Christian Cay Lorenz Hirschfeld

Christian Cay Lorenz Hirschfeld, copper engraving by JD Heidenreich (1792)

Hirschfeld's house in Düsternbrook, etching by Heinrich August Grosch (1790)

Christian Cay Lorenz Hirschfeld (born February 16, 1742 in Kirchnüchel , † February 20, 1792 in Kiel ) was a German garden theorist of the Enlightenment , university teacher of philosophy and art history in the service of the entire Danish state and author of numerous books. He was considered an advocate of the landscape garden of a sensitive and romantic character.

Youth and education

Hirschfeld was the second of four children of pastor Johann Heinrich Hirschfeld (1700–1754) and his wife Margarethe Sibylle (née Reinboth, 1711–1759), a pastor's daughter. After the death of his father, who had taught him himself, his training took place in Halle: After attending the Latin school of the Francke Foundations from 1756 to 1760, he studied theology , philosophy and “fine sciences” (as much as history and aesthetics of art) until 1763.

Friedrich August , Prince-Bishop of Lübeck , employed him from 1765 as private tutor for Wilhelm August (1759–1774) and Peter Friedrich Ludwig (1755–1829), sons of Georg Ludwig von Schleswig-Holstein-Gottorf , who after the death of both parents under Katharina II. And his guardianship were. In 1767, after spending two years together in Bern , Hirschfeld had to accept his dismissal due to a dispute with Carl Friedrich von Staal, who was responsible for the upbringing of the princes . In the same year, his first book was published, Country Life in Switzerland. In 1768 he stayed in Leipzig and in 1769 in Hamburg .

University teacher and publicist

With the resurgence of Kiel's Christian Albrechts University from 1768, Hirschfeld's academic career began after Katharina II had appointed him secretary of a commission for the reorganization of the university. From 1770 he held regular lectures as an adjunct professor . The exchange agreement of Tsarskoe Selo in 1773 improved the situation further, and Hirschfeld was appointed full professor of philosophy and fine arts.

For garden studies, he traveled to Denmark (1780), Germany (1781/1783) and Switzerland (1783). He received support from Heinrich Carl von Schimmelmann and Caspar von Saldern , while the sympathy of his employer in the Copenhagen office , Andreas Peter von Bernstorff , quickly waned; with Schimmelmann's death in 1782 and the fall of Ove Høegh-Guldberg in 1784, Hirschfeld's university situation deteriorated permanently.

In contrast to this, his publications made him well-known beyond the region; between 1779 and 1785 his great garden theory appeared simultaneously in a German and a French edition. Hirschfeld cultivated his contacts with other people interested in gardening, whereby he worked tirelessly for the upgrading of garden art. But fruit tree cultivation was also his concern: at the end of 1783 the Danish administration acquired three adjacent paddocks and a house with a barn and garden north of the Düsternbrook wood . The Royal Danish Fruit Nursery was built on an area of ​​around four hectares and was managed by Hirschfeld without additional payment (the neighboring forest nursery in Düvelsbeker Gehege was under August Christian Niemann ).

Hirschfeld had already received the title of a real judicial councilor in 1777 . While the Copenhagen Art Academy stubbornly refused to accept Hirschfeld, he became a member of the Norwegian Academy of Sciences in 1784 (or 1785) . The Royal Prussian Academy of Sciences in Berlin accepted him as an honorary member in 1788. In several places he tried in vain for a position as garden director.

Hirschfeld married twice, in 1771 Charlotte Amalie (von) H (a) usmann (1740–1777), daughter of a Danish naval officer, and after her death in 1778 Charlotte Elisabeth Rieck (born von Hein, 1748–1789), daughter of a major in the infantry. His only child, daughter Henrietta Georgina Amalia (born 1772), died at the age of two months. Hirschfeld probably died as a result of a dropsy. He was buried in the (later) St. Jürgen cemetery in Kiel.

