August 23rd 2013
Our class visited the United Nations in Vienna today, where the International Atomic Energy Agency and the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime are centered. During our trip, we were provided a special opportunity to ask questions to, and to learn from some of the worlds leading expects of nuclear proliferation and human trafficking, so our class took the time to prepare questions for our time with UN officials. I'm going to post my list of questions in this blog, and provided the answers I was given at the UN.
1) Recently, UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon attended a conference in Iran where Iran's foreign minister urged the opposition of sanctions on Iran. Where dose the U.N. officially stand on the sue of sanction? Dose Ban Ki-Moon presence Indicate a shift in how the U.N perceives Iran's situation?
I did not ask this question directly, as I felt our UN spokesperson had answered this question indirectly before I had an opportunity to ask it. Ban Ki-Moon's actions don't really indicate any shift in position, because the United Nations dose not take any action against countries trying gain access to or develop weapons grade nuclear materials. Instead, the UN only dose what it is ask or allowed to do by nations, and merely provided information to the international community, thereby empowering other nations to take whatever course of action they see fit. Iran's minister can talk to Ban Ki-Moon about lifting sanctions as much as he wants, but the UN has nothing to do with Iran's sanctions. Instead, sending Ban Ki-Moon to Iran is likely an attempt to form a better relationship with the country, so the IAEA can control Iran's nuclear development in a way that's mutually beneficial.
2) The IAEA wants to send inspectors to Iran's nuclear plants in order to investigate rumors that the country is greatly accelerating the speed of their nuclear production. If the IAEA finds evidence that Iran is indeed capable of enriching uranium to weapons grade levels, what actions would the UN be prepared to take or suggest.
This sort of builds of the answer to my last question, but the UN would not take any action, or make any suggestion. They would simply provide an unbiased report to member nations. However, our lecturer state that the UN is happy to supply nations with safer types of nuclear technology in exchange for compliance with UN rules. They might make Iran an offer in a situation similar to the one described above.
3) The New York Times recently mentioned the use of a system of convert cyber attacks code-named "Olympic games" to undermine Iran's nuclear program. 60 minutes recently did a piece focusing on the remarkable level of complexity found in the virus attacking computers in Iran's nuclear facilities. Where dose the IAEA stand regarding the sue of cyber attacks? Do you endorse them?
Once again, I didn't ask this question because it was answered indirectly. I had previously thought that the UN took a much more proactive approach to dealing with rouge nuclear states than it actually did. The UN dose not have a stance on the use of such cyber attacks, as it leaves member states to deal with issues of international security on their own terms.
4) Most of the news regarding the IAEA has focused on Iran, but what other countries are a large concern for the IAEA? Is North Korea a concern for nuclear weapons, if so, is the death of Kim Jong Ill, and the appointment of his son as dictator a positive or negative chance for the IAEA's agenda?
Our UN spokes person commented that the felt North Korea poses a great nuclear threat than Iran did, as he felt that Iran was intentionally trying to appear more dangerous than they actually where. He continued to say that four nations had gained access to nuclear weapons technology despite the UN's attempts to keep access to such weapons to the 5 permanent members of the security council. Those nations are North Korea, Pakistan, Israel, and India.
5) To what extend is the unrest in Syria and the resulting strain on surrounding regions, caused by the out poor of refuges complicating the IAEA's attempts to regulate nuclear energy in Iran or other regions.
I did not receive a direct answer to this question, but I believe that the situation with Syria would make the IAEA's job easier based on my understanding on how the operate. In response to other questions, our UN spokesperson claimed that the IAEA has it's own resources that it readily gives to nations willing to comply with UN regulations. If anything, a situation that makes it more difficult for nation states around Syria to function would make otherwise reluctant nations more desperate for the UN's aid.
6) How dose atomic energy materials get into the wrong hands? Is it smuggled illegally or is it really only available to nation states with the power to create nuclear materials in labs? Is the idea that a small terrorist group could gather materials to make a dirty bomb a realistic concern?
Our spokes person said the IAEA takes care to make sure that all of the nuclear material reported entering a nuclear power plant remains in a power plant, so smuggling is a big concern. Power plants have many employees, scientists and managers that have access to dangerous materials, and it is a real concern that some of them could be bribed into letting loose nuclear materials slip into the wrong hands. Although a dirty bomb has never been fired or detonated, such devices have been recovered from terrorist groups, so they are indeed a real threat.
7) Dose the IAEA look into matters of safety in nuclear power plants, or is the IAEA chief concern the monitoring of nuclear weapons? What kind of actions did the IAEA take in response to the disaster at the Dai Ichi power plant in Fukushima Japan?
The safety of nuclear power plants in a major concern of the IAEA, and a great deal of their time and energy is spend ensuring the nuclear power plants are kept safe and running. the IAEA inspects nuclear regularly, and provides advice and aid regarding how nuclear power plants can upgrade and improve their safety and security. In regards to the Fukushima disaster, the IAEA inspected the plant shortly before the earthquake and the resulting flood, and gave passing rating for safety. The IAEA then provided aid to the plant, and helped coordinate attempts to control the damage after the disaster started.
