Monuments to 'Genius' in German ClassicismAuthor(s): Alfred NeumeyerReviewed work(s):Source: Journal of the Warburg Institute, Vol. 2, No. 2 (Oct., 1938), pp. 159-163Published by: The Warburg InstituteStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/750088 .Accessed: 22/04/2012 05:04

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MONUMENTS TO 'GENIUS' IN GERMAN CLASSICISM

By Alfred Neumeyer

"J 1 n'est pas d'usage d'dlever en France des monuments aux grands g6n6raux I ou aux hommes c6lkbres; les rois seuls obtiennent cette distinction."

These words occur in Patte's Monuments e'rige's en France d la gloire de Louis XV, published in 1765. The polemical phrasing suggests that other countries were not sufficiently rigorous in the assertion of this dynastic privilege. England erected monuments not only to its generals and statesmen but even to its poets; and the English model began to impress the rest of Europe. Ten years after Patte's emphatic pronouncement that a monument ought to be an honour exclusively reserved for kings, we find Anton Wilhelm Gottlieb Becker advocating the opposite view in his pamphlet Vom Costiim an Denkmdlern (1776) :

Man fahrt itzt beynahe in allen Landern begieriger als jemals fort, den Fursten Statuen oder Denkmiler zu errichten; und es wire zu winschen, dass sich dieser Gebrauch wie in England auch auf Gelehrte, Kiinstler, oder andere verdiente Mainner des Staates erstreckte, welches bei uns nur noch selten geschieht. The desire to 'humanize' the function of monuments was inspired by

the new philosophy of sentiment, inaugurated in England by the Earl of Shaftesbury, developed to its highest point in France by Rousseau, and transformed into a cult of poetic genius by Herder in Germany. This philosophy, in suggesting that the honour of a monument should be extended to all men of genius, implied that the purpose of erecting a memorial was not only to commemorate the achievement of an individual man, but also to remind and incite posterity to worship in him the universal powers of Nature. The traditional portrait statue was incapable of embodying such an idea. The generalization of function demanded a generalization of form. Accordingly, a movement began to make the garden monument and the architectural monument supplant the individual statue. I shall illustrate this development chiefly from German examples, because it is here that the cult of genius reached its most extravagant forms; though the very first example will leave no doubt that the German enthusiasts were inspired by foreign models.

The first German monument to a man of genius is the Rousseau monument in the park at W6rlitz : a small circular island planted with poplars, in the centre a stone with the inscription : "dem Andenken J. J. Rousseaus, der die Witzlinge zu gesundem Verstande, die Wolliistigen zu wahrem Genusse, die irrende Kunst zur Einfalt der Natur, die Zweifler zum Trost der Offenbarung mit mannlicher Beredsamkeit zuriickwies." The arrange- ment corresponds to that planned in the park of Armenonville. It was popularized in Germany through Hirschfeld's Theorie der GartenkunstI (178o, Vol. II), and was frequently copied, for instance in the Rousseau-Insel in the Tiergarten in Berlin.2

1 Reproduced and discussed by P. Riesen- feld, Erdmannsdorff, Berlin 1913, p. 73 ff.

2The following example from the Ber- linische Bldtter of 1787, p. 555 is typical: a

159

i6o ALFRED NEUMEYER

Designs for monuments to Kant (P1. 28b) and to Herder (P1. 28c) show the transition from the pure garden monument to the architectural structure. 'Nature embellished' remains the setting for the memorial to the man of genius, but the peculiar achievements of Kant and Herder are expressed by the use of architectural forms. Kant's monument consists of a pyramid, the symbol of Eternity, preceded by a portico in which is the seated figure of the philosopher.? Herder's temple is a piece of fantastic Christian architecture, which foreshadows Schinkel's neo-Gothic style.2