Work and meaning

Fruit tree nursery in Kiel-Düsternbrook, mapped by W. Beck 1811, detail ( Schleswig-Holstein State Archives )

Apparently Hirschfeld only offered a lecture on a pure garden topic once (he would present the hortorum culturam elegantiorem , the “more elegant horticulture”; announced for the summer semester of 1780). On the other hand, his main work, the theory of garden art , which became known primarily through the French translation, received attention . Hirschfeld advocated the English landscape garden. He was based on Joseph Addison , Thomas Whately and William Chambers . In contrast to Friedrich Ludwig Sckell , who had worked in England for several years and whose garden creations had a style-forming effect in Germany (from 1777 redesign of the palace gardens in Schwetzingen ), Hirschfeld had never traveled to England, nor did he design or create a garden. In 1779 he saw an English-style garden in Schierensee near Kiel. The landscape of his childhood, which a century later would be called " Holstein Switzerland ", the impressions he made during his stay in Bern and the graceful steep bank of the Kiel Fjord , largely destroyed in the 20th century, shaped his ideas of a sensitive atmospheric landscape .

The consideration of landscape from a moral-philosophical point of view was a contemporary idea of Jean-Jacques Rousseau , who in 1761 in Julie or Die neue Heloise had presented an ideal garden following nature. In England, William Gilpin developed a new view of landscape that followed exclusively aesthetic criteria. Hirschfeld conveyed the theories of English garden art in a simplified form and contributed to the spread of landscape gardens in Germany, Scandinavia and (through the essays by Andrei Timofejewitsch Bolotow ) Russia .

Publications (selection)

Books on garden theory and landscape:

• Country life (1767; expanded and illustrated several times, 1768, 1776)
• Letters about the most distinguished curiosities in Switzerland ... (1769; only one volume published)
• Notes on Country Houses and Garden Art (1773)
• Theory of garden art (1775, 1777; so-called "small theory")
• Handbook of fruit tree cultivation , 2 parts (1788)
• Theory of garden art , 5 parts (1779–1785, 1990)
• Garden calendar , 7 issues (1782–1789; another year as the Small Garden Library , 1790)

In addition, Hirschfeld published numerous articles in magazines ( Nova acta eruditorum ) , edited the Kielische Gelehre Zeitung from 1771 to 1778 and wrote a number of books on moral philosophy. Selection:

• Winter, a moral weekly (1769, 1775)
• Reflections on the heroic virtues (1770)
• On hospitality, an apology for humanity (1777)

Some of Hirschfeld's writings were translated into other languages. Selection:

• Het zomer-buitenleven, voorgesteld in XVIII Zedekundige vertoogen (1771; Das Landleben , Dutch)
• Aanmerkingen over de landhuizen en tuinkunst (1779; Notes on the country houses ... , Dutch)
• Théorie de l'art des jardins , 5 parts (1779–1785, 1973; theory of garden art , French by Frédéric de Castillon )
• Haandbog om frugttræers opelskning , 2 parts (1790 and 1794; manual of fruit tree cultivation ,Danish by Andr. Svendsen)
• Landlivet (1823; The country life , freely translated into Danish by Hans Chr. Heger)
• Theory of garden design (2001; Theory of Garden Design , abridged English translation and introduction by Linda B. Parshall)

Hirschfeld had his works illustrated with copperplate engravings based on drawings by Brandt , Weinlig, Schuricht and Zingg , among others , and the engraver was often Christian Gottlieb Geyser . The theme of the garden calendar was taken up again by Wilhelm Gottlieb Becker with the paperback for garden friends (1795–1799).

Development after Hirschfeld's death

Memorial to Hirschfeld in the Seifersdorfer Garten, copper engraving by Darnstedt (1792, detail)

Memorial plaque for Christian Cay Lorenz Hirschfeld in Kiel

After Hirschfeld's death in 1792, Johann Jacob Paul Moldenhawer took over the management of the fruit tree nursery . In 1796 the dilapidated house was replaced by a new building. Since 1822 the nearby lookout point over the Kiel Fjord has been called Bellevue ("beautiful view"). Moldenhawer died in 1827, the tree nursery was privatized in 1829, a new restaurant with a viewing pavilion was built in 1846, the house was demolished in 1869 and a house with overnight accommodation was built. The site of the former tree nursery was gradually parceled out and built over. The remaining property served as a building site for an eight-story hotel in 1972.

