Goethe–Schiller monuments
| Goethe and Schiller | |
|---|---|
| German: Goethe und Schiller | |
 |
|
| Artist | Ernst Friedrich August Rietschel |
| Year | 1857 |
| Type | bronze casting |
| Dimensions | 3.7 m (12 ft) |
| Location | Weimar (copies in San Francisco Cleveland, Milwaukee, Syracuse, & Anting) |
| 50°58′48″N 11°19′34″E / 50.9799°N 11.3260°E | |
The original Goethe–Schiller Monument (German: Goethe-Schiller-Denkmal) is in Weimar, Germany. It incorporates Ernst Rietschel's 1857 bronze double statue of Johann Wolfgang Goethe (1749–1832) and Friedrich Schiller (1759–1805), who are probably the two most revered figures in German literature. The monument has been described "as one of the most famous and most beloved monuments in all of Germany" and as the beginning of a "cult of the monument". Dozens of monuments to Goethe and to Schiller were built subsequently in Europe and the United States.
Goethe and Schiller had a remarkable friendship and collaboration that was "like no other known to literature or art." Both men had lived in Weimar, and were the seminal figures of a literary movement known as Weimar Classicism. The bronze figures of the Goethe–Schiller statue are substantially larger than life-size; notably, both are given the same height, even though Goethe was nearly 20 cm shorter than Schiller.
The figures were mounted on a large stone pedestal in front of the Court Theater that Goethe had directed, and that had seen premieres and countless performances of Schiller's plays. Goethe is on the left in the photograph, his left hand resting lightly on Schiller's shoulder. Goethe grasps a laurel wreath in his right hand, and Schiller's right hand is stretched out toward the wreath. Goethe wears the formal court dress of the era; Schiller is in ordinary dress.
Four exact copies of Rietschel's statue were subsequently commissioned by German-Americans in the United States for the Goethe–Schiller monuments in San Francisco (1901), Cleveland (1907), Milwaukee (1908), and Syracuse (1911). 65,000 people attended the dedication of the Cleveland monument. A fifth copy of reduced size was installed in Anting, China, in 2006; Anting New Town is a "German-themed" town near Shanghai that was developed around 2000.
The project of creating a Goethe–Schiller monument in Weimar was sponsored by Karl Alexander August Johann, the Grand Duke of the Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach Duchy, and by a citizen's commission. The dedication of the monument was planned to coincide with the centennial celebrations of the birth of the earlier Grand Duke Karl August, who had brought Goethe to Weimar in 1775. Goethe lived most of his adult life there, and Schiller the last six years of his life. The site for the monument was the city square that fronted the Court Theater (German: das Hoftheater) where Goethe was managing director from 1791 to 1815; Goethe later wrote that he had "tried to elevate the masses intellectually with Shakespeare, Gozzi, and Schiller". Goethe arranged for the theater to premiere Schiller's last four plays (Mary Stuart, The Bride of Messina, The Maid of Orleans, and William Tell). By the time of their monument's dedication in 1857, the theater had seen countless performances of all Schiller's plays.
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