Neither of these monuments were actually erected. But the strength of the imaginative tendency which they express may be measured by the prominence of this type of design in the plans for a monument to Frederick the Great.3 The Academy of 1791 demanded an equestrian statue; and it would have been easy to devise a form suitable for a monarch in whom dynastic pride was moderated by the love of enlightenment. The statue of Marcus Aurelius, the philosopher-emperor blessing his people, seemed a fitting model for the monument of a constitutional monarch,4 and was actually adopted as such by Franz Zauner in his statue of Joseph I. Even in the France of Louis XV, the dynastic form of the equestrian monument showing (in accordance with the formula of Leonardo, Bernini and Falconet) the sovereign trampling down his enemies, had been replaced by a more humane and civilized version.5 Yet none of these moderately traditional forms appear in the designs with which Weinbrenner and Dannecker attempted to honour the memory of Frederick the Great.6 The design by Weinbrenner shows all the elements of the 'modern' monument : the clearing in a northern forest, the massive building, heavy Doric columns in the centre, tapering steps and stone blocks on the roof, with a socle crowned

description of a monument to Moses Men- delssohn in Baruth in the form of a star-shaped bench: "Ueber den Sitz bieget sich vom Ufer des Baches eine Baumgruppe, mit frischem Gruin belaubt, verbreitet ein sanftes Dunkel, und w6lbet da einen Tempel, wo der Gott, dessen Lob der weise David nach- empfand und nachbesang, ihm ndiher vor- iiberwallete."

1 Walter Rehm, Der Todesgedanke in der deutschen Dichtung, Halle, 1928. For the pyramid form the Pyramid of Cestius and Piranesi's variations of it were used as models. Among the drawings of Gilly (Alste Oncken, Friedrich Gilly, Berlin 1935, Index of drawings B 314-315 and plate I3) we find the design for a pyramidal monument dating from 1791 which Oncken describes as "offenbar ganz isoliert."

2 Cf. Alfred Neumeyer, "Die Wiederer- weckung des Mittelalters in der bildenden Kunst des spiten 18. Jahrhunderts. Ein Beitrag zur Vorgeschichte der Romantik." Repert. fiir Kunstwissenschaft, I928.

3 K. Merckle, Die Denkmdler Kinig Friedrichs

des Grossen in Berlin, Berlin 1894. H. Schrade, Das deutsche Nationaldenkmal, Munich 1934- Alste Oncken, Friedrich Gilly, 1935, p. 36 ff.

4 Cf. Sur la statue de Marc Aurdle, Amsterdam 1771.

5 Cf. the equestrian statue of Louis XV by Bouchardon in the Place Royale in Paris, which was unveiled in 1763 and destroyed during the French Revolution. It is repro- duced in Patte's Monuments eriges en France a' la gloire de Louis XV, 1765. Cf. Steinmann in Monatshefte f. Kunstwissenschaft, 1917, p. 357 if-

6 Both designs were mistakenly described as lost in Merkle's book on the monuments of Frederick the Great (see above, note 3). The one by Weinbrenner dates from 1791 and is reproduced in Friedrich Valdenaire, Weinbrenner, I919, plate 8. The one by Dannecker is preserved in a hand-coloured aquatint in the Hohenzollernmuseum in Berlin (see our Plate 28d). To judge by the costumes of the figures, it dates from the period of the French Revolution.

28

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a-F. Gilly, Monument to Frederick the Great, 1796. Water-colour. Berlin, Preussische Bau- und Finanzdirektion (p. 161)

b-Janus Genelli, Monument to Kant, 1808, Water-colour. Berlin, Kronprinzenpalais (p. 160)

d-H. Dannecker, Monument to Frederick the Great and his Generals. Aquatint. Berlin,

Hohenzollernmuseum (p. 161)

c-Janus Genelli, Monument to Herder, 18o8. Water-colour. Berlin, Kronprinzenpalais (p. 160)

MONUMENTS TO 'GENIUS' IN GERMAN CLASSICISM i6I with trophies and Roman helmets as finale. The design by Dannecker, which is here published for the first time (P1. 28d), shows a marble obelisk crowned by an eagle and placed on a cenotaph-like socle with three steps leading to it-a monument to an anonymous power rather than to the heroes,' whose names are inscribed upon it. It was to be erected on the bank of a lonely river.2

