German art and architecture
* The Carolingian and Ottonian Periods
Carolingian architecture and art are commonly considered to have been
the earliest manifestations of discernibly Germanic art. As the center
of Charlemagneís empire, the Rhineland was the home of the massive palace
chapel at Aachen
(c.800), decorated with mosaics, and of contemporary churches such as the
one at Fulda. Many of these show the revival of early Christian plans (see
Early Christian art and architecture). Carolingian ivory book covers
and diptychs were also notable. The first outstanding examples
of German painting and sculpture were created (c.960?c.1060) during the
Ottonian dynasty. Splendid manuscripts, enriched by illuminations remarkable
for their force of linear expression, issued from the school of Reichenau
(e.g., the Gospels of Otto III, State Library, Munich), while in Cologne
miniature painting exhibited a brilliant use of color. Fine craftsmanship
is apparent in the metalwork of this period, from the small objects produced
by the goldsmiths of Mainz to more massive achievements, such as the bronze
doors (1015) for the Church of St. Michael at Hildesheim. The architecture
of St. Michaelís exemplifies a tendency in Ottonian buildings toward the
development of a complex ground plan. A highly rational system was devised
of dividing the church into a series of separate units, a method that was
to be of consequence in Romanesque design.
Fig 1. The Aachen cathedral treasury displays sacral masterpieces
of the late Classical, Carolingian, Ottonian and Staufian period - among
them there are som unique exhibits like the »Cross of Lothair«
the »Bust of Charlemagne« and the »Persephone sarcophagus«.
The Cathedral Treasury in Aachen is regarded as one of the most important
ecclesiastical treasuries in northern Europe.
* The Romanesque and Gothic Periods
Romanesque architecture and art flourished in Germany, and the cathedrals
in basilica form at Worms, Mainz, and Speyer typify the characteristic
divisive style of the period. Little remains of Romanesque fresco
painting, of which Regensburg and Salzburg were major Germanic centers.
With the diffusion of the French Gothic style throughout Europe, notable
contributions were made by the Germans. The magnificent sculpture
of the portals for the cathedrals at Bamberg, Strasbourg, and Naumburg
was executed during the first half of the 13th cent. French influence
is most strongly revealed in the cathedral of Cologne (c.1250). Modifying
the French emphasis on decoration, however, the Germans built simpler,
unadorned piers and evolved a more unified, spacious form of church.
This style may be seen in the Church of St. Sebald (c.1370), Nuremberg,
or in the cathedral (c.1470) at Munich.
Fig's 2 & 3. "Founded in 1147, the Cistercian
Maulbronn Monastery is considered the most complete and best-preserved
medieval monastery complex north of the Alps.Surrounded by fortified walls,
the main buildings were constructed between the 12th and 14th centuries.
The monastery's church, built in the transitional Romanesque-Gothic style,
had significant influence on the spread of Gothic architecture over much
of northern and central Europe. The water management system at Maulbronn,
with its elaborate network of drains, irrigation canals and reservoirs,
is exceptional." - (from UNESCO's World Heritage List)
Fig's 4 & 5.The Church of Our Lady, in the Cathedral's
cose vicinity and near the Great Market, shows complete unity of style
- the strong individualism characteristic of early Gothic architecture.
These twin-churches therefore represent one of the largest of
all dual church buildings of early Christian architecture. The ancient
masonry of the south-building was incorporated in later alterations and
remained until the 12th century. The present church was built between 1235
and 1260.
The Church of Our Lady is considered to be the earliest and most
important among Gothic buildings of central construction and altogether
one of Germany's first Gothic churches. The remarkably clear and beautiful
Gothic design of its foundations is cross-shaped with two chaples built
into each of the cross-angles. Here, assimilation of German and French
architectural ideas (The Workshops of Soissons and Rheims) achieved a central
structure of perfect harmony.
* The Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries
Some of Germanyís finest buildings date from the 17th and 18th cent.
exuberant baroque and rococo churches and palaces that are marvels of lightness
and spatial complexity. Among the best are the works of the Austrian
Fischer von Erlach. Ceiling decoration was widely practiced. The
rococo style came to the fore c.1730, with the Tischbein family and Angelica
Kauffmann its chief exponents in painting. At this time, too, small
Dresden china figures and groups became very popular, with the workshops
at Meissen producing exquisite miniature statuettes of genre subjects.
