Background
Wächter was born in Balingen and died in Stuttgart.
Wächter was born in Balingen and died in Stuttgart.
He studied painting at Paris under Jean-Baptiste Regnault, Jacques-Louis David, and Antoine-Jean, Baron Gros, and later went to Rome, where he improved his French classical style of painting by the study of Italian art
He appreciated Carsten"s freer style with its sterling merit, and adopted the ideas of the Romantic school. While at Rome he became a Catholic. He gained great influence over his contemporaries by his fine perception of the depths of feeling that could be evoked from the subjects he used.
In 1798 the French drove him from Rome, and he went to Vienna, as he found no place in his native town of Stuttgart, on account of his conversion.
At Vienna he illustrated books and made drawings, many of which were etched or engraved by Rahl and Leybold. While there he also painted a "Mater dolorosa", a "Caritas", and "Criton visiting Socrates in Prison".
Wachter finally went to Stuttgart, where he painted "Cimon in Prison", "Ulysses and the Sirens", the "Boat of Life", "Andromache standing at the Urn with Hector"s Ashes", the "Greek Muse mourning over the Ruins of Athens", a "Virgin with Saint John Sorrowing at the Grave of Christ", et cetera He excelled in treating lyrical and elegiac subjects.
