# Alexandre Calame > Mediated Wiki article. Canonical URL: https://mediated.wiki/source/Alexandre_Calame > Markdown URL: https://mediated.wiki/source/Alexandre_Calame.md > Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexandre_Calame > Source revision: 1331221426 > License: Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/) {{Short description|Swiss painter (1810–1864)}} thumb|Alexandre Calame '''Alexandre Calame''' (28 May 1810 – 19 March 1864) was a Swiss landscape painter, associated with the [Düsseldorf School](/source/D%C3%BCsseldorf_School). ==Biography== He was born in Arabie at the time belonging to [Corsier-sur-Vevey](/source/Corsier-sur-Vevey), today a part of [Vevey](/source/Vevey). He was the son of a skillful marble worker in Vevey, but because his father lost the family fortune, Calame could not concentrate on art, but rather he was forced to work in a bank from the age of 15. When his father fell from a building and then died, it was up to the young Calame to provide for his mother. thumb|left|250px|''Swiss Landscape'' (1830) In his spare time he began to practice drawing small views of Switzerland. In 1829 he met his patron, the banker Diodati, who made it possible for him to study under landscape painter [François Diday](/source/Fran%C3%A7ois_Diday). After a few months he decided to devote himself fully to art. In 1835 he began exhibiting his Swiss-Alps and forest paintings in Paris and Berlin. He became quite well known, especially in Germany, although Calame was more a drawer than an illustrator. He is associated with the [Düsseldorf school of painting](/source/D%C3%BCsseldorf_school_of_painting). In 1842 he went to Paris and displayed his works ''[Mont Blanc](/source/Mont_Blanc)'', the ''[Jungfrau](/source/Jungfrau)'', the ''[Brienzersee](/source/Brienzersee)'', the ''[Monte Rosa](/source/Monte_Rosa)'' and ''[Mont Cervin](/source/Matterhorn)''.{{citation needed|date=March 2015}} He taught in Geneva, where [Adolf Mosengel](/source/Adolf_Mosengel) was one of his pupils.{{cite news|title=Notes on Art and Archaeology|newspaper=[The Academy](/source/The_Academy_(periodical))|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=4F88AQAAIAAJ&pg=PA463|date=27 June 1885|pages=462–63}} He went to Italy in 1844 and brought back from Rome and [Naples](/source/Naples) countless paintings, among them one of the ruins of [Paestum](/source/Paestum) (in the city museum in [Leipzig](/source/Leipzig)). He showed that he was capable of understanding Italian nature; but the Alps remained his speciality. [[File:Alpine Mountain Scene by Alexandre Calame.jpg|thumb|''Alpine Mountain Scene'', [Widener University](/source/Widener_University) Art Museum [Alfred O. Deshong](/source/Alfred_O._Deshong) Collection]] The [glaciers](/source/glaciers), emerald-green, white foaming mountain water, which split the trees during the storm, and the whipped clouds, the multi-colored rocks, half masked from fog, in the rays of the gleaming sun, are those things, which he knew to be true to nature. We still call them the ''Handeckfall'' from [Bernese upper country](/source/Bernese_upper_country), in [Tirol](/source/German_Tyrol), [Lake Lucerne](/source/Lake_Lucerne), the forest tower (in the urban museum of Leipzig), the forest stream (Dresdener gallery) etc. One of his most ingenious works is the representation of the four seasons and times of the day in four landscapes, a spring morning in the south, a summer midday in the Nordic flatlands, an Autumn evening, and a winter night on a mountain. He became popular with these large works, and his popularity grew with smaller pieces and lithographies, namely 18 studies of [Lauterbrunnen](/source/Lauterbrunnen) and [Meiringen](/source/Meiringen) and the 24 sheets of Alpine passes. These were widespread in France, England, and Germany and are still today used to teach this style of painting. Calame became a correspondent of the [Royal Institute of the Netherlands](/source/Royal_Netherlands_Academy_of_Arts_and_Sciences) in 1850, he resigned the next year.{{cite web|author= |url=http://www.dwc.knaw.nl/biografie/pmknaw/?pagetype=authorDetail&aId=PE00004519 |title=A. Calame (1810 - 1864) |publisher=Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences |date= |access-date=5 October 2016}} He died in [Menton](/source/Menton), France, in 1864. thumb|250px|Alexandre Calame monument. Geneva An exhibition featuring more than thirty of Calame's paintings was held at the Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute in [Williamstown, Massachusetts](/source/Williamstown%2C_Massachusetts) in 2006. ==Selected works== [[File:Calame Lake of the four Cantons.JPG|thumb|''The Lake of the four Cantons'' (Lake Lucerne), c. 1850, [National Museum](/source/National_Museum%2C_Warsaw), [Warsaw](/source/Warsaw)]] * ''Blick von Petit Saconnex auf Genf und den Montblanc'', 1834, Leinwand, 31×44 cm. (Winterthur, Stiftung Oskar Reinhart) * ''Die Tempelruinen von Paestum'', 1847, Leinwand, 195×260 cm.(Leipzig, Museum of Art) * Oak Trees. Philadelphia Museum of Art ==References== {{Reflist}} ==External links== {{Commons category}} *{{HDS|21996}} *{{SIKART|4000036}} {{Düsseldorf school of painting}} {{Authority control}} {{DEFAULTSORT:Calame, Alexandre}} Category:1810 births Category:1864 deaths Category:Swiss landscape painters Category:Düsseldorf school of painting Category:19th-century Swiss painters Category:Swiss male painters Category:Members of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences Category:Members of the Royal Academy of Science, Letters and Fine Arts of Belgium Category:19th-century Swiss male artists --- Adapted from the Wikipedia article [Alexandre Calame](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexandre_Calame) by Wikipedia contributors ([contributor history](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexandre_Calame?action=history)). Available under [Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/). Changes may have been made.