#karl friedrich lessing

[random-brushstrokes]

Karl Friedrich Lessing - Landscape with Crows (ca. 1830)

[illustratus]

Rocky Landscape: Gorge with Ruins, 1830 by Karl Friedrich Lessing

[artthatgivesmefeelings]

Karl Friedrich Lessing (German, 1808-1880) Rocky Landscape; Gorge with Ruins, 1830 Städel Museum

[neoboha]

Gorge with ruins (1830)

[mila2010]

Karl Friedrich Lessing (1808-1880).

[hzaidan]

01 Work, Interpretation of the bible, THE ART OF WAR, Karl Friedrich Lessing's The Return of the Crusader, with Footnotes #215

Karl Friedrich Lessing (1808–1880)The Return of the Crusader, c. 1835Oil on canvas66 × 64 cm (25.9 × 25.1 in)LVR State Museum Bonn Teutonic knight returning from the crusade; based on Karl Immermann’s poem “The Entry of the Crusaders”. The late Arnold Toynbee once referred to the crusades as “Christianized Viking expeditions,” and given the wanton destruction and killing that accompanied these…

[pandaemoniumpancakes]

[sherbertilluminated]

my friends & I projecting onto people who died centuries ago

[germanpostwarmodern]

Carl Buchheister (1890-1964) both before and after WWII was one of Germany's prime abstract artists. Although his father had other intentions for his son Buchheister after the First World War pursued a career as painter in his hometown Hannover, a city that in the 1920s was home to a number of remarkable artists, among them not only Kurt Schwitters but also Friedrich Vordemberge-Gildewart and Rudolf Jahns with whom he formed the group "die abstrakten hannover". From 1926 on he also was a regular at Herwarth Walden's gallery "Der Sturm" in Berlin which further advanced his career and recognition, probably also leading to his membership in the Paris group "abstraction création". At the time Buchheister equally followed the rigid geometry of constructivism and a more organic, sensual abstraction.

Like most avant-garde art his works were labeled "degenerate art" during the Third Reich and he returned to painting figuratively, something he also did during his war service between 1939 and 1945. After the war Buchheister first retreated into his studio and between 1946 and 1948 redefined his style towards an informalism infused with impressions of nature and a a free reign of color.

The present two volume catalogue raisonné, edited by Willi Kemp and published by Verlag der Buchhandlung Walther König, offers a complete account of Buchheister’s abstract work: while the first volume contains various texts by art historians and friends/contemporaries like Otto Piene, Karl Otto Götz as well as a concise biography by the editor, the second volume, a tome of more than 700 pages, is entirely dedicated to Buchheister's paintings, drawings, prints etc. Chronologically split into the time before 1934 and after 1945, thus leaving out the artist's figurative work during the Third Reich, the catalogue enables the reader to track his development from early constructivism to the late and significantly less rigid informalist works. What becomes obvious is the fact that Buchheister never quite was a rigid and dogmatic constructivist but a deeply sensual artist whose art gradually opened up to the sensual impressions his late works are characterized by.

[otmaaromanovas]

The Lost Grand Duchesses: Part 1 - Anna Petrovna

Anna Petrovna was born in January 1708, officially out of wedlock. Her father, Peter ‘the Great’, had six daughters; Ekaterina, Anna, Elizaveta, Maria Natalia, Margarita, and Natalia. Peter planned to marry every daughter that survived infancy to a European house in order to consolidate alliances and friendships with Russia. Peter did not raise Anna, instead giving her to his younger sister Natalia Alexeievna and her husband Alexander Danilovich to raise. Peter’s plan to use the girls as alliance pawns influenced their childhood greatly; their education included embroidery, literature, dancing, and etiquette in order to be perceived as proper and lady-like. By her teenage years, Anna could speak five languages, no doubt to make her more attractive to European houses. Meanwhile, Peter’s sons were taught geography, history, and mathematics.

In 1721, serious marriage was on the table. Karl Friedrich of Schlewsig-Holstein-Gottorp was called to Russia, in order to meet Anna and her father. Karl had just entered his twenties, and his denouncers insisted that he was rude and arrogant. In comparison, Anna was barely thirteen years old, and incredibly shy.

This did not deter Peter, who was incredibly attracted by the idea of a Schleswig-Russian alliance. After a few years of shopping for other potential candidates, the marriage contract was signed. Ironically, the bride was not on the contract, and it was her father Peter and Karl Friedrich who signed. When the men signed the contract, Anna’s right to the Russian throne was instantly revoked.