8) On the issue of human trafficking, are there some countries that have a larger problem with human trafficking than others? Do some nations tend to receive human traffic, while others seem to supple it?
This question is somewhat difficult to answer, as trends in human trafficking tend to be very general, and no one country can be said to fit a typical pattern of human trafficking as there is no such this as a typical pattern. However, humans tend to be trafficked from poor areas to rich areas, and they tend to be trafficked to foreign countries, where they are not citizens, and would lack legal rights and protections. However, this dose not imply that citizens of wealth nations are safe from victimization as a great deal of internal trafficking occurs in the United States and other nations.
9) How dose gender effect human trafficking? I know many female Vicente are trafficked for enslavement in sexual trades, but are males victims of human trafficking as well? What happens to males if they are trafficked.
Men, women, and children are all victims of human trafficking, although minors and men tend to face different types of exploitation when they are trafficked. The UN spokesperson speaking to us on the matter claimed that many children are put to work in illegal sweat shops, and many men are subjected to physically intensive forced labor.
10) Are people of all ages at risk for human trafficking, or are certain age groups at more risk than others.
Children are certainly at risk for exploitation, as are adult men and women. There is certainly a wide age range for victims of human trafficking, so anyone at any age can potentially be at risk of being trafficked.
11) What kinds of help or aid is commonly available to victims of human trafficking? How many victims receive medical or psychological help for problems they develop while being trafficked?
The UN spends most of it's resources attempting to deal with the actions that law enforcement officials take toward victims of trafficking. They try to ensure that victims are not treated like criminals, and are given help instead of being deported to their home countries where they will likely get trafficked again. Unfortunately, there are no help organizations specifically geared toward victims of trafficking, so when victims are given aid, they are passed along to shelters ill equipped to meet their needs. As a result, most victims of human trafficking do not receive the care they need, and not get any forms of medical or psychological treatment.
Discussing matters of nuclear safety and human trafficking with members of the United Nations of Vienna taught me a lot about how the agency deals with member states in a diplomatic manor. I was surprised to learn that the UN enjoyed a great deal of influence despite having no actual power to enforce or impose it's regulations. I did not except to find that an agency like the IAEA, which deal with matters as critical as tracking and controlling the speared of nuclear weapons, would rely on nation states to approach them and comply voluntarily. I was further surprised to learn how well the system had worked in limiting the speared of nuclear weapons to 9 nations. I suspect that the system relies on the fact that many of the worlds most powerful nations would likely back up the UN's guidelines with tangible force or actions, however that has never been certain. The success of such restrained enforcement amazes me, but that masterful diplomacy would required for such tactics. Having visited the UN, I learned that the organization was more amazing that I had ever imagined before.
Monday, September 10, 2012
Visit to Mauthausen Concentration Camp
August 23rd 2012
Today our class took a field trip to the Mauthausen concentration camp out in the Austrian country side. One of the questions raised in the reading for this course by Ruth Kluger, a holocaust survivor, was whether or not visits to the concentration camps had any value. Kluger doubted if any meaningful lessons could be learned by visiting the camps, and suggested that the tourism of camps eased visitor's feelings of guilt rather than teaching any sort of lesson that might prevent a future genocide. Reading Kluger challenged my exceptions for this visit, so I decided to keep an open mind about the educational value of the camps, and see if I agreed or disagreed with Kluger after I had time to reflect upon what I saw.
I can confidently say that I learned things I would not have otherwise been able to learn from visiting Mauthausen, but most of what I learned is not directly applicable to preventing or overcoming the kinds of intolerance and hate that led to the holocaust. I mostly learned about the mindsets of the Austrian people living around, and working in the concentration camp. My first lesson was that the camp was fully visible from the town of Mauthausen, meaning that every person who lived in the town would have had to known about the camp, and have at least some idea what went on in there. No train tracks led directly into the camp, so prisoners had to be marched up from a lower train station, and up a large hill to the camp. Furthermore, when we pasted by a grass field, our tour guide told us the camp guards would play soccer matches on the fields, and that only a chain link fence separated the soccer field from the camp. This meant that all the towns people that came to watch the games fully witnessed the brutality of the camps forced labor program. This meant that as much as people who lived through the holocaust might deny knowledge of what was going on, people had to have known about the death camps. People could see the camps from their homes, as well as the raising plumes of smoke from the crematoriums. They would have to seen prisoners going to the camp, but never coming back out again. And although a lot of construction took place in the camps, I imagine it would be fairly clear to anyone paying attention that the amount of prisoners being brought in exceeded the capacity of the camp. Seeing and visiting the camp taught me that the cruelty of genocide can, and in the case of Mauthausen had, become a normal part of life for people. One can learn to accept it, and not notice the mass suffering of human beings, even if it's right in front of their eyes.
