PILOTY, Karl von, German painter: b. Munich, 1 Oct. 1826; d. there, 21 July 1886. After attending for a short time the Munich Academy, where he especially attached himself to the guidance of Schnorr, he joined the litho graphic business of his father. He later fell under the influence of his brother-in-law, Schorn, whose realistic teaching he enthusias tically accepted and later was molded by the colorists of Belgium and France. Beginning as a genre painter in his remarkable canvas 'The Nurse' (1853) he revealed for the first time a most brilliant technique which inaugurated a new style at Munich, and indeed throughout Germany.Two years later he was appointed professor in the Munich Art Academy. In 1854 he produced his first historical picture 'The Institution of the Catholic which, despite its fine color scheme, was marred by a too emphatic and theatrical and a lack of depth and spirituality of expression. A long series of paintings of the same class followed this, and among them, 'Seth by the Corpse of (1855), an important work, now in the New Pinakothek at Munich; 'Nero amid the Ruins of Rome' (1861) the 'Godfrey de Bouillon with the Pilgrims at the Holy Sepul chre) ; 'Assassination of Julius Caesar' (1865) ; 'Columbus) (1866) ; 'Thusnelda in the Tri umphal Procession of Germanicus> (1873), a replica of which is in the Metropolitan Museum of New York; 'The Death of (1877), unfinished. He painted many portraits
and designed illustrations for Shakespeare, and the German classic writers. In 1874 he was director of the Munich Academy. In his style he turned from classicism to realism; and was inclined to choose subjects of a melancholy or tragic caste, and sometimes was given to the melodramatic treatment of a theme, but his drawing, coloring and handling were masterly. As the representative of a distinct school in German art he counts among his pupils and fol lowers Makart, Max, Defregger, Lenbach, J. Brandt, etc. Consult Rosenberg, 'Die Miin chener Malerschule> (1887).