Tombs of ancient heroes
|
| Tombs of ancient heroes |
|---|
| Caspar David Friedrich |
| Oil on canvas |
| 49.5 × 70.5 cm |
| Hamburger Kunsthalle |
Gravestones of old heroes , also the graves of fallen freedom warriors or the grave of Arminius , is a painting by Caspar David Friedrich , created between April and August 1812 . The painting in oil on canvas in the format 49.5 cm × 70.5 cm is in the Hamburger Kunsthalle .
Image description
The painting shows the entrance of a cave in the forest. The rising rugged rock face merges into a mountain meadow. On the right are larch branches, the remains of a tree struck by lightning and cut spruce trunks. In the sunlight stands an obelisk made of freshly hewn limestone at the edge of the cave entrance. The front of the stone is decorated with a relief of Thanatos figures, in the form of a winged youth and an overturned torch, crossed swords, a star and the letters GAF at the top. The base bears the inscription EDLER JUINGLING, VATERLANDSRETTER. The light stone forms the contrast to the gloomy cave entrance. There are two gold-helmeted men who can be identified as French chasseurs, looking at the front of a large sarcophagus. At the height of the obelisk, two dark stone tombs are depicted on either side of the picture in strict ancient forms. On the middle field of the left sarcophagus you can read FRIEDE DEINER GRUFT SAVIOR IN EMERGENCY, on the lid it says THE FALLEN NOBLE FOR FREEDOM AND RIGHT. FAK In the foreground and on the right above an elder bush, rubble from other tombs can be discovered. The collapsed grave in front bears the golden lettering ARMINIUS. A snake in red and blue crawls over the edge of the collapsed pillar.
Image interpretation
The painting is mainly given a political interpretation, which includes a religious and natural mystic as well as the interpretation as a monument landscape. It is assigned to the memorial and memorial pictures of Frederick. The inscriptions suggest hero worship and could refer to a fallen man. The French chasseurs and the snake in the colors of the tricolor are a statement against the occupation of Europe by Napoleon's troops. The destroyed tomb dedicated to Arminius refers to Hermann the Cheruscan prince, with the Latinized name Arminius, the victor over the Roman legions in AD 9 and a historical symbol for the development of a German national consciousness. Helmut Börsch-Supan sees a change in the religious symbols found in Friedrich (rocks for firmness in faith, spruce trees as symbols of a believer, etc.) into patriotic. Soldiers and cave could be an allusion to the burial cave of Christ and the impending resurrection. Because Friedrich puts history into a landscape here, says Helmut R. Leppien, Arminius does not drive away the haunting, nature devours them. In the reception of the picture, an attempt was made to relate the patriotic content to the wars of freedom against Napoleon, which did not begin until 1813, which is implied by the title of the picture, graves of fallen freedom warriors. These attempts even include a later dating.
Monument landscape
Hilmar Frank sees the picture as one of Friedrich's monument landscapes, which presupposes the aesthetics of the landscape garden with its patriotic-historical aspects. Detlef Stapf finds a reference to this in the theory of garden art by Christian Cay Lorenz Hirschfeld . In the chapter on furnishing and decorating the gardens with the works of architecture , the author advises "a wild rocky height of colossal rubble from an apartment of old heroes" for the "harmonious effect of art to reinforce the impressions of nature". These are the "now and then appearing traces of the violence and the weakness of the times". Whereby the term “dwelling” means the earthly as well as heavenly place where body and soul can stay. A reference text for the picture can be found in the recommendations for the “scenes” of a burial place that are “capable of large pictorial arrangement”.
“The lights and shadows fall more strongly here between the dark plantings and the white stones of the tombs, and can be distributed to extraordinary and lively surprising effects. The whole thing must represent a large, serious, gloomy and solemn painting, which has nothing terrible, nothing terrible, but shakes the imagination, and at the same time sets the heart in a movement of compassionate, tender and gently melancholy feelings. "
Hirschfeld saw the time had come, instead of setting up "repeated copies of the deities of antiquity" in the princely gardens, "dedicating part of this effort to the true benefactors of the human race and the deserving men from our own nation!" Friedrich made numerous memorial designs, which were only rarely implemented. This is how monument landscapes emerged in his pictures.
