Biography

German painter, copper engraver, illustrator. In Germany, he became famous primarily as a chronicler of Leipzig everyday life, and especially as a witness to the 1813 Battle of the Nations.

Christian Geißler was the third of four children in the family and came from a creative dynasty: his great-grandfather was a potter, his grandfather a tailor, and his father, Johann Gottlieb Geißler, was a jeweler who worked at the court of the English King George III.

Young Christian showed an early interest in painting and drawing. From 1784, with his father's permission, the boy attended the Academy of Fine Arts in Leipzig and studied in the class of Adam Friedrich Oeser, the academy's first director. During his studies, Geißler managed to attend classes by Johann Salomon Richter, whose documentary scenes ("Arrival and departure of Russians from Leipzig", "National costumes of Leipzig inhabitants, drawn from life", etc.) significantly influenced the formation of Christian Geißler's artistic method. It is interesting to note that in 1782, Richter travelled with the German geologist Leske and created field sketches and illustrations.

Christian Geißler later followed in his teacher's footsteps, becoming an expedition documentary painter. After graduating from the academy, it was necessary to choose a route for travel and further study. The family's choice fell on St. Petersburg. At the end of the 18^th century, many German masters headed precisely to Russia, but in Christian's case, an important role was played by the business connections of his father – a jeweller, with St. Petersburg merchants, as well as the advice and interest of Johann Richter. Having received recommendations, Christian Geißler set off for Russia.

In St. Petersburg, Geißler took part in publishing engravings depicting city street vendors and merchants, which became his favourite theme. The first edition of "St. Petersburg Street Vendors" was released with the participation of engraver H.G. Schönberg in 1791-1792. The album was a great success and brought fame to the artist. According to the Geißler family lore, it was after the publication of this series of engravings that the naturalist and academician P.S. Pallas noticed the young artist's work. According to another version, the young Geißler met the academician shortly after arriving in St. Petersburg and presented him with a catalogue of one of his father's two mineral collections. The collection impressed Pallas, and subsequently, young Geißler was favourably received at the scientist's house. At the end of 1792, the scientist invited the artist to participate in an expedition to the southern governorates of the Empire. In 1793–1794, they travelled from St. Petersburg to the Volga region, Astrakhan, the Caspian Lowland, the North Caucasus, and the Crimea. During the expedition, the climatology of southern Russia and the Crimea was studied. While travelling through the Caucasus, Peter Simon Pallas arrived at the Konstantinogorskaya fortress. Having learned from the fortress soldiers about the therapeutic effect of the hot sulphur waters, he studied and scientifically described the Hot Mountain (Goryachaya Gora) with its springs, while Christian Geißler made the first sketches of the baths on the Hot Mountain and views of the Mashuk and Beshtau mountains. The result of the entire expedition was the work "Observations made during a journey through the southern provinces of the Russian State in 1793–1794", illustrated by Christian Geißler. Pallas's two-volume book was published in Leipzig in 1799–1801.

In 1793, the Printing house of the Land Gentry Cadet Corps published the album "Depiction of the Uniforms of the Russian-Imperial Army, Consisting of 88 Illuminated Figures". Its author was Jacob von Lüde, and the images were engraved by C.G.H. Geißler. In the late 1790s, in St. Petersburg, Geißler engraved several independent prints, not part of any series, on the theme of Russian amusements, where the immediate emotions of people from the crowd – exaggerated liveliness and joy, coarse instincts, excitement, and greed – are shown in close-up.

In 1795 – early 1798, C.G.H. Geißler lived with Pallas and his family at the academician's Crimean estate. In April 1798, Geißler returned to his native Leipzig. After leaving Russia, the artist used his sketches from the late 1790s for decades, publishing both single sheets and albums based on them. These were: "Manners, customs, and costumes of the Russians in St. Petersburg", "Manners, customs, and costumes of the Russians of the lower classes", "Games and amusements of the Russians of the lower classes", "Punishments of the Russians", " Picturesque description of the manners, customs, and amusements of the Russian, Tatar, Mongol, and other peoples in the Russian Empire", National depictions of tradesmen". During his years of living in Russia, Geißler learned the Russian language, which allowed him to work as a Russian-language translator in the Leipzig Town Hall in the 1810s. The first decades of the 19^th century were the time of Napoleon Bonaparte's campaigns. Following the defeat of the French army in Russia in 1812, and as a result of the "Battle of the Nations" near Leipzig in 1813, Russians were warmly received everywhere; the "Leipziger Zeitung" newspaper published portraits of Alexander I and Russian military commanders. The desire to study the Russian language grew stronger in Germany, and the Russian-German phrasebooks, including those compiled by Geißler, became widely circulated. "Handbook and assistant for the mutual communication of Germans and Russians, which contains all necessary expressions, Russian-German and German-Russian dictionaries, along with pronunciation rules" and "The newest and most complete Russian interpreter”, containing all words and expressions that every urban or rural resident should know if they wish to understand the Russians or communicate with them and thus avoid many inconveniences… with information on all Russian military forces and instructions on how a landlord should treat Russian military personnel.

On March 31, 1813, the day the first Cossacks entered Leipzig, an advertisement appeared in the "Leipziger Zeitung" characterizing Geißler's phrasebook as the most suitable and successful book among others for communicating with Russians. A vital argument was the fact that "the compiler lived for many years in Russia in the company of the famous Pallas and perfectly mastered not only the language of this country, but also the manners of the Russians from both the noble and lower classes, and therefore this work also provides some instructions for dealing with them [the Russians], the usefulness of which instructions is multiplied all the more, since the need for such guidance must be obvious to everyone at the present time.

In the latest years of his life, Geißler worked as an illustrator, depicting the inhabitants of Leipzig, and never forgot his experience of living in Russia. From 1820 onwards, Christian Geißler repeatedly created copies and reproductions of his own works depicting "Russian types."

Re.:
1. Полякова О.А., Чегутаева Л.Ф. Летопись города-курорта Пятигорск
2. https://panoramaborodino.museum-online.moscow/entity/ALBUM/3704873?index=13
3. А.Г. Абайдулова "«...Alles liebte damalx das Russische». О немецко-русских разговорниках художника Х.Г.Г. Гейслера 1813 г." URL: https://www.kunstkamera.ru/files/lib/978-5-88431-320-0/978-5-88431-320-0_08.pdf
4. Wustmann G. «C. G. H. Geißler : der Zeichner der Leipziger Völkerschlacht»