Goethe–Schiller Monument

The original Goethe–Schiller Monument (German: Goethe-Schiller-Denkmal) is in Weimar, Germany. It incorporates Ernst Rietschel's 1857 bronze double statue of Johann Wolfgang Goethe (1749–1832) and Friedrich Schiller (1759–1805), who are probably the two most revered figures in German literature.[1][2] The monument has been described "as one of the most famous and most beloved monuments in all of Germany"[3] and as the beginning of a "cult of the monument".[4] Dozens of monuments to Goethe and to Schiller were built subsequently in Europe and the United States.[5]

Goethe and Schiller
German: Goethe und Schiller
ArtistErnst Friedrich August Rietschel
Year1857 (1857)
Typebronze casting
Dimensions3.7 m (12 ft)
LocationWeimar (copies in San Francisco
Cleveland, Milwaukee, Syracuse, & Anting)
Coordinates50.9799°N 11.3260°E / 50.9799; 11.3260

Goethe and Schiller had a remarkable friendship and collaboration that was "like no other known to literature or art."[6] Both men had lived in Weimar, and were the seminal figures of a literary movement known as Weimar Classicism. The bronze figures of the Goethe–Schiller statue are substantially larger than life-size; notably, both are given the same height, even though Goethe was nearly 20 cm shorter than Schiller.[7]

The figures were mounted on a large stone pedestal in front of the Court Theater that Goethe had directed, and that had seen premieres and countless performances of Schiller's plays. Goethe is on the left in the photograph, his left hand resting lightly on Schiller's shoulder. Goethe grasps a laurel wreath in his right hand, and Schiller's right hand is stretched out toward the wreath. Goethe wears the formal court dress of the era; Schiller is in ordinary dress.[8]

Four exact copies of Rietschel's statue were subsequently commissioned by German-Americans in the United States for the Goethe–Schiller monuments in San Francisco (1901), Cleveland (1907), Milwaukee (1908), and Syracuse (1911).[5] 65,000 people attended the dedication of the Cleveland monument.[9] A fifth copy of reduced size was installed in Anting, China, in 2006; Anting New Town is a "German-themed" town near Shanghai that was developed around 2000.[10][11]

The Weimar monument
1900 photograph of the Goethe–Schiller monument in front of the Court Theater in Weimar

The project of creating a Goethe–Schiller monument in Weimar was sponsored by Karl Alexander August Johann, the Grand Duke of the Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach Duchy, and by a citizen's commission.[5] The dedication of the monument was planned to coincide with the centennial celebrations of the birth of the earlier Grand Duke Karl August, who had brought Goethe to Weimar in 1775. Goethe lived most of his adult life there, and Schiller the last six years of his life. The site for the monument was the city square that fronted the Court Theater (German: das Hoftheater) where Goethe was managing director from 1791 to 1815; Goethe later wrote that he had "tried to elevate the masses intellectually with Shakespeare, Gozzi, and Schiller". Goethe arranged for the theater to premiere Schiller's last four plays (Mary Stuart, The Bride of Messina, The Maid of Orleans, and William Tell).[12] By the time of their monument's dedication in 1857, the theater had seen countless performances of all Schiller's plays.

Christian Daniel Rauch was invited to prepare a design for a double statue (German: Doppelstandbild); Rauch was perhaps the most prominent sculptor working in German-speaking Europe in the first half of the 19th century. Rauch's design has the two men clad in antique dress; while the convention of creating sculptures of heroic figures in antique dress was well established, it was rejected in this case. Ernst Rietschel, another prominent sculptor who had been Rauch's student, made a design with the two men in contemporary dress that was accepted,[5] and a contract was signed with Rietschel in December, 1852.[8]

Rietschel needed four years to complete the full-size model for the statue. The actual casting in bronze was done remarkably quickly by Ferdinand von Miller at the Royal Foundry in Munich.[13] The finished monument was dedicated on September 4, 1857, as part of the celebrations for the centenary of the birth of Grand Duke Karl August. Hans Pohlsander has written, "The monument was the first double statue on German soil, and was widely, and rightly, proclaimed a masterpiece."[5]

