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Landscape garden or lustgarten: reinterpreting Kassel-Wilhelmshöhe in garden history

2012; Taylor & Francis; Volume: 32; Issue: 2 Linguagem: Alemão

10.1080/14601176.2011.624832

1943-2186

Urte Stobbe,

Ecology, Conservation, and Geographical Studies

Click to increase image sizeClick to decrease image size Notes 1. This article is based on the results of the dissertation by Urte Stobbe, Kassel-Wilhelmshöhe: Ein hochadeliger Lustgarten im 18. Jahrhundert (Berlin/München: Deutscher Kunstverlag, 2009). 2. John Dixon Hunt, ‘Plädoyer für eine Rezeptionsgeschichte von Gärten’, Michael Rohde and Rainer Schomann (eds), Historische Gärten heute, 2nd edn (Leipzig: Edition Leipzig, 2004), pp. 38–41, and Michel Conan, ‘Methods and perspectives for the study of gardens and their reception’, Michel Conan (ed.), Gardens and imagination, cultural history and agency (Washington, DC: Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection, 2008), pp. 3–18. This paper in many respects also replies to Edward Harwood, Tom Williamson, Michael Leslie and John Dixon Hunt, ‘Wither garden history?’, Studies in the history of gardens & designed landscapes, 27/2, 2007, pp. 91–112. 3. Hennebo and Hoffmann cite the year 1830 as a terminal date, even though elements of landscape gardens continue to appear in different contexts after this date. Dieter Hennebo and Alfred Hoffmann: Geschichte der deutschen Gartenkunst, Vol. 3, Der Landschaftsgarten (Hamburg: Broschek, 1963), p. 272. 4. While the term ‘baroque garden’ was not contemporary but a later classification, ‘landscape garden’ was a commonly used term during the eighteenth and nineteenth century garden debates. 5. In Bazin's overview the chapter about the landscape garden is followed by one about public parks. Germain Bazin, DuMont's Geschichte der Gartenbaukunst (Frechen: Komet, 1999; French 1988). Laird writes a chapter on the ‘connections between the straight line and the serpentine’, followed by one about ‘revival-movements and eclectic signs’. Mark Laird, Der formale Garten, Architektonische Landschaftskunst aus fünf Jahrhunderten (Stuttgart: Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, 1994; English 1992). Hansmann und Walter close their garden history with an examination of gardens designed by Lenné and Pückler. Wilfried Hansmann and Kerstin Walter, DuMont Geschichte der Gartenkunst, Von der Renaissance bis zum Landschaftsgarten (Köln: DuMont, 2006). See also Ehrenfried Kluckert, Gartenkunst in Europa, Von der Antike bis zur Gegenwart (no location: Ullmann & Könemann, 2005), pp. 401–439, who extends the key period of landscape gardening in Germany up to 1850, in order to close with a summary chapter on garden development ‘from 1850 until today’, pp. 457–484. 6. Gothein, for example, interprets Pückler's flower-beds as a ‘failed recourse to a Renaissance-garden element’. Marie Luise Gothein, Geschichte der Gartenkunst, Vol. 2, Von der Renaissance in Frankreich bis zur Gegenwart (München: Moravia books, 2010; reprint after the 2nd edn, 1926), p. 412. Others see in Pückler's gardens the ‘coronation of landscape garden in Germany’. Kluckert, 2005, p. 435. A study which deals, among other issues, with the different attributions of Pückler's park in garden history is currently in preparation by the present author. 7. Franz Hallbaum, Der Landschaftsgarten, Sein Entstehen und seine Einführung in Deutschland durch Friedrich Ludwig von Sckell 1750–1823 (München: Schmidt, 1927), pp. 55–98. 8. Dieter Hennebo and Alfred Hoffmann, Geschichte der deutschen Gartenkunst, Vol. 2, Der architektonische Garten, Renaissance und Barock (Hamburg: Broschek, 1965), pp. 269–277. 9. According to Hennebo and Hoffmann, ‘the first strong irruption of the new garden ideal’ from Great Britain happened in the 1760s. Hennebo and Hoffmann, 1963, p. 59. 10. Horst Becker and Michael Karkosch, Park Wilhelmshöhe Kassel: Historische Analyse, Dokumentation, Denkmalpflegerische Zielsetzung (Regensburg: Schnell und Steiner, 2007), pp. 72 and 76. 