Wiedenbrück school

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The Wiedenbrück School is the name given to the historicist handicrafts that flourished in Rheda-Wiedenbrück ( Gütersloh district in North Rhine-Westphalia ) and its immediate vicinity in the 19th and early 20th centuries . It was a local association of workshops with mutually complementary specializations. In the workshops mainly church furnishings were produced.

Beginnings of handicrafts

An artistic and handicraft tradition from the end of the 16th century can be proven for the area of ​​today's city of Rheda-Wiedenbrück as a cultural space. At this time Rotger came from Brachum to Wiedenbrück and was naturalized there in 1582. Together with his brother Johannes they are considered to be the builders of the Eden Palace (1607) in Rietberg and the Rheda Palace (1612). Rotger and Johannes are sons of Laurenz von Brachum . The actual heyday of the arts and crafts did not begin until the 19th century with the goldsmith's trade in Wiedenbrück.

specialization

Franz Anton Goldkuhle , who was born in Wiedenbrück in 1827 and worked as a carpenter , specialized in church interiors on the basis of an order carried out in 1863 and 1864 to erect the high altar in the Franciscan Church in Wiedenbrück. Through this order he got in contact with the church builder Gerhard August Fischer from Barmen , who sent him follow-up orders. Goldkuehle's workshop grew quickly and became the nucleus of a new industry in the city.

The high demands of the church clients soon led to a specialization of the workshops. There were altar-building workshops, sculptors , ornamenters and painters . The good reputation of the workshops went overseas and testified to the high quality of craftsmanship and design. This was expressed, among other things, in the fact that the client usually left the commissioned workshops with the artistic design.

School establishment

It was precisely this peculiarity that led to conflicts with the Prussian school administration. In a letter from the mayor to the district administrator , it says: "The greatest difficulties in the craftsmen's training school consist in recruiting capable teachers for drawing lessons - but this drawing lesson is of particular importance for the Wiedenbrück school." The dispute reached its peak in 1894 and forced those involved to find a solution. In December 1894, took magistrate a new bylaw, which was stipulated that workers of certain manufacturing sectors ( tobacco factories , rope factories , mills , tanneries , agricultural workers, day laborers , henchmen ) were exempted from attending compulsory continuation school. This eliminated an important subject of dispute, namely the assertion and demand of the art workshops that the tobacco factory workers would disrupt the lessons and should therefore be excluded.

Although drawing lessons at the state school improved in the following years, the demands of the artisans could not be reconciled with the offers deemed necessary by the state. By the state, although the importance of drawing for Wiedenbrück was conceded, but has also emphatically stressed that "to do without any more than the acquisition of knowledge material in German and math ... for the craftsman who are independent and want to get ahead (is ), like gaining the skill to draw ” .

The companies tried to compensate for deficits in school education with their own lessons on Sundays. However, the Prussian Minister for Trade and Industry took action against this with a circular dated August 20, 1904: "Sunday belongs to edification, family life, recreation and free work, not compulsory schooling".

Finally, the constant quarrels with the state school administration led to the affiliation of a modeling class to the advanced training school. The minister approved a grant of 500 marks so that on February 21, 1908, two parallel technical school courses, each with four hours per week and a course duration of 21 weeks, could begin. The expanded school seemed to prove itself, because in 1911 the courses were taken over as a permanent establishment and a little later held in a separate studio. After the First World War, the courses were obviously not continued.

Historical classification

For the church arts and crafts, which Wiedenbrück specialized in, the position of the church, especially in its relationship to the state, was decisive in the development of the various historical styles.

Kulturkampf with Rome

Due to the Reichsdeputationshauptschluss of February 25, 1803, the spiritual principalities , collegiate churches , abbeys and monasteries fell to the respective sovereigns . Around 1810, the cathedral chapters in Münster and Paderborn were dissolved in Westphalia . In 1815, large parts of the Rhineland were added to the Church-critical Prussian state. A culture war broke out between Prussia and the Vatican , which was only officially declared in 1887 by Pope Leo XIII. has been declared ended.