The painter wrote about such a memorial concept in a letter to Ernst Moritz Arndt dated March 12, 1814:
“Dear compatriot! I have received your dear letter and the drawings that came with it. I am in no way surprised that no monuments are erected, neither those that describe the great cause of the people, nor the generous deeds of individual German men. As long as we remain servants, nothing great will ever happen. Where the people have no voice, the people are not allowed to feel or to honor themselves. I am now occupied with a picture where a monument has been erected in the open space of an imaginary city. I wanted to designate this monument for the noble Scharnhorst and ask you to make an inscription. But this inscription shouldn't be much longer than twenty words, because otherwise I won't have enough space. I expect your kindness to grant my request. Your compatriot Friedrich. "
Abbreviations
Werner Hofmann suspects the historical references to the theme of hero worship in the inscriptions. The abbreviations GAF and FAK used in the picture gave cause for imaginative interpretations in the history of the picture. Usually the names of those who have fallen are suspected after the letters. Kurt Karl Eberlein and Fritz Nemitz related F. and K. to Friedrich Friesen and Theodor Körner, who fell in the Wars of Liberation against Napoleon in 1814 and 1813, respectively . Werner Sumowski reads "FHK" in 1970 as Friesen, Hartmann, Körner. Jens Christian Jensen rejects the assumption of encrypted proper names and thinks of currencies, as they were often used in academic circles at that time. Detlef Stapf derives such formulas from the Hirschfeld texts. The knowledge of "how often the noble young men of antiquity were inspired by the statues of their famous ancestors ..." of the "statues of heroes, the legislators, the saviors and enlighteners of the fatherland" should translate the inscription as follows:
Pay attention! Friend EDLER JUINGLING / FATHERLANDS SAVIOR
"Pay attention! Friend "was in the time of storm and stress as a phrase within the meaning of Johann Wolfgang Goethe's poem line" Watch out! It will meet you all kinds ... "
Since the "virtue embodied in the memorials is not only addressed to contemporaries, but also to posterity", the second inscription would be completed as follows:
OF THE FALLEN NOBLE FOR FREEDOM AND RIGHT: For all to come
This would be the use of the Old Testament formula "For all coming [generations]" ( Gen 9: 12-13 EU ).
The suggestion
In art history, the interior landscape is reminiscent of the painting The Jewish Cemetery by Jacob van Ruisdael in the Dresden Gemäldegalerie from around 1655 , which Friedrich knew. Ruisdael's tombs made of white marble, black sarcophagi and ruins in a gloomy mountain landscape allow clear parallels to the tombs of old heroes . The monument grottos of Salomon Gessner are also used for a comparison. As far as the Arminius motif is concerned, Andreas Aubert suspected the influence of Heinrich von Kleist's Die Hermannsschlacht as early as 1911 . Although the drama originated in 1808 after the Prussian defeat by France, it was not published until 1821. It is recorded, however, that Kleist read from the drama to the painter in his Dresden studio. However, in Friedrich's youth the students enthusiastically recited Friedrich Gottlieb Klopstock's Hermann's Battle of 1769. Hermann and his battle offered themselves as central elements of a national myth. At the beginning of the 19th century, modern nationalism would hardly appear conceivable without the Hermann trilogy. On the castle hill above the Seifersdorfer valley , in which Friedrich stayed several times, there is a "Hermann's oak" and a stone memorial built in 1758 similar to a grave with the inscription "Dedicated to the Liberator of Germany".
Friedrich and the French
In 1812 the Grande Armée was on the Russian campaign. During the French occupation, Saxony, and thus Frederick's adopted home, was one of Napoleon's particularly loyal allies. Friedrich avoided the occupiers as much as possible and even lived in nativity scenes in Saxon Switzerland for some time in 1813 .
“I left Dresden for more than 14 days and live here in a very pleasant area. The stay here could be very useful for me if the events of the time had not so completely upset my mind and made me unable to begin anything. "
At the beginning of 1812, with the advance of French troops to Western Pomerania and Rügen, the occupation of Friedrich's homeland began. Prussia , the Princes of the Reich and Austria provided an auxiliary corps for the campaign in Russia. Napoleon left Dresden on May 29th and crossed the Russian border on June 24th. During the Napoleonic Wars, the painter developed an uncompromising hatred of the French, in which he knew he was in agreement with authors such as Ernst Moritz Arndt , Friedrich Ludwig Jahn and Heinrich von Kleist. He even sentenced his brother Christian for staying in France in 1808.
