e Parthenon in Danish art and architecture, from Nicolai Abildgaard to eophil Hansen 1
PATRICK KRAGELUND
Until the nal decades of the th century the Parthenon lation still inuenced his late and, perhaps luckily, perhaps was virtually unknown to the world. What the temple sadly, unnished project for an Acropolis Museum in the looked like, where it was situated and how it related to its nal years of his life. surroundings – all this, despite the widespread admiration One of the rst Danes to show clear artistic aware- for everything Classical, was shrouded in almost total ness of the Parthenon’s Doric glory was the learned mystery. If I may generalize, before the concept of painter-philosopher Nicolai Abildgaard (- ). e ‘antiquity’ was almost wholly dened by Rome: Roman closest Abildgaard ever got to Greece was Paestum in the art, architecture and literature. Of course, by the mid- th south of Italy (these were also the only Greek temples century this was beginning to be challenged, thus for in- that the father of Classical archaeology, Johann Winck- stance inducing Piranesi to defend the primate of Roman elmann, ever saw), but when in he embarked upon as opposed to Greek architecture. As for the Parthenon, illustrating the Greek style comedy Andria, e Girl om its fame and iconic status was however still eclipsed by Andros by the Roman playwright Terence (Terentius), that of the Roman Pantheon. he approached the task of creating an Athenian se!ing All this changed in the decades around – no in a deliberately playful and capricious manner. He mix- doubt faster in the Protestant North than in the Latin es Neoclassical buildings from Copenhagen and from a South, but the trend was pan-European. A process now set Utopian Athens to create a se!ing that in its emphasis in motion meant that Greece and all things Greek grad- on dazzling perspective has clear allusions to the ancient ually came to replace Rome as the privileged centre of scaenographia , as famously described by the Roman ar- artistic and scholarly focus: not at any measurable speed, chitect Vitruvius. In its second painting the series has a and not in the sense that Rome lost out completely, but fantasy se!ing of the Tower of Winds (based upon the within the Classical hierarchy a remarkable and long-last- engraving in his edition of Stuart & Reve!’s e antiquities ing shi# took place. $ of Athens ) – and in the comedy’s paradigmatic opening With a few examples below I shall illustrate how this scene a version of the Parthenon is the dazzling point de adulation of the Parthenon (I can nd no be!er word) vue of a street scene in a fantasy Athens (Fig. ). a%ected the Danish art and architecture of eophil e next decade saw the transition from fantasy to Hansen’s youth, and then look at the way this early adu- actual familiarity, a move resulting in a greatly increased
is is the text of a lecture given at a conference in January $* on “eophilus Hansen and Athens’, organized by the Danish Institute at Athens in connection with the eophil Hansen exhibition at the B. & M. eocharakis Foundation in Athens. e verbal style of the lecture has been retained and only the essential references added. I am indebted to Director Rune Frederiksen for e%ective planning, the creation of much fruitful dialogue and splendid hospitality. $ Atherton $+ is an illuminating case-study illustrating how Greece replaced Rome as the valued centre of a!ention; a similar process changed a!itudes to Greek tragedy: Kragelund $*, ch. . On the Andria series, see Kragelund , - *; Lederballe $, - (both with bibliography). 179 PROCEEDINGS OF THE DANISH INSTITUTE AT ATHENS ∙ VOL UME VIII
Fig. . N. Abildgaard, Scene !om Terence’s Andria, Act I, Scene ". Oil on canvas. "#$.# x "%& cm. Signed “N. Abildgaard ")*+” (National Gallery of Denmark).
