Wilhelm Busch
Heinrich Christian Wilhelm Busch was a German humorist, poet, illustrator, and painter. He published wildly innovative illustrated tales that remain influential to this day.
Busch drew on the tropes of folk humour as well as a profound knowledge of German literature and art to satirize contemporary life, any kind of piety, Catholicism, Philistinism, religious morality, bigotry, and moral uplift.
His mastery of drawing and verse became deeply influential for future generations of comic artists and vernacular poets. Among many notable influences, The Katzenjammer Kids was inspired by Busch's Max and Moritz. Today, the Wilhelm Busch Prize and the Wilhelm Busch Museum help maintain his legacy. The 175th anniversary of his birth in 2007 was celebrated throughout Germany. Busch remains one of the most influential poets and artists in Western Europe, being called the "Forefather of Comics".
Family background
Johann Georg Kleine, Wilhelm Busch's maternal grandfather, settled in the small village of Wiedensahl, where in 1817 he bought a thatched half-timbered house where Wilhelm Busch was to be born 15 years later. Amalie Kleine, Johann's wife and Wilhelm Busch's grandmother, kept a shop where Busch's mother Henriette assisted while her two brothers attended high school. When Johann Georg Kleine died in 1820, his widow continued to run the shop with Henriette.At the age of 19 Henriette Kleine married surgeon Friedrich Wilhelm Stümpe. Henriette became widowed at the age of 26, with her three children to Stümpe dying as infants. About 1830 Friedrich Wilhelm Busch, the illegitimate son of a farmer, settled in Wiedensahl after completing a business apprenticeship in the nearby village of Loccum. He took over the Kleine shop in Wiedensahl, which he completely modernised. He married Henriette Kleine Stümpe.
Life
Childhood
Wilhelm Busch was born on 14 April 1832, the first of seven children to Henriette Kleine Stümpe and Friedrich Wilhelm Busch. His six siblings followed shortly after: Fanny, Gustav, Adolf, Otto, Anna, and Hermann ; all survived childhood. His parents were ambitious, hard-working and devout Protestants who later, despite becoming relatively prosperous, could not afford to educate all three sons. Busch's biographer Berndt W. Wessling suggested that Friedrich Wilhelm Busch invested heavily in the education of his sons partly because his own illegitimacy held significant stigma in rural areas.The young Wilhelm Busch was a tall child, with a delicate physique. The coarse boyishness of his later protagonists, "Max and Moritz" was not his own. He described himself in autobiographical sketches and letters as sensitive and timid, someone who "carefully studied fear", and who reacted with fascination, compassion, and distress when animals were killed in the autumn. He described the "transformation to sausage" as "dreadfully compelling", leaving a lasting impression; pork nauseated him throughout his life.
In the autumn of 1841, after the birth of his brother Otto, Busch's education was entrusted to the 35-year-old clergyman, Georg Kleine, his maternal uncle at Ebergötzen, where 100 children were taught within a space of. This probably through lack of space in the Busch family home, and his father's desire for a better education than the small local school could provide. The nearest convenient school was located in Bückeburg, from Wiedensahl. Kleine, with his wife Fanny Petri, lived in a rectory at Ebergötzen, while Busch was lodged with an unrelated family. Kleine and his wife were responsible and caring, exercised a substitute parental role, and provided refuge for him in future unsuccessful times.
Kleine's private lessons for Busch also were attended by Erich Bachmann, the son of a wealthy Ebergötzen miller. Both became friends, according to Busch the strongest friendship of his childhood. This friendship was echoed in the 1865 story, Max and Moritz. A small pencil portrait by the 14-year-old Busch depicted Bachmann as a chubby, confident boy, and showed similarities with Max. Busch portrayed himself with a "cowlick", in the later "Moritzian" perky style.
Kleine was a philologist, his lessons not held in contemporary language, and it is not known for certain all subjects Busch and his friend were taught. Busch did learn elementary arithmetic from his uncle, although science lessons might have been more comprehensive, as Kleine, like many other clergymen, was a beekeeper, and published essays and textbooks on the subject, – Busch demonstrated his knowledge of bee-keeping in his future stories. Drawing, and German and English poetry, were also taught by Kleine.
Busch had little contact with his natural parents during this period. At the time, the journey between Wiedensahl and Ebergötzen took three days by horse. His father visited Ebergötzen two to three times a year, while his mother stayed in Wiedensahl to look after the other children. The 12-year-old Busch visited his family once; his mother at first did not recognize him. Some Busch biographers think that this early separation from his parents, especially from his mother, resulted in his eccentric bachelorhood. In the autumn of 1846, Busch moved with the Kleines to Lüthorst, where, on 11 April 1847, he was confirmed.
