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Anton Ažbe (30 May 1862 – 5 or 6 August 1905) was a Slovene realist painter and teacher of painting. Ažbe, crippled since birth and orphaned at the age of 8, learned painting as an apprentice to Janež Wolf and at the Academies in Vienna and Munich. At the age of 30 Ažbe founded his own school of painting in Munich that became a popular attraction for Eastern European students. Ažbe trained the "big four" Slovenian impressionists (Rihard Jakopič, Ivan Grohar, Matej Sternen, Matija Jama) and a whole generation of Russian painters (Ivan Bilibin, Mstislav Dobuzhinsky, Igor Grabar, Wassily Kandinsky, Dmitry Kardovsky and Kuzma Petrov-Vodkin, to name a few).〔Baranovsky and Khlebnikova provide 42 biographical entries for the Russian alumni of Ažbe school and 42 entries for their own trainees.〕 Ažbe's training methods were adopted and reused by Russian artists both at home (Grabar, Kardovsky) and in emigration (Bilibin, Dobuzhinsky).〔Baranovsky and Khlebnikova, p. 9.〕 Ažbe's own undisputed artistic legacy is limited to twenty-six graphic works, including classroom studies, most of them at the National Gallery of Slovenia.〔Only three works are on permanent display – Baranovsky and Khlebnikova, p. 36.〕 His long-planned masterpieces never materialized and, according to Peter Selz, he "never came into his own as an artist".〔Selz, p. 176〕 His enigmatic personality blended together alcoholism, chain smoking, bitter loneliness, minimalistic simple living in private, and eccentric behaviour in public.〔Baranovsky and Khlebnikova, p. 8.〕 A public scarecrow and a bohemian socialite, Ažbe protected his personal secrets till the end, a mystery even to his students and fellow teachers. The public transformed the circumstances of his untimely death from cancer into an urban legend.〔 ==Biography== Twins Alois and Anton Ažbe were born in a peasant family in the Carniolan village of Dolenčice near Škofja Loka in the Austrian Empire (today, in Slovenia). Their father died of familial tuberculosis at the age of 40, when the boys were seven years old.〔Baranovsky and Khlebnikova, p. 11.〕 Mother lapsed into a severe mental distress (there is unreliable evidence that she later committed suicide) and the boys were placed into foster care.〔 By this time it was evident that while Alois developed normally, Anton suffered serious congenital health problems: he lagged in physical growth, his legs were weak and his spine deformed.〔 His legal guardian reasoned that Anton was not fit for farm work; after completing an elementary school he sent Anton to "study commerce" in Klagenfurt.〔 After five years of living and working at a grocery store Ažbe ran away from Klagenfurt to Ljubljana.〔 At some point in the late 1870s he met Janez Wolf, a Slovenian painter associated with the Nazarene movement who handled numerous church mural commissions.〔Baranovsky and Khlebnikova, p. 12.〕 Little is known about Ažbe's experience with Wolf, apart from the facts that in 1880 Ažbe assisted Wolf with the frescoes of the Zagorje ob Savi church and, in 1882, with the facade of the Franciscan Church of the Annunciation in Ljubljana.〔 In the same year Wolf helped Ažbe with admission to the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna, where Anton studied for two years.〔 He was dissatisfied with outdated, uninspiring Viennese training and barely made passing grades. In 1884 he relocated to the Academy of Fine Arts in Munich, then a "liberal" and "modern" school as opposed to the conservative Viennese Academy.〔Baranovsky and Khlebnikova, p. 14.〕 There he made a superb impression on his teachers Gabriel Hackl and Ludwig von Löfftz and earned a free scholarship.〔 To make a living, Ažbe teamed up with Ferdo Vesel, selling classroom works and run-of-the-mill kitsch scenes to wholesale dealers.〔 Half of Ažbe's surviving legacy dates back to the Munich Academy years; by the end of this period he was recognized as a professional portrait painter and was regularly exhibited in the Glaspalast.〔 Wolf died in bitter poverty in 1884; later, Ažbe frequently spoke that shortly before death (rendered by Ažbe in chilling detail) Wolf dictated to him his last will – that he, Ažbe, must train a successor of Wolf's art, an ethnic Slovene who would surpass his seniors and strike the world with his genius.〔 The free-of-charge training should last no less than eight years.〔Baranovsky and Khlebnikova, p. 13.〕 For this purpose, said Ažbe, Wolf entrusted Ažbe with the "secret" of his art. It is not clear how much of the "Wolf's myth" is real; the "great Slovene painter" did not emerge and Ažbe complained that all Slovene students, apart from faithful Matej Sternen, were leaving the school too early, preferring absolute freedom to the benefits of professional training.〔 In 1892 Vesel and Rihard Jakopič offered Ažbe the informal job of examining and correcting the students' paintings.〔Baranovsky and Khlebnikova, p. 15.〕 The seven clients rented a study room and paid Ažbe for fixing their homework. Two months later, an inflow of new clients allowed Ažbe to rent his own premises, starting the Ažbe School.〔 After a brief stay on Türkenstrasse the school relocated to its permanent base at 16, Georgenstrasse in Schwabing (the building was destroyed by an allied air raid in July 1944).〔〔 Later Ažbe rented another building for the school classes and moved into his private workshop (also in Georgenstrasse).〔Baranovsky and Khlebnikova, p. 37.〕 The school was never short of students, with a normal complement reaching 80.〔 The total number of Ažbe alumni stands at around 150.〔Baranovsky and Khlebnikova, p. 38.〕 Some, notably Alexej von Jawlensky, Matej Sternen and Marianne von Werefkin attended the school for nearly a decade. Ažbe remained the sole instructor, except for a brief period in 1899–1900 when he hired Igor Grabar as an assistant.〔Baranovsky and Khlebnikova, p. 43.〕 Long-established competitors, the Munich Academy and the Imperial Academy of Arts in Saint Petersburg, recognized Ažbe school and recommended it as a preparatory or "refreshment" course.〔 In 1904 Ažbe, a lifelong smoker, developed throat cancer and by the spring of 1905 he could hardly swallow food.〔Baranovsky and Khlebnikova, p. 19.〕 Matej Sternen noted that the feeling of near death was obvious to all witnesses.〔 Ažbe agreed to a surgery that passed without immediate complications, but on August 5 or 6, 1905 Ažbe died.〔 The public transformed a sad but ordinary and expected event into a melodramatic urban legend. Leonhard Frank, who studied with Ažbe in 1904,〔Heisserer, p. 189〕 reproduced the legend in ''Links, wo das Herz ist'' (1952): "Nobody ever saw his paintings. Nobody knew if he ever painted at all. Nobody knew his past. One chilly December night, intoxicated with cognac, he fell asleep in the snow. He was found dead in the morning. Nobody knew where he had come from."〔Citing Russian translation in Baranovsky and Khlebnikova, p. 19.〕 A similar story was retold by Mikhail Shemyakin.〔 The school of Anton Ažbe survived its founder and existed until the onset of World War I.〔Baranovsky and Khlebnikova, p. 91.〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Anton Ažbe」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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