The Encyclopedia Americana (1920)/Schadow, Johann Gottfried

SCHADOW, shä'dō, Johann Gottfried, German sculptor: b. Berlin, 20 May 1764; d. there, 27 Jan. 1850. After many vain struggles to become an artist, he was admitted to the studio of the sculptor Tassaert and thus at length succeeded in devoting himself to his chosen art. Soon afterward he ran off with his sweetheart to Vienna, and there married her; and then, at the expense of his father-in-law, went to Italy, where he wrought with unwearied diligence from 1785 to 1787 in the museum of the Vatican and of the Capitol, winning a prize by his group ‘Perseus and Andromeda.’ In 1788 he obtained the position in Berlin which had become vacant by the death of his teacher Tassaert. His first great work was the monument erected in the Church of Saint Dorothea, Berlin, to the memory of the margrave, natural son of Friedrich Wilhelm II. This was followed by the colossal statue of Ziethen in hussar uniform; the statue of Frederick the Great in Stettin; of Leopold of Dessau in Berlin; of Blücher in Rostock; the Tauenzien monument in Breslau; Luther's in Wittenberg, etc. The four-horse chariot of Victory, over the new Brandenburg Gate of Berlin, was modeled by Schadow. Schadow executed many busts of his eminent countrymen and numerous relievos and statuettes. In 1788 he was made rector and in 1822 director of the Academy of Art in Berlin, a position which he retained until his death. He was one of the first of the modern sculptors who dared to withstand the fantastic mannerism of the 18th century for which he substituted a powerful representation of character based on a study of the antique. His most eminent pupil in this respect is Rauch; among his other pupils may be named Dannecker, Tieck and Zauner. His chief literary works are ‘Wittenberg Denkmäler der Bildnerei, Baukunst und Malerei, mit historischen und artistischen Erläuterungen’ (1825); ‘Polyklet, oder von den Massen des Menschen nach dem Geschlechte und Alter’ (1834); ‘National-physiognomien, oder Beobachtungen über den Unterschied der Gesichtszüge und die äussere Gestaltung des menschlichen Kopfs, in Umrissen bildlich darftestellt’ (1835); ‘Kunstwerke und Kunstansichten’ (1849). Consult Dobbert, ‘Gottfried Schadow’ (1887).