, he became head of the art department at Mount Union College and after several terms there, he moved to Cleveland to teach and to paint. From Cleveland, he moved to New York. He died along with 500 other passengers and crew, including his daughters when the French steamer La Bourgogne was rammed by a sailing ship in July 1898. Though he died at sea, there is a marker for him and his daughters in the Oxford Cemetery in Oxford, Ohio.