Family and Portraits

Clara’s Environment
Two sources fed Clara von Rappard’s environment.On the one hand, her mother, Albertine von Rappard, and her aunts, Luise Löwe and Juliane Günther-Engell, helped her to a higher education and to appreciate women’s emancipation. They directed the young painter to an independant and self-confident existence in the world of arts.

On the other hand, Conrad von Rappard bestowed a firm democratic conviction on his daughter. In 1848 he had taken part in the liberal-left party «Westendhalle», which he represented at the Frankfurter Parlament. He was one of a group of deputies which wanted to nominate Friedrich Wilhelm IV as the people’s emperor. In 1849 he remained in the «Rumpfparlament». He was accused of treason, he received an arrest-warrent and a death-sentence, and he had to escape to Switzerland by way of Paris. Together with the like-minded Heinrich Simon he bought an estate in Zurich, Mariafeld, and turnd to microscopy. He remained faithful to his political convictions, he kept in contact with his fellow revolutionists, and he got acquainted with the Bernese Carl Hilty, author and specialist of constitutional law. In 1871 Wilhelm I pardoned Conrad von Rappard and granted him a seat in the Prussian Reichstag.

Clara von Rappard did numerous portraits of her mother and aunts, her father and his fellow combatants. After 1876/77 she specialized, only 20 years old, in portraits, which she further studied in Carl Gussow’s ladies’ class. He taught her the technique of capturing directly her models’ appearance withought first sketching them. Once more, in the 1880’s, she studied anatomy with Johann Christoph Roth, a sculptor in Munich. Many portraits in charcoal and oil of near life-size or even slightly bigger were produced in quick succession, with great plastic effect. The painter was not interested in idealizing or aesthetisizing her objects, she generally strove to represent character and emotion in individuals. Her portrait-style developed from pictures of one person to groups of figures in the changing of light and shadow.

The Scheffel Pavillon

Joseph Viktor von Scheffel
This pavillon is dedicated to Joseph Viktor von Scheffel. In the 19th c. he was a much read author of some renown.

His Life
Scheffel was born in Karlsruhe on 16th January 1826. He grew up in Karlsruhe, a son of a major and director of works. He studied law at the University of Heidelberg at his father’s wish from 1843 to 1847, later he studied in Munich and Berlin. He also read German philology and literature.

The financial situation of his family permitted the young man to follow his artistic tastes.

To test his talent as a landscape painter he travelled to Rome in 1852 where he realized his talent as a poet. Soon after his «Trumpeter of Säckingen» was published, followed by «Ekkehard», based on the life of the St. Gall monk Ekkehard II.
From 1857 to 1859 he was librarian in Donaueschingen, then in 1863 in Meersburg at Baron von Lassberg’s and afterwards on the Wartburg at Granduke von Sachsen-Weimar’s, where in 1865 he became a Saxon counsellor. From 1872 onwards he was ill and lived at Mettnau. He died on 9th April 1886 in Karlsruhe.

About Switzerland
On his travels Scheffel also visited Switzerland and the Bernese Oberland. In his Account on Western Switzerland there is the following passage: «Concerning Switzerland, culture rather stops at the Kander Valley. And as I arrived in Kandersteg with my friend Martinus, the stone-mason of Delsberg, whereto our mischievous host in his yellow Camelot coat had taken us on his carriage at night without any charge, only to catch us as unwilling guests in his mouse-trap – (N.B. as we went uphill, this charity consisted in walking by the carriage) – I said to Martino the stone-mason: In this dive I shall not stay overnight.»

Excerpt from a poem

On Entering the Wood
Happy now, I reach the forest high,
What joy to walk through it,
Its fragrant smell does fill my lungs,
which, breathing high, do swell my breast!
Low brush and creeping stuff,
Remain below and try as it may!
The forest, strong limbed, looms up, defying storms,
Where now I enter, filled with awe
Like one approaching an assembly
Of all the country’s best.