Hans Canon, among whose ancestors featured many talented artists, including Martino Altomonte (1657-1745), started studying at the Vienna Academy of Fine Arts at the age of sixteen. However, after just one semester he left the Academy to be privately taught by F. G. Waldmüller and later by Carl Rahl. During his adolescence, Canon was seized by an acute wanderlust and sense of adventure which led him to explore the Orient, France and England. He later extended his travels to Italy and Africa and stayed in former Wallachia by invitation of the Ottoman General Omar Pascha in 1860. During a prolonged stay in Paris from 1858 to 1860 he intensively studied the “old masters”, especially the works of Titian, Rubens and Van Dyck. He had a particular penchant for the Baroque and the Renaissance which manifested itself not only in his reverence of the aforementioned artists, but also in his enthusiasm for the ideal of the polymath, which he himself strove to attain. Having achieved initial success in the 1850s with various portraits, the painting “Girls with Fish” marked his breakthrough in 1860. Due to face prosecution owing to a popular series of caricatures which offended members of the Reichsrat, he left Vienna in the early 1860s for Karlsruhe where he taught notable students at the local Academy, including Wilhelm Trübner and Hans Toma. After an extensive stay in Germany, the latter part of which was spent in Stuttgart, he displayed his chief work “Die Loge Johannis” during the Vienna World Fair in 1873, after which he returned permanently to Vienna. Subsequent commissions to paint members of the Emperor’s family, including Crown Prince Rudolf in 1878 and Emperor Franz Joseph I himself in 1881 further restored his reputation and social standing. His last major commission and the highlight of his artistic career was to paint the ceiling frescoes of the newly erected Museum of Natural History along the Ringstrasse in Vienna. He died in 1885, shortly before his work was completed. Canon was a Historicist artist of the highest standard. While his works are structurally reminiscent of Rubens and Van Dyck, he succeeded in creating a highly individual and renowned oeuvre thanks to his singular talent and unique personality.
Literature
Gedächtnis-Ausstellung „Hans Canon / Hans Scherpe“, Künstlerhaus Wien 1929; Ausstellungs-Katalog „Hans Canon“, Österreichische Galerie Belvedere, Wien 1966; Franz Josef Drewes, Hans Canon (1829 - 1885), Werkverzeichnis und Monographie, Hildesheim / Zürich / New York 1994 Nachschlagwerke: Boetticher; Thieme-Becker; Vollmer