"The evening before yesterday I received your letter and when I read LYON printed on the label and recognized your hand, my heart rumbled and in order not to spoil me all night, I left your letter only yesterday. You feel yourself that it is not right for you to be in France as a German, and that still comforts me to some extent; because otherwise I would completely doubt your Germanness. In the meantime I resent it so much, dear good boy, that I have to ask you not to write to me as long as you are in France; but as soon as you have crossed the French border again and landed in another country, I urge you to let me know where you are and how you are. "
When Georg Friedrich Kersting went to war with the Prussian army against Napoleon in the spring, Friedrich financed the equipment for his painter friend and went into debt by his means. He thought himself too old to put on the uniform. On a sketch sheet from July 20, 1813, he wrote : Prepare yourselves for the new fight, German men: Heil your Waffen!
Composition and painting style
The picture was painted very thinly alla prima. The lines in the rock have a decidedly graphic character. The deep green of the bushes in the foreground merges into the ocher color of the rock, with a dividing line as a typical space barrier to the background. The disordered character of the burial place in nature resembles a picture puzzle that the viewer only slowly opens up while searching. The room, which Friedrich does without a sky for the first time, is dominated by the rock wall, taking away the depth of the picture. Leading to the cave entrance, which is far below, compresses the hopelessness of the two chasseurs. The bright obelisk towers over the scene, forms the starting point when reading the picture, and provides the sense of the picture for all further details.
Sketches and studies
The rock cave drawing from June 26, 1811 is considered to be the decisive preparatory work for the oil painting. Although the watercolor study Felsenschlucht from June 27, 1811 can be considered as well as the hard-to-date Sepia Harz Cave (around 1811). The drawings show a cave in the limestone quarry in Hartenberg, which Friedrich visited together with the sculptor Christian Gottlieb Kühn in the summer of 1811 during his hike in the Harz Mountains. For the dry branch and tree stump in the middle distance, the pencil drawing from the lightning-struck willow dated March 14, 1812 comes into question. The painter made an exact construction drawing for the dilapidated tomb, which has now disappeared.
Caspar David Friedrich: Felshöhle , 1811
Caspar David Friedrich: Study of the Rock Gorge , 1811
Caspar David Friedrich: Harz Cave , around 1811
Caspar David Friedrich: Willow struck by lightning , 1812
Caspar David Friedrich: The Arminius Tomb , 1812
Provenance and name
Friedrich sent the painting to the Berlin academy exhibition in September 1812. It was acquired by Alfred Lichtwark in 1908 for the Hamburger Kunsthalle by Louise Ahus from Neubrandenburg . The name tombs of old heroes goes back to a discussion of the Berlin exhibition in 1812, but is very likely also used by the painter and is thus listed in the catalog raisonné. The Hamburger Kunsthalle has been showing the picture since 1908 under the title Graves of Fallen Freedom Warriors .
Classification in the overall work
The painting Tombs of Old Heroes is Friedrich's first work with a clear political message and the first markedly patriotic image. The cave with tomb , which is dated to 1813/14, is just as much a further development of the pictorial concept as is the rock gorge . In the anti-French context, Der Chasseur im Walde was built in the summer of 1813 and, for sure, Hutten's grave as well . With the reference to the texts in Hirschfeld's theory of garden art , the tombs of old heroes are one of the early "garden landscapes". The focus is not on the construction of the landscape, but on Hirschfeld's anti-feudal attitude of staging gardens as places for bourgeois patriotic monuments.
Caspar David Friedrich: Felsenschlucht , around 1811
Caspar David Friedrich: Felsental (The Grave of Arminius) (around 1813)
Caspar David Friedrich: The Chasseur in the Forest , 1814
Caspar David Friedrich: Hutten's grave , 1823
.jpg)
reception
The tombs of old heroes have always been interpreted from the point of view of historical politics. The reviewer of the Berlin exhibition of 1812, which took place under French occupation, claims to have recognized no political intention at all: “The artist's idea is confused and clear to the soul of the beholder; As contradicting as this sounds, let the artist give the picture himself some words. "For the Patriotic Exhibition in Dresden in 1814 after the liberation from the French occupation, they wanted to see more of this type of landscape painting," which the Brits call the monumental landscape ":" [...] above all two ingeniously thought out by our soulful landscape painter Friedrich, presenting the access to a grotto in romantic rock crevices, in front of which a memorial stone has been erected for the liberating genius and the warriors for the fatherland. "
During the time of National Socialism, Friedrich's patriotic pictures were ideologically appropriated in such a way that the political approaches in the pictures were exaggerated as far as possible.