11. Hennebo and Hoffmann, 1963, pp. 173–185. 12. Ibid., p. 173. 13. Ibid., p. 174. Likewise pejorative is also Gothein, who refers to Frederick's II layout of Park Kassel-Wilhelmshöhe as ‘many petty-minded new creations’. Gothein, Vol. 2, 1926/2010, p. 212. 14. Hennebo and Hoffmann, 1963, p. 183. 15. For details about the Palace and Löwenburg see Hans-Christoph Dittscheid, Kassel-Wilhelmshöhe und die Krise des Schloßbauses am Ende des Ancien Régime: Charles de Wailly, Simon Louis du Ry und Heinrich Christoph Jussow als Architekten von Schloß und Löwenburg in Wilhelmshöhe (1785–1800) (Worms: Wernersche Verlagsgesellschaft, 1987); also Anja Dötsch, Die Löwenburg im Schlosspark Kassel-Wilhelmshöhe, Eine künstliche Ruine des späten 18. Jahrhunderts (Regensburg: Schnell und Steiner, 2006). 16. Hennebo and Hoffmann, 1963, p. 181. 17. Ibid., p. 184. 18. The ‘tiergarten’ (deer enclosure for hunting purposes) and the pheasant-house were not new under William IX; they had already been there since Frederick II (compare Hennebo and Hoffmann, 1963, p. 177). Also chinoiseries had not been given up since 1785 (ibid.); but on the contrary: the chinoiserie of Frederick II was one of the parts that was not removed from the park like many other decorative buildings or structures when William started to rearrange the park in the first years of his regency as landgrave of Hesse-Kassel. 19. John Dixon Hunt, ‘Stourhead revisited and the pursuit of meaning in gardens’, Studies in the history of gardens & designed landscapes, 26/4, 2006, pp. 328–341, here especially p. 330. 20. Adrian von Buttlar, ‘Englische Gärten in Deutschland, Bemerkungen zu Modifikationen ihrer Ikonologie’ in Zentralinstitut für Kunstgeschichte München (ed.), Sind die Briten hier? Relations between British and Continental Art 1680–1880 (Augsburg: Fink, 1981), pp. 97–125. 21. Hallbaum (1927, p. 59) speaks only of ‘dominant tendencies in garden design’, but in fact describes a more or less linear process. 22. Buttlar, 1981, p. 102. 23. Adrian von Buttlar, Der Landschaftsgarten, Gartenkunst des Klassizismus und der Romantik (Köln: DuMont, 1989), pp. 209–232. 24. Laird describes a quite similar phenomenon when he engages with the continuities of axial structures as a kind of leitmotif in gardens even in cases where the dominant layout was focused on the imitation of (pseudo-) natural landscapes. Laird, 1994, pp. 91–139. 25. Buttlar, 1981, pp. 100–101. For critical comments see Rolf Kirsch, Frühe Landschaftsgärten im niedersächsischen Raum (Göttingen: Cuvillier, 1993), pp. 22–24. 26. Buttlar, 1989, p. 18. 27. Post-modern ways of presenting different lines of development side by side to undermine the ‘big’ master-narratives could be one line of approach, but this is not the point here. My aim is not to destroy narratives, for example by contrasting different ‘voices’, but to develop an alternative narrative that better accounts for the unresolved ambiguities within landscape-garden history. 28. Peter Szondi, Theorie des modernen Dramas (1880–1950) (Frankfurt a.M.: Suhrkamp, 1965). 29. Niklas Luhmann, Soziale Systeme, Grundriß einer allgemeinen Theorie (Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 2002; first published 1984). 30. Peter Burke, Die europäische Renaissance (München: Beck, 2005; English 1998), pp. 13–33. 31. The precise moment is important, because it determines the respective meaning. Thus, it could make a significant difference whether, for instance, a Chinese building was built in the 1760s or around 1800. Largely similar in physical form, it could be representative of courtly splendor and exotism, of innovation in the field of garden design, or of an intentional return to a supposed immaculate Chinese style. 