15.11.1741–02.01.1801
Johann Kaspar Lavater
Lavater (1741–1801) was a pastor in Zurich, and his fame came from the “Physiognomic Fragments” (1775–1778), in which he taught readers to judge character from the features of the face. The book was printed with engravings after drawings by well-known artists, and it helped fuel the fashion for silhouettes. He wrote poems and religious epics, corresponded with Goethe and argued with Mendelssohn. He died in Zurich of a wound received when the French took the city.
Biography
In the spring of 1799 the pastor of Zurich was arrested and taken to Basel. The reason was that he had spoken out against the entry of French troops into Switzerland.
Three weeks later he was released.
Lavater was born on 15 November 1741 in Zurich, the son of a well-known physician. The Lavater family had long been closely tied to the city council. He attended first the German and Latin schools, then from 1754 the Collegium Humanitatis, and from 1756 to 1762 the Collegium Carolinum, where his teachers were Johann Jakob Bodmer and Johann Jakob Breitinger. He was ordained in 1762. That same year, together with his friend Johann Heinrich Füssli (Henry Fuseli), the future painter, he published a pamphlet against the unjust conduct of a former bailiff, Felix Grebel. In 1763 the two friends travelled to northern Germany, to the theologian Johann Joachim Spalding in Barth, where Lavater spent about eight months and began to write. On the way, in Berlin, he met Gellert, Moses Mendelssohn and Klopstock.
In 1764 he returned to Zurich and founded several societies there. From 1769 he served as deacon, from 1775 as pastor of the orphanage church, from 1778 again as deacon, and from 1786 as pastor of St Peter’s Church. In 1769, the year he became a deacon, he translated a work by Charles Bonnet in defence of Christianity and dedicated it to Mendelssohn, asking him either to refute the author’s arguments or to convert to Christianity. Mendelssohn did neither. The exchange was followed by the learned public across Europe, and many, Lichtenberg and Herder among them, sided with Mendelssohn. According to some accounts, Lavater had to apologise publicly.
In 1774, on a journey along the Rhine, he met Goethe and Johann Bernhard Basedow. With them travelled the draughtsman and engraver Georg Friedrich Schmoll, who later engraved portraits on copper for Lavater’s book. Goethe left a playful line about that dinner: “Prophet on the right, prophet on the left, the child of the world in the middle.” Later they drifted apart: Goethe accused Lavater of superstition and hypocrisy, and thought his “Pontius Pilate” a careless treatment of the Bible.
The “Physiognomic Fragments for the Promotion of Knowledge of Mankind and Love of Mankind” appeared in four volumes in 1775–1778, in Leipzig and Winterthur. Lavater claimed that the features of the face revealed the character of the individual, not merely a type. He thought the best method was tracing a profile, that is, the silhouette, and the book strongly influenced its fashion in Germany. Daniel Chodowiecki, Johann Rudolf Schellenberg and Johann Heinrich Lips supplied drawings for it. The book’s success with readers in France, England and Germany rested largely on its handsome design and illustrations. His analyses of the faces of Socrates, Brutus, Descartes, Goethe and Loyola make entertaining reading, but they offer no proof: the author himself appeals to the reader’s “physiognomic tact”. It seems to me that this explains why the book was read as lively prose rather than as science. It was translated into Russian in 1817.
Lavater also wrote poems and religious works: “Swiss Songs”, “Views into Eternity” (1768–1778), “Secret Diary of an Observer of Himself”, “Christian Songs”, the epics “Jesus Messiah” (1780) and “Joseph of Arimathea” (1794), and “Pontius Pilate” (1782–1785). In 1786 he was invited to be preacher in Bremen; he declined, but was received there with enthusiasm. From 1787 he corresponded with Nikolay Karamzin, who visited him in Zurich. In 1793, at the invitation of the minister Bernstorff, he travelled to Copenhagen. Later his influence waned, and people smiled at his vanity.
After his release he returned to Zurich. On 26 September 1799, when Masséna’s troops took the city, Lavater was helping wounded soldiers in the street or trying to restrain the attackers, and he was shot. According to some accounts, the man who fired was an enraged grenadier. Fifteen months later, on 2 January 1801, he died in Zurich. His son-in-law Georg Gessner published a three-volume biography a year later.
Profile notes