The Encyclopedia Americana (1920)/Kopisch, August

KOPISCH, kō'pĭsh, August, German poet and painter: b. Breslau, 26 May 1799; d. Berlin, 3 Feb. 1853. He studied art in the Prague Academy (1815) and in Vienna. From 1819 to 1822 he continued painting, when an injury to his hand disabled him, and he started on travels through Italy, and in Rome and Naples applied himself to the study of local poetry and archæology. It was he who discovered the famous “Blue Grotto” or “Grotto of the Nymphs” on the island of Capri. He returned to Germany in 1828 and received the title of professor in Berlin. He removed to Potsdam in 1847 and occupied himself in writing an account of the royal castles there and in the neighborhood. Most of his pictures are mere sketches. His witty poems, clever stories and translations, including one of Dante, are all included in his ‘Gesammelte Werke’ (1856).