Two possibilities for further development are implicit in these monuments : the evolution of the grandiose architectural form which dominates the city or garden; or the subordination of the monument to its environment, in which case it becomes a part of the landscape. Both ways were followed. The latter leads from Dannecker and Weinbrenner to the sketches of Gentz for a Luther monument (1804; Berlin, Bibliothek der Akademie der Kiinste) and ends with Caspar David Friedrich's drawings for monuments to the heroes of the wars of liberation against Napoleon.3 These represent the romanticizing tradition, which ends by letting the organized work of art dissolve into the mere expression of a mood.

The other tendency reaches its climax in 1796 in the design of Friedrich Gilly for a monument to Frederick the Great on the Leipziger Platz in Berlin (P1. 28a). Again, the design was not executed, but its influence was profound. It inspired Schinkel to choose architecture as a profession, and it furnished Klenze and Haller von Hallerstein with the first ideas for their plan of the Walhalla Temple near Regensburg.4 It is the true type of an architectural monument.5

At first glance it would seem that this purely architectural memorial is the exact opposite of the landscape monument. Yet the two have one element in common : the desire to make the monument the symbol of a universal power, greater than the individual in whose honour it was erected. What the landscape monument achieves through an appeal to Nature, the architectural monument conveys by mirroring the proportions of the Cosmos. There can be little doubt that Gilly was acquainted with the revolutionary architecture which had developed in France6 and which culminated in

1 The monument is to the glory not only of Frederick but of the great men who made his reign famous : Schwerin, Herzberg, Wolf, Cocceji.

2 It seems that Klenze in his drawing for a monument to the Spanish war of liberation against Napoleon (Graphische Sammlung, Miinchen, Neue Pinakothek) was inspired by this or a kindred design.

3 C. F. Hartlaub, "C. D. Friedrichs Denk- malsromantik der Freiheitskriege," Zeitschrifl fiir Bildende Kunst, N. F. XXVIII, 1916.

4 Hans Kiener, "Hallers Entwiirfe zur Glyptothek und Walhalla," Miinchner Jahr- buch der bildenden Kunst, XIII, 1923.

5 We find a similar design, with a pyramid instead of the temple, in a French print dating from about 1785, a cenotaph by Fontaine, published in portfolio 6 of Prieur's

Collection des Prix que la cidevant Acadimie d'Architecture proposait et couronnait tous les ans, 1779-1791. Whereas the idea of a temple resting on a high stylobate could have been taken from ancient examples such as the Mausoleum of Halikarnassus, the enclosure within a walled precinct, the solemn isolation, is an idea which first arises in French classi- cism. The transition from the design of Fontaine to Gilly's final plan may be found in Gilly's drawings reproduced in Oncken, op. cit., plates 26 and 27. On the latter drawing Gilly himself mentions as his source Chambray's Paralldle de l'Architecture Antique et de la Moderne, 1650 (1766).

6 The importance for Gilly of the so-called "Architecture of the Revolution" was first recognized by Hermann Schmitz, Berliner Baumeister um i8oo, s.a., p. 621; published

162 ALFRED NEUMEYER

the architectural symbolism of Nicolas Ledoux.1 When Ledoux designed (in the years 1771-1793) his plans for the imaginary city of Chaux on the banks of the Loue, he drew the "Elevation du cimetikre de la ville de Chaux" (P1. 29a) as a representation of the celestial sphere with the earth, the sun and the planets Venus, Mars, Mercury, Jupiter, Saturn,2 while the crema- torium is in the form of a globe reflecting the architecture of the universe. In presenting his plans to the public, he very forcefully attacked his adversaries by putting them on the level of "portraitists"-a branch of art which, according to the classical standards of the Academy, stood far below the grand manner of painting : "D6ja j'entends les architectes de portrait, oui de portrait, crier a l'extravagance. Accoutumes a retracer servilement ce qu'ils voient, rarement ils s'occupent de la conception d'un vaste tableau... Sourds et muets, m6prises du dieu inspirateur des 6lans, froids copistes de la nature morte, ils n'ont aucun moyen de la faire revivre."3

