A Week In Weimar -- Photo Essay 2

 

Christoph Martin Wieland

I start Part Two of our stroll around Weimar with the statue of Christoph Martin Wieland who was born on September 5th in 1733 at Oberholzheim, near Biberach. He died in Weimar on January 20, 1813. 

This from the Encyclopedia Brittanica: 

    "Between 1762 and 1766 Wieland published the first German translations of 22 of William Shakespeare’s plays, which were to be influential models for Sturm und Drang (“Storm and Stress”) dramatists. Wieland was professor of philosophy at Erfurt (1769–72) and was then appointed tutor to the Weimar princes. He was not a successful teacher but spent the rest of his life in or near the court circle as an admired man of letters. In 1773 he established Der teutsche Merkur (“The German Mercury”), which was a leading literary periodical for 37 years. Late in life, he considered himself a classicist and devoted most of his time to translating Greek and Roman authors. His allegorical verse epic Oberon (1780) foreshadows many aspects of Romanticism."

Wieland is probably best known for his two-volume work, Geschichte des Agathon (History of Agathon) written in 1766–67. This work is considered the first bildungsroman, a novel that depicts and explores the manner in which the protagonist develops morally and psychologically. The word itself means “novel of education” or “novel of formation.”

Again, from the Encyclopedia Brittanica:

    "The bildungsroman traditionally ends on a positive note, though its action may be tempered by resignation and nostalgia. If the grandiose dreams of the hero’s youth are over, so are many foolish mistakes and painful disappointments, and, especially in 19th-century novels, a life of usefulness lies ahead. In the 20th century and beyond, however, the bildungsroman more often ends in resignation or death. 

    "Classic examples include Great Expectations (1861) by Charles Dickens, Anne of Green Gables (1908) by Lucy Maud Montgomery, Sons and Lovers (1913) by D.H. Lawrence, Member of the Wedding (1946) by Carson McCullers, Catcher in the Rye (1951) by J.D. Salinger, To Kill a Mockingbird (1960) by Harper Lee, Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit (1985) by Jeanette Winterson, and Black Swan Green (2006) by David Mitchell."

Now, moving across the street from the Wieland statue we come to the studio of photographer, Louis Held. Though Held has long since passed, his studio is still active.

The studio interior today.

From Wikipedia:

    "Carl Heinrich Louis Held (1 December 1851 – 17 April 1927) was raised by relatives after the death of his parents in 1860. He first apprenticed in a company producing silk tissues before beginning a second apprenticeship as a photographer. He opened his first studio in Liegnitz in 1876, moved three years later to Berlin, and again three years later to Weimar.There, he became a protégé of Franz Liszt and in 1888 was appointed court photographer of Carl Alexander, grand duke of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach. From 1890 on, he travelled throughout Germany, photographing for illustrated magazines. In 1912, he opened a cinema in Weimar. In 1923, he experimented with color photography."

This is Louis Held out in a field taking photographs.

Here above is a street scene in Weimar taken by Held.

Above, we have Held's portrait photograph of Walter Gropius.

Above are two of Held's portrait photographs of Franz Liszt. 

This above is my own photo taken of Louis Held's camera, which is still in his studio, and according to the photogrpaher there who I spoke with, is the very one Held used to take most of the portrait photographs that he is known for.

This above is Held's portrait of Belgian architect Henry van de Velde.

Let us move now from Wielandplatz on foot away from the city center, staying along Marienstrasse, and passing on the way to our right the home where Austrian-born composer Johan Nepomuk Hummel died in 1837. 

Johann Nepomunk Hummel was Kapellmeister in Weimar from 1819 to 1837, and there is a memorial bust of him on a pedestal in the city center near the theatre. His headstone, trimmed in gold, can be found in the Historiche-Friedhof, or the old cemetery. 

Hummel's music is often cited as a reflection of the change from the Classical to the Romantic era. He studied under Mozart, Salieri and Haydn. and is considered to have influenced later piano music of the 19th century, particularly in the works of Mendelssoh, Chopin, and Liszt. 

Below is the plaque that can be seen on Marienstrasse at the house, now a private residence, where he lived and died. 

Continuing about fifty meters along Marienstrasse, we approach to our left on a corner at the entrance to the Park on the Ilm, the summer house of Hungarian-born composer Franz Liszt, which is now a museum. There is no admission fee charged.

