written by his daughter Helene von Bochmann (when?); and brought into the web format by Gregor v. Bochmann, September 2000
Adolescence
My father, Gregor von Bochmann, was born on June 1st, 1850 on the Nehat estate near Hapsal in Estonia. He was a German-Baltic like the two important artists Eduard von Gebhardt and Eugen Dücker, who also attended the Art Academy in Düsseldorf and later took up residence there, the artistic "triumvirate from the Baltic region", as they were called.
My grandfather Jakob, Alexander von Bochmann, was the Imperial Russian captain of the ranger corps and auditor of the imperial domain of the Estonian governorate. He took part in the Crimean War as a colonel and was ennobled by the tsar for his services. He also received the Teibel forester's lodge near Hapsal as a gift from the Tsar. My father spent his youth there. (here is a map of the area around Hapsalu , here an excerpt around Nehatu )
My father’s two stepbrothers come from my grandfather’s first marriage. After the death of the first wife, my grandfather married the daughter of a Baltic doctor, born in the Black Forest. The doctor and his wife died in their profession during a cholera epidemic. Her little one and a half year old daughter was adopted by a Fraulein von Middendorf, who always remained the "grandmother" of the Bochmann children. My father lost his mother when he was five years old. Besides the mentioned stepbrothers there was a younger brother and a little sister. (see photo album )
Gregor was a lively, always very observant child. As a forest guardian, my grandfather had to make long trips across the country and probably stayed away from home for days. He often took the boy with him who began to draw the country and people of his homeland at an early age. In the evening the vehicle was unhitched in the rural "jugs", Estonian inns, and spent the night there. The pictures of his homeland mostly show such a white painted jug , surrounded by the slender birch, which has always been my father's favorite tree and which stands so beautifully in the blue sky in almost all of his Estonian pictures. The original draw well , which is in front of every pitcher, and the Russian troika are also characteristic of his work, a three-horse team that usually rushes wildly along the poor sandy roads. From the time up to the age of eight we have a booklet with drawings, which are drawn from memory and show his great talent. They were intended for cousins to play with and were fortunately kept by an understanding aunt, and that is how they stayed with us. (see for example B0236 and B0237 )
Father spent his school days at the high school in Reval ( Reval - Tallinn today ) . It was there that his drawing teacher Sprengel, who himself had studied in Petersburg and Düsseldorf, recognized his great talent. He advised my grandfather to send his son to the art academy in Düsseldorf and, since the funds for studying abroad were insufficient, he got him an Estonian foundation, which the wealthy nobility had abandoned for great talent. In 1868, when he was 18, father came to Düsseldorf via Stettin, where he was amazed to board the train for the first time.
At the academy he completed the drawing class in a short time and then he worked for half a year in Oswald Achenbach's landscape class, who then said goodbye. Besides, he did not owe much to the instruction of other artists. He continued his education through observation and his own work, and his strong sense of home gave his art a healthy foundation. In Dusseldorf he frequented Karl Seibels from Cologne, Robert Meyerheim from Danzig, Hans Peter Feddersen from Schleswig-Holstein and Hugo Dernaut from Vienna. But even these friends had little influence on his artistic development. He received new impressions on repeated trips to Holland, where he found excellent motifs for his later pictures. Other study trips went to Belgium and Rügen.
My father always lived with the same family until his marriage in 1877. However, the couple always moved on May 1st. That day my father was told in the morning, before he went to the studio, that he would find his things in another house in the evening. So he got to know the most diverse areas of what was then the "village and the Düssel".
In Reval his family waited with great interest for the news from the young artist. The following letter from his drawing teacher gives an answer to his reports:
Reval, October 20, 1868.
My dear Bochmann!
First of all, I would like to thank you for your letter, which your father and I were longing for.
Thank God that you have now reached your destination safe and secure and that you have already found friendliness and participation there in old, good, and dear to me Düsseldorf. So you have now taken the first important step, which is decisive for the future, and that your actions on the tram you have trodden not only from us - your father, me, Schlichting, Schlaters, Egold - but from the whole city - I can do it with you Saying right - you can be sure of that with the greatest tension and with the undivided interest will be followed. They hope for great things from you, justify your fame - your hometown - this hope ....... When I received your letter, it made the rounds of the city with a lot of people who looked like that vividly interested in you, and in the evening at the club, the conversation revolved around you and your future for a long time. .........
Greetings to Gebhardt, Plathner, Brinkmann, Northen, Wille and everyone who still remembers me. .......
Now be diligent and in good spirits, goodbye.
With love,
A. Sprengel.
In the next few years, father went into business for himself and had his own studio. In 1876 he painted a 2-meter-tall picture , which was exhibited at Schulte and caused the greatest sensation. The motif is a simple church in Röthel-Estonia. A great peace emanates from the picture. The cemetery is surrounded by a stone wall around the church. Many unharnessed horses, troikas, all kinds of people, are in the foreground; it is the congregation coming to prayer from the distant church district.
This painting was immediately sold to England.
My grandparents' family on my mother's side were friends with the von Gebhardt couple. My father was a frequent guest there at the 12-year-old master Gebhardt's and also met my mother Milla Poensgen here. The impressive picture "Roethel" brought the artist even closer to my mother.
Already in the summer of 76 on a trip to Holland (here is a small picture from Haarlem , Holland, from September 10, 1877) my parents got engaged and married in May 77. On this occasion, Mr. von Gebhardt had a maamees painted by the Revaler Sprengel let, an Estonian farmer, called a farmer guy, and in his name from the depths of his own soul he addressed the groom with the following words:
I am not a picture from old times,
Not a monument to a great past.
I've only seen a small world
And only learned to walk narrow paths.
But the paths that are dearest to me,
These are the paths that I already knew as a child
, the paths home.
I haven't learned many languages;
But when I was away from home
, where you didn't know our song,
you didn't understand our proverb,
nothing in my heart rejoiced so much
as words that I knew from old times
, as greatness from home.
Now we know you, your faithful mind;
Your old Estonian heart can
still be seen from good eyes today.
So we know that you would be delighted
if
we were also present today on the day of your honor ,
We Estonians with greats from home.
So we approached painter Sprengel.
He should paint as best he can,
a real maamees after life
And put in his speaking mouth
The wishes that are most dear to us:
"May you, as a real Estonian child, always find
your happiness in the own home.
The second wish that fulfills us:
"May it grow with every picture that
you take, your strength, your serious striving,
your joy in a robust, healthy life, so
that in the depths and in the heights
your gaze can always see further and further '
In the serious service of art. "
And one more wish is dear to our hearts:
we know you, who you are far from us
, but as ours .
Because you didn’t suck the marrow of your life
from the ground in which we so strongly put
our roots?
You express it with every picture,
the loyalty, the love that fills you,
the love for home.
When you see the home area,
The birch trees and grass forests greet you,
doesn't your heart beat too?
And if a familiar voice greets you,
"Terre, Terre Jummala take,"
(Hello, in God's name.)
Don't you feel like us?
Such is our request,
you too, from a distance , count yourself to ours.
Home, it will remain dear to you.
