80 Facts About Wilhelm Busch

Heinrich Christian Wilhelm Busch was a German humorist, poet, illustrator, and painter.

Wilhelm Busch published wildly innovative illustrated tales that remain influential to this day.

Wilhelm Busch remains one of the most influential poets and artists in Western Europe, being called the "Forefather of Comics".

Johann Georg Kleine, Wilhelm Busch's maternal grandfather, settled in the small village of Wiedensahl, where in 1817 he bought a thatched half-timbered house where Wilhelm Busch was to be born 15 years later.

Amalie Kleine, Johann's wife and Wilhelm Busch's grandmother, kept a shop where Busch's mother Henriette assisted while her two brothers attended high school.

Wilhelm Busch took over the Kleine shop in Wiedensahl, which he completely modernised.

Wilhelm Busch was born on 14 April 1832, the first of seven children to Henriette Kleine Stumpe and Friedrich Wilhelm Busch.

Wilhelm Busch's parents were ambitious, hard-working and devout Protestants who later, despite becoming relatively prosperous, could not afford to educate all three sons.

Busch's biographer Berndt W Wessling suggested that Friedrich Wilhelm Busch invested heavily in the education of his sons partly because his own illegitimacy held significant stigma in rural areas.

The young Wilhelm Busch was a tall child, with a delicate physique.

Wilhelm Busch described himself in autobiographical sketches and letters as sensitive and timid, someone who "carefully studied fear", and who reacted with fascination, compassion, and distress when animals were killed in the autumn.

Wilhelm Busch described the "transformation to sausage" as "dreadfully compelling", leaving a lasting impression; pork nauseated him throughout his life.

Kleine, with his wife Fanny Petri, lived in a rectory at Ebergotzen, while Wilhelm Busch was lodged with an unrelated family.

Kleine's private lessons for Wilhelm Busch were attended by Erich Bachmann, the son of a wealthy Ebergotzen miller.

Wilhelm Busch portrayed himself with a "cowlick", in the later "Moritzian" perky style.

Wilhelm Busch had little contact with his natural parents during this period.

Wilhelm Busch's father visited Ebergotzen two to three times a year, while his mother stayed in Wiedensahl to look after the other children.

The 12-year-old Wilhelm Busch visited his family once; his mother at first did not recognize him.

Some Wilhelm Busch biographers think that this early separation from his parents, especially from his mother, resulted in his eccentric bachelorhood.

In September 1847 Wilhelm Busch began studying mechanical engineering at Hannover Polytechnic.

Wilhelm Busch's biographers are not in agreement as to why his Hanover education ended; most believe that his father had little appreciation of his son's artistic inclination.

Wilhelm Busch studied for nearly four years at Hanover, despite initial difficulties in understanding the subject matter.

Wilhelm Busch's parents had his tuition fees paid for one year, so in May 1852 he traveled to Antwerp to continue study at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts under Josephus Laurentius Dyckmans.

Wilhelm Busch led his parents to believe that the academy was less regimented than Dusseldorf, and had the opportunity to study Old Masters.

Wilhelm Busch was ravaged by disease, and for five months spent time painting and collecting folk tales, legends, songs, ballads, rhymes, and fragments of regional superstitions.

Wilhelm Busch tried to release the collections, but as a publisher could not be found at the time, they were issued after his death.

Wilhelm Busch's life became aimless; there were occasional return visits to Luthorst, but contact with his parents had been broken off.

Wilhelm Busch made contact with the artist association, Jung Munchen, met several notable Munich artists, and wrote and provided cartoons for the Jung Munchen newspaper.

In 1873 Wilhelm Busch returned several times to Munich, and took part in the intense life of the Munich Art Society as an escape from provincial life.

Wilhelm Busch left Munich abruptly in 1881, after he disrupted a variety show and subsequently made a scene through the effects of alcohol.

Wilhelm Busch's biographer Weissweiler felt the story was only superficially funny and harmless, but was a study on addiction and its induced state of delusion.

Between 1860 and 1863 Wilhelm Busch wrote more than one hundred articles for the Munchener Bilderbogen and Fliegende Blatter, but he felt his dependence on publisher Kaspar Braun had become constricting.

Wilhelm Busch could choose themes, although Richter raised some concerns regarding four suggested illustrated tales that were proposed.

Wilhelm Busch then offered Richter the manuscripts of Max and Moritz, waiving any fees.

Wilhelm Busch had decided to leave Munich, as only few relatives lived there and the artist association was temporarily disbanded.

In June 1867 Wilhelm Busch met his brother Otto for the first time, in Frankfurt.

Wilhelm Busch became friends with Kessler's wife, Johanna, a mother of seven and an influential art and music patron of Frankfurt.

Wilhelm Busch regularly opened salons at her villa, frequented by artists, musicians, and philosophers.

Wilhelm Busch believed Busch to be a great painter, a view supported by Anton Burger, a leading painter of the Kronberger Malerkolonie, the Kronberg-based group of painters.

