Hermann Josef Fountain

Hermann-Josef-Fountain, 2011

The Hermann-Josef-Brunnen (also Hermann-Joseph-Brunnen ) is a sculptural fountain originally designed as a running fountain on the Waidmarkt in Cologne's Altstadt-Süd district . It was donated in 1894 by the Cologne Beautification Association and designed and implemented by the sculptor Wilhelm Albermann . The sculptures depict scenes from the life and legend of the so-called "apple saint" Hermann Joseph von Steinfeld . The fountain has been registered since July 1st, 1980 under the number 164 in the monuments list of the city of Cologne.

History of origin

View of the Waidmarkt from the north with the new fountain, 1895. In the background St. George with the chaplain in front and the north porch. The horse tram runs to the right.

After the Jan van Werth fountain on the Alter Markt, the fountain was the second fountain donated to the city by the Cologne Beautification Association . The citizens' association had set itself the goal of redesigning the Cologne squares and improving the cityscape. In 1889 the design of a “monumental fountain ” was put out to tender, which was to form a “ point de vue ” on the Waidmarkt , ie an eye-catcher at the entrance to the square. The budget (15,000 marks), material (local, weatherproof sandstone and basalt lava ) as well as a selection of preferred figures, namely Thomas von Aquin , Albertus Magnus or - at that time only revered as the blessed - Hermann Joseph were given .

The jury consisted of Arthur Pabst , director of the Kunstgewerbemuseum , the town planning officer Josef Stübben , the banker Eduard von Oppenheim and the architect and building officer Hermann Otto Pflaume . The latter, also on the board of the beautification club, was a close friend of Wilhelm Albermann. The jury decided in favor of Albermann and thus, as before with Jan von Werth , on the most popular motif.

The contract to the sculptor was only awarded in 1893, as the acquisition of the necessary financial resources and negotiations between the association and the city took up their time. After Albermann had handed the fountain over to the Beautification Association in September 1894, they gave it to the city, which connected it to the water supply in October of that year. It went into operation in the spring of 1895.

location

Aerial photo Waidmarkt 2017, location of the well marked

The Waidmarkt is an elongated square along the city's oldest north-south axis, between Severinstrasse in the south and the transition to the historic Roman quarter, the Hohe Pforte in the north. The corridor designation dates back to the medieval dyers quarter and those depicted here woad back, who was traded here.

In the southern part of Waidmarkt, the west choir of the Romanesque St. Georg basilica protrudes into the square, to the north of it Georgstraße branches off to the east. The parish church of St. Jakob stood here until secularization and was demolished in 1825. In the years around 1880, the north side of St. Georg was extensively renovated: the chaplaincy and a neo-Romanesque border of the northern entrance area, which had resulted from the demolition of the cloister of the former collegiate church, had just been rebuilt.

The area north of St. Georg and Georgstrasse was chosen as the place for the fountain. The front of the fountain faces north to the high gate. To the west of the monument, the road runs south, where the historical archive stood until 2009 and the site of the collapse has been open since then. On the western side of the square opposite, the department store zur Gute Quelle by PW Ossendorff, at that time one of the largest department stores in the city, later the high-rise building of the Cologne police headquarters, since 2012 a typical city quarter with mixed residential and commercial use.

description

The well basin, which is about knee-high, was originally shaped like a clover leaf. A square base with two axially symmetrically arranged, lateral water bowls protrudes from it in the center. It is provided with columns and capitals at the corners and ends at the top with a cornice . Below the cornice, the water runs from two water spouts designed as dolphin heads into the two side basins, from where it runs through five outlets each designed as dolphin masks into the lower basin.

On the four corners of the cornice there are four smaller groups of figures, each depicting two boys with an animal: a dog, a fish, an eagle and a cancer, with the boys fighting over possession of the animal - an allegory of senseless human quarrels about earthly goods, with the animals symbolizing the four elements earth, water, air and fire.

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  Quarrel over a dog (earth)

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  Quarrel over a fish (water)

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  Fight over an eagle (air)

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  Quarrel over a cancer (fire)

A richly profiled octagonal column rises in the center from here, on which a seated statue of the Madonna and Child Jesus and the blessed Hermann Joseph as a boy are depicted high above . The boy hands the baby Jesus an apple, which - according to the legend - takes it from the boy's hand.

The current condition of the well does not correspond to the original in some details due to war damage. Originally there was a gargoyle in the shape of a lion's head in addition to the side outlets on the front and back. Four small pillars in the shape of pine cones , each between the accompanying figures, were no longer made, and the side arches of the lower basin were straightened. A trough on the back was also not restored, the fountain now serves as a purely decorative fountain.

The ensemble is 6.80 m high, 6.30 m wide and 4.50 m deep (according to other information: approx. 8 meters high).

It is signed on the base with Albermann fec. , the central building bears the inscription Verschönerungsverein 1894 on the front . At the foot of the figure of Mary, the lettering S. Hermann Joseph Köln 150 runs around the octagonal attachment.

In some photos from the mid- 1920s , a grille can be seen around the fountain.

Symbolism and art-historical classification

The baby Jesus graciously accepts the apple from Hermann Joseph. Photo 2011, clearly visible also the final tape at the feet of the seated figure.