The differences between state and church became most evident in the dispute over the Hermesians and interdenominational marriage , which resulted in anti-Prussian excesses and the strengthening of ultramontanism - the influence of the Pope. The active struggle between Catholicism and the state led to a flourishing of the ecclesiastical base, whereas the Catholic official church was severely weakened by the pulpit paragraph (1871) and the May Laws (1873). In 1878 only four of the twelve dioceses in Prussia were still occupied, hundreds of parishes were orphaned, and numerous priests were punished with imprisonment or fines.

The political opposition now received a backbone in the resisting Catholic population groups, so that the elections for the Center Party in 1873/1874 brought an unexpected upswing.

Union of Protestants

For the Protestants, the unification of Reformed and Lutherans by the Reformed Prussian king was on the agenda. In an appeal of September 27, 1817, the king tried to enforce a uniform liturgy and agenda . This standardization of the confession at community level was rejected by most of the parishes ( agendas dispute ), even though the parishes with their respective confessions were administratively combined to form the Evangelical Church in the Royal Prussian Lands . In 1835, however, another attempt was made to establish a union at the municipal level. The Rhenish-Westphalian Church Ordinance was passed, and it finally acquired great importance through constant comment.

The church building

Until the middle of the 19th century, the construction of larger churches was subject to the approval of the Oberbaudeputation in Berlin. As a result, the design features of large and small churches differ due to the greater diversity in the decision-making process in small churches. Further differences arose from denominational characteristics, which were particularly influenced by the king in Protestantism. The Protestant Friedrich Wilhelm IV had a fondness for the Romanesque architectural style , which reminded him of the basilicas of the early Christians in Rome. Its influence was reflected in the Eisenach regulation issued in 1861 , according to which the architectural style should follow the historically developed Christian forms, the floor plan should show an elongated square according to the early Christian basilica, the masonry should allow the material to appear, the chancel should be massively vaulted become.

Within the scope of the possibilities left with these regulations, the Protestants preferred the neo-Gothic architectural style . Towards the end of the century this preference changed, following the taste of the emperor and now preferring the neo-Romanesque . In the Wiesbaden program in 1891, Pastors W. Veesenmayer and J. Otzen attempted to architecturally represent an organic connection between altar, pulpit , organ and singer stage. However, the church authorities did not respond to this. It was not until the second church building congress in Dresden in 1906 that the climate improved for freer architecture in Protestant church building.

In the Catholic church building, the influence of the Oberbaudeputation was more noticeable due to the Kulturkampf. But with the dissolution of this state building authority in 1848/1849, ordinances of the Catholic Church took its place in many places, which led to a preference for the Gothic .

Traces in the present

The importance of the Wiedenbrück school for the economic development of Wiedenbrück is obvious. Numerous street names recall the owners and individual artists of the workshops. To celebrate its millennium, the city highlighted the most important of these names, including a .:

Wiedenbrücker School Museum

In 2005, the Wiedenbrücker Schule exhibition and meeting place foundation was established to build the museum. The museum was built in the listed building from 1904, which was used as a workshop for the altar sculptors Bernhard Diedrich and Franz Knoche. It shows exhibits on the Wiedenbrück city history and the Wiedenbrück school. The museum opened on November 29, 2008.

Wiedenbrücker School during the National Socialism

Controversial honor: Hans-Schmitz-Straße in Rheda-Wiedenbrück with information board

In 2016, a discussion began in Rheda-Wiedenbrück about the role of individual representatives of the Wiedenbrück school in the time of National Socialism. With Fritz Burmann, Bernd Hartmann , Hubert Hartmann, Heinrich Repke , Willi Repke and Hans Schmitz-Wiedenbrück, numerous artists were represented at the Great German Art Exhibition in the Munich House of German Art . The buyers included a. Martin Bormann (Hans Schmitz-Wiedenbrück), Joseph Goebbels (Hans Schmitz-Wiedenbrück), Adolf Hitler (Fritz Burmann, Bernd Hartmann, Heinrich Repke, Hans Schmitz-Wiedenbrück) and Robert Ley (Heinrich Repke). On the other hand, Burmann's paintings “Still life with cacti” and “Family” and the drawing “Old Woman” were confiscated as so-called degenerate art .