Danish awareness of the real Parthenon. In , the rst among the canonical works exhibited in the Academy’s Classical scholars from Denmark visited and brought cast collection at Charloenborg Palace in Copenhagen. home knowledge; in - followed the architect and Within a decade, such time-honoured icons as the Laoc- later Royal Academy professor Jørgen Hansen Koch oon and the Apollo Belvedere were now joined by such up- (- ), whose drawings from Mycenae, Aegina and pity newcomers as the Ilissus , the Parthenon metopes and Athens would have given his Copenhagen Academy stu- the Phidias frieze (Fig. ). In the history of taste, this was dents a clearer idea about Greek architecture. So would a rapid shi! of unprecedented magnitude. What added the hundreds of drawings by himself and his colleagues, to the excitement was the sensational discovery that two drawings that still form the core of the Greek collection fragments of Greek sculpture that had been in the Royal in the Danish National Art Library (Fig. ). is was collections since were in fact fragments of one of the also the time when the Academy became able to give Parthenon metopes. In these years the Parthenon and its students a more immediate impression of Greek art the Acropolis entered public consciousness as the very through the acquisition of casts from the so-called Elgin summit of artistic endeavour. What eophil Hansen Marbles. Casts of the Phidias frieze, the metopes and the saw when drawing in the Academy’s cast collection was, pediment gures were between and included in short, an expression of the growing admiration for all
Dietz o"ers a panoramic survey of Dano-Greek interaction. Catalogues and discussions of the Greek material in the Danish National Art Library: Bendtsen ; Haugsted . Zahle , -. 180 Lund & Rathje , -. PATRICK KRAGELUND ∙ THE PARTHENON IN DANISH ART AND ARCHITECTURE, FROM NICOLAI ABILDGAARD TO THEOPHIL H A N S E N
Fig. . Christian Hansen, e temple of Erechtheum. Oil on canvas. . x . cm. . Private collection (photo: Dan- ish National Art Library). things Greek – the country of which, in leers from his As observed by Villads Villadsen, in the essay re-printed brother Christian, he was hearing so much. in the splendid catalogue of the exhibition in Athens, In Denmark this adulation of all things Greek and there is something almost symbolic in the fact that , widespread sympathy for the country’s bale for liber- the year of orvaldsen’s nal, triumphant homecoming ty were combined with a no less fervent admiration for to Copenhagen from Rome, was also the year of Hansen’s the nation’s top cultural hero, the sculptor Bertel (or, departure for Greece. Where Rome had been the arena in Italian, Alberto) orvaldsen ( -), an artist of orvaldsen’s rise to international fame, Athens would whom Hansen throughout his life held in the highest now become the central, permanent centre of eophil esteem. In the cast collection of the Royal Academy of Hansen’s aesthetic project. Fine Arts the tondi of the so-called ‘Modern Phidias’ (i.e. As for orvaldsen, the homecoming sculptor hero orvaldsen) would, with almost demonstrative insist- was celebrated in Copenhagen and his work honoured ence, share the space otherwise alloed to the casts of by the decision to build him a museum. It was built with the Phidias frieze and a relief symbolically evoking the money donated by the general public, high and low, and by Roman Empire (Fig. ). is is a programmatic layout the city of Copenhagen – whereas the role of the monarch strongly indicative of a specic neo-classical aesthetics was deliberately, not to say provocatively, underplayed. that would follow eophil Hansen throughout his life. We are close to the year of a European revolution, .
Villadsen ! , !!!. Cassimatis & Panetsos ! . Villadsen ! , !!!-. 181 PROCEEDINGS OF THE DANISH INSTITUTE AT ATHENS ∙ VOL UME VIII
Fig. . P.H. Rasmussen, +e Cast Collection in the Fig. . Kristen Købke, From the Cast Collection at the Danish Royal Academy. Oil on canvas. "/ x "" cm. #(%/. Royal Academy in Charlo!enborg. Oil on canvas. "#.$ x Private collection (here reproduced 0om Bundgaard Ras- %& cm. #(%) (+e Hirschsprung Collection). mussen et al. 2))(, 2%").
