![Beethoven bust statue by Hagen](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/aa/Beethoven_bust_statue_by_Hagen.jpg)
The German composer
Ludwig van Beethoven
Ludwig van Beethoven (baptised 17 December 177026 March 1827) was a German composer and pianist. Beethoven remains one of the most admired composers in the history of Western music; his works rank amongst the most performed of the classical ...
(1770–1827) is among the most admired composers in the history of Western music, and has been the subject of many private and public sculptures, including
bust
Bust commonly refers to:
* A woman's breasts
* Bust (sculpture), of head and shoulders
* An arrest
Bust may also refer to:
Places
*Bust, Bas-Rhin, a city in France
*Lashkargah, Afghanistan, known as Bust historically
Media
* ''Bust'' (magazine ...
s,
relief
Relief is a sculptural method in which the sculpted pieces are bonded to a solid background of the same material. The term ''relief'' is from the Latin verb ''relevo'', to raise. To create a sculpture in relief is to give the impression that the ...
s,
statue
A statue is a free-standing sculpture in which the realistic, full-length figures of persons or animals are carved or cast in a durable material such as wood, metal or stone. Typical statues are life-sized or close to life-size; a sculpture t ...
s and others. The first,
a bust by
Franz Klein, was commissioned by
Johann Andreas Streicher
Johann Andreas Streicher (13 December 1761 in Stuttgart – 25 May 1833 in Vienna) was a German pianist, composer and piano maker. In 1793 he married Nannette Streicher (1769–1833), another piano maker and the daughter of Augsburg piano maker Jo ...
and created in 1812, while the composer was still alive.
After
Beethoven's death in 1827, his hometown,
Bonn
The federal city of Bonn ( lat, Bonna) is a city on the banks of the Rhine in the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia, with a population of over 300,000. About south-southeast of Cologne, Bonn is in the southernmost part of the Rhine-Ruhr r ...
, immediately began planning a monument for the following year,
though a
cholera
Cholera is an infection of the small intestine by some strains of the bacterium ''Vibrio cholerae''. Symptoms may range from none, to mild, to severe. The classic symptom is large amounts of watery diarrhea that lasts a few days. Vomiting and ...
outbreak delayed this. A design competition was eventually held, in which a submission by
Ernst Julius Hähnel
Ernst Julius Hähnel (9 March 1811, Dresden – 22 May 1891, Dresden) was a German sculptor and Professor at the Dresden Academy of Fine Arts.
He is especially remembered for his public statuary. His works of art can be admired throughout Germ ...
beat ones from
Friedrich von Amerling
Friedrich von Amerling (14 April 1803 – 14 January 1887) was an Austro-Hungarian portrait painter in the court of Franz Josef. He was born in Vienna and was court painter between 1835 and 1880. With Ferdinand Georg Waldmüller he is one of ...
,
Gustav Blaeser and
Friedrich Drake
Friedrich Drake (June 23, 1805, Pyrmont – April 6, 1882, Berlin) was a German sculptor, best known for his huge memorial statues.
Biography
He was the son of a mechanic and served an apprenticeship as a turner in Minden, afterwards being em ...
. In 1845,
Hähnel's monument was erected, due to finances given by
Robert Schumann
Robert Schumann (; 8 June 181029 July 1856) was a German composer, pianist, and influential music critic. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest composers of the Romantic era. Schumann left the study of law, intending to pursue a career a ...
,
Charles Hallé
Sir Charles Hallé (born Karl Halle; 11 April 181925 October 1895) was an Anglo-German pianist and conductor, and founder of The Hallé orchestra in 1858.
Life
Hallé was born Karl Halle on 11 April 1819 in Hagen, Westphalia. After settling ...
,
George Thomas Smart
Sir George Thomas Smart (10 May 1776 – 23 February 1867) was an English musician.
Smart was born in London, his father being a music-seller. He was a choir-boy at the Chapel Royal, and was educated in music, becoming an expert violinist, orga ...
and especially
Franz Liszt
Franz Liszt, in modern usage ''Liszt Ferenc'' . Liszt's Hungarian passport spelled his given name as "Ferencz". An orthographic reform of the Hungarian language in 1922 (which was 36 years after Liszt's death) changed the letter "cz" to simpl ...
.
While the monument's height and simplicity were criticized, the reliefs surrounding the base were met with public approval.
The statue's representation of a figure standing on a decorated base with its legs slightly apart was popular at the time, and later inspired Theodore Baur's
statue of in the
Library of Congress
The Library of Congress (LOC) is the research library that officially serves the United States Congress and is the ''de facto'' national library of the United States. It is the oldest federal cultural institution in the country. The library is ...
.
The Beethoven monuments that followed Hähnel's, while retaining a high pedestal,
began to portray the composer in a less simplistic and increasingly heroic light.