In 1725, less than a year after the marriage between Anna and Karl Friedrich, Peter ‘the Great’ fell seriously ill. He called for Anna, whom he asked to write his will under his dictation. There has been great speculation over whether Peter planned to name Anna his heir; even though she had been forced to revoke her right to succession when her marriage was arranged, the Tsar of Russia still retained the power to elect his own heir regardless of the marriage contract terms. Peter was unable to speak, passing away shortly after, before declaring his heir. Whether or not Peter desired to make Anna heir remains one of history’s big ‘’what if’ questions.

In 1727, Anna and her husband Karl Freidrich moved to his native Kiel. Anna was deeply unhappy, missing her sister and nephew Peter Alexeievich; the Grand Duchess loved children. She wrote copious letters to her sister, Ekaterina, detailing her depression at being taken away from her home country. The rumours of Karl Freidrich’s arrogance appeared true; he preoccupied himself with affairs, leaving a pregnant Anna isolated.

In February, Anna gave birth to a baby boy, named Carl Peter Ulrich. Just days after, Anna contracted Puerperal fever, then known as ‘childbed fever’, a postpartum infection most likely caused by contaminated medical equipment and/or the medical staff not practicing proper hygiene. Anna became gravely ill, and requested to be buried back in her homeland, alongside her father in St. Petersburg. Her son Carl Peter survived the labour, and outlived his father, becoming the Duke of Holstein-Gottorp. When his aunt Elizaveta, Anna’s sister, died in 1762, Carl Peter became the Tsar of Russia, adopting the name Peter Feodorovich, Peter III.

Despite refusing to parent Anna himself, trying to marry her off when she was a child, and signing a marriage contract without Anna’s signature of consent, Peter claimed that Anna was his ‘favourite daughter.’ Only three of Peter’s fifteen legitimate children survived into adulthood. Anna died when she was only twenty years old. Her brother, Alexei Petrovich was imprisoned and tortured under the order of his father, dying from the torture. Only Anna’s beloved sister Elizaveta survived unscathed - the only out of fifteen siblings.

[resistancemarxistblog]

"Why Communism and Religion are incompatible"

Religion is the opium of the people,' said Karl Marx. It is the task of the Communist Party to make this truth comprehensible to the widest possible circles of the labouring masses. It is the task of the party to impress firmly upon the minds of the workers, even upon the most backward, that religion has been in the past and still is today one of the most powerful means at the disposal of the oppressors for the maintenance of inequality, exploitation, and slavish obedience on the part of the toilers.

Many weak-kneed communists reason as follows: 'Religion does not prevent my being a communist. I believe both in God and in communism. My faith in God does not hinder me from fighting for the cause of the proletarian revolution.'

This train of thought is radically false. Religion and communism are incompatible, both theoretically and practically.

Every communist must regard social phenomena (the relationships between human beings, revolutions, wars, etc.) as processes which occur in accordance with definite laws. The laws of social development have been fully established by scientific communism on the basis of the theory of historical materialism which we owe to our great teachers Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. This theory explains that social development is not brought about by any kind of supernatural forces. Nay more. The same theory has demonstrated that the very idea of God and of supernatural powers arises at a definite stage in human history, and at another definite stage begins to disappear as a childish notion which finds no confirmation in practical life and in the struggle between man and nature. But it is profitable to the predatory class to maintain the ignorance of the people and to maintain the people's childish belief in miracles (the key to the riddle really lies in the exploiters' pockets), and this is why religious prejudices are so tenacious, and why they confuse the minds even of persons who are in other respects able.

The general happenings throughout nature are, moreover, in no wise dependent upon supernatural causes. Man has been extremely successful in the struggle with nature. He influences nature in his own interests, and controls natural forces, achieving these conquests, not thanks to his faith in God and in divine assistance, but in spite of this faith. He achieves his conquests thanks to the fact that in practical life and in all serious matters he invariably conducts himself as an atheist. Scientific communism, in its judgements concerning natural phenomena, is guided by the data of the natural sciences, which are in irreconcilable conflict with all religious imaginings.