Examining the camp also taught me a great deal about how the Nazi's working in the camp viewed themselves. A number of recreational faculties for the guards such as a swimming pool, officers club, and the aforementioned soccer field suggest that the Nazi's lived normal lives despite working within an environment of killing and human suffering. The Nazi's at Mauthausen did not see the camp as a war situation, or anything unusual, they were simply career minded soldiers working on making there careers in the Nazi party. Indeed, our tour guide commented that the Nazi culture was very focused on displaying rank and hierarchy, to quote him "It was a place where you knew who was up and who was down." Even the prisoners in the camp were marked and sorted with a kind of ranking system, with political prisoners and criminals being regarded as higher status than Jews or anti-socials. The people working in these camps were like ever day people. They were concerned with their careers and their families, and were psychological normal individuals. The regularity of the camp and the focus on order led me to realize the extent to which the killing and brutality had been normalized. Everything in the camp, from dehumanizing the prisoner by making them appear identical to each other, to the shower gas chambers that broke up the killing like a factory floor divides labor, everything in the camp was set up to distract from the fact that people were being killed, brutalized, and abused.
Seeing the structure and position of the camp taught me how people can personally distance themselves for genocide by controlling their own outlooks and memories, but seeing the monuments around the concentration camp taught me how the memory of something as horrible as the holocaust can be manipulated and politicized in order to accomplish a similar goal on a mass scale. Comparing the dates of various holocaust monuments around Mauthausen shows that many groups of victims were excluded from memory for long periods of time, and were only deemed worthy of being remembered at a later date. Surprisingly, the first monuments at Mauthausen were not set up to honor Jewish people. Instead, countries how had lost prisoners of war to the Nazi's put up monuments to commemorate their countrymen who had died in the concentration camps, even nations like the U.S., who only lost an very small number of people to the camps set up memorials. Many of the communist countries of the could war era set up memorial for political prisoners to the Nazi's years before any monuments were set up for Jewish victims, or for criminals set to the camps after their sentences in jail were over, even though such criminals made up the majority of the prisoners at Mauthausen. Some groups of victims, such as gay victims, didn't receive any kind of memorial until the 1980's, and some groups of victims, such as the anti-social group, still do not have a monument at the camp.
Looking at the earlier memorials made me very aware that our memory of the holocaust is socially constructed, and subject to change over time. It used to be viewed as the brutal killing of prisoners of war by the Nazi's, but over the years it has changed to our more modern perception of racial intolerance. Visiting the camp has made me aware that our conception of the holocaust as the ultimate consequences of racial hatred and intolerance is very much a reflection of our contemporary moral values. I still believe that such intolerance was a central part of the Nazi regime, and an important element to the holocaust, however I am know more aware than ever that the holocaust is a deeply complex historical event, so much so that it may likely be impossible to fully understand it by viewing it from anyone standpoint. This realization has lead me to recognize the insight into Kluger's views about visiting concentration camps. I do not think there is any one lesson to learn from the holocaust as a whole, so I don't believe that visiting a camp will point anyone toward a "correct" lesson or narrative about the genocides that took places there. However I disagree with Kluger's assertion that visiting the camps lacked value. For me personally, visiting the camps taught me that I knew much less about the holocaust than I thought I did. Essentially robbing me of my preconceptions, and opening my mind to things I would have never considered before visiting. I believe that in and of itself, the realization that the holocaust is more than just a tale of racial bigotry taken to it's tragic extreme, makes the visit more than worth it.
Today our class took a field trip to the Mauthausen concentration camp out in the Austrian country side. One of the questions raised in the reading for this course by Ruth Kluger, a holocaust survivor, was whether or not visits to the concentration camps had any value. Kluger doubted if any meaningful lessons could be learned by visiting the camps, and suggested that the tourism of camps eased visitor's feelings of guilt rather than teaching any sort of lesson that might prevent a future genocide. Reading Kluger challenged my exceptions for this visit, so I decided to keep an open mind about the educational value of the camps, and see if I agreed or disagreed with Kluger after I had time to reflect upon what I saw.
I can confidently say that I learned things I would not have otherwise been able to learn from visiting Mauthausen, but most of what I learned is not directly applicable to preventing or overcoming the kinds of intolerance and hate that led to the holocaust. I mostly learned about the mindsets of the Austrian people living around, and working in the concentration camp. My first lesson was that the camp was fully visible from the town of Mauthausen, meaning that every person who lived in the town would have had to known about the camp, and have at least some idea what went on in there. No train tracks led directly into the camp, so prisoners had to be marched up from a lower train station, and up a large hill to the camp. Furthermore, when we pasted by a grass field, our tour guide told us the camp guards would play soccer matches on the fields, and that only a chain link fence separated the soccer field from the camp. This meant that all the towns people that came to watch the games fully witnessed the brutality of the camps forced labor program. This meant that as much as people who lived through the holocaust might deny knowledge of what was going on, people had to have known about the death camps. People could see the camps from their homes, as well as the raising plumes of smoke from the crematoriums. They would have to seen prisoners going to the camp, but never coming back out again. And although a lot of construction took place in the camps, I imagine it would be fairly clear to anyone paying attention that the amount of prisoners being brought in exceeded the capacity of the camp. Seeing and visiting the camp taught me that the cruelty of genocide can, and in the case of Mauthausen had, become a normal part of life for people. One can learn to accept it, and not notice the mass suffering of human beings, even if it's right in front of their eyes.