A. R. Mengsís work marked the widespread revival of classicism modeled
on the theories of J. J. Winckelmann and on the art of Rome. Meanwhile,
the monumental sculptures of J. G. Schadow were regarded as the model for
a century of subsequent German plastic art.
Fig 6. Collegiate church St. Servatius in Quedlinburg
On the castle-hill, a steep sandstone-rock, approximately 25m
over the roofs of the city Quedlinburg, rise the towers of the Romance
seminary church St. Servatius. Together with the residential premises of
the ladies' convent they form a group of buildings of great significance
and architectural charm.
The Quedlinburger seminary church, which emerged from a residential
chapel of King Heinrich I., was used from 936 until 1803 as a place of
worship for the secular ladies convent. The Ottonian rulers frequently
celebrated Easter at the graves their ancestors. For hundreds of
years they frequently read here a requieme for them.
* The Nineteenth Century
In the early part of the century J. F. Overbeck, Schadow-Godenhaus,
Peter von Cornelius, and Schnorr von Carolsfeld banded together to form
the group of Nazarenes active in Rome. Alfred Rethel became a leader
of a school of German historical painting. He and the realist A.
F. E. von Menzel executed woodcuts as well and were responsible for the
19th-century revival of the medium. The Biedermeier period brought
to the fore such genre painters as Moritz von Schwind and Karl Spitzweg.
In the late 19th cent. a new wave of romanticism emerged that had been
foreshadowed by the desolate landscapes of C. D. Friedrich and the complex
allegories of P. O. Runge. Romanticism was exemplified in architecture
by K. F. Schinkel. Romantic painters who were influenced by Italian art
included Anselm von Feuerbach and Hans von Marées.
* The Twentieth Century
The sentimental genre scenes and derivative neoclassic artistic production
of the 19th cent. were replaced in the 20th cent. by a fresh, more vital
sensibility. In the early years of the century the influence of Gauguin
was strong. At the same time, English art nouveau design innovations were
adopted in the applied arts in Germany and termed jugendstil. The
wave of 20th-century masters that emerged from the Berlin secession, led
by Max Liebermann, created an art known as expressionism for its purposeful
distortion of natural forms. The expressionist movement came in three waves:
the first, the Brücke (1905), included E. L. Kirchner and Emil Nolde;
the Blaue Reiter (1911) attracted several foreign artists, such as Paul
Klee, Lyonel Feininger, and Wassily Kandinsky; and in the 1920s Otto Dix
and Max Beckmann were principal exponents of the disenchanted realism called
the new objectivity. Artists working in related styles included Oskar Kokoschka
and Käthe Kollwitz. Several of these same artists also taught
at the Bauhaus, led by Walter Gropius and later by Miës van der Rohe.
This establishment became the chief breeding place of functionalism and
encouraged experimentation and abstraction with the ideal of combining
artistic beauty with usefulness. The Nazi regime, however, regarding abstract
and expressionist works as degenerate, discouraged and destroyed any but
heroic, propagandistic art, and the Germany of the 1930s and early 40s
produced nothing of artistic significance. The Bauhaus aesthetic
was taught and practiced in the United States by European expatriates and
their disciples, while German architecture, massive and dull, glorified
the Nazi style. In the period since World War II the dominant architectural
designers have included Hans Scharoun, Helmut Striffler, Werner Duttmann,
and Gottfried Bohm. The abstract movement has been led by Willi Baumeister,
Theodore Werner, Fritz Winter, E. W. Nay, Winfred Gaul, and G. K. Pfaher.
Bibliography
F. Novotny, Painting and Sculpture in Europe, 1780?1880 (1960);
F. Roh, German Art in the 20th Century (tr. 1968);
G. Lindemann, History of German Art (tr. 1971);
J. Weinstein, The End of Expressionism (1989).
Related Links:
* World Heritage List
http://www.thesalmons.org/lynn/world.heritage.html
* UNESCO Germany
http://www.unesco.de/c_english/index.htm
* World Heritage Sites in Germany
http://my.bawue.de/~wmwerner/english/heritage.html