In practice, no less than in theory, communism is incompatible with religious faith. The tactic of the Communist Party prescribes for the members of the party definite lines of conduct. The moral code of every religion in like manner prescribes for the faithful some definite line of conduct. For example, the Christian code runs: 'Whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also.' In most cases there is an irreconcilable conflict between the principles of communist tactics and the commandments of religion. A communist who rejects the commandments of religion and acts in accordance with the directions of the party, ceases to be one of the faithful. On the other hand, one who, while calling himself a communist, continues to cling to his religious faith, one who in the name of religious commandments infringes the prescriptions of the party, ceases thereby to be a communist.

The struggle with religion has two sides, and every communist must distinguish clearly between them. On the one hand we have the struggle with the church, as a special organization existing for religious propaganda, materially interested in the maintenance of popular ignorance and religious enslavement. On the other hand we have the struggle with the widely diffused and deeply ingrained prejudices of the majority of the working population.

N. Bukharin & E. Preobrazhenky, ABC of Communism, Chapter 11: Communism and Religion

[illustratus]

The Thousand-Year-Old Oak by Karl Friedrich Lessing

[borathae]

Chapter 3

ok idk what kinda magic u added into this or if tae is pulling this shit (IF HE IS, STOP LET ME READ) CUZ WHY IS THERE SOO MANY OBSTACLES WHEN I TRY TO READ THIS CHAPTER I WAS ALMOST PLANNED TO SKIP AND READ 4

so the first time - read 2 lines AND MY LAPTOP DIED cuz i forgot to charge it,

the second time - read till "whats wrong with me?" and the electricity my street goes???? like tae chillax. and after it comes back i remember i switched off the laptop and lost my reaction to first 6 lines and went

after that im reading for 4th time i get till "the bruise" AND I GET A CALL ABOUT STUDIES LIKE GURL I LOVE YOU BUT DONT ASK ME ABOUT KARL MARX i studied to the point i wrote down Emile Marx

now im finally sitting down to read AND I WILL CAUSE CHAOS AND WRECK IF SOMETHING INTERRUPTS ME ISTG

(hold on, on second thought i should check if there is any ff on this ship, rule 34-35 am i right gays)

A Debate in Bordeaux (3270 words) by heronduck

https://archiveofourown.org/tags/Friedrich%20EngelssKarl%20Marx/works

NO WAY WTF YALL ok i will post another one where i will talk about the chapter

damn i really got distracted with friedrich marx wow

Halfway through your message I clocked out tbfh and had no idea where you were going with it anymore BAHAHAHHA 💀

Have fun reading the chapter, I hope you have less distractions 💜

[archduchessofnowhere]

Do you have anymore info on Elisabeth's hofdame Helene of Thurn and Taxis? If I google her, I only get Helene in Bavaria, Sisi's sister, but she married into the Thurn and Taxis family in 1858 when the other Helene supposedly began to serve (*cough* what a conincidence). But I also can't find that Helene among the sisters-in-law, so I am curious who she is.

Very little, but yes. The problem with this lady, as you noticed, is that she often gets mixed up with Elisabeth's sister, but they were two completely different people (even the Austrian National Library has a picture of this Princess Helene identified as Helene in Bavaria).

Princess Helene of Thurn und Taxis, by Ludwig Angerer, circa 1865 (Wien Museum).

Marie Helene Sophie was born in 1836 as the third child and second daughter of Prince Friedrich Hannibal of Thurn und Taxis and his wife Countess Maria Antonia Aurora Batthyány. The Thurn und Taxis family was huge, Helene belonged to the Bohemian branch funded in the late 18th century, so she was only distantly related to Nené's husband (they were like third cousins). We know little to nothing about her life, only that she served Elisabeth as a hofdame since 1858 until her marriage to Count Wolgang Kinsky in 1871. She probably got her position because her father, who died in 1857, had been the empress' Oberhofmeister (nepo baby). She was part of the retinue that accompanied the Empress to Madeira and Corfu in 1860-1861, and was one of the ladies in this "scandalous" photo taken in Madeira:

Helene is the lady sitting in the left corner, standing behind her is Lily Hunyady, sitting next is Elisabeth, and besides her is Mathilde Windisch-Graetz (via ÖNB).

Now you may be wondering, what's so scandalous about this picture? Well, that people at this time thought that Elisabeth was literally dying. When she left Vienna her illness was considered so grave that it was believed she wouldn't survive. And then this photo pops out: the dying empress happily playing an ukelele, enjoying the fresh air with her ladies. Wasn't she sick? Why does she look like she's just having some nice vacations? Suddenly the trip to Madeira looked less like a journey for health issues and more like a flight from Vienna.