“Friedrich gains strong artistic impulses from the political fighting position and is the only one to create a new genre of images, that of political symbolism. We can grasp the revolutionary significance that must be attached to this act in painting, especially from the present day. "
When interpreting the abbreviations FAK, renowned art historians such as Kurt Karl Eberlein, with precise knowledge of the sources, assigned the letters to the heroes who fell in the Wars of Liberation of 1813/14 and did not mention the period of the painting in the texts or postponed the date.
In the Federal Republic, in the wake of the sixty-eight movement and its anti-national stance in the assessment of Friedrich's patriotic pictures, the painter's “Germanness” and “his relationships with the new German zealots like Ernst Moritz Arndt, […] and the original gymnastics father Friedrich Ludwig Jahn [ …] ”In the foreground. According to Jens Christian Jensen, the advocacy of the German cause in the fight against Napoleon contributed to the narrowing of his artistic horizons.
Web links
literature
- Helmut Börsch-Supan, Karl Wilhelm Jähnig: Caspar David Friedrich. Paintings, prints and pictorial drawings , Prestel Verlag, Munich 1973, ISBN 3-7913-0053-9 (catalog raisonné)
- Christina Grummt: Caspar David Friedrich. The painting. The entire work . 2 vol., Munich 2011
- Christian Cay Lorenz Hirschfeld: Theory of garden art . Five volumes, MG Weidmanns Erben und Reich, Leipzig 1797 to 1785, Volume 3
- Werner Hofmann: Caspar David Friedrich. Natural reality and art truth . CH Beck Verlag, Munich 2000, ISBN 3-406-46475-0
- Jens Christian Jensen: Caspar David Friedrich. Life and work . DuMont Buchverlag, Cologne 1999
- Helmut R. Leppien: Caspar David Friedrich in the Hamburger Kunsthalle . Stuttgart 1993
- Detlef Stapf: Caspar David Friedrich's hidden landscapes. The Neubrandenburg contexts . Greifswald 2014, network-based P-Book
- Herrmann Zschoche: Caspar David Friedrich. The letters. ConferencePoint Verlag, Hamburg 2005, ISBN 3-936406-12-X
Individual evidence
- ^ Helmut Börsch-Supan, Karl Wilhelm Jähnig: Caspar David Friedrich. Paintings, prints and pictorial drawings , Prestel Verlag, Munich 1973, ISBN 3-7913-0053-9 (catalog raisonné), p. 326
- ^ Helmut R. Leppien: Caspar David Friedrich in the Hamburger Kunsthalle . Stuttgart 1993, p. 10
- ↑ Hilmar Frank: Prospects into the immeasurable. Perspectivity and open-mindedness with Caspar David Friedrich . Akademie Verlag, Berlin 2004, p. 162
- ↑ Detlef Stapf: Caspar David Friedrichs hidden landscapes. The Neubrandenburg contexts . Greifswald 2014, p. 270, network-based P-Book .
- ^ Christian Cay Lorenz Hirschfeld: Theory of garden art . Christian Cay Lorenz, MG Weidmanns Erben and Reich, Leipzig 1797 to 1785, Volume 4, p. 35 f.
- ^ Christian Cay Lorenz Hirschfeld: Theory of garden art . Christian Cay Lorenz, MG Weidmanns Erben and Reich, Leipzig 1797 to 1785, Volume 2, p. 68 f.
- ^ Christian Cay Lorenz Hirschfeld: Theory of garden art . Christian Cay Lorenz, MG Weidmanns Erben and Reich, Leipzig 1797 to 1785, Volume 5, p. 119 f.
- ^ Christian Cay Lorenz Hirschfeld: Theory of garden art . Christian Cay Lorenz, MG Weidmanns Erben and Reich, Leipzig 1797 to 1785, Volume 3, p. 131 f.
- ^ Herrmann Zschoche: Caspar David Friedrich. The letters . ConferencePoint Verlag, Hamburg 2006, ISBN 3-936406-12-X , p. 86
- ^ Werner Hofmann: Caspar David Friedrich. Natural reality and art truth. CH Beck Verlag, Munich 2007, ISBN 3-406-46475-0 , p. 92
- ↑ Kurt Karl Eberlein: German Romantic Painting. Lectures . Jena 1920, p. 54
- ^ Werner Sumowski: Caspar David Friedrich studies . Franz Steiner Verlag, Wiesbaden 1970, pp. 22, 97-99, 116, 198
- ^ Jens Christian Jensen: Caspar David Friedrich. Life and work . DuMont Verlag, Cologne 1999, p. 104
- ↑ Detlef Stapf: Caspar David Friedrichs hidden landscapes. The Neubrandenburg contexts . Greifswald 2014, p. 276, network-based P-Book .
