Cologne – The painter Johann Wilhelm Schirmer (1807-1863) is one of the most important German landscape painters of the first half of the 19th Century. Originally from Jülich, he moved to Dusseldorf in 1825 to study painting at the Kunstakademie. With the support of his teacher Wilhelm von Schadow, Schirmer succeeded in imposing landscape painting as a subject at the same Kunstakademie. So says the website of the Institute of Italian Culture in Cologne, which offers a conference dedicated to the painter on May 7th. On the one hand, the conference will provide an overview of the artistic development of Schirmer, on the other it will shed light on the work method of the artist, whose sketches and studies from nature convince even today for their extraordinary quality. At the center of the conference there is the trip Schirmer made to Italy in 1839 and 1840. (9Colonne)