Note that the house is painted yellow. This is a commonly seen color used for more notable buildings in Weimar of a certain era. As explained to me, this is due to the paint pigment that was extracted each autumn from the falling leaves of the city's many ginkgo treess, which were introduced by Goethe.

Liszt resided in what was once the court gardener's house on the edge of the park on the Ilm from 1869 until his death in 1886. It was here that he taught many pianists from Germany and abroad. Before Liszt moved in, the upper floor rooms served as a studio for painters Friedrich Preller the Elder, and Hermann Wislicenus. 

His 1869 arrival was the beginning of the composer's second stay in Weimar. From 1848 to 1861 he lived in the Villa Altenburg on Jenaer Strasse as court conductor. Liszt returned to Weimar at the invitation of Carl Alexander. Until his death, he spent the summer months in the rooms elegantly furnished by Grand Duchess Sophie and regularly invited people to musical performances. 

As early as 1887, Grand Duke Carl Alexander had the composer's living quarters opened as a memorial site. The music salon and study have been preserved in their original furnishings, including the Bechstein grand piano.

To quote from a letter written by Liszt on September 10, 1882 to Princess Carolyne of Sayn-Wittgensteinthe, and taken from the Liszt House website:

"Why am I in Weimar? [...] In the field of music, for works, teaching, publication, it is my base in Germany."

Here is a link to the site: https://www.klassik-stiftung.de/liszt-haus/

Franz Liszt was Kapellmeister from 1848 to 1859, conducting a large number of works – particularly by Berlioz and Wagner – and turning Weimar into a leading musical centre. He returned to this house  every summer for the last 17 years of his life. 

His teaching salon, complete with two pianos, above.

His writing desk, above, and work room. On the desk surface lies his death mask. Note the original drapes, made specifically for Liszt of cotton from Algeria.

In 1842, Franz Liszt moved to Weimar to become the Grand Ducal court conductor. It was in Weimar that he organized the premiere of Richard Wagner's Lohengrin (1850), as well as the world première of Saint Saëns' opera Samson et Delilah (1877). 

The Weimar School of Music was founded in 1872 as Germany's first orchestra school. Richard Strauss worked in Weimar between 1889 and 1894 as second conductor in the acclaimed Staatskapelle Weimar, the court orchestra founded in 1491. Several of his encores for works such as Don Juan, and Macbeth were performed by the Staatskapelle Weimar. Strauss also premièred in Weimar, in 1893, Humperdinck's opera, Hänsel and Gretel.

The dining salon.

A period clock.

One view of the dining salon.

A desk for writing correspondence.

Another of the many gifts he recieved in his lifetime.

The bed he slept in, above.

A gift from Russia. I believe it's an urn made in St. Petersburg.

The Bechstein grand piano, above and below.

The divan, above, on which a guest would sleep when visiting. I wonder how many times Wagner, or Strauss slept on it, if ever.

His meerschaum pipes.

His bedroom.

His metronome, and spectacles, and day book.

His walking sticks, above. The park was at his fingertips and he walked there daily along the Ilm.

Lastly, a sample of his medals.

We leave Liszt now, having spent a full day with him.

On the following day, I took a long walk under some light rain, a little over three miles south of the city to the Baroque palace Schloss Belvedere on the outskirts of Weimar. It was an easy and pleasant walk, and I stayed as much as possible along the River Ilm, passing through three small villages, and crossing farmlands, as seen below.

The Belvedere Palace was built over a period of eight years, from 1724 to 1732, to serve, essentially, as a summer residence.  It was designed by Johann August Richter and Gottfried Heinrich Krohne for Ernst August, Duke of Saxe-Weimar. The complex is one of the most important projects of the ducal master builder Gottfried Heinrich Krohne, who built a series of pleasure palaces for the Duke, only a few of which have survived. 

This is a UNESCO World Heritage site. Here is a link: https://www.klassik-stiftung.de/schloss-und-park-belvedere/

Originally used as a hunting lodge with a menagerie, Belvedere was expanded in the style of a pleasure palace, a maison de plaisance, with pavilions, clock, gentlemen's houses and a landscaped park. In short, it was a grand place to gather for parties.