The US monuments
2010 photograph of the electrotyped copper statue in Syracuse, New York. While the 1857 Weimar monument is in a city square, the four US monuments are in parks.
See also: Goethe–Schiller Monument (Milwaukee), Goethe–Schiller Monument (San Francisco), and Goethe–Schiller Monument (Syracuse)

In 1895 in San Francisco, California, the Goethe–Schiller Denkmal Gesellschaft (Goethe–Schiller Monument Company) was formed for the purpose of raising a version of the Weimar Monument in Golden Gate Park.[14] Instead of the Munich foundry used to cast the original statue, the foundry in Lauchhammer was contracted to make a new bronze casting. The molds were prepared from Rietschel's original forms at the Albertinum in Dresden; the work was supervised by Rudolf Siemering, a Berlin sculptor.[15][16] The statue was installed on a granite pedestal and steps that closely copied those of the Weimar original. The monument was dedicated on August 11, 1901, with 30,000 people in attendance according to the souvenir book published shortly thereafter.[14] The festivities continued throughout the day and evening.

Three additional monuments based on Rietschel's bronze were raised over the next decade. The Cleveland, Ohio monument in Wade Park was dedicated on June 9, 1907. Wilhelm II, the German Emperor, sent a congratulatory cable, to which the head of the Goethe–Schiller Memorial Committee responded, "Emperor Wilhelm, Berlin. Goethe–Schiller Memorial unveiled in presence of 65,000 persons. In this sacred hour American citizens of Cleveland of German origin respectfully thank Your Majesty for his good wishes."[9] The Milwaukee, Wisconsin monument in Washington Park was dedicated on June 12, 1908 before 35,000 people.[15][17] The bronze statues for the Cleveland and Milwaukee monuments had also been cast by the Lauchhammer foundry.[18] The statue for the Syracuse monument is electrotyped copper, and not a bronze casting.[19] It was sited in Schiller Park, which had been renamed in 1905 to honor the centennial of Schiller's death.[20] The monument was dedicated on October 15, 1911.[21]

All of the American monuments were sited in city parks, whereas the Weimar monument is in a city square. As can be seen from the antique postcards, the stonework of the San Francisco, Cleveland, and Syracuse monuments is similar to the Weimar original. The Syracuse monument is on a steep slope, and is distinguished by a formal stone stairway approaching the statue. The Milwaukee monument's stonework is more extensive. The three steps underneath the pedestal in Weimar were widened greatly in the Milwaukee design, and support long stone walls and benches on both flanks of the pedestal and sculpture; access to the back of the monument rear is reduced correspondingly.

19th-century contexts
Postcards of the monuments

1857 Weimar

1901 San Francisco

1907 Cleveland

1908 Milwaukee

1911 Syracuse
2006 Anting

German lands in Europe

The commissioning of Rietschel's Goethe–Schiller statue had one clear motivation: to honor Weimar's famous poets and their patron; indeed, Schiller and Goethe had been entombed, along with Grand Duke Karl August, in the ducal burial chapel (the Fürstengruft) in Weimar. A second motivation may have been to increase "culture tourism" to the city, which had a claim as the "Athens on the Ilm".[22] The statue was nonetheless part of a wider, essentially popular movement in mid-19th-century Germany. Ute Frevert has summarized the program of speakers at its dedication: "Unlike the Grand Duke, who wanted to harness the ceremony to the cart of dynastic legitimation, the bourgeois speakers transformed it into a national celebration at which the 'German people' paid homage to its 'heroes'".[23] In the mid-19th century, the German-speaking population in Europe was divided between many, mostly small countries. Paul Zanker[24] has written of this movement:

After the wars of liberation in German lands had brought neither political freedom nor national unity, the citizenry began to seek in cultural pursuits a substitute for what they still lacked. For example, they erected monuments to intellectual giants, usually at the most conspicuous place in the city, an honor that until then had been reserved for princes and military men. ... There arose a true cult of the monument, which included broadsheets, picture books, and luxury editions of "collected works". With all this activity, the Germans began to see themselves, faute de mieux, as "the people of poets and thinkers." This is especially true of the period of the restoration, and in particular, the years after the failed revolution of 1848, when monuments to famous Germans, above all Friedrich von Schiller, sprouted everywhere.[4]

