Artist

(b. 1755, Prenzlau, d. 1805, Firenze)

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Details

German painter, brother of Jacob Philipp Hackert. He trained in Berlin with Friedrich Gottlieb Berger and went to Italy in 1776 at the invitation of his elder brother Philipp. Though his training was based mainly on 17th-century Dutch and Flemish art, he was soon influenced by the Neo-classical theories of Winckelmann and Mengs. His work in Rome compromises effectively between a calligraphic approach and the Romantic spirit. In fact, while faithfully rendering his brother's landscapes, he managed to infuse a new sense of nature into his engravings. He had the ability to illustrate a scene as if engraving from life rather than from a painting. Georg did most of his work in Naples, where the Bourbon court appointed him official engraver. In this position he was an upholder and propagator of Neo-classical theories, but his influence on Neapolitan engraving, especially through his renderings of his brother's great canvases of Ports of the Realm, remains to be studied. He fled Naples with his brother in 1799. //

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Category	Artists
Artists by letter	H
Artist nationality	German