During the beginning of the 19th century, Napoleon came to dominate the continent of Europe, imposing French values, culture and fashion on those he conquered. When his empire came to an end with the Congress of Vienna in 1815, there were differing views on how the continent should be reordered. Austria's chief negotiator, Prince Klemens von Metternich, represented the Conservative order: desiring to restore Europe to its previous structure and preserve France as a great power. Meanwhile, among German university students, Romantic Nationalism was growing as a liberal revolutionary movement. Romanticism was largely a reaction to the Enlightenment. It contrasted the Enlightenment values of Neo-classicism and control of nature with local folk tradition and the idea of the sublime: the vastness of the wilderness and the awe it inspires in the individual.
Many of the students involved in this movement dressed in the style of Altdeutsche Tracht, modeled after 16th and 17th century German clothing as an alternative to the French fashions popular at the time. The Romantic artist Caspar David Friedrich was one of those who used Altdeutsche Tracht as a way to signal his belief in a unified German culture, in opposition to the imposed French Enlightenment culture of the Napoleonic age. Metternich sought to suppress these student movements with heavy censorship in 1819, after the murder of playwright August von Kotzebue. Tensions would continue to build until 1848, when a revolution broke out in an attempt to create a unified German nation state, but was ultimately suppressed by conservative forces.
Portrait of Madame de Verninac
Jacques-Louis David
1799
Oil on canvas
Paris: Musée du Louvre, RF 1942-16.
Jacques-Louis David was one of the artists favored by Napoleon, who used his work and the work of other artists like Ingres as a part of his propaganda effort. Napoleon fashioned himself as a Roman emperor, and French culture bent towards the Greco-Roman during his reign. This portrait depicts a young, aristocratic woman in the Neo-classical inspired clothing of the Empire period. Minimalism, clean lines and the color white were all key elements of Empire fashion, meant to reflect marble statues.
Fashion Plate: Costume Parisien
Unknown
1817
Hand-colored engraving
London: The Victoria & Albert Museum, E.22396:95-1957.
This fashion plate depicts the fashionable style of the late 1810s. Though Europe was post-napoleonic by this time, the French remained the fashion trendsetters of Europe, as they had been even before Napoleon's reign. Fashion plates were engravings on copper or steel which could transfer an image multiple times. Before the mid 19th century the printings were costly, and mostly accessible to the aristocratic and bourgeois classes. Fashion plates disseminated through women's magazines allowed French fashion to travel across Europe.
Hermann von Wedigh III (died 1560)
Hans Holbein the Younger
1532
Oil and gold on oak
The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 50.135.4
This portrait represents the clothing of upper class Germans from the 16th century, which the nationalist students drew inspiration from. The book under his arm is likely a Protestant Bible, reflecting the strong north German tradition of protestantism, a key component in the desire for German unification. Klemens von Metternich, along with the lands of Austria, was devoutly catholic. German national unification along protestant lines would have caused Austria to lose power on the European stage.
Two Men Contemplating the Moon
Caspar David Friedrich
1825-30
Oil on canvas
The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2000.51
In Two Men Contemplating the Moon, Caspar David Friedrich depicts himself and his favorite student August Heinrich standing in a mysterious autumnal landscape. Their backs are turned from the viewer, but the outline of their hats, cloaks and loose trousers are clearly identifiable as Altdeutsche Tracht. Friedrich's art is a leading example of German Romanticism, as it emphasizes man's smallness before a distinctly German landscape. This is the third version of the work, based on earlier versions done before Metternich's censorship outlawed the wearing of this style of Tracht in 1819.
Frontispiece, A Memoir of Charles Louis Sand : including a narrative of the circumstances attending the death of Augustus von Kotzebue : also, A defense of the German universities
Unknown
1819
Engraving
London : Printed for G. & W.B. Whittaker, University of California Libraries, nrlf_ucb:GLAD-151521655.
Depicted in this engraving is the student Karl Ludwig Sand, anglicized as Charles Louis Sand, who was executed in 1819 for the murder of the playwright August von Kotzebue. This murder would lead to Metternich's censorship of the student nationalist movement, but Sand's execution gave the movement a martyr which would fuel it for years to come. Sand is shown here in Altdeutsche Tracht, and particularly, the same type of hat as Friedrich and Heinrich in Two Men Contemplating the Moon.
Germania
Philipp Veit
1848
Oil on fabric
Nationalmuseum in Nürnberg
Germania is a depiction of the united German state, clothed in medieval germanic clothing rather than the simple drapery of Neo-classicism. Where Napoleon had used Greco-Roman imagery to legitimize his power, the German nationalists harkened to the germanic tribes who opposed Rome. This painting was made as an appeal to German unity, created for St. Paul's Church (Paulskirche) in Frankfurt, where the first German parliament met in 1848 after a nationalist revolution. In 1849, the conservatives regained control, and Germania was taken down.
Der Neue Altdeutsche
C.G.H. Geisler
1820
Ink drawing
Both I and an actually tech savvy friend tried everything and could not find where this existed beyond wikipedia, despite the artist having other works in the Victoria & Albert Museum. Because I cannot find this, it is not one of my objects, but I thought I would still include it as an extra because the hypocrisy of nationalism is very important to point out, but take it with a grain of salt.
The text of the engraving says, “Deutsch ist mein Sinn, und mein Gewand vom feinsten Tuch aus Engeland”, which translates to, ”My mind is German, and my costume
is made of finest English cloth”. This satirical engraving was meant to point out the hypocrisy of nationalist students’ supposedly traditional German costume.
No comments:
Post a Comment