DILLIS, Johann Georg von
(b. 1759, Grüngiebing, d. 1841, München)

Biography

German draughtsman, painter, engraver, museum director and teacher. He was the eldest son of the Elector's head forester, Wolfgang Dillis, and godson of Maximilian III Joseph, Electoral Prince of Bavaria, who paid for him to attend the Gymnasium in Munich. In 1782, after studying theology in Ingolstadt, Dillis became a pupil of Ignaz Oefele (1721-1797) and Johann Jakob Dorner the Elder (1741-1813) at the Munich Zeichnungsakademie, supporting himself by giving drawing lessons to the children of noble families. His earliest surviving drawings from the 1770s (Munich, Stadtarchiv and Stadtmuseum) show villages around Munich. This evident gift for landscape was encouraged by Benjamin Thompson, Count Rumford (1753-1814), an American who worked for the Bavarian Elector and created the Englischer Garten in Munich. He commissioned Dillis to make drawings of the most interesting areas in the Bavarian mountains (almost all Munich, Staatliche Graphische Sammlung and Schloss Nymphenburg). Through Rumford, Dillis was able to accompany Henry Temple, 2nd Viscount Palmerston, and his family to Salzburg in 1794. Following this, Dillis made the first of many journeys to Italy (1794-95).

In addition to his contact with English culture through Rumford, Dillis widened his knowledge of art on journeys to Prague, Dresden and Vienna (1792), Rome (1805) and Paris (1806).

Even though he studied theology and philosophy, Dillis was an important visual artist. As early as 1800 he was making oil sketches and watercolours from nature for private use, presaging what was to be an important 19th century art development. Although his early paintings, most specifically his Italian landscapes, still stick to late Baroque compositional schemes, he later freed himself from the guidelines of idealistic theory and painted distinctive landscapes, which were true to nature.