Friedrich Jentzen

The Roman Forum
1855

Oil on canvas
117.5 x 174.5 cm

Friedrich Jentzen travelled to Italy in the summer of 1855. He was to spend many months in Rome, where the present, large-format view of the Roman Forum was executed. This impressive painting is ranked by many as his most important work.[1] The expansive view - recalling the panorama paintings so popular at the time - takes in many of the historic buildings that surround the Roman Forum. In the mid-nineteenth century, it was home to a rich collection of architecture dating from antiquity to the Baroque, all of which is minutely documented by Jentzen in the present work. Conservatorial analysis of the painting has established that he began work on it in Rome and completed it in his studio on his return to Germany. Completion of a work in the studio was common artistic practice at the time.

The artist has chosen a viewpoint below the Capitoline Hill looking across to the south-western side of the Roman Forum and along the Via Sacra to the Arch of Titus. The Temple of Saturn, the second oldest temple in Rome, is depicted at the centre. At the left edge are the three Corinthian columns of the Temple of Vespasian and Titus, the domed central section of Pietro da Cortona's SS. Luca e Martina and the Arch of Septimius Severus. The roof of the Curia Julia - in Roman times the seat of the Senate - and one of the domes of the Basilica of S. Maria Maggiore on the summit of the Esquiline Hill are glimpsed in the left distance. The Temple of Antoninus and Faustina (converted to the church of S. Lorenzo in Miranda in the eleventh century), the Temple of Romulus (Christianized and dedicated to SS. Cosma e Damiano in the sixth century) and the Basilica of Maxentius are depicted behind an avenue of elm trees. Silhouetted against the sky in front of the Coliseum is the tall campanile of the church of S. Francesca Romana (previously known as the Basilica of S. Maria Nova) and to its right, the Arch of Titus. The streets are populated by figurative staffage - peasants, beggars, monks - adding an anecdotal insight into mid nineteenth-century everyday life in Rome.

The archaeological excavations carried out in the late nineteenth century were to change the panorama of the Roman Forum as Jentzen would have known it. The thirteenth-century church of S. Maria Liberatrice, for example, which had been built on the ruins of the fifth-century church of S. Maria Antiqua, was demolished in 1901 to expose the remains of the early Christian church. Catering to the new-found interest in the antique, parts of the early Baroque buildings in the Farnese Gardens were likewise destroyed in order to reveal ancient architecture.

Jentzen has steeped the foreground of the painting in shadow to emphasize the dramatic angle of the view and the impression of perspectival space. His palette is cool and effects of shade are rendered with a bluish tinge. This creates a powerful contrast with the luminosity of the background where the architecture is bathed in the warm glow of the late afternoon sun. In the foreground, only the pediment and entablature of the Temple of Saturn catch the sun.

The patronage of the Duchess of Orléans (1814-58), Helene of Mecklenburg-Schwerin, enabled Jentzen[2] to take up his studies at the Berlin Academy of Art under Carl Wilhelm Gropius (1793-1870) and Wilhelm Krause (1803-64). He soon joined the circle of fellow-students Eduard Hildebrandt (1817-68) and Charles Hoguet (1821-70).[3] From 1841 to 1843 Jentzen studied painting at the Munich Academy.[4] From 1846 onwards he regularly contributed to exhibitions at the Dresden and Berlin academies. Unfortunately, the Duchess's plans to summon him to Paris were thwarted by the Revolution of 1848. He settled in Schwerin and took up a post as drawing teacher to the children of Grossherzog Friedrich Franz II (1823-83). Out of loyalty to his royal charges he turned down the offer of a post as professor at the Hanover Polytechnikum. In 1857 he painted a series of views of ducal residences for display in Schwerin Castle.[5] He was appointed to succeed Theodor Schloepke (1812-78) in 1876 as Court Painter to the Mecklenburg Ducal Court.

[1] See Friedrich von Boetticher, Malerwerke des neunzehnten Jahrhunderts: Beitrag zur Kunstgeschichte, I, 2, Leipzig 1941, p.641, no. 3, listed as Das Forum Romanum. 1855 in Rom gemalt.

[2] For biographical details, see Hans Vollmer (ed.), Allgemeines Lexikon der bildenden Künstler von der Antike bis zur Gegenwart, XVIII, 1925, p.522; Helmut Börsch-Supan, Die deutsche Malerei von Anton Graff bis Hans von Marées. 1760-1870, Munich 1988, p.442.

[3] See Das geistige Deutschland am Ende des XIX. Jahrhunderts: Enzyklopädie des deutschen Geisteslebens in biographischen Skizzen, I, Leipzig and Berlin 1898, p.336.

[4] Jentzen enrolled as a student of painting at the Munich Academy on 9 February 1841 (matriculation no. 3179).

[5] The following paintings by Jentzen are held at the Staatliches Museum in Schwerin: The Baroque Staircase in the Würzburg Residenz, 1878, oil on canvas, 54 x 43 cm, inv. no. G 642; Magdeburg Cathedral, oil on canvas, 128 x 100 cm, purchased directly from the artist in 1876, inv. no. G 728; Interior of Schwerin Cathedral, 1878, oil on canvas, 102 x 83 cm, inv. no. G 1492; The Collegiate Church of St. Servatius in Quedlinburg, 1847, oil on canvas, 37 x 46.5 cm, inv. no. G 1349.