Relief of the Descent from the Cross on the external stones

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The relief of the Descent from the Cross on the "Grottenstein" 2007

The relief of the Descent from the Cross on the Externsteinen is a large relief carved into the sandstone of the Externsteine in the Teutoburg Forest , on which the Descent from the Cross can be seen. It is considered to be the oldest stonemason carved from solid rock - a large-scale sculpture north of the Alps.

Drawing of the relief 1862

Finding

The Externsteine ​​are a secondary rock, i.e. made up of sediments. It is a limestone sandstone that is quite soft and therefore easy to work with sculpturally.

The relief is divided into three parts, so-called registers .

In the middle, largest register, it shows the Descent from the Cross: In the middle is the cross. Nicodemus , whose helmet has slipped over his neck, stands (his legs are destroyed) on a curved plant-like structure from which he detached the body of Jesus Christ from the cross. Joseph of Arimathea with an expressively emphasized effort catches the sinking body, the head of which Mary takes in her hands and bends her own head towards it (Mary's head is lost through destruction). Opposite her stands the disciple John , who can be recognized by his book, under the cross.

In the upper register, the upper body of a festively dressed figure, which is equipped with the symbols of the risen Christ - cross aura and flag of victory - emerges from behind the head beam of the cross. She also carries a small figure in her arms, dressed similarly to her. On the side are the figures of the sun and moon holding cloths .

In the lower register kneel at the feet of the cross, a naked, bearded man and a figure wrapped in a long robe with a necklace, which is entwined by the tail and neck of a two-legged winged dragon.

The relief shows damage, in particular the head of Mary and the lower legs of Nicodemus are missing. The lowest part of the relief is overall more indistinct than the upper, i.e. less well worked, more damaged or unfinished.

Time of origin

In 1824, Goethe viewed the relief as Carolingian and noted Byzantine influences. He put it in the context of a rededication of a pre-Christian shrine to a place of Christian worship:

"So without being more extensive, we are happy to admit that a monk artist, among the multitudes of clergy that the conquering court of Carl the Great drew, could have made this work."

Almost at the same time, Karl Theodor Menke published his opposite view that the relief came from the 12th century:

“The believing Christian went there, in a pious sense, with devotion in his heart, as to another Jerusalem, in order to recognize his humility, to repent, to obtain forgiveness of sins and to partake of the kingdom of God. Even this idea makes it probable that the sculpture work falls into the age of the Crusades, the undertaking of which was based on the same pious intentions of those pilgrimages. "

Documented traditions could not cite both for themselves. Until the middle of the 19th century, art historians followed Goethe's view.

When an inscription was found inside the cave in 1846, which seemed to document the consecration of the cave in 1115, Menke's view was followed by referring the cave inscription to the relief on the outside. A deed of purchase from Abdinghof Monastery from 1093 continued to draw attention to the time of the Crusades.

Of course, the authenticity of the document soon came into doubt and is now recognized as uncertain. In the meantime, the inscription on the lower grotto must also appear doubtful. After his own research, the sculptor Niedhorn came to the conclusion that the inscription, which was difficult to read, had been created in one operation and made indistinct by simultaneous chisel blows. He explains the finding that the manufacturer wanted to make the inscription appear much older than it was. On the basis of a comparison of all individual motifs, Walther Matthes and Rolf Speckner come to the interpretation confirming Goethe that the relief was created between 816 and 822.

interpretation

The middle register shows the Descent from the Cross, a Christian motif that is used much less frequently in the West than the crucifixion . The characters and actions are well known from Christian tradition. Only the object on which Nicodemus stands led to a controversial discussion: In 1929 Wilhelm Teudt put forward the thesis that it was about the bent Irminsul . Today's specialist science is largely skeptical of this statement; but it is occasionally answered in the affirmative. The depiction is assessed more informally than that of a palm or date palm , especially since this is documented in terms of art history and was also used as a decoration in regional medieval sacred buildings.

The content of the upper register is directly related to the events in the middle register. The figure with the aura of the cross and the flag of victory, which mark the resurrected, victorious Christ, carries a small child in his arms, who is dressed strikingly similar to him. This could be about the self-offering of Christ, as it is celebrated in mass when the bread is presented. According to another opinion, the figure in the upper register is God the Father.

The lower register is also related to the events in the middle. It shows a kite-like creature - resembling the Jonas whale of the catacombs - who is holding two kneeling people, one of whom is bearded and does not wear a robe, the other is clad in a long robe. The two each raise one hand to the foot of the cross, wherever their gaze is directed. The two are interpreted partly as Adam and Eve , partly as a Saxon warrior and a priest; The last one is said to have worn traditional women's clothes. Overall, according to this interpretation, the relief also reflects the medieval world order of heaven, earth and hell.