Biographer Weissweiler does not dismiss the possibility that Wilhelm Busch's increasing alcohol dependence hindered self-criticism.

Wilhelm Busch refused invitations to parties, and publisher Otto Bassermann sent him to Wiedensahl to keep his alcohol problem undetected from those around him.

Wilhelm Busch was a heavy smoker, resulting in symptoms of severe nicotine poisoning in 1874.

Wilhelm Busch lived with his sister Fanny's family after her husband Pastor Hermann Noldeke's death in 1879.

Wilhelm Busch renovated the house, which Fanny looked after even though Wilhelm Busch was a rich man, and became "father" to his three young nephews.

Wilhelm Busch would have preferred to live in a more urban area for the education of her sons.

The years around 1880 were psychically and emotionally exhausting for Wilhelm Busch, who was still reliant on alcohol.

Wilhelm Busch stopped painting in 1896 and signed over all publication rights to Bassermann Verlag for 50,000 gold marks.

Wilhelm Busch needed spectacles for writing and painting, and his hands trembled slightly.

Wilhelm Busch read biographies, novels and stories in German, English and French.

Wilhelm Busch organized his works and wrote letters and poems.

Wilhelm Busch developed a sore throat in early January 1908, and his doctor detected a weak heart.

Wilhelm Busch died the following morning before his physician, called by Otto Noldeke, came to assist.

Wilhelm Busch's following work, Helen Who Couldn't Help It, was published by Otto Friedrich Bassermann, a friend whom Wilhelm Busch met in Munich.

Wilhelm Busch did not write illustrated tales for a while, but focused on the literary Kritik des Herzens, wanting to appear more serious to his readers.

Wilhelm Busch felt his painting skills could not compete with those of the Dutch masters.

Wilhelm Busch regarded few of his paintings as finished, often stacking them one on top of the other in damp corners of his studio, where they stuck together.

Wilhelm Busch's doubts regarding his skills are expressed in his choice of materials.

Wilhelm Busch dismissed the techniques of Impressionism with its strong preoccupation with the effect of light, and used new colours, such as Aniline Yellow, and photographs, as an aid.

Wilhelm Busch refused to exhibit work even though he was befriended by many artists of the Munich School, which would have allowed him to do so; it was not until near the end of his life that he presented his paintings to the public.

Wilhelm Busch's peasants are devoid of sensitivity and village life is marked by a vivid lack of sentiment.

From 1858 to 1865 Wilhelm Busch chiefly worked for the Fliegenden Blatter and the Munchener Bilderbogen.

Wilhelm Busch plays with its traditional forms, motifs, pictures, literary topics, and form of narration.

Wilhelm Busch insisted on first making the drawings, afterward writing the verse.

Everything left white on the block, around Wilhelm Busch's drawn lines, was cut from the plate by skilled engravers.

Sometimes the result was not satisfactory, leading Wilhelm Busch to rework or reproduce plates.

The wood engraving technique did not allow for fine lines, which is why Wilhelm Busch's drawing, especially in his illustrated tales up to the mid-1870s, are boldly drawn, giving his work its particular characteristic.

The effect of Wilhelm Busch's illustrations is enhanced by his forthright verse, with taunts, derision, ironic twists, exaggeration, ambiguity, and startling rhymes.

Wilhelm Busch's language had an influence on the humorous poetry of Erich Kastner, Kurt Tucholsky, Joachim Ringelnatz, and Christian Morgenstern.

Wilhelm Busch uses names he gives characters to describe their personality.

Wilhelm Busch uses dactyls, where one accented syllable is followed by two unaccented syllables, as in his Plisch und Plum, where they underline the pedantic and solemn words with which teacher Bokelmann educates his pupils.

In both his illustrations and poems Wilhelm Busch uses familiar fables, occasionally appropriating their morality and stories, spinning them to illustrate a very different and comic "truth", and bringing to bear his pessimistic view of the world and human condition.

Frequently Wilhelm Busch has been called a sadist by educators and psychologists.

Weissweiler observes that Wilhelm Busch probably saw canings at his village school, where he went for three years, and quite possibly he received this punishment.

Robert Gernhardt defended Wilhelm Busch by stating that Jews are satirized only in three passages, of which the oldest is an illustration of a text by another author, published in 1860.

Wilhelm Busch stated that Busch's Jewish figures are merely stereotypical, one of a number of stereotypes, such as the "limited Bavarian farmer" and the "Prussian tourist".

Wilhelm Busch celebrated his 70th birthday at his nephew's house in Hattorf am Harz.

Wilhelm Busch II praised the poet and artist, whose "exquisite works are full of genuine humour and are everlasting for the German people".

The Wilhelm Busch Prize is awarded annually for satirical and humorous poetry.

All Wilhelm Busch's illustrated tales have a plot that firstly describes the circumstance, then a resulting conflict, then solution.

Wilhelm Busch conveys an impression of movement and action, at times strengthened through a change of perspective.