Consecration at the mystical spring
The consecration at the mystical spring was a presumably 6 meter long painting by the painter Melchior Lechter created between 1897 and 1903 for the Pallenberg Hall of the Kunstgewerbemuseum in Cologne on Hansaring, which was inaugurated on June 25, 1902. The ensemble of the hall was awarded a gold medal as a “spatial total work of art of Art Nouveau ” at the 1900 World Exhibition in Paris . The painting was opened to the public on April 6, 1903 as the last piece of equipment in the Pallenberg Hall.
Description and background
The triptych , painted in tempera, is Lechter's main work. It shows the lyricist Stefan George "receiving the mystical source drink" and symbolizes the "exaltation, liberation and perpetuation of man through art".
In the middle part is a stylized landscape with a well house. Surrounded by virgins, one of whom is playing a frame harp and two others are waving incense cauldrons, the poet receives the highest consecration when the queen gives him the water flowing from the spring of art. The poet bears the features of Stefan George; these were also recognized as such by contemporaries. According to Aurnhammer, the composition is reminiscent of Fra Angelico's “Annunciation” .
On the right wing of the triptych, Saint Cecilia is shown playing on a positive organ . The right wing shows two angels hovering over a meadow of flowers, singing ecstatically and playing a violin: Lechter was inspired by Richard Wagner and Friedrich Nietzsche in the sacred heightened veneration of artistry .
The ordination shown in the picture read:
"Called
by the mystical source drink
receive the holy intoxication
from the consecrated works born"
The painting was accompanied by two bronze statues by Otto Stichling , in which the consecration of art was depicted in all areas and which were provided with inscriptions by Friedrich Nietzsche and Stefan George.
On June 29, 1943, the Museum of Applied Arts - like the Diocesan Museum - was bombed out during a major Allied attack on Cologne and subsequently burned out almost completely. The Pallenberg Hall and a large part of its permanently installed furnishings were destroyed because they could not be relocated to a protected location like the other objects in the hall. Only a few cardboard studies and heliogravures by Lechter have been preserved in the Westphalian State Museum in Münster . The 38 centimeter sketch of Stefan George's head in profile , made on October 25, 1900, was used in 1932 as the frontispiece of the fifth volume of the complete edition of George's works and as a cover for the reprint of George's cycle of poems The Carpet of Life and used the songs of dream and death .
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b c d e Achim Aurnhammer et al .: Stefan George and his circle: A manual. de Gruyter 2016
- ^ Gerhard Dietrich: Museum of Applied Arts Cologne - Chronicle 1888 to 1988 . MAKK and City of Cologne (eds.), Cologne 1988, sheet 1902
- ↑ Information about the painting on the website of the Landschaftsverband Westfalen-Lippe , lwl.org, accessed on August 15, 2016.
- ↑ Speech by Lord Mayor Jürgen Roters on the occasion of the ceremony to mark the 125th anniversary of the Museum of Applied Art Cologne on June 10, 2013, 7 p.m., MAKK , stadt-koeln.de, (PDF), accessed on August 19, 2016.
- ^ Gerhard Dietrich: Museum of Applied Arts Cologne - Chronicle 1888 to 1988 . MAKK and City of Cologne (ed.), Cologne 1988, sheet 1903
- ↑ cologneweb.com: Museum of Applied Arts , accessed on August 20, 2016.
- ↑ Wolfgang Braungart: Aesthetic Catholicism: Stefan Georges Rituale der Literatur. Walter de Gruyter 1997
- ↑ Walther Greischel, Michael Stettler: Stefan George in a portrait . Ed .: Stefan George Foundation. Helmut Küpper vorm. Georg Bondi, Düsseldorf & Munich 1976, ISBN 3-7835-0171-7 , pp. 24 .
- ^ Gerhard Dietrich: Museum of Applied Arts Cologne - Chronicle 1888 to 1988 . MAKK and City of Cologne (eds.), Cologne 1988, sheet 1943
- ^ Portrait of the poet Stefan George, study for "The consecration at the mystical source" in the Pallenberg-Saal, Cologne (online collection). In: www.lwl.org. LWL, accessed August 20, 2016 .