The Citizens of Calais

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The Burghers of Calais by Auguste Rodin , Place de l'Hôtel de Ville in Calais

The Burghers of Calais is an artistic motif inspired by the medieval Chroniques de France, d'Angleterre, d'Ecosse, de Bretagne, de Gascogne, de Flandre et lieux circonvoisins (Chronicles of France, England, Scotland, Brittany, Gascony, Flanders and the neighboring localities) by Jean Froissart . It was taken up on various occasions from the second half of the 18th century ( Enlightenment ) to the beginning of the 20th century ( Expressionism ), first in the drama Le siège de Calais (The Siege of Calais) by Pierre-Laurent Buirette de Belloydating from 1765. Subsequently, French and English artists in particular became preoccupied with the citizens of Calais due to the growing interest in national history . The best-known and art-historically very important works of this title are the sculpture by Auguste Rodin (1889), the drama by Georg Kaiser (1914) and the opera by Rudolf Wagner-Régeny (1939, with a libretto by Caspar Neher ).

Historical background

In June 1346, during the Hundred Years' War , the English King Edward III fell. arrived in France and reached Calais in early September , which he had besieged for the eleven months that followed. A relief attack by the French king Philip VI. failed in August 1347, so that the situation of the city was hopeless. Calais was threatened with looting and destruction in the event of an unconditional surrender. To prevent this, according to the chronicle of Jean Froissart, six of the most respected townspeople ( Eustache de Saint Pierre first, then Jean d'Aire, Jacques and Pierre de Wissant , Jean de Fiennes and Andrieus d'Andres) volunteered to be hostages Disposal. They are said to have appeared before the English king on August 4, 1347, barefoot, clad only in a shirt and with a rope around their neck; he intended to have them executed in retaliation for the losses of his besieging force. Only the imploring request of the English Queen Philippa of Hainault , who was also present , is said to have saved the six men.

Auguste Rodin's sculpture

Auguste Rodin's sculpture The Burghers of Calais in London

In 1884, the city of Calais decided to erect a monument in honor of Eustache de Saint Pierre and his companions and in 1885 commissioned Auguste Rodin to create a bronze sculpture based on a first clay model . Another design was carried out in the same year. Although the model for the casting was ready in 1889, it could not be carried out until 1895 due to artistic differences and financial difficulties. Differences of opinion arose above all over the question of the location (not the type of base, as has often been assumed since the beginning of the 20th century due to incorrectly interpreted statements by Rodin). His original idea was to have it placed close to the viewer on a deep but impressive pedestal. As an equivalent alternative, the artist suggested a 1.80 m high pedestal, provided that the monument was sufficiently cleared, which was accepted by the committee. It must be pointed out that Rodin never had a ground-level installation in mind, as was often advocated in the older literature. The monument was finally mounted on a medium-height gothic stone plinth, placed opposite the Jardin du Front Sud and solemnly unveiled on June 3, 1895. It was only after the artist's death, in 1924, that Rodin's idea of ​​a low installation was followed and the pedestal was removed. Since 1945, the monument has stood in its current location in front of the town hall.

The Burghers of Calais in the Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek in Copenhagen

Le Monument aux Bourgeois de Calais (The Monument to the Bourgeois of Calais) is considered one of the most important works of Rodin and Impressionist plastic. Rainer Maria Rilke dealt extensively with her in his art-critical writings. At the same time, it is a turning point in favor of the democratization of the monument, in that Rodin dispensed with the main figure and view by means of a group of six individual sculptures, just as it was his intention to literally "take the monument off its pedestal". Finally, the gestures and facial expressions of the figures also contributed to the abolition of the hierarchy between the work and the viewer, expressing inner movement and a mood of despair rather than exemplary heroic demeanor. Rodin emphasizes hands and feet, which commonly symbolize action, by enlarging them. In this way he lends the work Expressionist traits. This is further accentuated by the ragged clothing, which lets the tense muscles show through. Everything seems to revolve around the inner tension of the tragic heroes. The viewer himself becomes part of the scene when he has to move around the sculpture in order to take in the whole work.

role models

Possible formal models are the almost life-size late medieval to baroque groups of figures of the Entombment of Christ , which are widespread in large parts of Western Europe and are set up at ground level.

original and copies

The sculpture is cast in bronze ; it is 2.35 meters wide, 2.19 meters high and 1.78 meters deep and comes in a total of twelve versions. As a cast, the work is not unique, and Rodin had four copies made during his lifetime. The twelfth cast from 1995 is definitely the last due to an official decision.

The locations of the citizens of Calais in the original cast

  1. Calais, place de l'hôtel de ville, 1895
  2. Copenhagen, Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek , 1903
  3. Morlanwelz (Belgium) , Musée Royal , 1905
  4. London, Parliament Gardens, cast 1908, erected 1915
  5. Philadelphia, Rodin Museum, cast between 1919 and 1922, installed 1925
  6. Basel, Kunstmuseum , cast 1943, installation 1948
  7. Washington, Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden , cast 1943, erected 1953
  8. Paris, Musée Rodin , cast in 1926, transferred to the museum in 1955
  9. Tokyo, National Museum of Western Art , cast 1953, installed 1959
  10. Pasadena, Norton Simon Museum , 1967
  11. New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art , cast 1985, installation 1989
  12. Seoul, Rodin Gallery, 1995

In 2000 , the places where the bronze citizens of Calais were installed all over the world prompted Candida Höfer to take a series of photos of the sculpture rooms , each of which was shown in a 152 × 152 cm format at Documenta 11 (2002) in Kassel. In the series, Höfer made "the contradictions of these spaces visible" and depicted "the dialectics of tradition and modernity, representation and use".

