List of monuments to Ludwig van Beethoven

The German composer Ludwig van Beethoven (1770–1827) has been the subject of many monuments, including statues, busts, and other sculptures. The first, a bust by Franz Klein, was commissioned by Johann Andreas Streicher and created in 1812 while the composer was still alive.[1] After Beethoven's death in 1827, his hometown, Bonn, immediately began planning a monument for the following year,[2] though a cholera outbreak delayed this.[3] Due to finances given by Robert Schumann, Charles Hallé, George Thomas Smart and especially Franz Liszt, a monument was eventually erected in 1845; it was by Ernst Julius Hähnel, who beat Friedrich von Amerling in a design competition.[2][4] The monument's height and simplicity were criticized, although the reliefs surrounding the base were met with public approval.[4] The statue's depiction of a figure standing with their legs slightly apart on a decorated base was popular at the time and later inspired Theodore Baur's c. 1895 statue in the Library of Congress.[5]

Bust of Beethoven by Hugo Hagen

Despite this, the Beethoven monuments that followed Hähnel's, while retaining a high pedestal,[6] began depicting the composer in a less simplistic and increasingly heroic light.[7] The most significant representative of this, and the most famous Beethoven monument from the second half of the 19th-century, was Kaspar von Zumbusch's intensely allegorical 1880 monument in Beethovenplatz, Vienna.[8] Vienna had intended to erect a monument for Beethoven since his death,[2] but serious action to do so only began in the 1870s, when a competition for a design was held and Zumbusch's winning design was created with financial support from Liszt and Johannes Brahms.[9]

In the early 20th-century, the glorified depictions of Beethoven reached their peak, with god-like representations such as Max Klinger's monument, unveiled at the Vienna Secession (1902),[10] and Fidus's unexecuted design for a 'Beethoven temple' (1903).[11] The 20th-century also saw a brief return to the simplistic style of the 19th-century, such Robert Weigl's statue at the Library of Congress (1910) and Hugo Uher's statue in Karlovy Vary (1929).[12] Also at this time, Antoine Bourdelle and Naoum Aronson, both students of Auguste Rodin, began creating busts of the composer.[13] Bourdelle was especially prolific, with more than 20 of his busts surviving.[13] As the century progressed, ideas on depicting Beethoven became largely ununified, and were often especially allegorical, such as Theodor von Gosen's monument in Alameda Central, Mexico City (1921).[14] In 1926, Berlin hosted a monument competition in preparation for the composer's 100th anniversary the following year; the entire competition was controversial and was eventually canceled due to criticism from the press and the inability for the committee to form a consensus.[15] There had been submissions from famous sculptors including Ernst Barlach, Georg Kolbe and Peter Breuer, although Kolbe and Breuer eventually had their designs constructed in 1948 and 1938 respectively.[15] After World War II, experimentation in depicting Beethoven increased even further, exemplified Klaus Kammerichs's 3d reproduction of Joseph Karl Stieler portrait (1986) and Markus Lüpertz's controversial abstract depiction (2014).[16][17]

A large number of busts reside in the Beethoven House, a museum and cultural institution based in Bonn that studies Beethoven's life and legacy, including ones by Fernando Cian (first quarter of the 20th-century);[18] Pierre Félix Masseau (1902);[19] Aronson (1905);[13] Wilhelm Hüsgen (1920–27);[20] Eduard Merz (1945/46);[21] Lewon Konstantinowitsch Lasarew (1981);[22] and Cantemir Riscutia (1998).[23]