The most significant representative of this, and the most famous Beethoven monument from the second half of the 19th century, was
Kaspar von Zumbusch
Kaspar lemens EduardZumbusch (23 November 1830 – 27 September 1915), as of 1888 Ritter von Zumbusch (a nobiliary particle), was a German sculptor, born at Herzebrock, Westphalia, who became a pre-eminent sculptor of neo-Baroque monuments in Vi ...
's
1880 monument in , Vienna.
The city had intended to erect a monument for Beethoven since his death,
but serious action to do so began only in the 1870s, when a competition for a design was held and Zumbusch's winning design was created with financial support from Liszt and
Brahms
Johannes Brahms (; 7 May 1833 – 3 April 1897) was a German composer, pianist, and conductor of the mid-Romantic period. Born in Hamburg into a Lutheran family, he spent much of his professional life in Vienna. He is sometimes grouped with ...
.
In the early 20th century, the glorified portrayals of Beethoven reached their peak, with
god-like representations such as
Max Klinger
Max Klinger (18 February 1857 – 5 July 1920) was a German artist who produced significant work in painting, sculpture, prints and graphics, as well as writing a treatise articulating his ideas on art and the role of graphic arts and printmak ...
's
monument (1902), unveiled at the
Vienna Secession
The Vienna Secession (german: Wiener Secession; also known as ''the Union of Austrian Artists'', or ''Vereinigung Bildender Künstler Österreichs'') is an art movement, closely related to Art Nouveau, that was formed in 1897 by a group of Austri ...
(now in the
Museum der bildenden Künste
The Museum der bildenden Künste (German: "Museum of Fine Arts") is a museum in Leipzig, Saxony, Germany. It covers artworks from the Late Middle Ages to Modernity.
History
Museum Foundation and First Museum
The museum dates back to the fo ...
),
and
Fidus
Fidus was the pseudonym used by German illustrator, painter and publisher Hugo Reinhold Karl Johann Höppener (October 8, 1868 – February 23, 1948). He was a symbolist artist, whose work directly influenced the psychedelic style of graphi ...
's unexecuted design for a
'Beethoven temple' (1903).
The 20th century also saw a brief return to the simplistic style of the 19th century, such as Robert Weigl's
statue
A statue is a free-standing sculpture in which the realistic, full-length figures of persons or animals are carved or cast in a durable material such as wood, metal or stone. Typical statues are life-sized or close to life-size; a sculpture t ...
at the in Vienna (1910) and
statue
A statue is a free-standing sculpture in which the realistic, full-length figures of persons or animals are carved or cast in a durable material such as wood, metal or stone. Typical statues are life-sized or close to life-size; a sculpture t ...
in
Karlsbad (1929).
Also at this time,
Antoine Bourdelle
Antoine Bourdelle (30 October 1861 – 1 October 1929), born Émile Antoine Bordelles, was an influential and prolific French sculptor and teacher. He was a student of Auguste Rodin, a teacher of Giacometti and Henri Matisse, and an important fi ...
and
Naoum Aronson
Naoum Aronson (1872–1943) was a sculptor who lived for most of his life in Paris. He is known principally for his busts of important leaders, including Ludwig van Beethoven, Louis Pasteur, Leo Tolstoy, Grigori Rasputin, and Vladimir Lenin.
...
, both students of
Auguste Rodin
François Auguste René Rodin (12 November 184017 November 1917) was a French sculptor, generally considered the founder of modern sculpture. He was schooled traditionally and took a craftsman-like approach to his work. Rodin possessed a uniqu ...
, began creating busts of the composer;
Bourdelle was especially prolific.
As the century progressed, ideas on depicting Beethoven became largely ununified, and were often especially
allegorical
As a literary device or artistic form, an allegory is a narrative or visual representation in which a character, place, or event can be interpreted to represent a hidden meaning with moral or political significance. Authors have used allegory th ...
, such as
Theodor von Gosen
Theodor von Gosen (10 January 1873 – 30 January 1943) was a German sculptor. His work was part of the art competitions at the 1928 Summer Olympics and the 1932 Summer Olympics. Gosen designed the Beethoven Monument in Alameda Central
Alamed ...
's
monument
A monument is a type of structure that was explicitly created to commemorate a person or event, or which has become relevant to a social group as a part of their remembrance of historic times or cultural heritage, due to its artistic, his ...
in
Alameda Central
Alameda Central is a public urban park in downtown Mexico City. Created in 1592, the Alameda Central is the oldest public park in the Americas. It is located in Cuauhtémoc borough, adjacent to the Palacio de Bellas Artes, between Juárez Avenue ...
, Mexico City (1921).
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 committee's inability to form a consensus.