It was certainly not a 'portrait architect' who introduced among the projects for the monument of Frederick the Great the plan of naming a constellation after him. It was to be called "Friedrichs Ehre" (a name invented by the poet Ramler) and the stars of which it was composed were made to form a sword, a branch of laurel and a crown placed in the sky between Andromeda and Cassiopeia (P1. 29b). The suggestion was submitted to the Berlin Academy of Learning by Professor Bode on January 25, I787. This form of glorification is very ancient, but it would be an error to describe it as a revival of the Roman apotheosis. It was not as a divinely appointed ruler, but as a man of genius that Frederick was raised to the stars; and he shares this honour with inspired men who lived as ordinary citizens. The true parallel is not the deification of Augustus, but Carter's "Apotheosis of Garrick" (P1. 29c). It is not by accident, therefore, that the most bourgeois of German painters, Chodowiecki, found the apotheosis of Frederick the Great a congenial subject (P1. 29d).4

In view of these extravagant fancies, it is not surprising to find that most of the architectural projects of this type remained on paper. It is a curious irony-and not an accidental one-that the first German monuments actually erected in this ideal style were not dedicated to 'men of genius,' but to soldiers. In I794 a memorial was erected to the Hessian also as an article in Zeitschrift fiir Bildende Kunst, N. F., XX, I909. In 1797-98 Gilly made extensive study trips to France and England. Schinkel, his apprentice, copied the sketches which the master brought home : examples of solemn monumental structures (e.g. Champs de Mars, and light-house of Le Havre, see Oncken, op. cit., B 131, B 141) as well as elegant classicistic villas similar to those published in Krafft and Ransonette's Nouvelle Architecture Franfaise, Paris 1802.

1 Emil Kaufman, Von Ledoux bis Le Corbusier 1933, and article on Ledoux in Thieme- Becker, Allgem. Kiinstlerlexikon, 1928. It is only with reservations that the term "archi- tecture of the Revolution" should be applied

to Ledoux. Most of the designs in his work L'Architecture considre'e sous les rapports de l'Art, des Mxaurs et de la Legislation, published in 1804, go back to the year 1776. Moreover, Ledoux himself was royalist. His style was not therefore produced by the event of the Revolution, but rather by the pragmatic in- tellectualism of the Encyclopaedists, which was taken up by many of those who were not themselves in real sympathy with the revolutionary tendencies of the later I8th cen- tury.

2 Ledoux, op. cit., plate Ioo. 3 Ledoux, op. cit., text to plate 6. 4 Engraved 1791. First reproduced in the

Gdttinger Kalender for 1792.

29

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MONUMENTS TO 'GENIUS' IN GERMAN CLASSICISM 163

soldiers killed during the conquest of Frankfort (1792). It was designed by the sculptor Ruhl of Kassel and celebrated by the Reichsfreiherr von Stein : "M6chte diese Seltenheit, ein deutschem Mut und deutscher Standhaftigkeit in Deutschland errichtetes Denkmal den Einwohnern dieser Stadt stets schaitzbar bleiben."l The anonymity of the soldiers' monument had a natural affinity with the abstract style cherished by the classicists.