Examining the camp also taught me a great deal about how the Nazi's working in the camp viewed themselves. A number of recreational faculties for the guards such as a swimming pool, officers club, and the aforementioned soccer field suggest that the Nazi's lived normal lives despite working within an environment of killing and human suffering. The Nazi's at Mauthausen did not see the camp as a war situation, or anything unusual, they were simply career minded soldiers working on making there careers in the Nazi party. Indeed, our tour guide commented that the Nazi culture was very focused on displaying rank and hierarchy, to quote him "It was a place where you knew who was up and who was down." Even the prisoners in the camp were marked and sorted with a kind of ranking system, with political prisoners and criminals being regarded as higher status than Jews or anti-socials. The people working in these camps were like ever day people. They were concerned with their careers and their families, and were psychological normal individuals. The regularity of the camp and the focus on order led me to realize the extent to which the killing and brutality had been normalized. Everything in the camp, from dehumanizing the prisoner by making them appear identical to each other, to the shower gas chambers that broke up the killing like a factory floor divides labor, everything in the camp was set up to distract from the fact that people were being killed, brutalized, and abused.
Seeing the structure and position of the camp taught me how people can personally distance themselves for genocide by controlling their own outlooks and memories, but seeing the monuments around the concentration camp taught me how the memory of something as horrible as the holocaust can be manipulated and politicized in order to accomplish a similar goal on a mass scale. Comparing the dates of various holocaust monuments around Mauthausen shows that many groups of victims were excluded from memory for long periods of time, and were only deemed worthy of being remembered at a later date. Surprisingly, the first monuments at Mauthausen were not set up to honor Jewish people. Instead, countries how had lost prisoners of war to the Nazi's put up monuments to commemorate their countrymen who had died in the concentration camps, even nations like the U.S., who only lost an very small number of people to the camps set up memorials. Many of the communist countries of the could war era set up memorial for political prisoners to the Nazi's years before any monuments were set up for Jewish victims, or for criminals set to the camps after their sentences in jail were over, even though such criminals made up the majority of the prisoners at Mauthausen. Some groups of victims, such as gay victims, didn't receive any kind of memorial until the 1980's, and some groups of victims, such as the anti-social group, still do not have a monument at the camp.
Looking at the earlier memorials made me very aware that our memory of the holocaust is socially constructed, and subject to change over time. It used to be viewed as the brutal killing of prisoners of war by the Nazi's, but over the years it has changed to our more modern perception of racial intolerance. Visiting the camp has made me aware that our conception of the holocaust as the ultimate consequences of racial hatred and intolerance is very much a reflection of our contemporary moral values. I still believe that such intolerance was a central part of the Nazi regime, and an important element to the holocaust, however I am know more aware than ever that the holocaust is a deeply complex historical event, so much so that it may likely be impossible to fully understand it by viewing it from anyone standpoint. This realization has lead me to recognize the insight into Kluger's views about visiting concentration camps. I do not think there is any one lesson to learn from the holocaust as a whole, so I don't believe that visiting a camp will point anyone toward a "correct" lesson or narrative about the genocides that took places there. However I disagree with Kluger's assertion that visiting the camps lacked value. For me personally, visiting the camps taught me that I knew much less about the holocaust than I thought I did. Essentially robbing me of my preconceptions, and opening my mind to things I would have never considered before visiting. I believe that in and of itself, the realization that the holocaust is more than just a tale of racial bigotry taken to it's tragic extreme, makes the visit more than worth it.
Sunday, September 9, 2012
Museum Tours with Dr. O and the Secession movement in Vienna
August 21 and 22 2012
Our class spend Tuesday and Wednesday touring two of the most important art museums in Vienna, where some of the most important paintings in the art world are currently on display. On Tuesday, we visited the interior of the upper Belvedere, and we then spent Wednesday in the Leopold Museum in the famous museum quarter of Vienna. These museums are both massive, and display many important pieces of art, however I decided to compress my descriptions of these museums into a single blog post because I feel Dr. O discussed the same subject at both museums, and I would be able to provide a better historical perspective on what she covered if I discussed what I saw on both days side by side. I'm choosing to focus on the works of Gustav Klimt and Egon Schiele, and the way their worked tied into and shaped the secession movement in Vienna. I'm choosing to focus on this because I feel most of what was on display at the Belvedere and the Leopold Museum could be described as Baroque art, and I feel I've discussed the topic to a satisfactory extend in the rest of my blog describing something I have not discussed before, art after the Baroque era.
