Landgraf Philipp Monument (Kassel)

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Landgraf Philipp Monument on a picture postcard from 1903

The Landgraf Philipp Monument is a monument in Kassel that has not been preserved ; It was unveiled in 1899 in memory of the Renaissance prince Landgrave Philipp of Hesse and dismantled in 1942.

Emergence

Merian - Engraving by Landgrave Philipp I.

The idea of erecting a memorial to the former regent of the Landgraviate of Hessen-Kassel arose in ultra-conservative Protestant circles as early as 1889. The Evangelical Union for the Protection of German Protestant Interests wanted to honor Philip as the protector of the Reformation in his country, whose seat was Kassel.

A committee was founded to collect donations, and in a competition in 1898, the monument design by the then 21-year-old sculptor Hans Everding was awarded first prize and designated for execution.

description

The memorial stood in front of the nave of the Martinskirche on Martinsplatz. On a nine-meter-high pedestal of granite that stood out bronze cast, about seven feet high statue of Landgrave. The figure was in strict contrapost , the right leg clearly protruding. This fact led the people of Kassel to answer the question “What does the monument represent?” With “The right foot!” .

The statue represented Philip as a young man with an athletic build. The left hand held the scabbard of the sword. The ruler was shown in fashionable and elaborate clothing of his time. On the front of the pedestal was a quote from Philip as an inscription: “I would rather give up life and limb, country and people, than of God's word.” Two bronze reliefs were mounted on the two flanks. One of the reliefs showed the Marburg Religious Discussion of 1529, during which Martin Luther , Philipp Melanchthon and Ulrich Zwingli formed Protestantism as Philip's guests at his seat in Marburg . The other relief shows the capture of the Hessian landgrave near Halle in 1547 by imperial troops during the wars of religion . The choice of motifs made it clear that this is not a statue of a ruler in the narrower sense, but a memorial to an important protagonist of the Reformation.

Role models in art

Everding was given the task of “ideally shaping Landgrave Philipp so youthful, so energetic, so ready to fight, as history tells us the Landgrave in the years in which he was called to intervene so decisively in the Reformation” . Tradition tells us very little about the Landgrave's appearance. The pictorial conception of his person was for the most part not formed until the 19th century. Only a few works of art from older times come into question as templates.

Philipp had no increased interest in art and probably saw it as a waste of money. So it is not surprising that his most important painting, created by none other than Titian , was made in imperial captivity. This painting is lost today and the other surviving paintings are only copies.

Bloated and corpulent, the old Landgrave is depicted next to his main wife in a portrait of a couple, which was made as a posthumous copy of two paintings by his court painter Michael Müller himself around 1585/1590.

In Kassel itself there is the epitaph donated by his son in Philip's Church of the Holy Sepulcher, the Martinskirche. However, it is not very relevant because it is a posthumous , highly idealized representation.

Another representation is a copy of a Cranach painting by Hans Krell, who worked in Cranach's workshop and produced the approximately 82 cm × 67 cm large half-format. It is still owned by the Hessian House Foundation in Fulda Castle Fasanerie . It shows the roughly 30-year-old regent in a costume comparable to that of the Everding memorial and dispenses with any regal insignia.

A monumental sandstone relief of 2.4 mx 3.3 m in the former monastery of Haina shows, among other things, Philip in full length, also in counter post with a feathered hat. This is not an epitaph, but a political monument.

The Philippsstein was created in 1542 by Philipp Soldan . This representation was not made on behalf of the sovereign himself, but as a tribute to a loyal governor. The artistic value is rather modest.

Planned replacement and destruction of the monument

After taking power in 1933, the National Socialists planned to build a new monument to Philip. It should be executed as a monumental stone equestrian statue . At that time, Philip of Hesse - a direct descendant of the Landgrave - was President of the Prussian Province of Hesse-Nassau . After the outbreak of World War II, these plans did not go beyond the planning phase.

When the Everding monument was demolished in 1942 and its bronze parts were melted down for armament purposes, various plaster casts were taken for a later reconstruction that was never realized . Individual parts of the statue were seen in a junkyard after the war, but have probably been melted down. The granite base was dismantled and presumably used to fill an extinguishing water cistern on Martinsplatz; the dating inscription was buried on the south wall of St. Martin's Church in 1961.

Two bronze reliefs from the base of the old monument were cast in the 1980s after the plaster casts from 1942 and attached to the outer wall of the Martinskirche.

literature

  • Stefan Schweizer: Interpretation of history and historical images. 2004, ISBN 3-8924-4821-3 .

Coordinates: 51 ° 19 ′ 1 ″  N , 9 ° 30 ′ 4 ″  E