CONRAD PETER SCHREIBER (1816-1894)
Monte Pellegrino (606 m-1,988 ft)
Italy (Sicily)
In Monte Pellegrino vista on Palermo, watercolour, 1840
The mountain
Monte Pellegrino (606 m-1,988 ft) is a hill facing east on the bay of Palermo, Sicily, southern Italy, located north of the city, with panorama views of the city, its surrounding mountains and the Tyrrhenian Sea. In his book Travels in Italy, Goethe described Monte Pellegrino as " the most beautiful promontory in the world ". The mountain is home to the sanctuary of Saint Rosalia, the patron saint of Palermo and it's nowadays a natural reserve.
The painter
Peter Conrad Schreiber was a German painter. In 1835-36 he studied with the already legendary landscape painter Carl Blechen at the Berlin Academy of Arts. At the same time he belonged to the private student circle of the the representative of the Düsseldorf Landscape School, Wilhelm Schirmer who "inoculated the yearning for Italy" which was to determine his later major work.
From autumn 1837 Schreiber studied in Munich. In Munich, he was particularly impressed by the works of Carl Rottmann. He undertook study trips to Salzburg and Tyrol having contact with many young painters.
In 1839 Schreiber moved to Rome into an apartment in Via della Vite 107, near the Basilica of San Lorenzo in Lucina. From here he undertook numerous study trips. In the summer of 1840, for instance, with Johann Wilhelm Schirmer and Bernhard Fries in the Sabine mountains. The undeveloped Campagna Romana in the south of Rome was for him landscaped "the most beautiful thing there can be." At the end of his stay in Italy in 1841, he was an eyewitness to the famous eruption of Mount Vesuvius, which deeply impressed him and influenced as much as other impressions of Italy's life's work decisively.
Schreiber was a typical representative of Romanticism to late romanticism. Against the backdrop of nature, which at times is mystical and fantastically exaggerated, Schreiber's work and his work seem small and insignificant. In doing so, he fulfills the need for an emotional balance to the rapidly advancing industrialization - the yearning for the grandeur and eternal grandeur of nature, which should give its foothold.
He had a good clientele until the end of his life. He was not only a landscape painter appreciated in Germany. From a letter written by Ferdinand Bellermann, we also know that Schreiber "always had many orders to London and Paris".
