Jonas Umbach
German, 1624 - 1680
German painter, draughtsman and etcher. He was the son of a beltmaker in the service of the Fuggers and his year of birth is known from an inscription on an engraved portrait (1652; Hollstein) by Melchior Küsel I. His studies included years of travel in the Netherlands and north and central Italy: a drawing of Three Men and a Boy by the Fire (1645; Berlin) shows a knowledge of Dutch art, and a Roman Capriccio with Antique Circular Temple (before 1652; Augsburg, Schaezlerpal.), in charcoal on brown-tinted and oiled paper, has been accredited (Biedermann) to his stay in Italy. By 1652 he had returned to Augsburg, where in 1654 he was licensed as a painter.
Although Umbach is known to have executed several paintings, of religious subjects, such as the Death of St Benedict (1665; ex-SS Ulrich und Afra, later Augsburg Cathedral; destr. 1944), his landscape drawings are accounted the most significant part of his work. As few are dated and he used diverse techniques (though retaining characteristic lines, flourishes and washes, often replaced by hatching), no clear artistic development is apparent. His preference was principally for the format of a showpiece or miniature, using broad or sharply pointed black chalk or charcoal, sometimes on a tinted ground or even oiled paper of very uneven composition, as if he deliberately intended to use this medium as a plastic structuring; white highlighting is also used in the pen-and-ink drawings to intensify the effects of light and shadow in a sensitive way.
Convincing attributions include the Visit of St Eustace (Augsburg, Schaezlerpal.), a sketch for a round-arched altar panel executed in brown ink over black pencil, with a grey wash and white highlighting, and a Mountain Landscape with Path (Augsburg, Schaezlerpal.), a charcoal drawing on yellow-tinted paper. The latter is entirely in the style of a Romantic ideal landscape, as is his Rocky Landscape with Path and Ruin (Munich, Staatl. Graph. Samml.), executed in brown ink on blue clay-paper and reminiscent of Tobias Verhaecht. A drawing entitled In the Riess (Berlin, Kupferstichkab.) also belongs to this ‘tradition of universal landscape’ (Kuhrmann). The charcoal drawing Ascent to a City Tower (Augsburg, Schaezlerpal.) depicts in the background a Gothic mitre roof, thus revealing local architectural tradition. An Italian Landscape with Ruin (Augsburg, Schaezlerpal.) is done in charcoal on yellowish, fibrous, unusually coarse paper. The Narrow Pass with Footbridge (Augsburg, Schaezlerpal.), with concealed staffage figures, uses a similar technique on yellow clay-paper.
Diogenes (red chalk over pencil, 1658; Augsburg, Schaezlerpal.), an important drawing in that it is dated, shows the influence of Johann Heinrich Schönfeld in both style and theme: the seclusion of mankind after the horror of the Thirty Years War. Related to its technique but unusual in its composition is Susanna Bathing (Augsburg, Schaezlerpal.), after an etching by Agostino Carracci. Umbach represented a mythological theme in his red-chalk drawing Satyr in Chains with River Nymphs (1653; Augsburg, Schaezlerpal.). An important part of his oeuvre, a bundle of papers (Augsburg, Staats- & Stadtbib., on loan to Schaezlerpal.) consisting of 345 bound, small-format (110×85 mm), pen-and-ink drawings, served as designs for the Heiligem-Benedictiner Jahr (4 vols; Augsburg, 1710) by Aegidius Rambeck, representing saints surrounded by borders of maxims distributed over the year. The drawings, executed in a variety of techniques (red chalk, pencil, brown ink), clearly show the marks of tracing with sharp graphite. Those pages with an inscription are signed Jon.umbach delin, Barth.Kilian or J.G.Waldreich sculp.
The standard tally of Umbach’s etchings is now established (Thieme–Becker: Thöne) as 300. Engravers following his manner include Bartholomäus Kilian II, Philipp Andreas Kilian, Matthäus Küsel and Melchior Küsel I.
Bernt von Hagen. "Umbach, Jonas." In Grove Art Online. Oxford Art Online, http://www.oxfordartonline.com.proxy.lib.fsu.edu/subscriber/article/grove/art/T087033 (accessed April 27, 2012).
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