32. It is not only birth and membership of a certain social group that defines taste preferences in garden design, but rather the respective situation in which the garden owner acts. William IX, for example, was — in contrast to his father — very innovative with the layout of park Wilhelmsbad in Hanau between 1779 and 1785, when Frederick II still ruled in Kassel. See Stobbe, 2009, pp. 93–109. It was only when he became landgrave in his own right that his garden preferences changed and became increasingly traditional (see below). 33. Some garden historians try to adjust the beginnings of anglicization into the 1750s by fixing on the first occurrences of serpentines in gardens. 34. Methodological note: these characteristics are not always explicitly mentioned, but implicitly they also function as ‘markers’ of a landscape garden. 35. ‘Ha-has’ were in fact already described by Antoine Joseph Dezallier d'Argenville in his La theorie et la pratique du jardinage (first published in 1709; first English translation 1712; first German translation 1731); similarly, the presenting of different prospects does not originate with the landscape garden — it is only the way they are presented to the viewers’ eyes that has changed. 36. Urte Stobbe, ‘Neophyten im Spannungsverhältnis von Repräsentation, Nutzen und Patriotismus gegen Ende des 18. Jahrhunderts’ in: Bernd Herrmann and Urte Stobbe (eds), Schauplätze und Themen der Umweltgeschichte: Umwelthistorische Miszellen aus dem Graduiertenkolleg (Göttingen: Universitätsverlag, 2009), pp. 189–225. 37. Also, artificial ruins were not ‘new’ in landscape gardens (Hennebo and Hoffmann, 1963, p. 118). The continuities between renaissance gardens and baroque gardens with regard to labyrinths, grottoes, artificial hills and islands have already been seen by Hennebo and Hoffmann (1965, p. 19). 38. Hajós, 1989, pp. 73–75. 39. Michael Niedermeier: review ‘Symbolism in 18th century gardens. The influence of intellectual and esoteric currents, such as freemasonry. Ed. Jan A. M. Snoek, Monika Scholl, Andréa A. Kroon’ (Den Haag, 2006), http://www.pueckler-gesellschaft.de/Rez31.html. 40. Urte Stobbe, ‘Daniel August Schwarzkopf (1738–1817): Hofgärtner und Garteninspektor am Kasseler Hof zur Zeit der Gartenkunstdebatte Ende des 18. Jahrhunderts’, Die Gartenkunst, 21/2, 2009, pp. 213–226. 41. See for instance Buttlar, 1981, p. 102; Kirsch, 1993, p. 18. 42. Becker and Karkosch, 2007, p. 84. Both authors see certain similarities, but come to the conclusion that especially the garden-‘programs’ of both parks are fundamentally different: Monceau was built for entertainment purposes, while Wilhelmshöhe was ‘definitely more’. In addition to this, they note that Monceau had its high point in 1780, while Wilhelmshöhe had its peak in layout four years earlier. Ibid., p. 99. However, they fail to consider the fact that in Wilhelmshöhe, several parts were rearranged again after 1779, which gave the park another note. See Stobbe, 2009, pp. 57–69. 43. Becker and Karkosch, 2007, p. 68. However, these features were all constructed after 1779 and thus postdate the publication of Carmontelle's work on park Monceau. These engravings were present at the court of Kassel and had a verifiable influence on the layout of park Wilhelmshöhe. 44. For quite similar results concerning Sanssouci in Potsdam see Annette Dorgerloh, ‘Friedrich II. als Gartengestalter — Repräsentation und historische Verortung’ in Brunhilde Wehinger (ed.), Geist und Macht: Friedrich der Große im Kontext der europäischen Kulturgeschichte (Berlin: Akademie-Verlag, 2005), pp. 225–243. 45. Michel Conan, ‘Die kritische Rezeption von Gärten und Landschaften’, in Michael Rohde and Rainer Schoman (eds), Historische Gärten heute, 2nd edn (Leipzig: Edition Leipzig, 2004), pp. 48–51 and Hunt, 2006. 46. Concerning the term ‘picturesque’ see Hunt, 2004, pp. 8–25. 47. Since Gothein and Hennebo and Hoffmann the term ‘variété’ is frequently used in German garden research, though nobody defines the difference in reference to the term ‘variety’. 48. Iris Lauterbach, Der französische Garten am Ende des Ancien Régime, ‘Schöne Ordnung’ und ‘geschmackvolles Ebenmaß’ (Worms: Wernersche Verlagsgesellschaft, 1987), pp. 235–245. 