By 1859, the centenary of Schiller's birth and the occasion for 440 celebrations in German lands, Schiller had emerged as the "poet of freedom and unity" for German citizens. Ute Frevert writes,[23] "It did not matter who spoke, a Hamburg plumber, a political emigrant in Paris, an aristocratic civil servant in Münster, a writer in Wollenbüttel, they unanimously invoked Schiller as a singer of freedom and the prophet of German unity." Rüdiger Görner illustrates the origins of this reputation with a speech from the "famous" tenth scene of the third act of Schiller's 1787 play, Don Carlos: "Look all around at nature's mastery, / Founded on freedom. And how rich it grows, / Feeding on freedom."[25]

Wolf Lepenies takes a similar perspective, writing that "After the revolution of 1848 failed, Schiller became more popular, as the festivities for his hundredth birthday in 1859 demonstrated; the occasion was celebrated throughout the German lands in a mood of patriotic fervor. Two years earlier, the Goethe–Schiller monument had been erected in Weimar, but only after the Prussian victory over France in the war of 1870—1871 did it become a national place of worship."[26]

German-America
See also: German American

Between 1830 and 1900, about 4 million immigrants came to the United States from German countries in Europe; this amounted to about a 7% emigration from German countries and a 7% immigration into the United States.[27] In the United States, German immigrants often settled in fairly unpopulated areas near the Great Lakes, and the percentage of German immigrants and their children reached 40% in some regions. As one example, in 1885 about 17% of Wisconsin's population of some 1.6 million people had been born in Germany. With their children, an estimate was that 31% of the state's population was either German-born, or the children of two German-born parents.[28] Wisconsin's major city, Milwaukee, had been dubbed "the German Athens in America".[29]

Many of these German-American communities worked assiduously to preserve German language and culture, and Schiller "was the best expression of that side of German character which most qualified the German despite his distinctiveness to become a true American citizen".[30] Phyllida Lloyd, a recent director of Schiller's plays, has said "During the Civil War, and this was complete news to me, a quarter of a million German-born soldiers were fighting for Lincoln. Many of them were carrying Schiller in their knapsacks."[31]

By the late 19th century, German-Americans were participating in the monument-building movement of German-speaking Europe. At the 1901 dedication of the first US Goethe–Schiller monument, C. M. Richter remarked:[14]

The German, who brought these two masters as his inheritance to a new homeland, contributed this wealth to the intellectual life of his fellow citizens. Never has a genius demonstrated the worth of virtue, the triumph of freedom, and the noble heart of patriotism with more eloquence and ardor than Schiller. This spiritual treasure of Germans is the most beautiful and precious dowry with which he could bind himself to his adoptive fatherland, and it was well-done to put it into service with a monument.

Richter's speech and many others at the dedication were actually delivered in German.

By 1901, monuments to Schiller had already been erected in New York (1859), Philadelphia (1886), Chicago (1886), Columbus (1891), and St. Louis (1898).[17] The Chicago and St. Louis monuments were recastings of Ernst Rau's 1876 bronze located in Marbach, Germany, where Schiller was born in 1759. A monument to Goethe had also been erected in Philadelphia (1891–Heinrich Manger). By 1914 and the outbreak of World War I, eight additional monuments to Schiller had been erected in the US. Four were the double monuments to Goethe and to Schiller. Four monuments to Schiller alone were raised (in Omaha (1905),[32][33] St. Paul (1907), Rochester (1907), and Detroit (1908)).[17] An additional monument to Goethe had been built in Chicago (1914).[34] This monument, by Hermann Hahn, shows an idealized figure often identified with Zeus;[3] it signaled a profound departure from sculptures that were recognizable portraits of the poets. Overall, the monument-building enthusiasm in German-America had been at least as great as in German-speaking Europe. Thirteen monuments to Schiller had been erected in the US, and 24 were erected by the much larger German-speaking population in Europe.[5][35]