e profound ties between this project and the pe- ulary, thereby of course creating a spectacular framework riod’s admiration for the Parthenon have oen gone seing for all the orvaldsen casts and marbles. “More unnoticed. But here I will rst present the basics of this Bindesbøll’s Museum than mine”, the old orvaldsen is relationship. Golieb Bindesbøll ( -), the architect said to have jokingly observed (Fig. ). put in charge of building the museum, had himself been profoundly inspired by what he had seen during his long Rather than a Schinkel-inspired model for the museum stay in Greece in -. Here he had become acquaint- with an internal Pantheon dome, Bindesbøll eventually ed, partly through the help of his friend and colleague opted for a massively compact format that variously un- Christian Hansen, the older brother of eophil, with a derlines the sacral nature of the complex. What sustains hitherto unknown aspect of ancient architecture: poly- these temple associations are the monumental scale and chromy. is was far from orvaldsen, and far from the elevation, as well as the tomb-like gateways, each formed till then obligatory colourless Danish Neo-Palladianism as on an A and T modular so as to mimic Alberto (as he was it was practised in Denmark by C. F. Hansen (-) called in Italy) orvaldsen’s signature. Add to this the and in Germany by Schinkel. Bindesbøll shared eophil strong axiality that moves from the central front gateway Hansen’s admiration for Schinkel, whose Museum in Ber- all through the complex, en route passing over the place lin he rst planned to imitate in his Museum for orvald- where orvaldsen was to be buried, nally to reach a sen – but what Bindesbøll also shared with Hansen was kind of apsis, from where the model for the sculptor’s the wish to use colour as part of the architectural vocab- iconic Christ seems to be blessing the tomb of the hero.
Bindesbøll’s pioneering use of external polychromy: Van Zanten !, -. Bruun & Fenger !, . 182 On Bindesbøll and his Museum, see Bruun & Fenger !, Bramsen !!, !-!; Millech ! ; ule Kristensen , -. PATRICK KRAGELUND ∙ THE PARTHENON IN DANISH ART AND ARCHITECTURE, FROM NICOLAI ABILDGAARD TO THEOPHIL H A N S E N
Fig. . G. Bindesbøll, drawing for the façade of or- Fig. . e Frieze of Jørgen Sonne, with workers carrying valdsen’s Museum. Pencil and watercolour on paper. . x orvaldsen’s sculptures into his Museum. e !esco was . cm. C. (Danish National Art Library). completed in . On the basis of the original drawings it was completely renewed in -"# by the painter Axel Sal- to (here reproduced !om ule Kristensen #$).
e architectural framework is, in short, richly associ- frieze celebrating how his gis to the nation were carried ative. What maers in the present context is that Bindes- into his temple? bøll also inserted clear references to the Parthenon in the Aer these examples of Danish Parthenon adulation, decorative fabric of his museum. is, indeed, is a fact that it is time to turn to Athens, to the project initiated in , has mainly gone unnoticed. But knowing the Parthenon, when the great nds of archaic sculpture on the Acropolis there can be lile doubt that the chariots of Helios and Se- made it necessary to build a museum. eophil Hansen lene adorning the corner capitals of the museum’s façade was ocially asked to produce the drawings. He was so mirror the similar corner positions of Helios and Selene’s proud of the project that in , when he was awarded chariots in the Parthenon’s east pediment. One may add the so-called Nobel prize of architecture, the gold medal to this the clear references to the Parthenon frieze. e of the Royal Institute of British Architects, he donated orvaldsen Museum is surrounded on its three sides a complete set of photographs illustrating the project to by a frescoed frieze painted by Jørgen Sonne (- ) the Royal Academy in Copenhagen. I published these aer the plan of Bindesbøll. In two separate movements photographs and the relevant drawings at the Vienna this frieze on the one side shows the enthusiastic, uno- Symposium in . Some of the drawings were shown cial regaa sailing forward to welcome orvaldsen back in the exhibition in Athens. to Denmark, while the other procession shows workers e most signicant rst-hand information about the carrying his sculptures from the ship into the museum project is contained in a speech by Hansen himself on the (Fig. ). e colouring and drawing deliberately mimic occasion of celebrating his y years in Athens – I edited Greek vases, whereas the outlay, when seen from above, the contemporary English translation of the speech in has a no doubt deliberate similarity to that of the likewise the above, and we now have a modern English version bifurcating Parthenon frieze (Fig. ). How beer to cel- from Professor Marilena Cassimatis that is printed in the ebrate the so-called modern Phidias than with a similar splendid Athens exhibition catalogue.
Henderson , agrees that the similar layout of the friezes is signicant. ere are brief references to the Acropolis Museum in Niemann & Feldegg , , ; Russack , ; Kokkou , -; Haugsted , (with thanks to Aristea Christensen in Athens for sending a copy of Kokkou). Kragelund , - ; cf. Cassimatis & Panetsos , - with cat. nos. .- . Cassimatis & Panetsos , -. 183 PROCEEDINGS OF THE DANISH INSTITUTE AT ATHENS ∙ VOL UME VIII
Fig. . Plan of the Parthenon and of !orvaldsen’s Muse- um with position of "iezes (a#er Henderson $%%&, $$).