Research history

Goethe and Wilhelm Dorow put the emergence of the relief in the context of the Christianization of the place by Charlemagne. Just as smaller objects from pagan property were sanctified by scratching a cross, so the external stones were carved into the relief. This view was largely held by the proponents of a pagan use of the Externsteine ​​before the arrival of the Christian conquerors. Since the last third of the 19th century, the idea that the image should express the “triumph” of Christianity over paganism, associated with opposing sentiments, has emerged.

The supporters of a Romanesque origin of the monumental sculpture at the beginning of the 12th century put it in the context of a presumed pilgrimage site. The relief is part of an imitation of the holy places. The Golgotha ​​cross stood on top of the tower rock. The descent from the cross was thought of in the relief. The Arcosol tomb is an imitation of the tomb of Christ, and the caves were understood as a grotto for the discovery of the cross. The intensification of the contradiction in the moral assessment of the victory of Christianity over paganism also drew the disputes over the relief in its wake in the twenties and thirties, and National Socialist propaganda had an easy game.

After 1945, on the other hand, it was easy for the advocates of late dating to accuse any supporter of early dating of the relief of political background. Without new evidence or even just arguments, the late dating “around 1115” prevailed.

In 1934, however, the Catholic Alois Fuchs admitted in the battle for the Externsteine: a pre-Christian cult may have preceded it in the natural caves. One can even consider that to be probable. Even Friedrich Focke confirmed in 1943, with all of his late Dezidiertheit time approach "the Germanic-German content of the work." After 1945 it was an easy game not to accept anything prehistoric anymore. Even Focke's attempt to weaken the contrast by pointing out that the tree did not bend because Nicodemus was standing on it, but so that he could stand on it, did not find its way into literature at first.

In 1978 the American Elizabeth Parker was able to propose a previously neglected thesis: the relief was created to provide the background for the outdoor Easter games in front of the external stones. The dating left them in the 12th century.

In 1997 W. Matthes and R. Speckner presented an interpretation that was implicitly based on the medieval principle of the threefold sense of writing, which also applied to images. The sensus historicus , which encompasses the obvious facts, the external meaning of the images shown, makes a reference to the biblical narrative of the Descent from the Cross. The child in the arm of the upper Christ and the curved trunk cannot be classified in this explanation as “special assets” of the relief.

The second level is the sensus allegoricus , the allegorical interpretation. Amalarius von Metz (775–850) brought an allegorical understanding into the western conception of the mass. He had got to know this view on a trip to Byzantium. Then the priest and deacon repeat a station of the Passion of Christ at every moment and in every movement during the Mass. According to Amalarius, at the moment of the little elevation, the raising of the chalice, the priest and the deacon are Joseph and Nicodemus, who take the Lord from the cross. Amalar's contemporary Radbert von Corbie has described that during the change of bread and wine into the body and blood of the Lord, the changed substances were perceived as a small child. He has woven traditional examples of this show into his declaration of the Lord's Supper, which he wrote for the monks of the Corvey monastery between 831 and 833. The allegorical exposition thus includes the mysteries of the sacrament of the altar. While those acting at the altar transform themselves into Joseph of Arimathia and Nicodemus before the inner gaze, Christ comes down from above and bestows the powers of rejuvenation in the form of the child.

The sensus eschatologicus looks at the central act, at the meaning that the whole thing has with regard to eternity: What does the transfer of the body of Christ from the hand of one disciple into that of the other mean? According to John, Nicodemus belongs to a group who see Christ as a Master in Israel. He asks how he can gain eternal life, how can the eternal in him become so strong that it determines all of life? He asks about initiation. And Christ the Master tells him that he must be born again. A Jewish initiation student who is identified in the Externstein relief by the bending tree as a representative of pre-Christian spirituality, finds the way to Christ. Joseph of Arimathia on the other hand is the founder of the Grail Current, the Christian initiation current. Christ came to him in the prison, gave him the chalice and taught him mass. For example, at the Descent from the Cross, a pre-Christian initiate who has found the way to Christ and can climb up to him in the depiction of the external stones over the world tree, and Joseph von Arimathia, the first Christian initiate who becomes the bearer of Christ, meet. They work together.