There had been submissions from famous sculptors including
Ernst Barlach
Ernst Heinrich Barlach (2 January 1870 – 24 October 1938) was a German expressionist sculptor, medallist, printmaker and writer. Although he was a supporter of the war in the years leading to World War I, his participation in the war made him c ...
,
Peter Breuer
Peter Christian Breuer (19 May 1856, Cologne – 1 May 1930, Berlin) was a German sculptor.
He was a professor at the Prussian Academy of Arts (later, the Academy of Arts, Berlin) and was considered to be one of the pioneers of modern sculpture ...
and
Georg Kolbe
Georg Kolbe (15 April 1877 – 20 November 1947) was a German sculptor. He was the leading German figure sculptor of his generation, in a vigorous, modern, simplified classical style similar to Aristide Maillol of France.
Early life and educa ...
, although Breuer and Kolbe eventually had their designs constructed in
1938
Events
January
* January 1
** The Constitution of Estonia#Third Constitution (de facto 1938–1940, de jure 1938–1992), new constitution of Estonia enters into force, which many consider to be the ending of the Era of Silence and the a ...
and
1948
Events January
* January 1
** The General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) is inaugurated.
** The Constitution of New Jersey (later subject to amendment) goes into effect.
** The railways of Britain are nationalized, to form British ...
respectively.
After World War II, experimentation in portraying Beethoven increased even further, exemplified by
three-dimensonal reproduction (1986) of
Joseph Karl Stieler
Joseph Karl Stieler (1 November 1781 – 9 April 1858) was a German painter. From 1820 until 1855 he worked as royal court painter of the Bavarian kings. He is known for his Neoclassical portraits, especially for the Gallery of Beauties at Nymp ...
's painted portrait and
Markus Lüpertz
Markus Lüpertz (born 25 April 1941) is a German painter, sculptor, graphic artist, and writer. He also publishes a magazine, and plays jazz piano. He is one of the best-known German contemporary artists. His subjects are characterized by suggest ...
's controversial
abstract portrayal (2014).
There is a large collection of busts in the
Beethoven House
The Beethoven House (German: ''Beethoven-Haus'') in Bonn, Germany, is a memorial site, museum and cultural institution serving various purposes. Founded in 1889 by the Beethoven-Haus association, it studies the life and work of composer Ludwig van ...
, a museum and
cultural institution
A cultural institution or cultural organization is an organization within a culture/subculture that works for the Preservation (library and archive), preservation or promotion of culture. The term is especially used of public and charitable organiz ...
based in Bonn that studies Beethoven's life and legacy, including ones by an unknown artist based on a sculpture by
Josef Danhauser
Josef Danhauser (19 August 1805 in Laimgrube (now a part of Mariahilf or Neubau) – 4 May 1845) was an Austrian painter, one of the main artists of Biedermeier period, together with Ferdinand Georg Waldmüller, Peter Fendi, among others. His wor ...
();
Fernando Cian (first quarter of the 20th century);
Pierre Félix Masseau
Pierre Félix Masseau (17 March 1869, in Lyon – 14 April 1937, in Paris), known professionally as Fix-Masseau. He was a noted French sculptor and father of poster artist Pierre Fix-Masseau with whom he is sometimes confused with.
Fix-Massea ...
(1902);
Aronson (1905);
a mask supposedly by (1920–1927);
Eduard Merz (1945/46);
(1981);
and Cantemir Riscutia (1998).
Sculptures
Bourdelle's sculptures
The French sculptor
Antoine Bourdelle
Antoine Bourdelle (30 October 1861 – 1 October 1929), born Émile Antoine Bordelles, was an influential and prolific French sculptor and teacher. He was a student of Auguste Rodin, a teacher of Giacometti and Henri Matisse, and an important fi ...
(1861–1929) greatly admired Beethoven, of whom he created at least 45 sculptures from 1893 to the end of his life.
[ ]
Unexecuted sculptures
See also
*
*
Notes
References
;General
*
;Specific
External links
A slideshow of depictions of Beethovenfrom the
Deutsches Historisches Museum
The German Historical Museum (german: Deutsches Historisches Museum), known by the acronym DHM, is a museum in Berlin, Germany devoted to German history. It describes itself as a place of "enlightenment and understanding of the shared history o ...
on
Google Arts & Culture
Google Arts & Culture (formerly Google Art Project) is an online platform of high-resolution images and videos of artworks and cultural artifacts from partner cultural organizations throughout the world.
It utilizes high-resolution image technol ...
{{featured list
Beethoven
Ludwig van Beethoven (baptised 17 December 177026 March 1827) was a German composer and pianist. Beethoven remains one of the most admired composers in the history of Western music; his works rank amongst the most performed of the classical ...