I had heard about Gustav Klimt long before I first saw his works on display in the Belvedere, but I had not known very much about the artist himself, or the importance of his career. I knew The Kiss was a very popular and celebrate painting, as it had been on display all over the city in various forms, appearing on everything from umbrellas to coffee mugs. But it was Dr. O's lecture that showed me how important the piece of art actually was. The kiss is indeed a beautiful piece of art, but it is also historically important, as it is representative of one of the first new innovations in art seen in Vienna since the end of the Baroque era many years earlier. As Dr. O explained, one of the reasons I had been seeing Gothic and Baroque architectural designs all over the city was that the people of Vienna had fallen into the practice of emulating past designs and styles. Vienna, in keeping with it's reputation for conservatism, had adopted a historicist style in art and design, meaning that people in the 19th century wanted to paint and design using styles from the 17th, and 18th centuries, or in some cases the 14th or 15th century. This had the effect of stopping or delaying Viennese innovation in art, as all the people spending money building on the ring strasse didn't want anything new. However, a small number of painters like Klimt and Schiele were painting and creating in new styles. The Kiss one of Klimt's most famous works, but it also serves as an example of the unique type of artistic experimentation he was doing. Painted in what Dr. O. refereed to as Klimt's gold period, the picture uses a lot of high gloss golden paint, along with bright oranges and yellows, that give the painting a very distinct visual appearance. Klimt intergraded his education in applied arts with his experimentation in fine art, and added gold leaf to a large number of his paintings, explaining the unusual shine and simmer seen on The Kiss and other paintings. The exhibit at the also showed that Klimt continued his experimentation late into his career, as he started experimenting with techniques used impressionists and even expressionists like Schiele.
The Belvedere held a number of Schiele's most famous works that served to define the expressionist style that he pioneered. The Expressionist style is perhaps best defined by Schiele's Death and the Maiden. This style shows objects distorted and warped like an impressionist style would, except the distortions are representative of the objects nature in some way, and serve to communicate a narrative about the paintings subject. Death and the Maiden for example shows a young women with an very pale pallor clinging to a intensely grief stricken. The colors in the painting are consist of dark grays and browns, suggesting a negative mood. The girl looks sickly and weak, and her arms are thin and twig like to imply her lack of strength and vigor. The man in contrast has thicker arms and a less pale complexion. According to Dr. O., Schiele painted his portrait for a mistress he left because he had the feeling that she would suddenly grow ill and pass away. The painting attempts to visual express Schiele's fear's for his mistress's health, was well has his grief for having to leave her. Given Schiele's motivation behind the painting, viewing it allows one to perceive how the expressionist style communicated information about moods, personalty, and circumstance through visual distortion.
The historical significance of Klimt and Schiele's artistic styles was only revealed to us the next day, when Dr. O. explained why 3 of Klimt's most famous works were rejected by the University of Vienna. Klimt was commissioned to paint 3 paintings for the school, one depicting jurisprudence for the law school, one depicting medicine for the law school, and one depicting philosophy. The Klimt painted the commissioned works using his new art style, however the university rejected them, because they did not consider them to be appropriate. Klimt later sent them to a art contest in Paris, where two of the three pieces one first prize, and though the victory gained him the prestige in Vienna that the university claimed he had lacked, the experience had soured Klimts opinion of the Viennese art scene. This led Klimt and Schiele, along with a number of other artist working in new styles, to found the secession movement in Vienna. The Secession movement was a rejection of the ringstrasse's historicist style and it's rejection of creativity in favor of tradition. Instead, it was a celebration of new ideas. The Secession movement founded their own art gallery, where new works such as expressionist art was displayed and promoted, and where artistic creativity could thrive in a culture that did not support it. The secession movement grew into a significant counter culture to the conservative culture of the Viennese art world, and the gallery where Klimt and Schiele displayed there works is still open for viewing today.
I knew that Klimt and Schiele were famous artists before touring the Leopold museum with Dr. O, but that was the first time I learned about the secession movement, and how the artists were organized into a union of disfranchised artists. I was surprised to learn that such famous and well regard artists faced such obstacles to success in their own times. Dr. O simply commented that the Viennese required someone to make their name somewhere other than Vienna before they would be taken seriously in the art world, and this is certainly true in the cases of Klimt and Schiele.
Our class spend Tuesday and Wednesday touring two of the most important art museums in Vienna, where some of the most important paintings in the art world are currently on display. On Tuesday, we visited the interior of the upper Belvedere, and we then spent Wednesday in the Leopold Museum in the famous museum quarter of Vienna. These museums are both massive, and display many important pieces of art, however I decided to compress my descriptions of these museums into a single blog post because I feel Dr. O discussed the same subject at both museums, and I would be able to provide a better historical perspective on what she covered if I discussed what I saw on both days side by side. I'm choosing to focus on the works of Gustav Klimt and Egon Schiele, and the way their worked tied into and shaped the secession movement in Vienna. I'm choosing to focus on this because I feel most of what was on display at the Belvedere and the Leopold Museum could be described as Baroque art, and I feel I've discussed the topic to a satisfactory extend in the rest of my blog describing something I have not discussed before, art after the Baroque era.
