Runge, Philipp Otto 1777–1810

Abstract

Philipp Otto Runge was born on July 23, 1777, the ninth of 11 children of a tradesman and cargo shipowner and his wife in Wolgast, Pomerania, on the Baltic Sea, then under Swedish rule. As a child, he was frequently ill with tuberculosis, being often educated at home. In 1795, he began a commercial apprenticeship at his older brother Daniel’s firm in Hamburg. In 1799, Daniel supported Otto financially to begin the study of painting at the Copenhagen Academy. In 1801, Otto moved to Dresden to continue his studies, where among others he met his future wife Pauline Bassenge and the painter Caspar David Friedrich. He also began to study extensively the writings of the seventeenth-century mystic Jakob Boehme. In 1803, on a visit to Weimar, Runge unexpectedly met Johann Wolfgang von Goethe and the two formed a friendship based on their common interests in color and art. After marrying Pauline in 1804, they moved to Hamburg. But due to imminent war dangers (Napoleonic siege of Hamburg) they relocated in 1805 to his parental home in Wolgast where they remained until 1807, then returning to Hamburg. Together they had four children, the last born on the day after Runge’s premature death in 1810. In March of 1810, Runge became ill with tuberculosis again to which he succumbed on December 2 of the year. Runge was of a mystical, deeply Christian turn of mind, and in his artistic work, he tried to express notions of the harmony of the universe through symbolism of color, form, and numbers. He considered blue, yellow, and red to be symbolic of the Christian trinity, equating blue with God and the night; red with morning, evening, and Jesus; and yellow with the Holy Spirit (Runge in Hinterlassene Schriften. Perthes, Hamburg, p. 17, 1841 [1]). During his short life, he became one of the most important German painters of the Romantic period.