The task of the fountain memorial should be the "moral and spiritual education of man", which is supported by a number of symbolic elements. The fountain system as the base stands for the earth, four romanized columns carry the world on which humanity struggles for earthly goods. The futility of this striving and the impermanence of all things is shown in the details of the four groups of boys: a salting barrel is overturned in a dispute over the fish, the crab pinches a boy's finger, the dog and the eagle cannot be finally held on. Instead of striving for education - a book is left unnoticed on the margins - there is a dispute about material issues. Details such as the (no longer existing) pine cones as a Christian symbol of immortality completed the picture.

The Madonna figure, on the other hand, high up on the octagonal base, represents the heavenly sphere. Hermann Joseph kneels in front of the Madonna with Baby Jesus, has already left worldly pursuits behind and is giving away his few possessions, the apple. The reward is in the grace of God.

The sculpture fountain is considered the highlight of Wilhelm Albermann's work, who had designed the Jan van Werth fountain on the Alter Markt ten years earlier . The three "heavenly" figures show the influence of Nazarene painting on religious sculpture, while the "earthly" accompanying figures, which can be understood as old German-medieval, are more popular, with echoes of the Hohenstaufen era.

In the architecture of the fountain, with the gargoyles in the form of animal heads and other ornaments, echoes of Renaissance and Mannerism can be found . The four supporting pillars with their cube capitals are romanised, the high octagonal base is reminiscent of the " crossing tower of a Staufer church". These elements of the fountain make a clear reference to the Romanesque church behind.

Further development

Four days after the Historical Archives collapsed, March 13, 2009

On the one hand, the fountain can be seen as an “effective urban development completion” of the external renovation of St. Georg in the years before; as an object of moral and religious edification and "moral education", however, it soon competed with the growing inner-city traffic - the tram , the successor to the horse-drawn tram, had passed directly along the north-south axis since 1903 - and was considered by some to be an "urban bad plan", even as a "traffic obstruction". The schoolchildren, for whom Hermann Joseph was to serve as a model with the monument, are said to have played their jokes with the fountain.

An air raid on March 2, 1945, which hit the west choir of St. George , damaged the fountain, the sculpture was partially lifted from its anchorage by the air pressure.

A possible demolition was prevented by the preservation of monuments in the post-war period and the fountain was restored in a simplified form through a restoration program in the years 1954–1955.

Today the Hermann-Josef-Brunnen is surrounded by trees and, according to one author (2001), looks like "bulky furniture pushed to the edge of the square". According to another author (2004), the actual square, which the fountain was supposed to adorn as the focal point, is “barely recognizable”.

In the immediate vicinity of the archive collapse (2009), flowers, memorial plaques and candles were placed at the fountain.

Web links

Commons : Hermann-Joseph-Brunnen  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

1. ^ ^{A b c} Gerhard Kolberg, Karin Schuller-Procopovici: Sculpture in Cologne. 20th century images in the cityscape . Ed .: Museum Ludwig. Cologne 1988, p. 17 .
2. ^ Search in the list of monuments of the city of Cologne, DLNR 164 / Waidmarkt
3. ↑ ^{a b c d e f g} Werner Schmidt: The sculptor Wilhelm Albermann (1835-1913). Life and work . In: Werner Schäfke (Ed.): Publications of the Cologne City Museum . tape 3 . Cologne 2001, ISBN 3-927396-85-0 , p. 128-131 .
4. ^ ^{A b c d e f} Johannes Ralf Beines: Pious ornament of the beautification club. The fountain of Blessed Joseph on the Waidmarkt. In: Mario Kramp, Marcus Trier (Ed.): Drunter und Drüber. The Waidmarkt (=  location of Cologne history . No. 1 ). JP Bachem, Cologne 2012, ISBN 978-3-7616-2545-3 , p. 126-129 .
5. ^ Werner Schmidt: The sculptor Wilhelm Albermann (1835-1913). Life and work . Ed .: Werner Schäfke (=  publications of the Cologne City Museum . No. 3 ). Cologne 2001, ISBN 3-927396-85-0 , p. 262 (endnotes) .
6. ↑ ^{a b c} Iris Bennen: Hermann-Josef-Brunnen . In: Rheinischer Verein für Denkmalpflege und Landschaftsschutz (Hrsg.): Monuments of the Prussian period. A city tour in Cologne (=  Rhenish art sites . No. 480 ). Cologne 2004, ISBN 3-88094-913-1 , p. 11 .
7. ↑ ^{a b} Sybille Fraquelli: St. Georg . In: Förderverein Romanische Kirchen eV (Ed.): The Romanesque Churches in Historicism (=  Colonia Romanica. Yearbook of the Förderverein Romanische Kirchen eV No. XXV ). tape 1 . Greven Verlag, Cologne 2010, ISBN 978-3-7743-0492-5 , p. 160 .
8. ↑ Projects - Waidmarkt. In: FAY Projects GmbH. Retrieved March 11, 2018 . 
9. ^ Hermann-Josef-Brunnen, kulturelles-erbe-koeln.de
10. ^ Axel Reuter, Klaus Oehlert-Schellberg: Local rail transport in Cologne. Tram. Light rail. S-Bahn . GeraMond Verlag GmbH, Munich 2006, ISBN 978-3-7654-7370-8 , p. 38 .

Coordinates: 50 ° 55 ′ 55.9 "  N , 6 ° 57 ′ 23.1"  E