Christmas pyramid
Christmas pyramids are light frames that are used as pre-Christmas room decorations and to decorate outdoor spaces. The production and use of Christmas pyramids are part of folk art and customs in the Ore Mountains . The carousel-like frames are made with Christian motifs (such as angel figures and the birth of Christ ) as well as secular motifs (e.g. miners and forest motifs) and are traditionally powered by the candles with the help of the rising warmth Sets the impeller and the plate connected to it via a rod in motion.
construction
Christmas pyramids are usually made of wood and consist of a frame that tapers towards the top on a square to octagonal base plate. Inside there is a vertical shaft with a metal tip in a glass or ceramic bowl to which one or more plates are attached. Carved or turned figures are placed on these .
At the top of the shaft is an impeller powered by candles on the outside of the pyramid. The rising air heated by the candles sets the impeller and the plates connected to the shaft in rotation. Traditionally, Christmas pyramids rotate clockwise, less often counterclockwise. The direction and speed of rotation can be influenced by the leaf position.
Christmas pyramids are made in different shapes and designs, mostly by carving , turning and fretwork . Some of them are ornately decorated and have the shape of a house with a pitched roof, at the top of which the rotating leaves protrude. Others are constructed as floor pyramids with several floors for different (often Erzgebirge) figures, for whose operation more candles are necessary. Table pyramids usually have a plate and can deviate from the usual structure.
A special shape is the bottle pyramid, in which the pyramid - similar to a ship in a bottle - is located in a glass bottle.
Pyramids are also made from sheet metal. In these, only the impeller and attached trailer turn. The wheel sits with its central bearing dome on a needle.
history
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The turning tree is seen as the forerunner of the Christmas pyramid . The creation of the Christmas pyramid goes back to the Middle Ages. During this time it was common in southern and western Europe to hang up evergreen twigs (e.g. boxwood ) in the home to avert disaster in the dark. In Northern and Eastern Europe this was attempted with the help of the power of light.
The Christmas pyramid combined both customs and became a symbol of Christmas , especially in the Ore Mountains . The light frames known in Germany in the 18th century were the origin of today's pyramids. They consisted of four rods wound with green branches, tied together at the top and provided with lights. In many village churches in the Mark Brandenburg region , there used to be slatted frames tapering towards the top for Christmas mass, which were decorated with burning candles and hung with glittering objects. Decorating these pyramids and lighting the candlelights was one of the main tasks of the candlestick building societies established at the time . Until the middle of the 19th century, the Berlin Christmas pyramid Perjamide (also "Brandenburg pyramid" or "Perchtemite") was the highlight of the Christmas presents in Berlin . These mostly simple, pyramid-shaped wire and wooden frames, wrapped in fir green, were decorated, served as light carriers and were sold at Christmas markets or made by ourselves. At the end of the 18th century these pyramids were used in many pictorial representations and in the 19th century were considered the “trademark” of the Berlin Christmas market. After the Wars of Liberation , the Christmas tree became increasingly popular in cities .
Miners in the Ore Mountains did not interpret the basic shape as a simple tree with lights, but were reminded of the shape of a horse peg. They began to fill the empty stick frame with handcrafted wooden figures and thus developed the basic principle of the Christmas pyramid.
The term pyramid ( Erzgebirge : Peremett ) for a light-bearing Christmas decoration that was set up in the church is said to have been used for the first time in 1716 in the Schneeberg city and mountain chronicle. Looking back at the time before the renovation of St. Wolfgang's Church, it says that the visitors to the Christmas mass on Christmas Day brought burning candles into the church and that the vain and all-all illumination-loving youth [...] built pyramids of lots of lights there . These pyramids seem to be a collection of numerous burning candles in the form of a pyramid, not the Christmas pyramids in the modern sense.
When the cheap paraffin was discovered around 1830 , which replaced the expensive tallow candles or Rüböl lamps with which the pyramids had been driven up until then, the Ore Mountains pyramid experienced an upswing. A variety of motifs and styles emerged, such as B. Gothic and oriental styles and the forest motif. Figures from numerous subject areas were placed on the plates, including the birth of Christ, mountain parades and forest animals.
Series production
Until well into the 20th century, Christmas pyramids in the Erzgebirge tended to be one-offs or very small editions by skilled craftsmen who made them on the side to earn money. From around 1900 onwards, the CL Flemming company built large, multi-storey pyramids in series in Globenstein using industrial methods , using waste wood from their actual production. She mailed them to order. The company advertised its pyramids a lot in newspapers; they became known as the Globensteiner Pyramiden . The pyramids had a bell that could be turned off.
Great Pyramids
Great pyramids in the Ore Mountains
Until the 1930s, Christmas pyramids remained exclusively domestic Christmas decorations, which often had a special place in living rooms. According to tradition, the last retired Frohnauer Steiger Traugott Pollmer had the idea in 1926 to set up a "pyramid for everyone" outdoors. In 1931, three years after Pollmer's death, work began on the Ore Mountains' first open-air pyramid under the direction of the Frohnau carving association near Annaberg-Buchholz and in collaboration with local craftsmen, the local council and the carver Paul Schneider . After its completion, the Frohnau pyramid was inaugurated on December 17, 1933. The pyramid was dismantled just two years after its inauguration, nothing is known about its whereabouts. The oldest preserved and still in operation outdoor pyramid is the so-called Krauss pyramid in Schwarzenberg .