Until 1904, Belvedere was the popular summer residence of the Saxe-Weimar and Eisenach family, especially Duchess Anna Amalia and Grand Duchess Maria Pavlovna. After the abdication of the last Grand Duke, Wilhelm Ernst, it became the property of the new Free State of Thuringia. In 1923 the palace became part of the State Art Collections in Weimar and a museum for 18th-century arts and crafts. As it stands now, however, there's nothing of historical note, no furniture, no decorative items, to see indoors. The main building, as pictured above, serves nowadays as a modern art gallery. During my time there, the works of Olaf Metzel were on display. 

The main building is flanked by pavillion buildings on both sides, as seen below. The grounds top a hill and allow for lots of quiet strolling. There's a fine cafe on premises, and a music school. I had my lunch there in the cafe, sitting outdoors and enjoying a wondeful view with my glass of local white wine, and a bowl of pumpkin soup.

Below, the orangery on grounds.

As I approached the Palace, walking up a long hill, I viewed and stopped at, as seen below, a cemetary for Soviet-era war dead. This photo immediately below should give a sense of how much land the palace grounds cover.

There are many churches in and around Weimar, but the one every visitor must see, consecrated around 1245, though its current building dates to the late 15th century, is the Stadtkirche, or St Peter and Paul church, generally known as the Herderkirche in memory of Johann Gottfried Herder (1744-1803), the German philosopher and writer who preached here over a period of approximately 30 years. His statue stands in front of the church. 

Johann Gottfried von Herder was born on August 25, 1744, in Mohrungen, East Prussia, which is now Morag, in Poland. He died on December 18, 1803, in Weimar, Saxe-Weimar. He was a German critic, theologian, and philosopher, the leading figure of the Sturm und Drang literary movement and an innovator in the philosophy of history and culture. His influence, helped by his association with the young J.W. von Goethe, made him influential in the rise of the Romantic movement. He became von Herder in 1802.

To learn more about Herder, you can visit this link to the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/herder/

Here is a link to learn more about Weimar's St Peter and Paul Church: https://www.spottinghistory.com/view/5513/st-peter-and-paul-church/

To learn more about the Cranach Altarpiece inside of the church, visit this blog site, The New Testament in Art: https://nt-art.blogspot.com/2010/05/weimar-alterpiece-by-lucas-cranach.html

A small donation is asked if you wish to photograph the altarpiece. I'm certain my modest photo fails to really capture its beauty and intensity, but it gives you a general idea. 

 

This Lutheran winged altarpiece was started by Lucas Cranach the Elder and completed by his son, Lucas Cranach the Younger, between the years 1552 and 1555. The iconography isn't typical, showing Christ two times. First, to the left trampling on Death and Satan, and then to the right, crucified, blood flowing from his lance wound. John the Baptist is pictured pointing to the suffering Christ as the blood-stream falls on the head of a portrait of Cranach, and Luther reads from his book the words, "The blood of Christ cleanseth from all sin."

Here below is an image of the altarpiece taken from the Internet. It gives a better sense of the scale of the painting.

Lucas Cranach the Elder (1472-1553), though buried in Weimar, moved to the city from Wittenberg during the last year of his life, in 1552, at the age of 80. He lived in what is now the brightly-painted Cranachhaus in the Markt, a photo of which I feature in the first part of this photo essay. This house was built in 1549 for his son-in-law. He allegedly began work in the attic of this house on his final painting, destined for the altar of the town church, the Stadtkirche St Peter und Paul.

Cranach was born Lucas Sunder in the town of Kronach, about 60 kilometers south of Weimar. He died on 16 October 1553. There is, at Jakobskirche, a copy of his tombstone. The original is in the Stadtkirche St Peter und Paul, also known as the Herderkirche. 

Jakobskirche pictured above and below.

Cranach the Elder's tomb at Jacobskirche, above and below.

Goethe's wife Christiane is buried nearby; Goethe and Christiane Vulpius were finally married in the Jakobskirche in 1806, after scandalously living together for 18 years.

Here are some links to more information about Lucas Cranach the Elder:

https://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/research/research-resources/national-gallery-catalogues/the-german-paintings-before-1800/biography-lucas-cranach-the-elder

https://lucascranach.org/index.php/home/lucas-cranach

I hope you have enjoyed this brief tour of Weimar, and that you will visit the city one day.