I had heard about Gustav Klimt long before I first saw his works on display in the Belvedere, but I had not known very much about the artist himself, or the importance of his career. I knew The Kiss was a very popular and celebrate painting, as it had been on display all over the city in various forms, appearing on everything from umbrellas to coffee mugs. But it was Dr. O's lecture that showed me how important the piece of art actually was. The kiss is indeed a beautiful piece of art, but it is also historically important, as it is representative of one of the first new innovations in art seen in Vienna since the end of the Baroque era many years earlier. As Dr. O explained, one of the reasons I had been seeing Gothic and Baroque architectural designs all over the city was that the people of Vienna had fallen into the practice of emulating past designs and styles. Vienna, in keeping with it's reputation for conservatism, had adopted a historicist style in art and design, meaning that people in the 19th century wanted to paint and design using styles from the 17th, and 18th centuries, or in some cases the 14th or 15th century. This had the effect of stopping or delaying Viennese innovation in art, as all the people spending money building on the ring strasse didn't want anything new. However, a small number of painters like Klimt and Schiele were painting and creating in new styles. The Kiss one of Klimt's most famous works, but it also serves as an example of the unique type of artistic experimentation he was doing. Painted in what Dr. O. refereed to as Klimt's gold period, the picture uses a lot of high gloss golden paint, along with bright oranges and yellows, that give the painting a very distinct visual appearance. Klimt intergraded his education in applied arts with his experimentation in fine art, and added gold leaf to a large number of his paintings, explaining the unusual shine and simmer seen on The Kiss and other paintings. The exhibit at the also showed that Klimt continued his experimentation late into his career, as he started experimenting with techniques used impressionists and even expressionists like Schiele.
The Belvedere held a number of Schiele's most famous works that served to define the expressionist style that he pioneered. The Expressionist style is perhaps best defined by Schiele's Death and the Maiden. This style shows objects distorted and warped like an impressionist style would, except the distortions are representative of the objects nature in some way, and serve to communicate a narrative about the paintings subject. Death and the Maiden for example shows a young women with an very pale pallor clinging to a intensely grief stricken. The colors in the painting are consist of dark grays and browns, suggesting a negative mood. The girl looks sickly and weak, and her arms are thin and twig like to imply her lack of strength and vigor. The man in contrast has thicker arms and a less pale complexion. According to Dr. O., Schiele painted his portrait for a mistress he left because he had the feeling that she would suddenly grow ill and pass away. The painting attempts to visual express Schiele's fear's for his mistress's health, was well has his grief for having to leave her. Given Schiele's motivation behind the painting, viewing it allows one to perceive how the expressionist style communicated information about moods, personalty, and circumstance through visual distortion.
The historical significance of Klimt and Schiele's artistic styles was only revealed to us the next day, when Dr. O. explained why 3 of Klimt's most famous works were rejected by the University of Vienna. Klimt was commissioned to paint 3 paintings for the school, one depicting jurisprudence for the law school, one depicting medicine for the law school, and one depicting philosophy. The Klimt painted the commissioned works using his new art style, however the university rejected them, because they did not consider them to be appropriate. Klimt later sent them to a art contest in Paris, where two of the three pieces one first prize, and though the victory gained him the prestige in Vienna that the university claimed he had lacked, the experience had soured Klimts opinion of the Viennese art scene. This led Klimt and Schiele, along with a number of other artist working in new styles, to found the secession movement in Vienna. The Secession movement was a rejection of the ringstrasse's historicist style and it's rejection of creativity in favor of tradition. Instead, it was a celebration of new ideas. The Secession movement founded their own art gallery, where new works such as expressionist art was displayed and promoted, and where artistic creativity could thrive in a culture that did not support it. The secession movement grew into a significant counter culture to the conservative culture of the Viennese art world, and the gallery where Klimt and Schiele displayed there works is still open for viewing today.
I knew that Klimt and Schiele were famous artists before touring the Leopold museum with Dr. O, but that was the first time I learned about the secession movement, and how the artists were organized into a union of disfranchised artists. I was surprised to learn that such famous and well regard artists faced such obstacles to success in their own times. Dr. O simply commented that the Viennese required someone to make their name somewhere other than Vienna before they would be taken seriously in the art world, and this is certainly true in the cases of Klimt and Schiele.
Saturday, September 8, 2012
Visit to the Military History Museum
August 20th 2012
Today, a group of my fellow students and I went to visit the National Military History museum in order to learn more about Austria's history of war and conflict. Getting to the museum was a bit of an adventure in and of itself, as it was near the edge of Vienna, and required taking a street car and a bus after taking the subway. Nevertheless, we managed to get there and tour the various exhibits along with the museum's audio guide. As we explored the museum, I noticed that the differed periods in military history were depicted very differently from each other, with each one casting it's respective wars in a certain light. It occurred to me that the way the Austrian people remembered there wars, and the way they portrayed their histories, might be political in nature. With that in mind, I payed particular attention to what was displayed, how those displays contributed to a narrative about war, and how that narrative might be political in nature.