References
  1. Boyle, Nicholas (1986). Goethe, Faust, Part 1. Cambridge University Press. p. 1. ISBN 0-521-31412-7. Goethe is the supreme genius of modern German literature, and the dominant influence on German literary culture since the middle of the eighteenth Century.
  2. Billington, Michael (29 January 2005). "The German Shakespeare:Schiller used to be box-office poison. Why are his plays suddenly back in favour, asks Michael Billington". The Guardian.
  3. Pohlsander, Hans A. (2010). German monuments in the Americas: bonds across the Atlantic. Peter Lang. p. 84. ISBN 978-3-0343-0138-1. The city of Weimar boasts one of the most famous and most beloved monuments in all of Germany, the Goethe–Schiller monument in front of the Nationaltheater.
  4. Zanker, Paul (1996). The Mask of Socrates: The Image of the Intellectual in Antiquity. Alan Shapiro (Trans.). University of California Press. pp. 3–6. ISBN 978-0-520-20105-7. There arose a true cult of the monument ... the Germans began to see themselves, faute de mieux, as "the people of poets and thinkers."... This is especially true of the period of the restoration, and in particular, the years after the failed revolution of 1848, when monuments to famous Germans, above all Friedrich von Schiller, sprouted everywhere. ... The great men were deliberately rendered not in ancient costume, and certainly not nude, but in contemporary dress and exemplary pose.
    Perhaps the most famous of those monuments — and the one considered most successful by people of the time — was the group of Goethe and Schiller by Ernst Rietschel, set up in 1857 in front of the theater in Weimar. A fatherly Goethe gently lays his hand on the shoulder of the restless Schiller, as if to quiet the overzealous passion for freedom of the younger generation.     Translation of Die Maske des Sokrates. Das Bild des Intellektuellen in der Antiken Kunst. C. H. Beck. 1995. ISBN 3-406-39080-3.
  5. Pohlsander, Hans A. (2008). National Monuments and Nationalism in 19th Century Germany. pp. 117–119. ISBN 978-3-03911-352-1. Hans A. Pohlsander is professor emeritus at the University of Albany, where he previously served as the chairman of the Department of Classics. See "Hans Pohlsander". University at Albany. Archived from the original on 29 June 2017.
  6. Steiner, George (30 January 2000). "More than just an old Romantic: The second volume of Nicholas Boyle's impressive life of Goethe covers thirteen years in 949 pages". The Guardian. The Goethe–Schiller nexus, beginning in July 1794, the collaborative rivalry and loving tension between the two men in Jena and Weimar, is like no other known to literature or art. No single thread can do justice to the intricacies of Goethe's inner evolution during these seminal years. But Boyle does trace the change in Goethe from an earlier Romantic radicalism, from a Promethean rebelliousness, to that Olympian conservatism which was to become his hallmark. A deep sense of domesticity, of familial pleasures, of emotional balance took over in 1793 and 1794 from the Sturm und Drang of an earlier sensibility.
  7. "Goethe-Schiller-Denkmal - Weimarpedia". 18 April 2016. Archived from the original on 18 April 2016.
  8. Rietschel, Ernst; Oppermann, Andreas (1875). Ernst Rietschel, the sculptor, and the lessons of his life: an autobiography and a memoir. Mrs. George Sturge (Trans.). Hodder and Stoughton. pp. 158–169.
  9. Rowan, Steven W., ed. (1998). Cleveland and its Germans. Western Reserve Historical Society Publication No. 185 (1907 ed.). Western Reserve Historical Society. p. 78. ISBN 978-0-911704-50-1. Translation from the German of Cleveland und Sein Deutschtum. Cleveland, Ohio: German-American Biographical Pub. Co. 1907.
  10. Maass, Harald (5 January 2007). "Chinesische Mauern" [Chinese Walls]. Der Tagesspiegel (in German). Retrieved 11 July 2011.
  11. Yang, Xifan (7 October 2011). "Anting German Town: Chinas deutsche Geisterstadt" [Anting German Town: China's German Ghost Town]. Spiegel Online (in German). Retrieved 22 June 2013. A photograph associated with this online article indicates that the statue is much smaller than the Weimar original.
