Natural portrayal of academic life
The “Natural portrayal of academic life in the present fourteen beautiful figures brought to light by D.” is a series of 14 copperplate engravings attributed to the Nuremberg engraver Johann Georg Puschner (1680–1749) using the pseudonym “Dendrono”. This series of picture motifs with accompanying texts from student life at the University of Altdorf was probably made around 1725 and only a few copies are fully preserved today.
content
The sheets in the series depict various scenes from student life at that time. Each sheet is dominated by a pictorial representation, below which eight rhyming verses, divided into two stanzas each, explain the scene and, if necessary, provided with an educational admonition.
From some details you can see that the work specifically refers to the University of Altdorf , which was the university of the imperial city of Nuremberg from 1622 to 1809 . However, it is kept so general that the statements made here are certainly valid for student life in all of Central Europe.
The first seven sheets show the exemplary student who made use of the typical courses offered at the university at the time, who achieved a doctorate.
The student
attaining a doctorate Whoever does not spare sweat and hard work in learning will be rewarded
with honor = fame after completing the effort:
the head stretched out for so long
is covered with the honorary crown and doctor's hat.
So a son of the muses blossoms because these honor
levels can call him to greater honor and dignity.
Whoever has learned something and can advise whitishly is
seen in the world as an idol.
The following sheets show the wrong ways, the typical vices and debauchery, to which many of the “Sons of the Muses” succumbed by taking advantage of academic freedom.
The last two sheets relentlessly show the consequences of student misconduct and failure. The failed student has to leave the university without an exam and embark on an uncertain life path. From this the admonishing character of the work becomes clear, which was certainly created with pedagogical standards.
The desperate student
This is how it works, when muses-sons lie in the constant bitch,
they only enjoy pure lust and no book.
When one is braviring day and night, feasting and drinking,
always indulging, repenting and driving, daily wrangling and fighting.
So everything wanders away: the body loses its strength
and is not even suitable for war business,
reaches for the beggar 's stick, quietly pulls away,
and takes a whore out of desperation.
The division of the sheets, first the positive, exemplary:
- Sheet 1: The prospective student
- Sheet 2: The devout student
- Sheet 3: The hardworking student
- Sheet 4: The fencing student
- Sheet 5: The Dancing Student
- Sheet 6: The riding student
- Sheet 7: The student attending doctorate
The last seven sheets show the negative sides of student life, the degeneration and the unsuccessfulness:
- Sheet 8: The lazy student
- Sheet 9: The drinking student
- Sheet 10: The courtesy student
- Sheet 11: The Exuberant Student
- Sheet 12: The scuffing student
- Sheet 13: The student withdrawing quietly
- Sheet 14: The Desperate Student
Sheet 13 in particular has a long tradition as the so-called "Cornelius scene" (see Cornelius Relegatus ). This term refers to representations that have symbolically shown the failure of a strolling student since the early 17th century . Typical pictorial elements are the pedell writing a summons to the principal on the door of the room, the creditor harassing the student with promissory notes, and a young woman confronting the student with an illegitimate child. For this purpose, broken objects lying on the floor are often shown in the picture.
author
It is not certain that the work actually came from Puschner, but it is very likely. The pseudonym “Dendrono” is derived from ancient Greek δένδρον (“dendron”, in German “tree” or “bush”), which, according to art historians, points to Puschner, whose name is also spelled “Buschner” or “Büschner”.
In addition, Puschner produced several works of art on motifs from Altdorf at the time in question, e.g. B. the "Amoenitates Altdorfinae", while no other artist was active there during this time.
One of Puschner's sons, who has the same first name as his father, worked in his workshop. Based on the assumed date of creation of around 1725, it can be assumed that the son, for reasons of age, at best assisted in the creation of the work.
Tradition and reception
Due to its quality, its clarity and its comprehensive presentation of all aspects of student life at that time, the images and texts of the "Natural Descriptions" were reproduced and quoted in important student history and pictorial works on student life, especially in the 20th century. Here is a list of these works in the chronological order of their appearance:
- Richard Fick : On Germany's high schools , Berlin / Leipzig 1900
- Gustav Freytag : Pictures from the German Past , 5 volumes, Leipzig (1925)
- Wilhelm Fabricius : The German Corps , 2nd edition, Frankfurt am Main 1926
- Paul Ssymank : Brother Studio in Caricature and Satire , Stuttgart 1929
- Max Bauer : Sittengeschichte des Deutschen Studententums , Dresden undated (approx. 1930) digitized
- Karl Konrad: Imagery of the German Student System , 2nd edition, Breslau 1931; Supplements and additions , Breslau 1935
- Paul Grabein (Ed.): Vivat Academia, 600 years of German university life , Essen undated (1932)
- Michael Klant: University in the caricature - evil pictures from the curious history of the universities , Hanover 1984, ISBN 3-7716-1451-1
- Hans-Albrecht Koch : The University. History of a European institution. Darmstadt 2008, p. 34, ISBN 978-3-534-19037-9
For a long time the copy in the Lipperheide Costume Library, which is part of the holdings of the Berlin Art Library, was the only completely preserved copy of the “Natural Signage” published in a small brochure volume from 1962 (new edition 1993) in Nuremberg and Altdorf .
On the occasion of the activities for the 200th anniversary of the dissolution of the University of Altdorf in 2009, it became known that there is another complete copy in the Institute for Higher Education at the University Library of Würzburg , which is made from sheets from the collections of the German Society for Higher Education and the Association Alter Corpsstudenten eV composed. This copy was made available to the public through an annual calendar and a specialist article.
supporting documents
- ↑ Ulrich Rasche: Cornelius relegatus in engravings and images from the archives of the early 17th century in: Einst und Jetzt Volume 53 (2008), Neustadt an der Aisch, pp. 15–47. ISBN 978-3-87707-717-7
literature
- Konrad Lengenfelder (Ed.): Dendrono-Puschner's natural portrayal of academic life in beautiful figures brought to light , 2nd edition Altdorf 1993 (1st edition Nuremberg 1962)
- Michaela Neubert : 200 years of dissolution of the Nuremberg University Altdorf (1578-1809) , annual calendar 2010. Published by the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Hochschulkunde eV in conjunction with the Association for German Student History and akadpress. Wurzburg 2009
- Michaela Neubert: "Natural portrayal of academic life". Copper engravings by the Nuremberg graphic artist Johann Georg Puschner, known as Dendrono (1680-1749) . In: Once and Now Volume 55, 2010 yearbook of the Association for Corps Student History Research, Neustadt an der Aisch 2010