I first came the part of the museum that focused on the Napoleonic wars, and other conflicts that occurred after the invention of rifling, but before the outbreak of world war 2, more specifically the period between the reigns of Francis the 1st and Franz Joseph. The displays were dominated by military uniforms, medals representing various honor society and orders, as well as exhibits depicting the military exploits of a choice few high born officers that manged particularly fantastic feats during their services. The display during this time had a good number of cannons and rifles in addition to the military dress and colors, but the aforementioned objects were featured much more prominently for this time period than for any other. The focus on individual heroes and military decorations serves to portray this period of warfare as being one of honor and selfless sacrifice. These combats are remembered as heroic and noble, the wars are portrayed as being stately gentlemen and officers, and the uniforms are displayed as if they themselves are things of beauty. This period in warfare seems to romanticize the solider, as the individual glory of warfare seems to be a major theme in the display. I am not entirely sure why this era is remembered this way, but I suspect it has something to do with the escalation in military power that occurred as monarchies grew in power. The audio guide to the museum stated that Franz Joseph came to revere the army as the only force that could hold his emperor together. I suspect that sentiment is reflected in the way this era is remembered, and explains why the individual solider is portrayed as honorable and noble.
The section depicting the Turkish war is also very positive, but the tone was markedly different. The exhibit was made up almost entirely of portraits portraying battles, but unlike the Napoleonic period, no individual solider was shown or focused on. With the exception of the great hero, Eugene of Savoy, armies were displayed as mobs of unknown Turks or Austrians, fighting in battles around the city of Vienna. The focus of the paintings seemed to be the celebration of the armies victory, but not the army itself. I got the feeling that the narrative expressed by these paintings much more collectivist in nature. The Viennese seemed to be celebrating their collective victory against there universal enemy, and were attempting to communicate their greatness and pride in their military accomplishment. The paintings left no doubt that the Viennese felt very good about their victory against the Turks, but unlike in the Napoleonic exhibit, the soldiers were not lionized. Instead, one got the impression of pride, but not nationalistic pride.
The saw the exhibit on the Renaissance era next, and it appeared to be the least political of all the various military displays. It seemed to be wholly factual, to the point of being mechanical. The main focus of the exhibit was the invention and early use of gun powder weapons, and the displays consisted of old guns, and diagrams depicting how they would be fired, aimed, and reloaded. I suspect that the lack of narrative or politicization occurred for two main reasons. The 1st one is simply a matter of distance in time. The Renaissance era was a long time ago, and one could argue that much of the warfare at the time has little to do know with modern events. However, I tend to believe that this era's warfare is not remembered in a culturally important way because the makings of a modern nation state were not really there during this period. I remember for a previous course in history (Sally Mckee) that monarchs did not have the means to maintain standing armies at this point in time, so most wars were fought with military contractors and guns for hire. People were not simply invested in those forces the way one would be in a national army supported by the state and representative of populace, so I suspect that explains why this period's display seemed less political than the others.
The last exhibit I visited was the world war 2 exhibit, and unlike the preceding one, it was deeply political in nature, and it communicated what was possibly the most political narrative out of any other exhibit in the museum. The Austrians want to be remembered as victims in World War 2, and the exhibit makes that very clear as one enters. The first few pieces in the exhibit display paintings and images that display the loss and horror of war. There's a painting of abstract looking male human figures lying in pain and agony was one enters the exhibit, and a few feet away from it are more pictures and paintings depicting more realistic human suffering on the part of the Austrians. The next part of the exhibit displays images of Hitler and the Nazi's in an overbearing and almost fear inspiring manner. A large red white and black banner showing Hitler's likeness over a swastika looms menacingly over the next section, implying that Hitler and the Nazi's are clearly threatening and bad people. The banner is large enough to be hung from a large building during a rally, and there was space further in the museum to hang in up in a less claustrophobic space, however the museum chose to place the banner where it would loom over viewers instead of showing it from a more fitting point of view. The rest of the exhibit appeared to be rather matter of fact after this point, showing only guns, uniforms, and model tanks and ships. However it is important to keep in mind that viewers were required to pass by reminders of the destruction and horror of war before coming face to face with a (at least) 12 tall picture of Hitler's face before seeing these things. I was left with the impression that the first part of the exhibit was meant to frame the war in a negative light, and I feel the reason for this is political in nature. Modern day Austria has to remember world war 2, but they do not want to be seen as celebrating Nazi rule, so there response to this is remembering the war as a horrible thing that happened to their country instead of highlighting Austrian participation in the war.
