EN
In the 19th century Munich was one of the art capitals of Europe. Did it fit with the definition of the art world as “bohemian”? It decidedly did not if the term is understood as stressing privation and the artist’s isolation from society. However, if a more general definition of the “bohemian” art world is considered, which includes also a distinct group of bona-fide geniuses, this term could be applied aptly to the successes of the “Kunststadt” throughout the 19th century. The article traces the various constituents that characterised Munich art life, of the ways in which its principal artists, from Cornelius to Lenbach, were dubbed “Kuenstlerfuersten” and the ways they were adulated by the patrons, from the king down to the buyers of their works at the Kunstverein.