Historian Egon Corti quoted in his biography of the empress some of the letters Helene wrote when they finally returned to Vienna, and they paint an interesting portrait of the state of the imperial couple when they reunited (Corti doesn't date this letter):

Now we have her back in this country, just as we had two years ago; yet how many things lie between — Madeira, Corfu, and a world of troubles. . . . She [Empress Elisabeth] was received with an enthusiasm such as I had never heard before in Vienna. On Sunday there is to be a choir festival [Liedertafel] and a torchlight procession at which fourteen thousand people have expressed their intention of being present. His [Emperor Franz Josef] expression as he helped her out of the carriage I shall never forget. I find her looking blooming, but her expression is not natural, it is as forced and nervous as it can be, her color so high that she looks overheated, and though her face is no longer swollen, it is much thickened and changed. The fact that Prince Karl Theodor [Elisabeth's brother] accompanied her proves how much she dreads being alone with him and all of us...

Another letter Helene wrote from the Schönbrunn on September 15, 1862:

She does not seem at all anxious to let us attend her now (...) She walks and drives out a great deal with His Majesty, but when he is not here she stays alone here in the part of the garden at Reichenau which is closed to the public. However, God be praised, she is at any rate at home, and inclined to remain here ; that is the main thing. She is very nice to him — before us, at least — talkative and natural, though alla camera there may be many differences of opinion — that is often plainly to be seen. She looks splendidly, quite a different woman, with a good color, strong and brown; she eats properly, sleeps well, does not tight-lace any more, and can walk for hours, but when she stands there is a vein in her left foot which throbs. The Queen of Naples [Elisabeth's sister] does not look well — that household seems to be going badly.

A bit of a side note, but allegedly Queen Marie of Naples was pregnant with an illegitimate child at this time, and gave birth only a month later. Now I wonder, wouldn't they have noticed if she was eight months pregnant? Like is it even physically possible to cover up that with a corset?

Continuing with her letters, the last one Corti quotes is this one she wrote to Countess Caroline Wimpffen, née Countess Lamberg, who married in 1860 and therefore left service before the trip to Madeira:

I can only congratulate you upon not having had to go through these two years of martyrdom with us. Now we are settled in Schönbrunn, and the thought that we are ‘settled for good somewhere’ [in English in the original] seems quite strange. It was hard for her to give up her recent traveling about, and I quite understand this. When one has no inward peace, one imagines that it makes life easier to move about, and she has now grown too much accustomed to this. For the rest, Helene [Elisabeth’s sister] is coming here for a fortnight while the Emperor is away hunting, for he will not give that up... She still exerts a calming influence, for she is so sensible and orderly herself and tells her the truth. She [Elisabeth] went out riding at Reichenau, and has done so here once at seven in the morning, alone with Holmes. The walk has naturally become a gallop, but she does not want to trot yet. She simply refuses to let herself be accompanied by Grünne [former First General Adjuntant, now Master of the Horses] and Königsegg [Elisabeth's Oberhofmeister]. The former has been entirely ignored and avoided so far. Otherwise, thank God, things are going on well... I believe, indeed, that she has moments of despair, but nobody can laugh like her, or has such childlike whims. She says herself that it is not unpleasant to her to see us occasionally, but it is odious to her to have us in waiting...

We have, however, one last letter, this one quoted by author Joan Haslip in her biography The Lonely Empress. Helene wrote it to archduchess Valerie's former British governess Mary Throckmorton, whom she had befriended during her time at the Viennese court:

This year brings good news. Our beloved Empress has graciously condescended to appear once more at a great rout at the Burg. Although in deep mourning, everybody tells me that she looked as grand and gracious as ever, and had a kind word for everyone of the numerous people who were presented to her. Her face, though still handsome, tells of the pain and sorrow she has gone through, and the sadness in her eyes brought tears into those of all who were present. One is so thankful for the great effort she imposed on herself.

As always Haslip doesn't cite her source however in the foreword she thanks Sir Robert Throckmorton for giving her access to Mary's unpublished letters and journals, so I assume that is where she got this letter from. She doesn't date it but it's from the 1890s.

Helene died in 1901, aged 65-years-old, of what I couldn't find. She had outlived her husband by almost sixteen years.