Study
In September 1847 Busch began studying mechanical engineering at Hannover Polytechnic. Busch's biographers are not in agreement as to why his Hanover education ended; most believe that his father had little appreciation of his son's artistic inclination. Biographer Eva Weissweiler suspects that Kleine played a major role, and that other possible causes were Busch's friendship with an innkeeper, Brümmer, political debates in Brümmer's tavern, and Busch's reluctance to believe every word of the Bible and catechism.Busch studied for nearly four years at Hanover, despite initial difficulties in understanding the subject matter. A few months before graduation he confronted his parents with his aspiration to study at the Düsseldorf Art Academy. According to Bush's nephew Hermann Nöldeke, his mother supported this inclination. His father eventually acquiesced and Busch moved to Düsseldorf in June 1851, where, to his disappointment at not being admitted to the advanced class, he entered preparatory classes. Busch's parents had his tuition fees paid for one year, so in May 1852 he traveled to Antwerp to continue study at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts under Josephus Laurentius Dyckmans. He led his parents to believe that the academy was less regimented than Düsseldorf, and had the opportunity to study Old Masters. At Antwerp he saw for the first time paintings by Peter Paul Rubens, Adriaen Brouwer, David Teniers, and Frans Hals. The pictures aroused his interest, but made him doubt his own skills. Eventually, in 1853, after suffering heavily from typhus, he abandoned his Antwerp studies and returned penniless to Wiedensahl.
Munich
Busch was ravaged by disease, and for five months spent time painting and collecting folk tales, legends, songs, ballads, rhymes, and fragments of regional superstitions. Busch's biographer, Joseph Kraus, saw these collections as useful additions to folklore, as Busch noted the narrative background to tales and the idiosyncrasies of storytellers. Busch tried to release the collections, but as a publisher could not be found at the time, they were issued after his death. During the Nazi era Busch was known as an "ethnic seer".After Busch had spent six months with his uncle Kleine at Lüthorst, he expressed a desire to continue to study in Munich. This request caused a rift with his father who, however, eventually funded this move; – see for comparison Busch's illustrated story of Painter Klecksel. Busch's expectations of the Munich Academy of Fine Arts were not met. His life became aimless; there were occasional return visits to Lüthorst, but contact with his parents had been broken off. In 1857 and 1858, as his position seemed to be without prospects, he contemplated emigration to Brazil to keep bees. He also spearheaded the 1862 Fairytale Maskenfest, a fairytale-themed masquerade ball attended by future king Ludwig II.
Busch made contact with the artist association, Jung München, met several notable Munich artists, and wrote and provided cartoons for the Jung München newspaper. Kaspar Braun, who published the satirical newspapers, Münchener Bilderbogen and Fliegende Blätter, proposed a collaboration with Busch. This association provided Busch with sufficient funds to live. An existing self-caricature suggests that at this time he had an intense relationship with a woman from Ammerland. His courtship with a seventeen-year-old merchant's daughter, Anna Richter, whom Busch met through his brother Gustav, ended in 1862. Busch's biographer, Diers, suggests that her father probably refused to entrust his daughter to an almost unknown artist without regular income.
In his early Munich years Busch's attempts to write libretti, which are almost forgotten today, were unsuccessful. Up to 1863 he worked on two or three major works; the third was composed by Georg Kremplsetzer. Busch's Liebestreu und Grausamkeit, a romantic opera in three acts, Hansel und Gretel, and Der Vetter auf Besuch, an opera buffa of sorts, were not particularly successful. There was a dispute between Busch and Kremplsetzer during the staging of Der Vetter auf Besuch, leading to the removal of Busch's name from the production; the piece was renamed, Singspiel von Georg Kremplsetzer. However, German composer Elsa Laura Wolzogen set several of his poems to music.
In 1873 Busch returned several times to Munich, and took part in the intense life of the Munich Art Society as an escape from provincial life. In 1877, in a last attempt to be a serious artist, he took a studio in Munich. He left Munich abruptly in 1881, after he disrupted a variety show and subsequently made a scene through the effects of alcohol. The 1878 nine episode illustrated tale Eight Sheets in the Wind describes how humans behave like animals when drunk. Busch's biographer Weissweiler felt the story was only superficially funny and harmless, but was a study on addiction and its induced state of delusion.