chapter 6 Goethe’s Art Travels in the Rhine Regions 1814–1817 and His Concept of Decentralized Collections
Helmut J. Schneider
1
The following remarks pertain to several texts written and published by Goethe after the defeat of the Napoleonic army and the liberation of the oc- cupied German territories. The historical background is essential for their gen- esis and content. Goethe undertook two extensive travels in the regions of the lower and upper Rhine and of the Main and the Neckar in the summers of 1814 und 1815 respectively. His main destinations, to which he devoted lengthy chapters, were Cologne, Mainz, his home town Frankfurt (where he had not been for almost twenty years), and Heidelberg. The purpose of the trips was to visit the places which had been most exposed to French influence and suf- fered from the war activities, and to inspect the works of art and architecture, in particular art and science collections in the region with the aim of assess- ing their damages and the task of reconstruction and reorganization. Origi- nally planned for his own recreation and education – Goethe, the native son of Frankfurt and lover of the Rhine and its romantic scenery,1 was also an ardent art lover and collector – the trips soon gained a political goal: The Prussian official Freiherr von Stein, provisional administrator of the Rhine provinces which the peace treaty of 1815 had transferred to Prussia, asked the famous author to write a memorandum on the current state of the arts and the various collections in the new territories. He accompanied Goethe on large portions of the first trip. Although an official writing of the kind never materialized,
1 Earlier trips include the legendary boat trip together with Lavater and Basedow in 1774 and a detour Goethe took on his return from the failed military campaign against the French army in 1792; cf. the autobiographical text Campagne in Frankreich, 1822, quoted hereafter from the version as published, togther with commentary and source material (including letters), in volume I/16 (Campagne in Frankreich, Belagerung von Mainz, Reiseschriften, ed. Klaus-Detlef Müller) of Goethe’s Sämtliche Werke, Briefe, Tagebücher und Gespräche, ed. Friedmar Apel et al. (40 vols.; Frankfurt: Suhrkamp/Insel, 1987–2013 [1994]). This edition will hereafter be referred to as fa, followed by section/volume number and pagination. All translations by the author.
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Goethe was sympathetic to the political project and considered the publica- tion of his texts a substantial contribution to it.2 “Out of an art-historical study grows a culture-political memorandum.”3 The respective texts are: Über Kunst und Altertum in den Rhein und Mayn Gegenden, published 1816 as the first volume of a new journal with the same title (later shortened to Über Kunst und Altertum) which existed until Goethe’s death in 1832. Several additions to this text were included in the subsequent volumes, the most important ones in the second volume of 1817: Sankt Rochus- Fest zu Bingen. Am 16. August 1814 and Im Rheingau Herbsttage. Supplement des Rochus-Festes, 1814. The first text fulfills quite neatly the genre characteristics of a traditional travel account. Goethe condenses the results of the two trips which both originated in the spa of Wiesbaden, where he spent a summer va- cation, and took him to major locations in the north (as far as Cologne) and the south (as far as Karlsruhe). The text is organized after geographical locations, whose names provide the chapter titles. Only occasionally does the author de- scribe the cities and their architectural monuments (a significant exception is the dome of Cologne and the incipient endeavors at its completion), his main focus rests on the local art and natural science collections (this had been a common combination – the Kunst- und Naturalienkammer – since the sev- enteenth century; cf. Bredekamp 2002), which corresponded to Goethe’s own extended activities as collector. Some attention is also paid to the institutions of higher learning (universities and academies, in particular of Cologne and Bonn), learned societies, libraries, laboratories, botanical gardens etc. Goethe’s interest is drawn not only to the specifics of the collections’ content but equally to their owners’ biography and physiognomy that he sees reflected in them. His clear intention is to preserve the distinct character of the collec- tions as they “organically” grew to their present shape (as a material expression of the collector’s individuality, so to speak). At the same time, Goethe insists that they are to be brought into a methodological order according to scientific and educational principles (most of them he deems well organized but even then still worthy of improvement) and made accessible to the public, possibly as part of a future museum or research institute. Exemplary models for Goethe are the Städel art collection in Frankfurt, already destined by its patron to
2 Several letters, in fa I/16, attest to Goethe’s political seriousness: To Friedrich von Schuckmann (1 and 4 November 1815) and, most importantly, to Johann August Sack, “Oberpräsident” of the Rhine province (15 January 1816). 3 Goethe, Sämtliche Werke ed. Richter et al., 11.2: 683 (commentary). The commentary together with relevant documents in this edition (676–801) is even more extensive than in the fa. For a detailed account of Goethe’s two trips see Birus 2003.