Craftsman with son
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The sculpture Craftsman with Son , also known as the “father group”, is a work created in 1898 by the German stone and wood sculptor Wilhelm Haverkamp from Lasa marble . Together with her counterpart mother with child, the so-called “mother group”, she was initially part of a monument group with an exedra on the no longer preserved Andreasplatz in the Berlin district of Friedrichshain . After the facility was destroyed, the sculpture was positioned separately on a high pedestal in 1960. It is now located on Andreasstrasse opposite its former location and is a listed building .
description
The life-size marble sculpture created using the subtraction process is 250 cm high, stands on a 300 × 137 × 163 cm high base and has a real weight of over three thousand kilograms.
The sculpture shows father and son connected by posture and gaze. The father is sitting on a cube-like stool, the outlines of which can still be seen under a play of folds. With a slight twisting motion, he turns to the standing little boy leaning his back against him. The son and father look at each other while the boy picks up the hammer that the father is holding in his right hand. With the left hand the child takes the other hand of the father.
The sculpture shows a strong alternation of convex and concave curves and thus encompasses a large volume of space.
history
From 1865 to 1888, Andreasplatz, named after the apostle Andreas , was used for the regular weekly markets in the Stralau district . The market hall, which opened on May 1, 1888 in the immediate vicinity, continued to establish it as the district's meeting point. On the decision of the Berlin city council on April 9, 1896, to design the square artistically, the former town planning officer Hermann Blankenstein was commissioned to design a semicircular, monumental bench with a fountain flanked by two sculptures. The artist Edmund Gomansky created the right sculpture, the so-called “mother group”, which depicts women in their traditional roles as wife and mother. Wilhelm Haverkamp formed the sculpture on the left, the so-called "father group". It symbolizes the traditional relationship between father and son in the passing on of the craft. Currently, the sculpture is the last evidence of Wilhelmine monument culture in the Friedrichshain street scene and is currently at the rear entrance of the Andreas Gymnasium. It is located on a small piece of meadow and is therefore separated from the other buildings.
Shape analysis and interpretation
The sculpture symbolizes fixed role models and values of the Wilhelmine era , both in its overall composition and in the arrangement of figures and the attributes shown .
The small child reaching for the hammer serves as a symbol for the inexperienced youth who look up to the father as a metaphor for the practiced, working patriarchy of society. The father, comfortably seated on his pedestal, represents the economic and social security that he enjoys thanks to his activity. The eager reaching for the tool shows the determination with which the child strives for the knowledge and position of his father. It accepts this takeover by hitting the hammer. This shows how the tradition of the working class is passed on as a calling over generations. At the same time, there is the desire to grasp the tool, which is far too heavy, on the one hand, and the search for protection and security on the other. In this way, family intimacy is represented in its permeation by social traditions. The exaggerated size of the sculpture also expresses the steadfastness of this tradition, with which the sons take over the work of the previous generation, while the “mother group” next to it represents the women and girls in the conventional roles of this time. The monument aesthetic, which conveys a romantic image of the worker that was out of proportion to the real living conditions in this place, was intended to appease in a beautifying way.
The high plinth, which forces the viewer to look upwards, intensifies the monumentality and validity of these conventions in the entire formal language. At the same time, the scene loses intimacy and tranquility and experiences a monumentalization that is inappropriate for this genre motif. Both in this composition and in its position in the cityscape, the formerly coherent integration into the immediate surroundings is reduced.
literature
- Endlich, Wurlitzer: Sculptures and Monuments , 1990, pp. 229, 237
- Topography Friedrichshain, 1996, p. 93
Web links
- Craftsman with son in the Berlin district lexicon
Individual evidence
- ↑ Monument "Craftsman with Son" at the State Monuments Office Berlin
Coordinates: 52 ° 30 '51.6 " N , 13 ° 25' 55.9" E