Fig. . !eophil Hansen, Proposed se*ing for Acropolis Museum. Pen and ink on paper. +$.+ x $/.0 cm. 2330 (Vien- na, Academy of Arts).
However, to understand Hansen’s plans it is crucial to complex divided in two by the present-day Dionysio Are- study the surviving drawings which show that he at some opagitou Street (Fig. ). At each of the complex’s four point drastically changed the position of the museum. corners Hansen placed Corinthian tholoi connected by From an early stage in the project we have a ground stoae that are closed towards the street but open towards plan, which shows the originally intended position in inner courtyards. Visitors would gain access to the mu- relation to the Acropolis. is was in relation to what seum through four Ionic temple gateways. To the south later happened much more to the east, but in its core of this oblong complex, where the terrain slopes rather layout it is basically identical with the later project. steeply downwards, Hansen unusually places a one-storey In a later, more detailed version (Fig. ), which further theatre-shaped complex that opens up to an inner court- illustrates the museum’s relation to the old Military Hos- yard. pital (to the south of which Bernard Tschumi’s New Where Hansen’s stoae are visual evocations of the Acropolis Museum now stands), Hansen opted for a stoae of antiquity, the theatre shape playfully seems to position slightly further to the west, but still with his resume and echo the theatres dominating the south slope modern stoae running parallel with the ruins of the Stoa of the Acropolis, adding a modern parallel to the ancient of Eumenes that in Antiquity connected the theatres of icons. So does the tetra style Ionic entry temples, the Herodes Aicus and Dionysus. nearby temple of Nike being the ultimate model. It adds I shall shortly return to what motivated this westward to the feeling of authenticity that the project, unusually change of position and how it would aect the visitor’s in Hansen’s oeuvre, seemingly works without elevating aesthetic experience, but rst I should comment brief - ramps and staircases, the stoae, tholoi and temples placed ly on the ground plan. Hansen envisaged a large, open !atly on ground level. However, as the views from the
184 e early plan: Kragelund "#$, g. = Cassimatis & Panetsos "#%, g. $.*. PATRICK KRAGELUND ∙ THE PARTHENON IN DANISH ART AND ARCHITECTURE, FROM NICOLAI ABILDGAARD TO THEOPHIL H A N S E N
Fig. . !eophil Hansen, Museum für Athen. I. Perspektivische Ansicht. #$.$ x $%.$ cm. '%%(. Photograph of an ink on pa- per drawing in the Hansen bequest in the Danish National Art Library. In the background can be seen Hansen’s Zappeion and Gärtner’s Royal Palace, now the Greek Parliament.
Fig. !. !eophil Hansen,Museum für Athen. I. Ruckwärtige Ansicht. '% x $+ cm. '%%(. Photograph of an ink on paper drawing in the Hansen bequest in the RIBA Library Drawings & Archives Collections, London.
south rear illustrate, Hansen has used the natural slope the green backdrop of the Acropolis. Here, from the of the area to introduce great visual variation, the sub- south, with the low-slung, pavilion-style disposition of structures, which support the Museum’s southbound rear the museum’s line of buildings, the layout of this complex façade, clearly echoing the Acropolis’ raw cut walls of would have been easily grasped; seen from here, more- substruction supporting the platform of the Temple of over, an aspect that in Hansen’s public oeuvre is almost Nike. unique seems to call for an explanation. Seen directly from the south (Fig. ), where Hansen As outlined in the drawings, Hansen’s project is mark- intended to place a café for the visitors, the semi-circular edly centrifugal, its central section so un-accentuated and colonnade enclosing the internal courtyard would serve un-emphasized that one looks in vain in his public oeuvre as a sort of uniform pediment above which the individual for a parallel. From the Athens Academy to the Vienna segments of the complex would stand out clearly against Musikverein and Vienna Parliament (Fig. ), the disposi- 185 PROCEEDINGS OF THE DANISH INSTITUTE AT ATHENS ∙ VOL UME VIII
Fig. . !eophil Hansen, Museum für Athen. I. Ruck- wärtige Ansicht. $% x &' cm. $%%). Photograph of an ink on paper drawing in the Hansen bequest in the RIBA Library Drawings & Archives Collections, London with modern photo of Parthenon inserted to show Hansen’s intended e/ect.
