The God behind the marble : the fate of art in the German aesthetic state /
Goff, Alice,
The God behind the marble : the fate of art in the German aesthetic state / Alice Goff. - pages cm
Includes bibliographical references and index.
Introduction -- To the vandals they are stone -- A brilliant place -- The state of the supplicant -- Uncertain saints -- Stepping onto the pedestal -- Hegel's neighbor -- Coda.
"This book tells the story of how Germans struggled to make art an autonomous instrument of social progress in the face of real-world challenges between 1790-1850. For philosophers such as Friedrich Schiller, a work of art was governed by its own laws and soared above trivial constraints; thus, a painting or sculpture could both model and stimulate the moral autonomy of its beholders. This "aesthetic education" (to be conducted in the newish institution of museums) would yield an "aesthetic state," born of the measured reason of its citizens rather than the fractious antagonisms of mobs and tyrants. But highbrows like Schiller failed to consider the tough realities facing art "on the ground." Not only were there no proper museums in the German states for presenting art to the public, the systematic looting of their art collections during the Napoleonic wars had thrown the very ontological status of art into serious question: What was a painted altarpiece supposed to be once it had been torn out of a Church and reinstalled in a secular space? How would a marble statue of a nude Apollo impact modern viewers-especially unmarried young ladies not used to such sights? And how could a stolen object symbolize freedom? As art works fell prey to the very violence they were supposed to transcend, social theorists began to wonder how art could deliver liberation if it could so quickly end up a spoil of war. Among the specimens considered are forty porphyry columns from the tomb of Charlemagne in Aachen; the Quadriga from the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin; the Laocoön group from Rome; a bronze medieval reliquary from Goslar; a Last Judgment from Danzig; and, last, but surely not least, the mummified body of an official from the Rhenish hamlet of Sinzig"--
9780226827100
2023002889
Art and society--History--Germany--Prussia--18th century.
Art and society--History--Germany--Prussia--19th century.
Napoleonic Wars, 1800-1815--Campaigns--Art and the war.--Germany--Prussia
Lost works of art--History--Germany--Prussia--18th century.
Lost works of art--History--Germany--Prussia--19th century.
Prussia (Germany)--Cultural policy--History--18th century.
Prussia (Germany)--Cultural policy--History--19th century.
Fellow Nina Maria Gorrissen Fellow in History Class of Spring 2021
N72.S6 / G64 2024
701/.03
The God behind the marble : the fate of art in the German aesthetic state / Alice Goff. - pages cm
Includes bibliographical references and index.
Introduction -- To the vandals they are stone -- A brilliant place -- The state of the supplicant -- Uncertain saints -- Stepping onto the pedestal -- Hegel's neighbor -- Coda.
"This book tells the story of how Germans struggled to make art an autonomous instrument of social progress in the face of real-world challenges between 1790-1850. For philosophers such as Friedrich Schiller, a work of art was governed by its own laws and soared above trivial constraints; thus, a painting or sculpture could both model and stimulate the moral autonomy of its beholders. This "aesthetic education" (to be conducted in the newish institution of museums) would yield an "aesthetic state," born of the measured reason of its citizens rather than the fractious antagonisms of mobs and tyrants. But highbrows like Schiller failed to consider the tough realities facing art "on the ground." Not only were there no proper museums in the German states for presenting art to the public, the systematic looting of their art collections during the Napoleonic wars had thrown the very ontological status of art into serious question: What was a painted altarpiece supposed to be once it had been torn out of a Church and reinstalled in a secular space? How would a marble statue of a nude Apollo impact modern viewers-especially unmarried young ladies not used to such sights? And how could a stolen object symbolize freedom? As art works fell prey to the very violence they were supposed to transcend, social theorists began to wonder how art could deliver liberation if it could so quickly end up a spoil of war. Among the specimens considered are forty porphyry columns from the tomb of Charlemagne in Aachen; the Quadriga from the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin; the Laocoön group from Rome; a bronze medieval reliquary from Goslar; a Last Judgment from Danzig; and, last, but surely not least, the mummified body of an official from the Rhenish hamlet of Sinzig"--
9780226827100
2023002889
Art and society--History--Germany--Prussia--18th century.
Art and society--History--Germany--Prussia--19th century.
Napoleonic Wars, 1800-1815--Campaigns--Art and the war.--Germany--Prussia
Lost works of art--History--Germany--Prussia--18th century.
Lost works of art--History--Germany--Prussia--19th century.
Prussia (Germany)--Cultural policy--History--18th century.
Prussia (Germany)--Cultural policy--History--19th century.
Fellow Nina Maria Gorrissen Fellow in History Class of Spring 2021
N72.S6 / G64 2024
701/.03