In addition to the complete casts, there are also copies of individual statues from the group, such as all six figures in Stanford .

The drama by Georg Kaiser

The drama The Citizens of Calais - stage play in three acts was inspired by Rodin's already famous sculpture, 1912/1913 in a first version, found its final form in 1914 and was on January 29, 1917 at the New Theater in Frankfurt am Main under the Directed by Arthur Hellmer premiered. The play was a great success with the public and brought Georg Kaiser 's artistic breakthrough. It is still school reading today.

Kaiser assumes knowledge of the events of the Hundred Years' War to be known. The drama begins in the middle of the action and then deviates significantly from Froissart's chronicle at the end:

1st act: “Elected citizens” (councillors) meet in an open town hall in the city of Calais and debate further resistance or abandonment. One of them is Eustache de Saint Pierre, one of the richest men. The English king sent word that he was lifting the siege, on one condition: "[...] six elected citizens shall carry the key to the city - six elected citizens shall step out of the gate - bareheaded and shoeless - in the clothes of sinners – the rope around the neck […] Six are to set out from the city early in the morning – six are to be surrendered in the sands before Calais – six times the noose is tightened –; this will be the penance that will keep Calais and the port safe!” Eustache de Saint Pierre was the first to answer, followed by four more. The Wissant brothers report at the same time, so one person is too many. A lot is to decide who does not sacrifice himself.
Act 2: The seven volunteers say goodbye to their relatives. At dinner they want to draw lots to see who doesn't have to sacrifice themselves. The attempt fails because Eustache manipulated the lots to force everyone to reconsider their decision. It is decided that whoever is last to arrive at the marketplace the next morning will be spared.
3rd act: In the morning everyone comes together on the market square and prepares for their visit to the English king; only Eustace is missing. He is suspected of having betrayed his fellow citizens when Eustache's father had his dead son carried on a stretcher. To show the need for sacrifice, Eustache took his own life that night. At the end, an English messenger arrives and announces: A son was born to the king in the night, he does not want to “destroy life this morning for the sake of new life. Calais and its port are saved from destruction without repentance!" The corpse of Eustace is carried into the cathedral: "The king of England should - when he prays before the altar - kneel before his conqueror!" The blind father Eustache says: " I saw the new man – he was born that night!” The final image, frozen into a sculpture, refers to Rodin.

Kaiser's "Zeitstück" is considered a literary document and main work of expressionist drama; It shows the typical abstracting stylistic devices: the topos of the “new human being”, the de-individualization of the characters, a highly artificial language and stage action loaded with symbols, the pathetic escalation. The message that the community could only be saved through the self-sacrifice of an individual instead of the senseless resistance of all, corresponded to the usual expressionist criticism of the bourgeoisie and mass society of the Wilhelmine era , which was all the sharper in view of the social shocks caused by industrialized death in the First World War .

literature

  • Roland Bothner: Auguste Rodin, The citizens of Calais : an art monograph (= island paperback 1483), Inselverlag, Frankfurt am Main / Leipzig 1993, ISBN 3-458-33183-2 .
  • Jean Froissart, Ulrich Frie: The Burghers of Calais , with pictures by Felix Hoffmann. Translation and publication by Ulrich Friedrich Müller (Chroniques de France, d'Angleterre, d'Escoce, d'Espaigne, de Bretaigne, de Gascogne, de Flandres et lieux circonvoisins), Ebenhausen near Munich: Langewiesche-Branddrich 1975, ISBN 3-7846 -0088-3 .
  • Georg Kaiser: The Burghers of Calais. Stage play in three acts. Reclam, Stuttgart 2005, ISBN 3-15-018359-6 .
  • Edgar Neis: Comments on Georg Kaiser's "The Burghers of Calais". König's explanations and materials , 289. C. Bange, Hollfeld 1987 and above, 4th ext. 1996 edition ISBN 3-8044-0353-0 .
  • Helmut Rosenthal: The citizen of Calais: A study of the stage play by Georg Kaiser, Hamburg 1923 DNB 571110126 (dissertation University of Hamburg 1922, 2 pages).
  • Sculpture Museum Glaskasten Marl (ed.): The citizens of Calais - work and effect. Hatje, Ostfildern 1997, ISBN 3-7757-0710-7 .
  • Fabian Zerhau: The citizens of Calais and the willingness to sacrifice , in: Claudia Maurer Zenck (ed.), New operas in the "Third Reich". Successes and Failures , Waxmann , Münster 2016, pp. 208–252, ISBN 978-3-8309-3335-9 .

itemizations

  1. ↑ Thomas Appel: The Burghers of Calais. Auguste Rodin's intentions for installation and base. In: Sculpture Museum Glaskasten Marl (ed.): The citizens of Calais - work and effect. Ostfildern 1997, pp. 71–74.
  2. ↑ Wolfgang von Löhneysen : The reality in the picture: from antiquity to the present . Königshausen & Neumann 2004. ISBN 3-8260-2795-7 (Page 187)
  3. ↑ Sculpture Museum Glaskasten Marl (ed.): The citizens of Calais - work and effect. 1997, p. 49
  4. ↑ Documenta11_Platform5: Exhibition . Catalog. Hatje Cantz: Ostfildern, 2002; P. 338-343 (images of six photos from the series) ISBN 3-7757-9085-3 (German edition). See also: Art forum international . Vol. 161, August–October 2002, pp. 252f. (with images of four photos of the series and the exhibition situation)
  5. ↑ Documenta 11_Platform5: Exhibition . short guide. Hatje Cantz: Ostfildern, 2002; p. 110 ISBN 3-7757-9087-X

web links

Commons : The Citizens of Calais  - Collection of images, videos and audio files
Commons : Rodin's The Burghers of Calais  - Collection of images, videos and audio files