Flute concert of Frederick the Great in Sanssouci

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Flute concert of Frederick the Great in Sanssouci (Adolph Menzel)
Flute concert of Frederick the Great in Sanssouci
Adolph Menzel , 1852
Oil on canvas
142 × 205 cm
Old National Gallery

The Flute Concert of Frederick the Great at Sanssouci is a painting by the German painter Adolph von Menzel , which in today's Alte Nationalgalerie depends in Berlin. It shows the Prussian king performing a flute solo during an evening concert, which he holds together with musicians in front of guests in the festively illuminated concert room of his Rococo palace Sanssouci .

background

Menzel painted the picture between 1850 and 1852 . Frederick the Great , who composed flute sonatas himself and was known for his excellent flute playing , often performed his compositions for his relatives, friends and servants in the hour before dinner. Menzel depicts such a fictional scene in which the monarch stands in the music room, which is lit by the candlelight of many candlesticks, playing the flute in front of his musicians seated on the right at the music stand, while on the left and behind him festively dressed guests listen. Menzel also indicates the different degrees of attention of the individual listeners.

For his painting, the artist made numerous studies, both on the furniture, the music stand and the architecture as well as on the clothing and the positions of the figures. The room, which can still be visited today in Sanssouci as Menzel painted it, appears larger in the picture than in reality. As a realist , Menzel endeavored to depict the rococo atmosphere of the ambience through the candle lighting, the stylish furnishings and the costumes used; When depicting the main character, he was guided by portraits from the 18th century, which depicted the younger Prussian king in an idealized way. In his own words, Menzel was not so much interested in the depiction of the named people in his painting, but primarily in the depiction of the lighting situation with the many candles. He is said to have confessed to a visitor that he “actually only painted the picture because of the chandelier”.

The paintings

At the center of the painting is Friedrich the Great, the flute at the approach, the music stand in front of him illuminated by two candles. He wears a plait wig, a long, open, Prussian-blue and red-lined skirt, and soldier's gauntlet boots. He is accompanied by a man at the harpsichord and a group of string instruments . With the exception of the harpsichordist and the cellist, all of the men present, including the men in the audience, stand to pay their respects to the king.

The painting is divided into two different halves by Friedrich's music stand, which is placed in the center of the picture. In each of the two halves there are eight people, five of whom are standing and three are sitting.

On the right of the picture is an older listener, his gaze not turned towards the king, but rather on the floor. It is the flute teacher of Frederick the Great, Johann Joachim Quantz , who seems to devote all his concentration to the sounds of the music. His attitude is fatherly, but he doesn't pay the king all his respect, because he leans lost in thought against a larger painting that hangs on the wall to the right. The musician with the violin on the far right is the concertmaster Franz Benda .

The audience on the left side of the picture can also be clearly identified. Menzel revealed their names in one of his preliminary studies for the picture. The eye-catching fat man with the old-fashioned wig is Count Gustav Adolf von Gotter , a bon vivant, described by contemporaries as annoying, at the same time a favorite of the king who always knew how to use his advantage. Behind him, slightly offset, stands Jakob Friedrich Freiherr von Bielfeld with an ecstatic expression on his face . He was one of Frederick the Great's admirers who actually took part in his concerts because of the music (and not just because of the honor of being invited). The mathematician and geographer Pierre-Louis Moreau de Maupertuis, on the other hand, looks bored at the ceiling. He is one of those invited guests who seem less interested in the music. In the back of the painting, Friedrich the Great's favorite sister, Wilhelmine von Bayreuth , sits on a red upholstered sofa.

There's no stranger sitting at the harpsichord either: It's Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach , Johann Sebastian Bach's son . He served the king for 28 years. In the picture, however, you can see that he doesn't think much of the musical arts of his employer. Although he turns his face to the flute player and seems to be waiting for his action, closer inspection reveals that his eyelids are half closed and his facial expression is blasé and almost dismissive.

The old lady who sits behind the music stand in the center of the picture is Countess Camas . To the right of Wilhelmine and directly behind the Prussian King making music, Friedrich's youngest sister, Amalie von Prussia , who composed pieces of music like the monarch, and a lady-in-waiting are seated in the audience . The court conductor Carl Heinrich Graun stands behind the princesses . The man in the background is Friedrich's friend Chasôt .

literature

  • Gabriele Busch-Salmen: Adolf Melzel's 'Flute Concerto Frederick the Great in Sanssouci': A familiar painting, seen anew 150 years after its completion . In: Music in Art: International Journal for Music Iconography . 28, No. 1-2, 2003, ISSN  1522-7464 , pp. 127-146.
  • Günther Thiersch: German painters in the 19th century. Twenty masterpieces from the possession of the National Gallery Berlin, State Museums of Prussian Cultural Heritage . Klett, Stuttgart 1979.
  • Rose-Marie Hagen, Rainer Hagen: picture surveys. Masterpieces in detail. Benedikt Taschen Verlag, Cologne 1994, ISBN 3-8228-9611-X .
  • Jost Hermand : Adolph Menzel, The Flute Concert in Sanssouci. A realistically dreamed picture of Prussia (= Fischer pocket books 3928 feat ). Original edition, 8–9. Thousand. Fischer-Taschenbuch-Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 1994, ISBN 3-596-23928-1 .
  • Hubertus coal: Adolph Menzels Friedrichbilder. Theory and practice of history painting in Berlin in the 1850s . Deutscher Kunstverlag, Munich / Berlin 2001.
  • Werner Busch: Adolph Menzel: In search of reality . Beck, Munich 2015.

Web links

Movie

Footnotes

  1. ^ Sabine Henze-Döhring: Friedrich the Great. Musician and monarch . Munich 2012, p. 23 ff.
  2. ↑ Interview with Jürgen Luh, Completely different and yet great: Friedrich II. - the Homestory , April 28, 2012
  3. ^ Günther Thiersch: German painters in the 19th century. Twenty masterpieces from the possession of the National Gallery Berlin, State Museums of Prussian Cultural Heritage . Stuttgart 1979, pp. 133-136.
  4. ↑ Ilse Kleberger: Adolph Menzel. Prussians, citizens and genius . dtv 1984, p. 37.
  5. ^ Thiersch: German painters in the 19th century , p. 139.
  6. ^ Thiersch: German painters in the 19th century , p. 134.