Johann Georg Bergmüller


Johann Georg Bergmüller was a painter, particularly of frescoes, of the Baroque.

Life

Bergmüller was born in Türkheim near Buchloe and received his first artistic education at his father's cabinet making workshop. From 1702 until 1708 he was apprentice to court painter Johann Andreas Wolff in Munich. In 1711 he went on cultural journey to the Netherlands in order to broaden his horizon. He became master painter and received the citizenship of Augsburg in 1711. In the same year he married Barbara Kreutzerin with whom he had ten children, one of which, Johann Baptist Konrad Bergmüller, became a fresco painter too, and also a renowned copperplate engraver and art theorist.
Bergmüller quickly acquired a high reputation in Augsburg and created works of art, few of which have survived however. He became the most important teacher of fresco painting at the Imperial City of Augsburg Academy, founded in 1710. His style of composition and his motifs were influential on his pupils. In 1723 he published Anthropometria, a textbook on the theory of proportions. He became the Catholic director of the academy alongside his Protestant counterpart, in 1730 and remained in this function until his death in Augsburg in 1762.
His most famous pupils were Johann Georg Wolcker, Gottfried Bernhard Göz and Johann Evangelist Holzer.

Gallery

Works