Since October 2018, a presentation stele in Wiedenbrück's historic town hall has been providing information about Hans Schmitz-Wiedenbrück and his work during National Socialism. In addition, an information board with the following wording was added to the street signs on Hans-Schmitz-Straße in Rheda-Wiedenbrück in December 2019: “Hans Schmitz (1907–1944). Artist name "Schmitz-Wiedenbrück". Church and landscape painter. Schmitz is controversial because he also created pictures in the sense of Nazi propaganda. ”A renaming of the street, however, was rejected by the responsible building, urban development, environmental and transport committee and the city council of the city of Rheda-Wiedenbrück.

literature

  • Benedikt Große Hovest, Marita Heinrich: The Wiedenbrücker School: Art and Crafts of Historicism . Bonifatius Verlag, Paderborn 1991. ISBN 3-87088-662-5
  • Pollklas, Martin: The "Wiedenbrücker Schule". A city discovers its artistic tradition. Rheda-Wiedenbrück 2008.
  • Spieker, Brigitte and Rolf-Jürgen: “The proclamation of faith in magnificent sculptures” The Wiedenbrücker sculptor Heinrich Hartmann , Beluga Verlag, Gelsenkirchen 2018. ISBN 978-3-942395-10-6
  • Spieker, Brigitte and Rolf-Jürgen: Painted in incomparable splendor on a gold background. The Wiedenbrück painters Georg and Eduard Goldkuhle, Rasch Druckerei u. Verlag, Bramsche 2019. ISBN 978-3-89946-306-4
  • Spieker, Brigitte and Rolf-Jürgen: Homage to the World Redeemer. Cribs by the sculptor Heinrich Hartmann , Wiedenbrück, in: The Christmas crib. 64th yearbook, 2018, ed. from the regional community of crib friends in Rhineland and Westphalia e. V., Münster 2018, pp. 17–25. ISBN 978-3-8309-3953-5
  • Spieker, Brigitte and Rolf-Jürgen: The Wiedenbrücker sculptor Heinrich Hartmann (1868-1937). From a small farming community in the Münsterland to the Orient , in: Heimatjahrbuch Kreis Gütersloh, 37th year 2020, Gütersloh 2019, pp. 136–141. ISBN 978-3-87231-144-3

Web links

Coordinates: 51 ° 50 ′ 4 "  N , 8 ° 18 ′ 57.6"  E

Individual evidence

  1. Heavy artistic heritage of the Nazi poison cabinet. In: The bell online. November 21, 2017. Retrieved December 20, 2017 .
  2. ^ Lecture and discussion on art under National Socialism. Press release from the city of Rheda-Wiedenbrück, November 2017.
  3. ^ GDK Research. Image-based research platform for the Great German Art Exhibitions 1937–1944 in Munich.
  4. Free University of Berlin: Confiscation inventory “Degenerate Art”.
  5. Information column provides information about Hans Schmitz-Wiedenbrück. Press release from the city of Rheda-Wiedenbrück, October 2018.
  6. Hans-Schmitz-Straße heats up people. The bell, December 5, 2019.
  7. Street keeps its name. The bell, December 7, 2019.
  8. Marion Pokorra-Brock Schmidt: "Nazi artist"? Rheda-Wiedenbrück is discussing a street name. Neue Westfälische, December 19, 2019.
  9. ^ The painter Hans Schmitz keeps "his" street. The bell, December 20, 2019.