  12. John, David G. (2007). "The Partnership". In Kerry, Paul E. (ed.). Friedrich Schiller: playwright, poet, philosopher, historian. Peter Lang. pp. 311185–186. ISBN 978-3-03910-307-2.
  13. See Königliche Erzgießerei in München (in German).
  14. Goethe–Schiller Denkmal Gesellschaft (1901). Das Goethe–Schiller Denkmal in San Francisco: Erinnerungen an den "deutschen Tag" der California Midwinter International Exposition, 1894, an das "Goethe–Schiller Fest," 1895 und an die "Enthüllung des Denkmals" im Golden Gate Park, 1901 [The Goethe–Schiller Monument in San Francisco: Memories of the German Day of the California Midwinter International Exposition, 1894, of the "Goethe–Schiller Fest," 1895, and of the "Unveiling of the Monument" in Golden Gate Park, 1901]. C. Leidecker & Co. p. 79. Der Deutsche, der diese zwei Meister als Erbschaft in seine neue Heimat mitbringt, fordert durch diesen Reichtum das Geistesleben seiner Mitbürger. Nie hat ein Genie mit mehr Beredtsamkeit und Begeisterung den Wert der Tugend, den Triumph der Freiheit, den edlen Kern des Patriotismus gekennzeichnet, als es Schiller gethan hat. Dieser Geistesschatz des Deutschen ist die schönste, kostbarste Mitgift, mit der er sich seinem Adoptiv-Vaterlande verbindet, und es war wohlgethan, diese Idee durch ein Denkmal zu bethatigen. (The German, who brought these two masters as his inheritance to a new homeland, contributed this wealth to the intellectual life of his fellow citizens. Never has a genius demonstrated the worth of virtue, the triumph of freedom, and the noble heart of patriotism with more eloquence and ardor than Schiller. This spiritual treasure of Germans is the most beautiful and precious dowry with which he could bind himself to his adoptive fatherland, and it was well-done to put it into service with a monument.)--Dr. C. Max Richter
  15. Schütz, Brigitte (1993). "Fernweh und Heimweh". In Appelbaum, Dirk (ed.). Das Denkmal. Goethe und Schiller als Doppelstandbild in Weimar [The Memorial: Goethe and Schiller and their Double Statue in Weimar]. Edition Haniel (in German). Tübingen: Wasmuth. p. 162. ISBN 978-3-8030-0402-4. OCLC 30390910. Er erging an die Lauchhammer Werke, nachdem die Genehmigungen der Erben und der Albertina in Dresden, wo sich die Originalmodelle befanden, vorlagen. Die Abformung wurde unter Aufsicht von Professor Rudolf Siemering, Bildhauer aus Berlin, vorgenommen. Not available online.
  16. Lauchhammer was and is noted for its artistic metal casting; see also Lauchhammer (in German).
  17. "Search Results for Schiller Johann Christoph Friedrich von". Smithsonian Institution Collections Search Center. Retrieved 14 August 2011.
  18. "Kunstgießerei Lauchhammer – Referenzen" (in German). Retrieved 12 September 2011.
  19. Case, Dick (3 September 2003). "Park Monument Work Something to Look Up To". The Syracuse Post-Standard. p. B1. Paid online access.
  20. "Look For Longest Parade Ever Held; Germans Will Bid For Record". The Post-Standard. Syracuse. 3 August 1908.
  21. "Poets Are Honored; Thousands See Unveiling Ceremony at Schiller-Goethe Monument". The Post-Standard. Syracuse. 16 October 1911. Online posting by Michelle Stone.
  22. Rößner, Alf (4 September 2007). "Festvortrag zum 150. Jubiläum des Goethe- und Schiller-Denkmals am 4. September 2007" [Address for the 150th Jubilee of the Goethe–Schiller Monument on September 4, 2007] (PDF) (in German). Retrieved 11 July 2011. Der Touristen-Pilgerstrom sorgte mit für die Ausgestaltung von "Deutschlands geistiger Hauptstadt" zu einem sichtbaren "Athen an der Ilm". Zur aufrichtigen Pietät gegenüber der Vergangenheit gesellte sich zunehmend die Entdeckung des Fremdenverkehrs als lukrative Geldeinnahmequelle. (The stream of tourists and pilgrims provided for the transformation of "Germany's intellectual capital city" into a visible "Athens on the Ilm". A sincere reverence for the past was joined to the increasing realization that the visitors were a lucrative source of cash.)
  23. Frevert, Ute (2007). "A Poet for Many German Nations". In Kerry, Paul E. (ed.). Friedrich Schiller: playwright, poet, philosopher, historian. Peter Lang. p. 311. ISBN 978-3-03910-307-2.
