Germania awakening
|
| Germania awakening |
|---|
| Christian Köhler , 1848/1849 |
| Oil on canvas |
| 220 × 280 cm |
| New-York Historical Society |
Awakening Germania is the title of a history painting by the Düsseldorf painter Christian Köhler . It shows the personification of Germania as the national allegory of Germany in the time of the German Revolution of 1848/1849 .
The large-format oil painting was created in 1848/1849 in Düsseldorf , a capital of the revolution in the Rhine Province of the Kingdom of Prussia . Shortly after its creation, the picture came to New York City , where it was exhibited in the Düsseldorf Gallery of the German-American wine merchant and art collector Johann Gottfried Böker . It has been owned by the New York Historical Society since the late 19th century . It was rediscovered in the 1990s in their depot, which was where the picture came to be around 1900. She made it available on loan to the German Historical Museum at the end of the 1990s. In the exhibition 1848 - Departure to Freedom , the picture was presented to the public for the first time in Germany in 1998 in the Schirn Kunsthalle Frankfurt .
Description and meaning
The scene on a rocky mountain slope is dominated by a female figure in the foreground, Germania, whose long, blond hair is crowned by a corona of oak leaves . It symbolizes the German nation . Above all, her massive body, but also the noble clothing, her armament and the other equipment give her appearance a majestic gravity. The painting shows her at the moment, how she resolutely reaches for a weapon and stands up. Her clothes are in the German national colors black, red and gold . Her black dress is covered on the shoulders and over the strong legs by a predominantly gold coat with a red lining on the inside. The cloak, which looks like an imperial coronation cloak, knitted red and gold on the outside, possibly made of brocade , is framed with a red border on which eagle medallions can be seen. With her left hand Germania reaches into the cross of the imperial crown lying next to her , the symbol of the Holy Roman Empire . With her right hand Germania grasps the gold hilt of a sword set with precious stones , which is placed on an iron shield . By combining the symbols imperial crown and sword, Germania is represented as the defender of the Roman-German imperial idea . The iron shield and sword peek out from under a bearskin from which Germania is rising after her sleep. The bear skin can be interpreted as an indication of the Germanic roots of the German nation and of the inclination to political inertia assumed in the 19th century (cf. German Michel ). Germania's awakening from a sleep on the bear skin means in the symbolic language that the German nation has now overcome its attentism . Germania's sword hilt means that the German people are ready to actively intervene in political events by force of arms.
Germania directs her piercing gaze over her shoulder at two dark demons . When the culprits realize that Germania is reaching for the sword, they quickly run away. Equipped with a scourge , chain and morning star , they symbolize bondage and discord of the old days. Two female geniuses float out of the glaring light of the sky on clouds in the background . The first genius, provided with the attributes of the sword and the scales as a sign of Justitia , brings her justice ; the second, crowned with oak leaves, carries the national flag of Germany , the symbol of the democratic movement of Germany , the Frankfurt National Assembly and the overcoming of the Metternich system through German unity in the sense of the Greater German solution in a German nation state . As an expression of national hope in this regard, a young oak shoot is growing on the rock face.
The overall dichotomous or dualistic image motif shows Germania's world as a struggle between good and evil , in Germania itself, the geniuses who come to her aid and the symbols of the Reich and Germany represent the good. In Köhler's painting, Germania overcomes the statuesque posture that has prevailed in depictions and becomes an active fighter by grasping the sword. Köhler thus leads over to the martial Germania type of the Valkyrie .
