(Kleinbardorf, 6.9.1738 - Ljubljana, 2.5.1817)
Janez Andrej Herrlein was a German painter and art teacher who lived and worked in the 18th century. Very little is known about the artist himself until 1963. At that time, he bought a house in Karlovac, and soon after moved to Dolenjska. In 1778, Herrlein came to Ljubljana.
There, he taught drawing at the normal school until his retirement in 1804. During this time, the capital was undergoing numerous architectural projects of the Baroque period. New buildings were being built, so a wide variety of important people from all over the Austrian Empire came to it. In order to immortalize their visit to the city, they often took with them a portrait or landscape that reminded them of their trip to the city. During this time, Herrlein received quite a few orders, which enabled him to live a decent life in the capital. In terms of the number of works, he is one of the main portraitists who worked in Slovenia at the end of the 18th and beginning of the 19th centuries.
He painted one of the most famous depictions for the Primic family, in which he depicted his younger brother in addition to Julia. The bourgeois family was considered respectable and highly respected and could easily afford a high-quality artistic portrait from the aforementioned painter. He often painted for churches, so his oeuvre also includes quite a few motifs with religious themes, as well as some landscapes and views of the surrounding area. From time to time, he also took on more monumental projects. One such is the painting of the Gruber Palace. In style, he remained committed to the late Baroque tradition, although his portraits already point towards the bourgeois tradition of the 19th century.
Herrlein is considered a good draftsman who did not experiment excessively with color. In his images, we find some characteristic Baroque contrasts between light and dark, that is, between emphasized and unemphasized, which he used in almost all of his works. In this way, the artists emphasized plasticity and introduced new drama into the paintings. Herrlein came to Slovenia as an already established artist, who brought some of the late classicism and more serious aesthetics from the German regions. His works are present in numerous reputable institutions across Slovenia, but they can also be found in smaller private collectors.
His oeuvre includes an extensive collection of altarpieces, genre motifs and histories. In addition to painting, he also had a passion for hunting and shooting. He is one of the main members of the Ljubljana Shooting Society, for which he painted quite a few targets, and one of the founding members of the Ljubljana Philharmonic Orchestra in 1794.
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Janez Andrej Herrlein je bil nemški slikar in učitelj likovnega pouka, ki je živel in deloval v 18 stoletju. O samem umetniku je do leta 1963 znanega zelo malo. Tedaj je kupil hišo v Karlovcu, kmalu za tem pa se je preselil na Dolenjsko. Leta 1778 je Herrlein prišel v Ljubljano.
Tam je na normalki poučeval risanje vse do upokojitve, leta 1804. V tem času je bilo glavno mesto podvrženo številnim arhitekturnim projektom baročnega časa. Nastajale so nove gradnje, zato so v njo prihajali najrazličnejši pomembneži iz vseh koncev Avstrijskega cesarstva. Da bi ovekovečili obisk mesta so s seboj večkrat odnesli kakšen portret ali krajino, ki jih je spomnila na pot v mesto. V tem času je Herrlein prejel kar dosti naročil, ki so mu omogočila dostojno bivanje v prestolnici. Po številu del sodi med poglavitne portretiste, ki so na Slovenskem delovali konec 18. in v začetku 19. stoletja.
Eno najbolj slavnih upodobitev je naslikal za družino Primic, na katerem je poleg Julije upodobil še mlajšega bratca. Meščanska rodbina je veljala za ugledno in izredno cenjeno in si je brez težav privoščila kakovosten umetniški portret pri omenjenem slikarju. Pogosto je slikal tudi za cerkve, zato v njegovem opusu najdemo tudi kar nekaj motivov z versko tematiko, nekaj pa je tudi krajin in vedut iz okolice. Od časa do časa se je lotil tudi bolj monumentalnih projektov. Eden takšnih je poslikava Gruberjeve palače. V slogu je ostal zavezan poznobaročni tradiciji pa čeprav njegovi portreti že kažejo proti meščanski tradiciji 19. stoletja.
Herrlein velja za dobrega risarja, ki ni pretirano eksperimentiral v koloritu. V njegovih podobah najdemo nekaj značilnih baročnih kontrastov med svetlobo in temo torej med poudarjenim in nepoudarjenim, ki jih je uporabil skoraj da pri vseh delih. S tem so umetniki poudaril plastičnost in v slike vnesli novo dramatiko. Na slovensko je Herrlein prišel kot že izoblikovan umetnik, ki je iz nemških regij prinesel nekaj pozne klasike in resnejše estetike. Njegova dela so prisotna v številnih uglednih institucijah po Sloveniji, najdemo pa jih tudi pri manjših zasebnih zbirateljih.
V njegovem opusu je obsežna zbirka oltarnih pall, žanrskih motivov in historij. Poleg slikanja je gojil strast tudi do lova in streljanja. Je eden glavnih članov Ljubljanskega strelskega društva, za katero je naslikal kar dosti tarč in eden od ustanovnih članov Ljubljanske Filharmonije, leta 1794.
Besedilo je za galerijo Porta Alpina pripravila Pia Župevec, dipl. um. zgod.
The text was prepared for the Porta Alpina gallery by Pia Župevec, B.Sc. art history
SOURCES/VIRI:
- Viktor STESKA, s. v. Janez Andrej Herrlein (1738-1817), Slovenska biografija, 2013, https://www.slovenska-biografija.si/oseba/sbi230858/ (12.7.2025).
- Baročni slikar Andrej Herrlein (1738-1817), https://mgml.si/sl/mestni-muzej/razstave/500/barocni-slikar-andrej-herrlein-17381817/ (12.5.2025).
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