Tamara Berger Receptions.Pdf

Tamara Berger ECEPTIONS R OF ANCIENT EGYPT: A CASE STUDY COLLECTION Tamara Berger ______________________________________________________________ RECEPTIONS OF ANCIENT EGYPT: A CASE STUDY COLLECTION БИБЛИОТЕКА СТУДИЈЕ И ОГЛЕДИ Editor in Chief Nebojša Kuzmanović, PhD Editors Steffen Berger, Msc Kristijan Obšust, Msc Reviewers Professor José das Candeias Montes Sales, PhD, University Aberta, Lisbon Eleanor Dobson, PhD, University of Birmingham Susana Mota, PhD, Independant Researcher © Copyright: 2021, Arhiv Vojvodine Tamara Berger RECEPTIONS OF ANCIENT EGYPT: A CASE STUDY COLLECTION Novi Sad, 2021. For Steffen, Vincent and Theo RECEPTIONS OF ANCIENT EGYPT: A CASE STUDY COLLECTION 7 CONTENTS Introduction . 9 CHAPTER 1 Mnemohistories and Receptions of ancient Egypt in Serbia. 15 CHAPTER 2 Receptions of ancient Egypt in works of sculptor Ivan Meštrović and architect Jože Plečnik. 55 CHAPTER 3 Receptions of ancient Egypt in Ludwigsburg, the city of obelisks. 85 CHAPTER 4 Receptions of ancient Egypt in Weikersheim Palace: alchemy, obelisks and phoenixes . 129 CHAPTER 5 Saarbrücken, the city of stylistic chameleons. 151 CHAPTER 6 Stylistic mimicry and receptions: notes on the theoretical approach. 169 Reviews . .179 About the author. 185 RECEPTIONS OF ANCIENT EGYPT: A CASE STUDY COLLECTION 9 INTRODUCTION Roman emperor Hadrian, painter Paul Klee, neurologist Sigmund Freud, and plenty of others besides from ancient times up until the present have something in common: a great interest in ancient Egypt. There are many faces of this curiosity. Some have left traces of their interest in the form of collections of Egyptianized objects like Freud, who saw a common ground between psychoanalysis, which he founded, and archaeology, as they both search for deeper layers: one standing for personal memory and another for collective history.1 Some have purchased works of art that were made for them in “an Egyptian style”, and yet others, like architects, artists and writers, have produced their own works as acts of reception of ancient Egyptian art. One of the most important aims of this case study collection is the attempt to emphasize the importance of the context of each of the examples of receptions of ancient Egypt, and thus, recognizing factors that have influenced the final result. Bob Brier raised the question as to why ancient Egypt is a greater fascination for most people than Mesoamerican civilizations, even though the Maya built pyramids and had a mysterious script, as did ancient Egyptians. A possible reason he observes is the fact that we can identify more with Egyptian than with Mayan culture.2 One obvious problem is the definition of “we”; certainly some people can see more commonalities between their culture and the Mayan culture than with ancient Egyptian culture. Yet, if “we” is defined as “Europeans” (and North Americans who descend from Europeans), it is clear that ancient Egyptian culture in its later stages was already fascinating to its contemporaries from old Greece. This fascination can also be observed from the following epoch of ancient Rome, to human- ism, the Renaissance and up until modernity. In other words, Egyptian culture is present in European minds from the cradle of European culture. In that sense, although ancient Egypt seems to be mystical and exotic, it is at 1 Bob Brier, Egyptomania. Our Three thousand year obsession with the land of pharaohs (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013), 201–202. 2 Brier, Egyptomania, 200–201. 10 Tamara Berger the same time very close and familiar. Egyptian culture is deeply intertwined with European cultural heritage to such an extent that some of the layers are not easily visible and definable, as it is not clear anymore what source is the real inspiration of some of the receptions of ancient Egypt: is it an Egyp- tian original, a Roman copy, or some other source (e.g. Piranessi’s designs, the Description de l’Égypte, drawings from Lepsius’s expedition, etc.). Some Egyptian forms and motifs are so common that they might have origins in the Land of Pharaohs, but they have also been ours for a long time. Except for the case study about receptions in Serbia, that deals with a very broad range of receptions, most of the examples in this case study collection are drawn from architecture. There are certain criteria for architecture that are used to compare different architectural styles. One of the com- paring systems was developed by Banister Fletcher, who regarded the following elements as important: plans, walls, openings, doors, roofs, columns, moldings, and ornamentation.3 In the present publication, like in Maxi Schreiber’s analysis of receptions of old Egyptian architecture in modernity,4 not all of these criteria were viewed as relevant. The focus was on details in ornamentation, or the general impression. Aesthetics are also considered as well as parallels in symbolism and meaning of