Sources:

Corti, Egon Conte (1936). Elizabeth, empress of Austria

Haslip, Joan (1965). The Lonely Empress: a biography of Elizabeth of Austria

Helene Prinzessin von Thurn und Taxis, on Geni

[pandoramsbox]

Sci-Fi Saturday: Gold

Week 13:

Film(s): Gold (Dir. Karl Hartl, 1934, Germany)

Viewing Format: Blu-Ray: Kino Lorber

Date Watched: 2021-08-20

Rationale for Inclusion:

Most popular histories of German cinema gush over its silent era and Fritz Lang's early talkies, boils the Nazi era down to propaganda films, and then rapidly moves on to West Germany's New Cinema of the 1960s and 1970s. When touring the Berlin Film Museum in 2006, they had an exhibit acknowledging cinema made under the Nazi regime, but it was plain, matter of fact, and not at all celebratory of any figure or works. The standing international agreement to not give Nazis more credit for anything positive created under their supervision between 1933 and 1945 is one that this lifelong Indiana Jones fan, from a country that has historically been less willing to acknowledge its own history of genocide and white supremacy, cannot argue with.

However, when something is made deliberately withheld or rendered taboo, it risks developing a fetishistic or contrarian following. Curated, contextualized access is preferable to dispel mystique and render a work mundane. However, a work's problematic nature cannot be exercised completely, nor can the stain of its lineage be fully forgotten once known. This mental calculus of having interest in or love for a work despite it or its creator's controversial nature is something each person must work out for themselves.

All that to say, if you're grossed out by the inclusion of a film created under the Nazi regime, that's a completely fair perspective. However, surreptitious curiosity is also valid, and a normal human emotion.

And curiosity is definitely what motivated my inclusion of Gold (Dir. Karl Hartl, 1934, Germany). Partly it was wondering what a Nazi supervised science fiction film was like, period, especially relative to the Weimar Era films previously viewed. Partly it was a more basic curiosity: the prospect of hearing the voice of Brigette Helm, of Metropolis (Dir. Fritz Lang, 1927, Germany) fame. And to be perfectly honest, the simplistic wonder of hearing the voice of a performer whose art focuses on pantomime was the bigger draw.

Reactions:

Brigette Helm has a voice that is consistent with her appearance: elegant and German. The anticlimax of learning that fact is on par with realizing Harold Lloyd has a soft spoken, Midwest accent that matches his aesthetic, as opposed to the surprise of Charles Chaplin's English accent or Buster Keaton's deep baritone voice.

That question out of the way, what about the film itself? Nothing especially anti-semitic or fascist in visuals or content makes its production origin glaringly obvious. Given that like F.P.1 [AKA F.P. 1 Doesn't Answer] (F.P.1 antwortet nicht, Dir. Karl Hartl, 1932, Germany) an additional French language version was produced with export in mind, and the Nazis had just come to power and purchased UFA in 1933, and would not begin explicit international aggressions until 1938, it follows that they would not want to compromise cinematic commerce in 1934. 

Instead, Gold is about the relationship between scientific progress and capitalist greed. A German scientist (Friedrich Kayßler) is about to succeed in the dreams of the alchemists and create a machine that can transform lead into gold, when sabotage destroys the machine and its creator with it. His engineer Werner Holk (Hans Alber) swears vengeance for his friend, and takes a job with industrialist John Wills (Michael Bohnen), who arranged the sabotage in order to corner the market on the technology. Holk proceeds to take down the usurper from the inside and the film ends with lots of satisfying explosions.  

Amid the straightforward wrong scientist seeks revenge narrative are some incredible set pieces. Giant electrodes and machines with tunnel trains connecting the underground laboratory to the mainland. The sets and props were so impressive that footage of them was later reused in The Magnetic Monster (Dir. Curt Siodmak, 1953, USA). However, UFA did not make additional science fiction films during the Nazi era, so the sets and props were not reused in other movies by the studio.

Gold is interesting and ultimately competent but unremarkable, compared to the genre films that came before it. 

And if you are interested in learning more about German cinema during the Nazi era, I recommend the documentaries Hitler's Hollywood (Dir. Rüdiger Suchsland, 2017, Germany) (which features Gold briefly) and Forbidden Films (Verbotene Filme, Dir. Felix Moeller, 2014, Germany).

[syria-moaz]

Karl Friedrich Lessing - Landscape with Crows (ca. 1830)

🤍🤍🤍🤍