Origin and reception
In the political events that took place in Düsseldorf after the March Revolution of 1848 , especially the demonstrative and revolutionary actions of the vigilante group under their leader Lorenz Cantador , the painters of the Düsseldorf Academy and its school of painting took part in particular . In Dusseldorf, the seat of parliament of the Rhine Province, who taught Association for democratic monarchy , of the concept of a constitutional monarchy advocated and was in support of a majority of the voting citizens of the city, on August 6, 1848, the feast of German unity with the solemn Illumination of a Germania statue. This figure was designed by the painter Karl Ferdinand Sohn . Germania as the central symbol of the political revolution was very familiar to Köhler, who was able to directly experience the revolutionary events and their reception in the politically highly committed Düsseldorf artists. Just like his son, Köhler gave his Germania a symbolism that identifies him as a patriotic supporter of a constitutional Greater German monarchy. When Köhler had the painting begun in 1848 still unfinished in his studio in 1849, the correspondence sheet of the Kunstverein für die Rheinlande und Westphalen zu Düsseldorf reported positively about the picture, but already disaffected about the political prospects of the revolution:
“Among the works that can still be seen unfinished in the academic studios, none is likely to arouse general interest than Koehler's great allegorical-symbolic representation of the rise of the German people towards unity and freedom, which we did in the previous year great fatherland moved from one end to the other. It is true that in general it seems to us as if the whole movement was just a blissful dream from which we awaken unquenched to the more desolate reality; - but this dream has a high prophetic significance for the design of our future. And it is this that inspired Koehler for his conception. His picture also resembles a vision. [...] Whoever has seen this work will have the conviction with us that it will be one of the greatest pictures that have emerged from our school, and will praise the art that can at least capture on the canvas what is in reality does not seem to be granted to us. "
Shortly after its completion, in 1849, the picture came to the Düsseldorf Gallery of the New York wine and art dealer Johann Gottfried Böker, where it was one of the most important exhibits. However, a critic from the New York Evening Post said other works had a greater impact on the American viewer:
“We must admit Germania to be the finest specimen of the higher style of art in this admirable collection, perhaps the finest in the country; but still it is difficult for us to yield even to 'high art' our preferences for such charming works as Hasenclever’s Student's Examination, Becker’s Reaper's Return, and Schrodter’s Falstaff and his Recruits. "
“We have to admit that Germania is one of the best examples of the higher art in this admirable exhibition, perhaps even the best in this country; but it is still difficult for us to give in to our predilection for such charming work as Hasenclever's Hieronymus Jobs in the exam, Becker's Homecoming Reaper and Schroedter's Falstaff and his pages because of the 'high art'. "
In the correspondence sheet of the Kunstverein für die Rheinlande und Westphalen zu Düsseldorf one noted at the beginning of the 1850s:
"Just as little as the thought expressed in it has found a place in the fatherland, the picture has emigrated to America."
In 1860 the Düsseldorf painter Lorenz Clasen created a Germania on the watch on the Rhine , the physiognomy and shape of which bears a striking resemblance to Köhler's Germania. It is therefore believed that it served as a model for Clasen.
literature
- Lothar Gall (ed.): Departure to freedom. 1848 . Exhibition catalog of the German Historical Museum and the Schirn Kunsthalle Frankfurt, Nicolai, Berlin 1998, p. 81 (No. 79)
- Isabel Skokan: Germania and Italia. National myths and heroes in 19th century paintings . Dissertation University of Freiburg 2007, Lukas Verlag, Berlin 2009, ISBN 978-3-86732-036-8 , p. 49 f. ( Google Books )
Web links
- Awakening Germania , data sheet in the portal akg-images.de
- Image reproduction in the portal rkdlabor.de
- Image reproduction in the portal zum.de
Individual evidence
- ^ Hans-Ulrich Thamer : Historical exhibitions and democratic maintenance of tradition. The exhibitions for the 150th anniversary of the revolution of 1848/49 . In: critical reports , 1/2000, p. 73 ( digitized version )
- ↑ Ulrike Ruttmann: ideal - illusion - horror. Reception and instrumentalization of France in the German Revolution of 1848/49 . Dissertation University of Frankfurt am Main 2000 (= Frankfurt historical treatises, volume 42), Franz Steiner Verlag, Stuttgart 2001, p. 311 ( Google Books )
- ↑ 1848 - A departure to freedom 150 years ago ( page no longer available , search in web archives ) Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , Website in the portal genossenschaftsverband.de , accessed on May 22, 2017
- ↑ Kenichi Onodera: 'Germania': The Presentation of Utopia in Art and Utopia . In: Kai Gregor, Sergueï Spetschinsky (eds.): Concerning Peace: New Perspectives on Utopia . Cambridge Scholars Publishing, Newcastle upon Tyne 2010, ISBN 978-1-4438-2324-1 , p. 156 ( Google Books )
- ↑ Illustrirte Zeitung , Issue No. 275 of October 7, 1848, Volume 11, p. 232 f.
- ^ Wolfgang Hütt : Die Düsseldorfer Malerschule 1819–1869 . EA Seemann, Leipzig 1964, p. 119
- ^ Kunstverein Düsseldorf 1849 , Volume 20, p. 9
- ↑ The Evening Post , New York, edition of August 9, 1851, p. 37. Quoted from: Sabine Morgen: The radiation of the Düsseldorf School of Painting to America . In: Bettina Baumgärtel (ed.): The Düsseldorf School of Painting and its international charisma . Verlag Michael Imhof, Petersberg 2011, ISBN 978-3-86568-702-9 , Volume 1, p. 190, footnote 56
- ^ Kunstverein Düsseldorf 1850 , Volume 22, p. 57
- ↑ Isabel Skokan, p. 51