architecture and its elements. Some might ask “Why another publication about the examples of reception of ancient Egypt?” and such a question would not be undue. Many studies have been published about so-called Egyptomania, the Egyptian revival, fascination with ancient Egypt and receptions of ancient Egypt. Of course, there are numerous other examples of phenomena in different fields from ancient Greek writers to modern video games, that are already described. The case studies in this publication, however, have another purpose than just mentioning new chapters in a broad web of receptions of ancient Egypt, a phenomenon widespread on all continents (except Antarctica), and from cultures contemporary to ancient Egypt to the present day. The case studies gathered here are used as an illustration of the meanings, as kind of a tool that helps in shaping a better understanding of the receptions of Egypt. This is not the first publication with such an approach. For instance, the brilliant book “Beyond Egyptomania: Objects, style, and agency” edited by 3 Banister Fletcher, A history of architecture on the comparative method (London: Batsford, 1905), x. 4 Maxi Schreiber, Altägyptische Architektur und ihre Rezeption in der Moderne. Architektur in Deutschland 1900–1933 (Berlin: Gebr. Mann Verlag, 2018). RECEPTIONS OF ANCIENT EGYPT: A CASE STUDY COLLECTION 11 Miguel John Versluys,5 which also uses case studies, offers many explana- tions of the complex phenomenon of receptions of ancient Egypt. The present publication originates from the author’s personal wish to understand why Egypt is present in so many aspects of the everyday life, even up to our contemporary society. Starting from the moment of writing the bachelor’s thesis “Perception of Egypt and cultural development of Europe” to the present day, the author was haunted by the presence of Egypt in many aspects of culture and different geo-political contexts in countries like Serbia, Croatia, and Germany. It became kind of a challenge to explore the traces of receptions of Egypt in every new city of residence or just a city visited for the first time. At some point, the recognition of numerous, just a few or no traces of receptions of Egypt in the architecture of a city, became a new tool of understanding the historical context by which the face of the city was shaped. To provide one example: I was working at an archaeological excava- tion in Heilbronn, Southern Germany, for six months. In the architecture of Heilbronn, I didn’t notice a single trace of ancient Egyptian influences. The reason for that, as I understood after the visit to the local museum, is that an extremely high percentage (57%) of the city was destroyed during bombings in World War 2.6 Elsewhere in Southern Germany, in the city of Ludwigsburg, there is an abundance of examples of influences within the architecture, which is why the chapter about Ludwigsburg has the title “Lud- wigsburg, city of obelisks”. Ludwigsburg was built strictly by plans, the hous- es in the initial phase had precisely defined forms, and, most importantly, there was a lack of lengthy traditions in the city, which was founded at the beginning of the 18th century. This has contributed to the wish of creating a “social glue” in the appearance of the city that recalls common (European, German, etc.) roots, a mutual history and a belonging to the same culture and tradition. Another important factor is that Ludwigsburg was not as bad- ly destroyed in World War 2 (only 2%) as Heilbronn was.7 Of course, the time when it was built (18th century) has played a decisive role for Lud- wigsburg, which is also visible in the comparison to Heilbronn. Although Heilbronn dates back to the middle ages, it is architecturally a lot younger, 5 Miguel John Versluys, ed., Beyond Egyptomania. Objects, style and agency (Berlin, Boston: Walter de Gruyter GmbH, 2020). 6 Heinz Bardua, “Kriegsschäden in Baden-Württemberg 1939–1945” in Historischer Atlas von Baden-Württemberg. Erläuterungen (Stuttgart: Offizin Chr. Scheufele, 1975), 1–23, https:// www.leo-bw.de/media/kgl_atlas/current/delivered/pdf/HABW_7_11.pdf. 7 Bardua, “Kriegsschäden in Baden-Württemberg 1939–1945”, 1–23. 12 Tamara Berger since it had to be extensively rebuilt in a totally different socio-political context after Word War 2. The distance between Heilbronn and Ludwigsburg is no more than 40 km or a 35–45 min car ride, and despite that, they offer a completely different picture about the receptions of ancient Egypt in the German state of Baden-Württemberg. This difference illustrates the importance of understanding the particular context in which receptions of ancient Egypt are embedded. Egyptomania is a term that is used a lot in published works about receptions of ancient Egypt. However, its negative undertone, due to the suffix “mania”, was a decisive factor in not including the term in this publication.

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