49. Compare Hennebo and Hoffmann, 1963, pp. 108–136. 50. Compare Becker and Karkosch, 2007, pp. 88–98. 51. Johann Heinrich Zedler, Großes vollständiges Universal-Lexikon aller Wissenschaften und Künste, Vol. 18 (Leipzig: Zedler, 1738), column 1254. 52. Zedler, 1738, column 1258. 53. Within the article, a second ‘voice’ criticizes the waste of money on useless garden houses, fountains, cascades, and statues — they ought only to be built if there is enough money to spare. Zedler, 1738, columns 1254–1255. 54. John Dixon Hunt, ‘“Lordship of the feet”: toward a poetics of movement in the garden’ in Michael Conan (ed.), Landscape design and the experience of motion (Washington, DC: Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection, 2003), pp. 187–213. 55. Stobbe, 2009, Chapter 4, Wilhelmsbad in Hanau from 1779 until 1785. 56. Bernard Korzus, ‘Neogotische Architekturen in deutschen Landschaftsgärten des Alten Reichs’ in Bagno — Neugotik — Le Rouge: Beiträge zur europäischen Gartenforschung aus dem Nachlaß von Bernard Korzus. Mitteilungen der Pückler-Gesellschaft, 23, 2008, pp. 27–62, here p. 60. 57. In the year 1797, one of the visitors showed himself thoroughly amazed by the presence of French-language signs in the park: ‘We were taking a stroll through the park when we reached a little house with the sign “Socrate”; regrettably, one feels as if one were in France here in Kassel because most of the inscriptions on the buildings are in French’. Georg Christian Ludwig Lindenmeyer, Jahrbuch meines Lebens [ends in 1797], after a manuscript ed. by Karl Esselborn (Darmstadt: self-published, 1927), p. 321. 58. Becker and Karkosch, 2007, pp. 102 and 157. In their view, park Kassel-Wilhelmshöhe was completed as a landscape garden between 1821 and 1866. 59. See, for instance, Philipp Losch, Kurfürst Wilhelm I., Landgraf von Hessen: Ein Fürstenbild aus der Zopfzeit (Marburg: Elwert, 1923) and Eckhart G. Franz, Das Haus Hessen: Eine europäische Familie (Stuttgart: Kohlhammer, 2005), pp. 109–110. 60. Anonymous, ‘Feten bey der Reise des Königs von Preußen im Juny 1799’, Journal für Luxus und der Moden, 14, 1799, July, pp. 317–344. 61. Thus, for instance, soldiers were stationed in the ‘Plutogrotte’ when high-nobility visitors were in the park. Anonymous, Briefe auf einer Reise durch Thüringen und Hessen, geschrieben von einem wandernden Helvetier im Jahr 1801 (Altenburg/Erfurt: Rink und Schnuphase, 1801), pp. 168–169. 62. In this I explicitly challenge a common scholarly opinion which connects other forms of garden use with the landscape garden. See, for instance, Hennebo and Hoffmann, who describe the purpose of the landscape garden as follows: ‘The park's principal function was not of that of serving as a stage for courtly events, but that of imparting emotions to an individual or a small group of friends’. Hennebo and Hoffmann, 1963, p. 121. 63. See Adrian Tinniswood, A history of country house visiting, five centuries of tourism and taste (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1989). 64. Stuart Hall, Representation, cultural representations and signifying practices (Glasgow: Bath Press, 2003; first published 1997), p. 3. 65. Lindenmeyer, 1797/1928, pp. 318–319. 66. The contemporaries clearly saw the French influence within the park and criticized the missing German taste. The whole patriotic debate, which has not been seen in research on the park before, is dealt in Stobbe, 2009, pp. 113–133. 67. Christian Cay Lorenz Hirschfeld, Theorie der Gartenkunst, Vol. 5 (Leipzig: Weidmanns Erben und Reich, 1785), pp. 232–239. 68. These soldiers fought as the ‘Hessians’ for the British crown in the North American War of Independence. 69. Georg Friedrich Rebmann, Werke und Briefe, ed. by Herwig Voegt and Werner Greiling, Vol. 3 (Berlin: Rütten & Loening, 1990), pp. 84–93, here especially pp. 89–93. 70. Wir Wilhelm von Gottes Gnaden, Die Lebenserinnerungen Kurfürst Wilhelms I. von Hessen 1743–1821, transl. and ed. by Rainer von Hessen (Frankfurt a.M./New York: Campus, 1996).