Street and the Parthenonos street, which is roughly where the Museum’s central axis would have been). So this mon - umental and visually almost invasive corner was to have been the soaring point de vue of Hansen’s whole complex, high above its very centre (Fig. !). In short, Hansen’s project is centrifugal precisely be- cause his modern-day buildings were meant to be seen Fig. . Illustration 0om Das K.K. Reichsraths-Gebäude as moving aside (humbly, as it were), providing at their in Wien von !eophil von Hansen, Vienna. $%'1 (!e centre an uncontested primary space for this venerable Danish National Art Library). Doric set piece, the very icon of Classical architecture. It is clearly for this same reason that Hansen avoided using the Doric order in his exterior. Instead, he makes his project tion is almost invariably the opposite, the side pavilions as encircle and, as it were, inscribe the venerable ruin, "rst it were framing, highlighting and elevating a more massive with #agpoles #ying the national Greek #ag and further and highly ornate central section. So why the departure out by buildings in the two other Classical orders, the in this, his Athenian swan song? Ionic and then "nally the Corinthian. It is the intended change of location for the entire com- Where Hansen’s Ionic temples are "rmly rooted in plex which oers the key to solving this problem. As we Athenian tradition, his Corinthian tholoi are, in the con- have seen, in his second ground plan Hansen had decided text, an unusually innovative element that allowed him to to move the whole complex slightly to the west (Fig. ). If give his museum the kind of domed Pantheon rotunda one carefully examines this new location, it emerges that so brilliantly introduced to museum architecture by the its overriding purpose was to provide the complex with its idol of his youth, Schinkel. !$ But where Schinkel in the almost demonstratively missing centre. In this location, a Altes Museum imitates the Pantheon’s Corinthian order, person standing in the Museum’s axis of symmetry would Hansen in the interior of his Athens museum pays homage have had the dramatically protruding southwest corner to the genius loci by using the Doric. As for the Corinthi- of the Parthenon right at his centre of vision (in Athens, an exterior of these tholoi, however, another icon of his one can recapture the eect by looking up at the Acropolis youth may well be relevant: what are they but massively when standing at the corner of the Dionysio Areopagitou enlarged fantasy versions of the likewise Corinthian Ly-
Stalla !$%, !%-&$& aptly describes Hansen’s use of this modular system. !$ Hansen and Schinkel: in his diary from & (Villadsen !$%, !!&) the Altes Museum is “without doubt the most beautiful Piece of Architecture I 186 have seen”. Hansen saw himself as Schinkel’s pupil: Stalla !$%, !%. PATRICK KRAGELUND ∙ THE PARTHENON IN DANISH ART AND ARCHITECTURE, FROM NICOLAI ABILDGAARD TO THEOPHIL H A N S E N
sicrates monument that Hansen had drawn in his youth, tecture is not un-paralleled in Hansen’s oeuvre. As rightly and to which he would return again and again? [G Finally, as observed by Professor Alexander Papageorgiou-Venetas, Professor Georgios Panetsos rightly made me aware, these Hansen’s Zappeion works on similar principles, since its tholoi resume and bring to full closure the monumental open courtyard ‘frames’ a splendidly panoramic view of theatrical half circle of the building’s south façade. the Lykabe"os Mountain. !e Parthenon Museum’s very When entering the Acropolis through the gateway similar interaction of se"ing and architecture adds signif- of Mnesikles’ Propylaea , one sees the Parthenon at its icantly to the intrinsic value of Hansen’s |nal project. most imposing, across a diagonal that at its centre has the To conclude: Hansen owed his meteoric rise to ar- temple’s northwestern corner. [[ It was no doubt Hansen’s chitectural stardom to his years in Athens. !e links with intention to replicate this eqect, but now from the sunlit Sinas, who |nanced his Athens Observatory, proved cru- south and from below upwards, with his low and modern cial when he le~ for Vienna – and from there the rest is buildings respectfully laid out so that they would have history. What I hope to have shown is that he did not provided a kind of architectural frame for this compelling arrive in Greece wholly unprepared. Indeed, in the Den- visual experience. !is mise-en-scène function of archi- mark of his youth there was much that was already Greek.