Honors

Christina von Brühl had Hirschfeld erected a memorial in the garden of Seifersdorf Castle while she was still alive (described in the garden guide of WG Becker; whereabouts currently, that is March 2012, unclear). The 200th anniversary of the anniversary of his death in 1992, the city of Kiel took the opportunity to name a small green area on the edge of the former tree nursery as Hirschfeld-Blick , in 1997 a memorial plaque was set in the ground. Since 2007, the Kiel Community Foundation has awarded public gardens the Hirschfeld Prize every two years.

Shortly after Hirschfeld's death, the plant genus Hirschfeldia with the only species H. incana was named in his honor (first published by: Conrad Moench , Methodus plantas horti botanici et agri Marburgensis , 1794, page 264).

literature

sorted by year of publication

• Chronicle of the University of Kiel. In: Schleswig-Holstein Provincial Reports, edited by August Christian Heinrich Niemann, 6th year, 1st volume. Altona and Kiel 1792, pages 321–327 (here: 321–322).
• Friedrich Schlichtegroll : Nekrolog for the year 1792. Contains news from the life of strange people who died in that year. Volume 1. Justus Perthes, Gotha 1793, pages 39-50.
• Richard Moritz Meyer :  Hirschfeld, Christian Cay Lorenz . In: Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (ADB). Volume 50, Duncker & Humblot, Leipzig 1905, pp. 365-367.
• Axel Lange: Hirschfeld, Christian Cay Lorentz. In: Dansk Biografisk Leksikon , founded by CF Bricka. Volume 10. Schultz, Copenhagen 1936, pages 248-249.
• Helmut Börsch-Supan: Hirschfeld, Christian . In: New German Biography . Volume 9, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1972, ISBN 3-428-00190-7 , pages 222-223.
• Wolfgang Schepers : Hirschfeld's theory of garden art 1779–1785 . Werner publishing company . Worms 1980. ISBN 3-88462-002-9
• Åge Nicolaisen : Hirschfeld, Christian Cay Lorentz. In: Dansk biografisk leksikon , founded by CF Bricka. 3. Edition. Volume 6. Gyldendal, Copenhagen 1980, ISBN 87-01-77411-5 , pages 371-372.
• Barbara Martins: Fruit tree nursery, forest tree nursery, Düsternbrooker wood. Cultivation and aestheticization of the Kiel fjord landscape in the understanding of nature of the Enlightenment . In: Mitteilungen der Gesellschaft für Kieler Stadtgeschichte, Volume 77, 1991–1994, Pages 209–272.
• Wolfgang Kehn: Christian Cay Lorenz Hirschfeld, 1742–1792, a biography . Wernersche Verlagsgesellschaft Worms 1992. ISBN 3-88462-095-9
• Wolfgang Kehn: Hirschfeld in Kiel. Documentation of an exhibition . In: Die Gartenkunst 5 (2/1993), pp. 307–336.
• Michael Breckwoldt: “Country life” as the basis for a garden theory. A literary historical analysis of the writings of Christian Cay Lorenz Hirschfeld . Minerva, Munich 1995, ISBN 3-597-10703-6
• Linda Parshall : Motion and emotion in CCL Hirschfeld's Theory of garden art . In: Dumbarton Oaks Colloquium on the history of landscape architecture , Volume 24, 2001, pages 35-51.
• Margrethe Floryan : Hortus moralis: CCL Hirschfeld and other eighteenth-century actors in the Danish-German borderland . In: Studies in the history of gardens and designed landscapes , Volume 29, 2009, pages 246-256.
• Margarethe Floryan: Garden culture lessons . The publications by CCL Hirschfeld and JL Mansa in German, Danish and Russian . In: Die Gartenkunst  25 (1/2013), pp. 105–112.

Web links

Commons : Christian Cay Lorenz Hirschfeld  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Wikisource: Christian Cay Lorenz Hirschfeld  - Sources and full texts

• Literature by and about Christian Cay Lorenz Hirschfeld in the catalog of the German National Library
• Andreas Bürgi: Hirschfeld, Christian. In: Historical Lexicon of Switzerland .