Asmus jacob carstens biography of michaels

German painter

Asmus Jacob Carstens (or "Jakob", May 10, 1754 – May 25, 1798) was a Danish-Germanpainter, one of the most committed artists of German Neoclassicism.

His career was erratic, partly because of his difficult personality, and the majority of his large projects were left incomplete, or subsequently destroyed. Much of what survives is in the form of drawings, many using "a schematic, pale colouring as a timid and humble accessory to the dominating figure-drawing", that were planned for large fresco commissions that never materialized.^[1]

Biography

He was born in Sanct Jürgen near Schleswig to a miller.

At the time this was part of Denmark–Norway. He had a youthful passion for painting, but was apprenticed to a cooper (barrel-maker) for five years. After quitting his master in 1776, he went to Copenhagen, where he studied at the academy and supported himself for seven years by drawing portraits in red chalk, producin