A number of tombstones for French generals of the national army carry on the new type, the most beautiful of all being the memorial to General Moreau on the Raecknitzerh6he in Dresden by Thormeyer.2 The monument is effective. The solid cubic block, the clear-cut outlines, the silhouette of the Roman helmet-everything shows profound concentration. It was in a similar pursuit of the laconic that Formey outlined his idea of a monument to Frederick the Great at the opening session of the Berlin Academy on 25th January, 1787 : "Man errichte eine Pyramide. ohne allen Schmuck und nur das einzige Wort 'Frederico' sei darauf eingegraben."3

So simple and noble a scheme did not hold the imagination for long. The artistic career of Gottfried Schadow was symptomatic of the general development. In 1787 he collaborated with Janus Genelli in a plan for the monument to Frederick the Great in which he shows himself an ardent devotee of the abstract classical idea. Some thirty years later (I820) he produced the first German monument dedicated to a patriotic figure who was neither a military nor a dynastic personality : the monument to Martin Luther in Wittenberg. It is the prototype of the monument which dominated the nineteenth century. Symbolic architecture is replaced by the historical portrait figure. Instead of the solemn simplicity we have the anecdotal genre scene. It is in this direction that the development pushed forward, towards individuality and historicism : "Unsere Denkmiler wachsen recht eigentlich aus dem Konversationslexikon heraus; weit entfernt, dass sie ein Andenken stiften, sind sie vielmehr Nachziigler und Schmarotzer dieses Andenkens."4 Compared with the prevalence of this type, the designs of Weinbrenner and Gilly must appear like a grandiose but vain intermezzo : an attempt to make symbolic significance dominate over the accidental event, monumental form over intimate character.5

1 Nachricht von einem Denkmal des Bildhauers Ruhl..., Frankfurt a.M. 1794- 2 Similar monuments by Weinbrenner in cooperation with the sculptor Landolin Ohmacht for General Desaix on the Sporen- insel near Strassburg, for General Beaupuis near Neu-Breisach (reprod. by Valdenaire, op. cit.) and by Krahe, Schinkel, and others. A sketch by Gilly after a Moreau monument in the form of a sarcophagus is to be found among his drawings (Oncken B 65, Technische Hoch- schule, Berlin). A similar design by Schinkel from 1799 reproduced in Oncken, P1. 90o.

3 Berlinische Blatter, 1787, p. 350. 4 Ferdinand Kiirnberger, Literarische Her- zenssachen, Vienna 1877, pp. 340-41.- Ment-

ioned by J. v. Schlosser, "Vom modernen Denkmalskult," Vortrdge der Bibliothek Warburg 1926-27.

5 Compare Goethe's description in Wilhelm Meister, II, 8, chap. 5. Also Konrad Leve- zow, Grabrede auf Friedrich Gilly, Berlin 1802 : "Entkleidet von allen Zuf'lligkeiten des Lebens, der Nation und des Zeitalters mfisse dieser Heros der Menschheit (i.e. Frederick the Great) dihnlich dem im Olymp von seinen irdischen Taten ausruhenden und von allen Schlacken der Menschheit durch oktaeische Feuer gereinigten Herkules er- scheinen." (The characterization byLevezow is based on Gilly's conversations and memor- anda.)

Article Contentsp. 159p. 160[unnumbered]p. 161p. 162[unnumbered]p. 163

Issue Table of ContentsJournal of the Warburg Institute, Vol. 2, No. 2 (Oct., 1938), pp. 85-190Front MatterTranslation from the Ancients in Seventeenth-Century France [pp. 85-104]King Charles II's Own Fashion: An Episode in Anglo-French Relations 1666-1670 [pp. 105-115]The Revolution of History Painting [pp. 116-127]Stuart and Revett: Their Literary and Architectural Careers [pp. 128-146]Piranesi's "Parere su L'Architettura" [pp. 147-158]Monuments to 'Genius' in German Classicism [pp. 159-163]Hoffmannsthal's "Elektra". A Graeco-Freudian Myth [pp. 164-175]Miscellaneous NotesWieland's and Gluck's Versions of the "Alkestis" [pp. 176-177]God and Prince in Bach's Cantatas [pp. 178-182]"Borrowed Attitudes" in Reynolds and Hogarth [pp. 182-185]Shaftesbury as a Patron of Art [pp. 185-188]Domenico Guidi and French Classicism [pp. 188-190]