Panorama of the storm on St. Privat

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The panorama of the storm on St. Privat was a panorama painting by Emil Hünten , which was shown from February 24, 1881 to December 1883 in the newly opened Berlin panorama rotunda "National Panorama " in Herwarthstrasse. It was the first of six panoramic exhibitions in the building; the building was demolished shortly before the turn of the century. Though highly regarded by contemporaries, Hünten's picture is not preserved by a single illustration.

history

The battle of Zorndorf of 1858, one of Emil Hünten's early history paintings, which later gave him orders as a “battle painter”, a similar aesthetic can be assumed for the panorama picture.

Description of the original work

On the historical context, the visitor brochure wrote:

“On August 17, 1870, the main French army took a position on the high plateau from Gravelotte to Roncourt west of Metz. In this […] strong […] position, she was attacked on August 18th by the combined corps of the 1st and 2nd German Army, under the personal direction of Sr. Majesty of King Wilhelm, and defeated in a twelve-hour hot struggle. "

The losing battle took place between August 17, 1870 and August 18 as part of the Battle of Gravelotte (called Bataille de Saint-Privat in France ) in the Franco-German War .

The history painter Emil Hünten made the circular painting according to a concept developed together with his painter colleague Wilhelm Simmler . Hünten had already proven himself as a history painter in large format. In 1872 he had painted the picture The Hessian Division at the Battle of St. Privat . Hünten and Simmler traveled to the original locations for the preparatory work for the panorama. While he was painting, his son Max Hünten took visitors through the studios, which were the first to work with paint from tubes.

A panorama building of the usual 19th century construction, here to depict the battle of Waterloo
Mural Sturm auf St. Privat, 1870 by Georg Bleibtreu in the Berlin Hall of Fame (c. 1887)

In front of the large picture, real plants loosened up the slaughter, which was heated on cold days with a system of hot water pipes. In summer, on the other hand, the sunlight falling through skylights led to sufficient warming. The Societé anonyme des Panoramas de Berlin à Bruxelles had financed the panorama. It was housed in a specially built house at Herwarthstrasse 4 and was inaugurated on February 24, 1881. After Frankfurt am Main, it was the second panorama building erected in Germany.

After viewing the Berlin panorama, Otto von Faber du Faur sought advice from Hünten on the preparation of his panorama The Battle of Wörth in Cologne. Hünten himself removed the painting from Berlin in December 1883 and then rebuilt it in Cologne, where it was shown again on May 31, 1884 at the opening of the local panorama exhibition pavilion on the Hohenzollernring. The picture was also shown in the Hamburg panorama building at Dammtor.

The following panoramas

Two other Belgian companies contacted Anton von Werner with the request to paint a similar panorama picture for a Berlin location. Von Werner chose the battle of Sedan as the motif. For this purpose, a separate rotunda was built on the panoramic road to the west of the Alexanderplatz train station , which was destroyed in the Second World War along with the depiction.

Another panorama, the “Marine Panorama”, was located from 1892 in a round building by Ludwig Heim between the Moltkebrücke and the Lehrter train station . However, the building was used by the colonial museum from 1899 and the marine panorama was no longer shown.

After Hünten, Louis Braun also painted a panorama picture of the same battle event. His panorama Der Sturm auf St. Privat on August 10, 1870 in Dresden opened in 1883.

Contemporary response

In the Vossische Zeitung of February 24, 1881, Ludwig Pietsch described it as follows:

“The light summer sky, partly fluffed by light clouds, arches over this expanse. The afternoon sun breaks this veil over long stretches and sharply illuminates the field in front of the village, the dry, solid poplar road in front of its entrance and the houses deeper in the background. […] The balls sweep the leafy branches from the […] poplars on the country road and stretch some young Prussian blood onto the bright, whitish ground and into the grassy ditches. [...] Count Kanitz rides quietly in the middle of the path up the slope. [...] Deeper in the valley you can see General von Pape riding slowly with his staff on the Chaussee. "

Franz Reber described it as "one of the best panoramas ever painted".

Theodor Fontane , who valued Hünten's work, noted about the panorama on March 7, 1881 in his diary: “After the great Hünten-'schen panorama of St. Privat; - a very brilliant achievement. Individual things seem shocking. I stayed for over an hour. ”He processed the impressions in his work Effi Briest .

Contemporaries and historians agree that Hünten had less of a direct commercial purpose with his panorama picture, but wanted to serve national exaltation and his personal reputation as a painter.

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Stephan Oettermann: The panorama. The history of a mass medium . 1980, p. 204
  2. ^ Theodor Fontane, Helmuth Nürnberger, Walter Keitel: works, writings and letters . Munich 1962, ISBN 978-3-446-19278-2 , p. 1629
  3. Astrid Weidauer: Berlin Panoramas of the Imperial Era , p. 18
  4. ^ Wilhelm Widemann: Marine Attaché at the Imperial German Embassy in London, 1907-1912 . With an introduction by W. Hubatsch.
  5. Herwarthstrasse . In: Street name lexicon of the Luisenstädtischer Bildungsverein
  6. ^ Stephan Oettermann: The panorama. The history of a mass medium . 1980, p. 193
  7. Münchner Jahrbuch der bildenden Kunst , 1983, p. 192
  8. ^ Stephan Oettermann: The panorama. The history of a mass medium . 1980, p. 198
  9. Nicole De Vilder: Hünten, Emil . In: General Artist Lexicon . The visual artists of all times and peoples (AKL). Volume 75, de Gruyter, Berlin 2012, ISBN 978-3-11-023180-9 , p. 354 f.
  10. ^ Nic Leonhardt: Pictorial dramaturgy, visual culture and theater in the 19th century (1869–1899) , quoted in Pictorial dramaturgy , 2007, p. 184
  11. Panoramic road . In: Address book for Berlin and its suburbs , 1901, part 2, p. 481. “Panoramastraße 1: Panorama building, Sedan panorama ”.
  12. Panorama Dresden on Prager Straße ( Memento of the original from March 4, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.neumarkt-dresden.de
  13. Franz von Reber: History of Modern German Art , Volume 3. 1884, p. 336
  14. ^ Theodor Fontane, Helmuth Nürnberger , Walter Keitel: works, writings and letters . 1962, p. 1137
  15. Nora Hoffmann: Photography, painting and visual perception with Theodor Fontane . De Gruyter, Berlin 2011, ISBN 978-3-11-025992-6 , p. 46 f.
  16. Alexandra Baldus: The Sedan Panorama by Anton von Werner. A Wilhelmine battle panorama in the context of history painting. Dissertation, Bonn 2001, p. 52