- ^ Christian Cay Lorenz Hirschfeld: Theory of garden art . Christian Cay Lorenz, MG Weidmanns Erben and Reich, Leipzig 1797 to 1785, Volume 3, p. 131 f.
- ↑ Johann Wolfgang von Goethe: The zierlichsten Undine , In: Berlin edition. Poetic works, Berlin 1960 Goethe 1960
- ^ Christian Cay Lorenz Hirschfeld: Theory of garden art . Christian Cay Lorenz, MG Weidmanns Erben and Reich, Leipzig 1797 to 1785, Volume 3, p. 141 f.
- ^ Willi Wolfradt: Caspar David Friedrich and the landscape of romanticism . Mauritius Verlag, Berlin 1924
- ^ Hans Joachim Neidhardt: Caspar David Friedrich and the painting of the Dresden Romanticism. Articles and lectures . Verlag EASeemann, 2005, p. 29
- ^ Letter from Caspar David Friedrich dated March 31, 1813 from Krippen. Quoted in: Karl Ludwig Hoch: Caspar David Friedrich - unknown documents of his life . Verlag der Kunst, Dresden 1985, p. 55
- ^ Herrmann Zschoche: Caspar David Friedrich. The letters . ConferencePoint Verlag, Hamburg 2005, ISBN 3-936406-12-X , p. 47
- ^ Alfred Lichtwark: Letters to the commission for the administration of the art gallery . Vol. 6, 1898, Hamburger Kunsthalle, p. 7
- ^ Werner Hofmann: Caspar David Friedrich. Natural reality and art truth. CH Beck Verlag, Munich 2007, ISBN 3-406-46475-0 , p. 88
- ↑ Christina Grummt: Caspar David Friedrich. The painting. The entire work . 2 vol., Munich 2011, p. 628
- ↑ Christina Grummt: Caspar David Friedrich. The painting. The entire work . 2 vol., Munich 2011, p. 629
- ↑ Christina Grummt: Caspar David Friedrich. The painting. The entire work . 2 vol., Munich 2011, p. 895
- ↑ Christina Grummt: Caspar David Friedrich. The painting. The entire work . 2 vol., Munich 2011, p. 540
- ^ Helmut R. Leppien: Caspar David Friedrich in the Hamburger Kunsthalle . Stuttgart 1993, p. 12
- ^ Helmut Börsch-Supan, Karl Wilhelm Jähnig: Caspar David Friedrich. Paintings, prints and pictorial drawings , Prestel Verlag, Munich 1973, ISBN 3-7913-0053-9 (catalog raisonné), p. 325
- ^ Helmut R. Leppien: Caspar David Friedrich in the Hamburger Kunsthalle . Stuttgart 1993, p. 12
- ^ Helmut Börsch-Supan, Karl Wilhelm Jähnig: Caspar David Friedrich. Paintings, prints and pictorial drawings , Prestel Verlag, Munich 1973, ISBN 3-7913-0053-9 (catalog raisonné), p. 327
- ^ Helmut Börsch-Supan, Karl Wilhelm Jähnig: Caspar David Friedrich. Paintings, prints and pictorial drawings , Prestel Verlag, Munich 1973, ISBN 3-7913-0053-9 (catalog raisonné), p. 366
- ^ Helmut Börsch-Supan, Karl Wilhelm Jähnig: Caspar David Friedrich. Paintings, prints and pictorial drawings , Prestel Verlag, Munich 1973, ISBN 3-7913-0053-9 (catalog raisonné), p. 389
- ↑ Anonymous: Correspondents' news. Berlin. From the art exhibition . Morgenblatt für educated estates, 1812, col. 1068
- ↑ Anonymous: Patriotic works of art at the Dresden art exhibition in 1814 . Dresdner Anzeiger , contributions to instruction and entertainment, Sp. 437
- ^ K. Wilhelm-Kästner, L. Rohling, KF Degner: Caspar David Friedrich and his home . 1940, p. 20
- ↑ Kurt Karl Eberlein: German Romantic Painting. Lectures . Jena 1920, pp. 22-24
- ^ Jensen, Jens Christian: Caspar David Friedrich. Life and work. DuMont Verlag, Cologne 1999, p. 103