Stone of good luck

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Goethe's "Altar of Agathé Tyché"
View of the memorial from the summer house
Goethe's garden house around 1900

The stone of good luck (also: Altar of the Agathé Tyché ) is a monument that Johann Wolfgang von Goethe had erected near his garden house in the Park on the Ilm in Weimar. The monument, which shows a ball resting on a cube , is considered to be one of the first non-figurative monuments in Germany.

Emergence

Goethe turned to his former Leipzig teacher Adam Friedrich Oeser to let him participate in his planning. On December 25, 1776 he wrote in his diary: “To Oesern. agathe tyche, Zu Frau von Stein. ”On April 5, 1777, Goethe noted the completion of the work:“ Agathe Tyche founded! ”

Shape and meaning

With the symbolism of his monument, Goethe draws on already existing traditions of art. While the cube represents a symbol of firmness and stability, the ball symbolizes the fluctuating and unstable. The combination of both elements can already be demonstrated in art history. Tyche can equally represent a fortunate or unfortunate stroke of fate. Here, however, "the mobile, swaying goddess of happiness is brought to rest by the cube as a solid, stable one [...]."

According to Timo John, this memorial for Goethe was “an expression of his love for Charlotte von Stein , and on the other hand it was intended to express his happiness in his own house and garden. It was a token of thanks for your well-being. "

literature

  • Donat de Chapeaurouge: Introduction to the history of Christian symbols (=  the science of art ). Scientific Book Society, Darmstadt 1991, ISBN 3-534-01831-1 , pp. 115 .
  • Weimar (=  Baedeker Allianz travel guide ). 3. Edition. Baedeker, Ostfildern 2001, ISBN 3-89525-128-3 , pp. 78-79 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d Timo John: IX. Oesers monuments in the service of the civil enlightenment. In: Adam Friedrich Oeser 1717-1799. Goethezeitportal eV, archived from the original on December 1, 2018 .;
  2. ↑ a b Donat de Chapeaurouge: Introduction to the history of Christian symbols (=  the art history ). Scientific Book Society, Darmstadt 1991, ISBN 3-534-01831-1 , pp. 115 .

Coordinates: 50 ° 58 ′ 35.8 "  N , 11 ° 20 ′ 11.2"  E