  24. Paul Zanker is a German scholar and professor who has worked mostly on Hellenistic and Roman cultures; see "Paul Zanker". New York University. Archived from the original on 18 August 2011.
  25. Görner, Rüdiger (November 2009). "Schiller's Poetics of Freedom". Standpoint. Look all around at nature's mastery, / Founded on freedom. And how rich it grows, / Feeding on freedom. In the quote, the Marquis de Posa is imploring Philip II, the King of Spain. The original German text is: Sehen Sie sich um / In seiner herrlichen Natur! Auf Freiheit / Ist sie gegründet – und wie reich ist sie / Durch Freiheit! See Schiller, Friedrich (1907). Schillers Don Karlos, Infant von Spanien. Ein dramatisches Gedicht. Paderborn: Ferdinand Schöningh. p. 151. See also "Prof Rüdiger Görner". Queen Mary University of London. Archived from the original on 4 October 2011.
  26. Lepenies, Wolf (2006). The Seduction of Culture in German History. Princeton University Press. p. 157. ISBN 978-0-691-12131-4.
  27. Adams, Willi Paul; Rippley, LaVerne J.; Reichmann, Eberhard (1993). The German Americans: An Ethnic Experience. Indiana University-Purdue University at Indianapolis. Archived from the original on 24 August 2011. Retrieved 4 August 2011. Translation supported by the Max Kade German American Center of the German book Adams, Willi Paul (1990). Die Deutschen im Schmelztiegel der USA: Erfahrungen im grössten Einwanderungsland der Europäer. Die Ausländerbeauftragte des Senats von Berlin.
  28. Everest, Kate Asaphine (1892). "How Wisconsin Came By Its Large German Element". In Thwaite, Reuben Gold (ed.). Collections of the State Historical Society of Wisconsin: Volume 12. State Historical Society of Wisconsin. p. 300.
  29. Hawgood, John Arkas (1970). The Tragedy of German-America. Ayer Publishing. p. 220. ISBN 978-0-405-00554-1.
  30. Conzen, Kathleen Neils (1989). "Ethnicity as Festive Culture: Nineteenth-Century German America on Parade". In Sollors, Werner (ed.). The Invention of Ethnicity. Oxford University Press. p. 57. ISBN 978-0-19-505047-9. ... the freedom that Schiller celebrated was the freedom that Germans had found in America. Schiller, proclaimed a speaker at New York's celebration, was the best expression of that side of German character which most qualified the German despite his distinctiveness to become a true American citizen
  31. Gurewitsch, Matthew. "Of the German Shakespeare, his Mary Stuart, and more ..." During the Civil War," Ms. Lloyd said, "and this was complete news to me, a quarter of a million German-born soldiers were fighting for Lincoln. Many of them were carrying Schiller in their knapsacks.
  32. Federal Writers' Project; Boye, Alan (2005). Nebraska: a guide to the Cornhusker State. University of Nebraska Press. p. 252. ISBN 978-0-8032-6918-7. RIVERVIEW PARK, ... A MONUMENT TO SCHILLER, designed by Johannes Maihoefer, shows the poet holding a book in his left hand and a pen in the right. The figure, about four feet tall, is mounted on a granite pedestal of four and one half feet, which, in turn, stands on a wide base formed in three low steps. On the front of the pedestal is a bronze lyre within a laurel wreath. The monument stands on a crest in the park, commanding a view of the area. In 1917, stimulated by World War propaganda, vandals attempted to destroy the monument because it was in honor of a German. After the war, the stone was restored. The Omaha Schwaben Society and other citizens of German birth or descent erected the monument in 1905. This book is a reprinting of the 1939 original.
  33. The Omaha Schiller monument was moved from Riverview Park to the German American Society at some point; see "Schiller monument and Linden tree, Riverview Park, Omaha, Neb". Nebraska Library Commission. Retrieved 11 April 2015.
  34. "Search results for Goethe Hahn". Collections Search Center. The Smithsonian Institution. Retrieved 17 August 2011.
  35. See also List of Schiller Monuments and List of Goethe Monuments (in German).

Further reading
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