Up until the 1950s there were 10 pyramids in the Ore Mountains, they were still the exception. The increased spread began in the 1960s (+16) and in the 1970s (+58). After the fall of the Wall, a real boom began in 1990 - almost every place in the West and East Ore Mountains built a place pyramid, the inauguration of which was then celebrated with a festive occasion. This Christmas custom has been spreading ever since the fall of the Wall . The number of local pyramids in the Erzgebirge district was 150 at the end of 2014. There are also many systems in the Eastern Ore Mountains. Some of these large pyramids are erected all year round.
In 2014 the world's largest Christmas pyramid to date was erected in Johanngeorgenstadt .
See also: List of local pyramids in the Erzgebirgskreis , List of local pyramids in the district of Zwickau , List of local pyramids in the district of Central Saxony
Large pyramids in other places in Germany
The erection of large pyramids has also become common outside of the Ore Mountains. The pyramid on the Dresden Striezelmarkt was manufactured by a company in Gahlenz and was considered the largest pyramid in the world when it was erected in 1997. In Berlin-Mitte a pyramid rotates at the Christmas market in front of the Rotes Rathaus , which has been erected for over 20 years and was also made in the Ore Mountains.
In the Lower Saxon town of Bad Bentheim there is a Christmas pyramid that comes from the Ore Mountains twin town of Selva . It was created as a thank you for the donation of two modern fire extinguishing trains. In other federal states such as Bavaria, Thuringia and Saxony-Anhalt there are site pyramids created by local craftsmen with figures with a regional reference. Since 1994, a Christmas pyramid has been set up as a tourist attraction in the center of Hanover during Advent; it has been replaced by a larger one over the years and in 2014, with a height of 18 meters, represented the largest accessible Christmas pyramid in the world.
literature
- Technical school for tourism of the Institute for Social and Cultural Education e. V. (Ed.): Christmas pyramids in the Saxon Ore Mountains - Part 1 Western Ore Mountains. Husum Verlag, Husum 1996, ISBN 978-388042-796-9 .
- Technical school for tourism of the Institute for Social and Cultural Education e. V. (Hrsg.): Christmas pyramids in the Saxon Ore Mountains - Part 2 Eastern Ore Mountains. Husum Verlag, Husum 1997, ISBN 978-3-88042-797-6 .
- Robin Hermann: Ortspyramiden - history, models, facts. Hermann, Chemnitz 2009, ISBN 978-3-940860-03-3 .
- Claus Leichsenring : Christmas pyramids of the Ore Mountains. Verlag der Kunst Dresden Ingwert Paulsen jr., Husum 2009, ISBN 978-3-86530-124-6 .
- Robin Hermann: Ortspyramiden - history, models, facts. Vol. 2., From Adorf to Zschorlau. Hermann, Chemnitz 2011, ISBN 978-3-940860-05-7 .
- Tina Peschel, Dagmar Neuland-Kitzerow: Christmas pyramids tradition and modernity , series of publications Museum European Cultures , Volume 12, Verlag der Kunst Dresden Ingwert Paulsen jun., Husum 2012, ISBN 978-3-86530-175-8 .
- Manuel Schramm: Consumption and regional identity in Saxony 1880 - 2000: the regionalization of consumer goods in the field of tension between nationalization and globalization (= quarterly journal for social and economic history , supplements, no.164), Steiner, Stuttgart 2002, ISBN 3-515-08169 -0 ( Dissertation Uni Leipzig 2001, 326 pages)
Web links
- On the history of the Christmas pyramid , accessed on October 13, 2009
- The Erzgebirge Christmas pyramid
Individual evidence
- ↑ Berlin Christmas pyramid Advent calendar of the Center for Berlin Studies (ZBS)
- ^ Christian Meltzer : Historia Schneebergensis renovata - Schneebergische Stadt- und Berg-Chronic . 1716, p. 1177 ( digitized version [accessed November 25, 2013]).
- ^ Claus Leichsenring : Erzgebirge Christmas Pyramids , Dresden 1993, pages 81 to 85.
- ↑ “Life” of the open-air pyramids began 76 years ago at the hammer , 75 years of the Frohnau local pyramid, the first open-air pyramid in the Ore Mountains ( Memento from December 3, 2013 in the Internet Archive ), accessed on December 13, 2013
- ↑ Manuel Schramm: Consumption and regional identity in Saxony 1880-2000 , section 4.2.2 .: The use of things: festival preparation and festival implementation. Franz Steiner Verlag, 2002. ISBN 978-3-515-08169-6 ; P. 168ff.
- ↑ a b broadcast of the MDR on December 8, 2010 - We were looking for the top ten out of 33 previously selected pyramids from all over Germany ( page no longer available , search in web archives ) Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ Brief information about Christmas time in front of the red town hall ; Retrieved December 11, 2010
- ↑ The Christmas pyramid on the Kröpcke at: Weihnachtsmarkt-deutschland.de