Uta Halle sums up the research history of the post-war period with regard to the relief as follows: “In addition to numerous brochures and a few books by Teudt supporters, a few more books on the Externsteine ​​problem have been published from the academic side. On the one hand, there is the work of Walther Matthes Corvey and the Externsteine. Fate of a pre-Christian shrine in Carolingian times. (1982) and together with Rolf Speckner Das Relief an den Externsteinen. A Carolingian work of art and its spiritual background (1997). In the older work, Matthes tries to prove that at the beginning of the 9th century the monastery of Hethis is said to have been on the Externsteine ​​and that it can be deduced from this that there was a pre-Christian shrine on the Externsteine. The work on the Descent from the Cross builds on the first work and tries to prove the Carolingian dating for the work of art. Matthes did not use his information about the finds from the Externsteine, ..., in his work. On the other hand, Johannes Mundhenk's four-volume research on the history of the Externsteine from 1980–1988 should be mentioned here. "

She then goes on to explain that after 1945 "the cooperation with the SS during the Nazi era" made the topic taboo. The topic was highly ideologically charged and was left to lay researchers: "That is why, in addition to the above-mentioned scientific publications, the rock group has again been a focus in lay research circles since the sixties."

literature

  • Franz Flaskamp : Externsteiner document book. Gütersloh 1966.
  • Friedrich Focke: Contributions to the history of the Externsteine. Verlag W. Kohlhammer, Stuttgart Berlin 1943.
  • Alois Fuchs : In the dispute over the Externsteine. Their importance as a Christian place of worship . Bonifacius printing works, Paderborn 1934.
  • Johann Wolfgang von Goethe: The Externsteine. In: Goethe's works. Weimar edition. Abt.I., Vol. 49.2, Weimar 1900, pp. 46-52. For the first time in: Kunst und Altertum 5 (1824), pp. 130–139.
  • Wilhelm Lübke, Max Semrau: The art of the Middle Ages. 15th edition. Paul Neff Verlag, Esslingen 1923.
  • Walther Matthes, Rolf Speckner: The relief on the external stones. A Carolingian work of art and its spiritual background. edition tertium, Ostfildern before Stuttgart 1997.
  • Karl Theodor Menke: location, origin, name, description, antiquity, myth and history of the Externsteine. Coppenrathsche Buch- und Kunsthandlung, Münster undated (1824). Reprint: Verlag der Manufactur, Horn 1981.
  • Ulrich Niedhorn: The dedicatory inscription in the lower grotto of the Externsteine. In: Lippische Mitteilungen 55 (1986), pp. 9-44.
  • Thies, Jürgen: The symbols of Romanesque and evil, Volume I, The Externsteine ​​and the works of Bernward in Hildesheim in focus, publishing house and gallery for art and art therapy, 2007.
  • Elke Treude, Michael cell: The Externsteine ​​near Horn. (= Lippe cultural landscapes , issue 18). Lippischer Heimatbund, Detmold 2011, ISBN 978-3-941726-18-5 , ISSN  1863-0529 .

Web links

Commons : Relief from the Descent from the Cross (Externsteine)  - Collection of images, videos and audio files
Wikisource: Externsteine  - Sources and full texts

Individual evidence

  1. So from: Walther Matthes, Rolf Speckner: The relief on the Externsteinen. A Carolingian work of art and its spiritual background. edition tertium, Ostfildern before Stuttgart 1997.
  2. Klemens Höchst: An interpretation of the "chair" on the relief of the Descent from the Cross of the Externsteine. In: Lippische Mitteilungen aus Geschichte und Landeskunde Volume 52, 1983, pp. 11-17.
  3. Elizabeth C. Parker. The Descent from the Cross. Its relation to the Extra-Liturgical "Depositio" drama. London-New York 1978
  4. Konrad Burdach. The grail. Research on its origin and its connection with the Longinus legend. Stuttgart 1938. Chap. 9 The Extended Greek Mass , pp. 144–145.
  5. ^ Corpus Christianorum. Continuatio mediaevalis. Vol. XVI. Pascasius Radbertus de corpore et sanguine domini. Turnholt 1969. The German translation in 'Paschasius Radbertus. From the body and blood of the Lord, Trier 1988, unfortunately leaves out these stories as out of date.
  6. ^ Uta Halle . The Externsteine ​​are Germanic until further notice! Prehistoric archeology in the Third Reich. Bielefeld 2002. p. 517
  7. ^ Uta Halle. The Externsteine ​​are Germanic until further notice! Prehistoric archeology in the Third Reich. Bielefeld 2002. p. 518

Coordinates: 51 ° 52 '8.2 "  N , 8 ° 55' 2.2"  E