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Friedrich Muller (1749-1825), German poet,
dramatist and painter, is best known for his
slightly sentimental prose idylls on country life.
Usually known as Maler (i.e. painter), Muller, was
born at Kreuznach on the 13 January 1749. He
studied painting at Zweibrücken, and in 1774-1775
settled in Mannheim, where in 1777 he was
appointed court painter. 

In 1778 he was enabled by a public subscription to
visit Italy, which remained his home for the rest
of his life. In 1780 he became a Roman Catholic.
He was unfavourably influenced by the study of
Italian models, and gradually gave up painting and
devoted himself to the study of the history of
art; his services as cicerone were especially in
demand among German visitors to Rome. 

Before he left Mannheim he had tried his hand at
literature, under the influence of the Sturm und
Drang movement. A lyric drama, Niobe (1778),
attracted little attention; but Faust's Leben
dramatisiert (Faust's Life Dramatized) (1778)
appealed to the turbulent spirit of the time, and
Gob und Genoveva (begun in 1776, but not published
until 1801) was an excellent imitation of Goethe's
Gotz von Berlichingen. He struck out a more
independent path in his idylls, notably Die
Schafschur, (1775) and Das Nusskernen (1811), in
which, emancipating himself from the artificiality
of Gessner, he reproduced scenes not without a
touch of satire from the German peasant life of
his day. He died at Rome on the 23rd of April
1825.

Maler Muller's Werke appeared in 3 vols.
(1811-1825); in 1868 H. Hettner published two
volumes of Dichtungen von Maler Muller, which
contain most of his writings. Gedichte von Maler
Friedrich Muller; eine Nachlese zu dessen Werken
appeared in 1873, and his Fausts Leben was
reprinted by B. Seuffert in 1881.

1911