BIBLIOGPHY Cassimatis, M. & G. A. Panetsos Kokkou, A. !"++ (eds) !* Η μερίμνα για τις αρχαιότητες στην Atherton, G. ‘Hellenische Renaissance’. e Archi- Ε=άδα και τα πρώτα μουσεία, Athens. e Decline and Fall of Virgil in Eight- tecture of eophil Hansen (!"!/-!"0!) , eenth-Century Germany: e Repressed Athens. Kragelund, P. !"%+ Muse , Rochester, NY. “Abildgaard around GHII: his Tragedy Dietz, S. (ed.) and Comedy’, Analecta Romana Institu- Bendtsen, M. !""# København-Athen tur/retur , Copenha- ti Danici GK, G$M-HO. Sketches and Measurings. Danish Archi- gen. tects in Greece !"!"-!"#$ , Copenhagen. Kragelund, P. !# Haugsted, I. !"" ‘!e RIBA Gold Medal and !eophil Bramsen, H. !"$" Dream and Reality. Danish antiquaries, Hansen’s Plans for an Acropolis Muse- Go%lieb Bindesbøll – liv og arbejder , architects and artists in Greece , London. um in Athens’, in eophil Hansen. Ein Copenhagen. Resümee , B. Bastl et al. (eds), Vienna, Henderson, J. $ GM#-#[. Bruun, C. & L. P. Fenger !%" e Triumph of Art at orvaldsens Mu- orvaldsens Musæums Historie , Co- seum, Copenhagen. Kragelund, P. !$ penhagen. Roman Historical Drama. e Octavia Hurwit, J.M. $ in Antiquity and Beyond , Oxford. Bundgaard Rasmussen, B., J. Steen ‘Space and !eme: !e Se"ing of the Jensen, J. Lund & M. Märcher (eds) Parthenon’, in e Parthenon. From Lederballe, T. (ed.) " % Antiquity to the Present , J. Neils (ed.), Nicolai Abildgaard. Revolution Embod- Peter Oluf Brøndsted (!'")-!"*$). A Cambridge, #-$%. ied , Copenhagen. Danish Classicist in his European Con- text , Copenhagen
[G Hansen produced a detailed reconstruction of the Lysicrates monument in GH%K: Cassimatis & Panetsos [IG%, |g. H.G; with Stalla [IG%, [#O. [[ In Antiquity it was only when arriving at the Chalkotheke terrace closer to the Parthenon that one would have got the |rst full – but there, diago- nal – view of the complex: Hurwit [IIO, G[ (with bibliography). 187 PROCEEDINGS OF THE DANISH INSTITUTE AT ATHENS ∙ VOL UME VIII
Lund, J. & A. Rathje (ule Kristensen, P. '"$ ‘Danes Overseas – A Short History of Go#lieb Bindesbøll – Danmarks første Danish Classical Archaeological Field- moderne arkitekt , Copenhagen. work’, Acta Hyperborea !, ""-#$. Van Zanten, D. )) Millech, K. !" !e Architectural Polychromy of the !orvaldsens Museum. Bygningens %&'(’s , New York, London, "#0-$2. æstetiske funktion og idé samt udviklingen i forarbejderne (Meddelelser fra %or- Villadsen, V. '"% valdsens Museum "&$&), Copenhagen. ‘From Copenhagen to Athens. Pages from %eophilus Hansen’s Travel Diary Niemann, G. & F. v. Feldegg #$ "3!3’, in Cassimatis & Panetsos /0"1, !eophilos Hansen und seine Werke , ///-!" (translation by Neil Stanford & Vienna. Patrick Kragelund).
Russack, H. H. %' Zahle, J. '""# Deutsche bauen in Athen , Berlin. ‘P.O. Brøndsted – %e Resolute Agent in the Acquisition of Plaster Casts for Stalla, R. '"% the Royal Academy of Fine Arts, Co- ‘‘My work has always been modelled penhagen’, in Bundgaard Rasmussen et on classical antiquity’: Re*ections on al., /"1-!2. the Structural and Decorative Sys- tem’, in Cassimatis & Panetsos /0"1, /&1-!0!.
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