(1808-1885), German painter and Illustrator

Carl Spitzweg was one of the most important artists of the Biedermeier. He created numerous images, oil studies, drawings and watercolours, whose strange, bizarre spun charm has made him the most popular representatives of the bourgeois genre and landscape painting in southern Germany.

Spitzweg was born into a wealthy merchant family in Munich and first successfully completed a scientific study. A disease led him to decide to become a painter. He continued his education and soon found himself connecting with other colleagues from the Munich School painters such as Moritz von Schwind.

Spitzweg is one of the great German painters and draftsmen of the 19th century. His most famous pictures like "The poor poet", the "Bookworm" or the "perpetual suitor" show nerds of bourgeois society, indulge their hobby horses, always lovingly and told with a wink.

He became one of Germany's most popular artists. He chose very small formats and described the character with accurate and precise detail in their respective milieu. So he reached a satirical exaggeration of the types, ranging to the grotesque. In his last work he put more emphasis to spontaneous, sketchy, moving what his landscapes is especially visible.

From the history of art he was only discovered in 1900, all his life he was never as famous as other contemporary painters.

Giclée = derived from the French verb gicler meaning "to squirt, spray".

Giclée method is a digital printing process. It is a high-resolution, large-format printout on an inkjet printer with special different coloured or pigment-based inks (usually six to twelve). The colours are light-fast, that is, resistant to harmful UV light. They have a high richness of nuance, contrast and saturation.

The Giclée process is suitable for real art canvas, handmade and watercolor paper and for silk.

Representation of typical scenes of daily life in painting, which can distinguish between peasant, bourgeois and courtly themes.

The genre reached its peak and immense popularity in the Dutch painting of the 17th century. In the 18th century, especially in France, the courtly and gallant painting comes to the fore while in Germany the bourgeois character was emphasised.

Art and culture in the period from 1815 to approx. 1860, between romanticism and realism in German-speaking countries. The epoch took its name from the weekly "Fliegende Blätter", where the poems by Swabian schoolteacher Gottlieb Biedermaier were regularly published between 1855 and 1857.

The painting of this period was determined by intimate, comfortable motifs. The masters of Biedermeier style were Carl Spitzweg, J. P. Hasenclever, G. F. Kersting among others. Ludwig Richter distinguished himself as an excellent illustrator.

After the German Centennial Exhibition 1906 in Berlin, the term "Biedermeier" established to describe fashion and simple, no-frills but high quality furniture.