Hermann Wislicenus (Eisenach, 1825-1899) was a German history painter, known chiefly for the frescoes decorating the Imperial Palace at Goslar. His work belongs to the second half of the nineteenth century, as the German Empire was taking shape, and matters for how it combined history painting with the idea of an unbroken imperial rule.
He trained at the Dresden Academy of Fine Arts under Eduard Bendemann and Julius Schnorr. A stipend from the Grand Duke of Weimar took him to Rome from 1853 to 1857, where he came under the influence of Peter von Cornelius and the Nazarene movement. Back in Germany he settled in Weimar, and in 1868 he was appointed professor at the Düsseldorf Academy. A fire in 1872 destroyed several of his works, which he recreated in the following years. His paintings include The Myth of Prometheus (1862, Leipzig Museum), The Flood of Deucalion (1865, Weimar Museum) and The Four Seasons (1877, National Gallery, Berlin).
In 1877 he won the competition to decorate the restored Kaiserpfalz at Goslar. With help from some of his pupils, he completed within about twenty years a series of 68 frescoes presenting imperial power as a continuous line from Charlemagne to the Prussian-led German Empire. His programme became an example of the Romantic use of medieval traditions in the service of the identity of the Reich established in 1871.
Teachers and pupils
Studied with
- Julius Schnorr von Carolsfeld 1794–1872
- Eduard Bendemann 1811–1889