Today, a group of my fellow students and I went to visit the National Military History museum in order to learn more about Austria's history of war and conflict. Getting to the museum was a bit of an adventure in and of itself, as it was near the edge of Vienna, and required taking a street car and a bus after taking the subway. Nevertheless, we managed to get there and tour the various exhibits along with the museum's audio guide. As we explored the museum, I noticed that the differed periods in military history were depicted very differently from each other, with each one casting it's respective wars in a certain light. It occurred to me that the way the Austrian people remembered there wars, and the way they portrayed their histories, might be political in nature. With that in mind, I payed particular attention to what was displayed, how those displays contributed to a narrative about war, and how that narrative might be political in nature.
I first came the part of the museum that focused on the Napoleonic wars, and other conflicts that occurred after the invention of rifling, but before the outbreak of world war 2, more specifically the period between the reigns of Francis the 1st and Franz Joseph. The displays were dominated by military uniforms, medals representing various honor society and orders, as well as exhibits depicting the military exploits of a choice few high born officers that manged particularly fantastic feats during their services. The display during this time had a good number of cannons and rifles in addition to the military dress and colors, but the aforementioned objects were featured much more prominently for this time period than for any other. The focus on individual heroes and military decorations serves to portray this period of warfare as being one of honor and selfless sacrifice. These combats are remembered as heroic and noble, the wars are portrayed as being stately gentlemen and officers, and the uniforms are displayed as if they themselves are things of beauty. This period in warfare seems to romanticize the solider, as the individual glory of warfare seems to be a major theme in the display. I am not entirely sure why this era is remembered this way, but I suspect it has something to do with the escalation in military power that occurred as monarchies grew in power. The audio guide to the museum stated that Franz Joseph came to revere the army as the only force that could hold his emperor together. I suspect that sentiment is reflected in the way this era is remembered, and explains why the individual solider is portrayed as honorable and noble.
The section depicting the Turkish war is also very positive, but the tone was markedly different. The exhibit was made up almost entirely of portraits portraying battles, but unlike the Napoleonic period, no individual solider was shown or focused on. With the exception of the great hero, Eugene of Savoy, armies were displayed as mobs of unknown Turks or Austrians, fighting in battles around the city of Vienna. The focus of the paintings seemed to be the celebration of the armies victory, but not the army itself. I got the feeling that the narrative expressed by these paintings much more collectivist in nature. The Viennese seemed to be celebrating their collective victory against there universal enemy, and were attempting to communicate their greatness and pride in their military accomplishment. The paintings left no doubt that the Viennese felt very good about their victory against the Turks, but unlike in the Napoleonic exhibit, the soldiers were not lionized. Instead, one got the impression of pride, but not nationalistic pride.
The saw the exhibit on the Renaissance era next, and it appeared to be the least political of all the various military displays. It seemed to be wholly factual, to the point of being mechanical. The main focus of the exhibit was the invention and early use of gun powder weapons, and the displays consisted of old guns, and diagrams depicting how they would be fired, aimed, and reloaded. I suspect that the lack of narrative or politicization occurred for two main reasons. The 1st one is simply a matter of distance in time. The Renaissance era was a long time ago, and one could argue that much of the warfare at the time has little to do know with modern events. However, I tend to believe that this era's warfare is not remembered in a culturally important way because the makings of a modern nation state were not really there during this period. I remember for a previous course in history (Sally Mckee) that monarchs did not have the means to maintain standing armies at this point in time, so most wars were fought with military contractors and guns for hire. People were not simply invested in those forces the way one would be in a national army supported by the state and representative of populace, so I suspect that explains why this period's display seemed less political than the others.
The last exhibit I visited was the world war 2 exhibit, and unlike the preceding one, it was deeply political in nature, and it communicated what was possibly the most political narrative out of any other exhibit in the museum. The Austrians want to be remembered as victims in World War 2, and the exhibit makes that very clear as one enters. The first few pieces in the exhibit display paintings and images that display the loss and horror of war. There's a painting of abstract looking male human figures lying in pain and agony was one enters the exhibit, and a few feet away from it are more pictures and paintings depicting more realistic human suffering on the part of the Austrians. The next part of the exhibit displays images of Hitler and the Nazi's in an overbearing and almost fear inspiring manner. A large red white and black banner showing Hitler's likeness over a swastika looms menacingly over the next section, implying that Hitler and the Nazi's are clearly threatening and bad people. The banner is large enough to be hung from a large building during a rally, and there was space further in the museum to hang in up in a less claustrophobic space, however the museum chose to place the banner where it would loom over viewers instead of showing it from a more fitting point of view. The rest of the exhibit appeared to be rather matter of fact after this point, showing only guns, uniforms, and model tanks and ships. However it is important to keep in mind that viewers were required to pass by reminders of the destruction and horror of war before coming face to face with a (at least) 12 tall picture of Hitler's face before seeing these things. I was left with the impression that the first part of the exhibit was meant to frame the war in a negative light, and I feel the reason for this is political in nature. Modern day Austria has to remember world war 2, but they do not want to be seen as celebrating Nazi rule, so there response to this is remembering the war as a horrible thing that happened to their country instead of highlighting Austrian participation in the war.
Visit to the Imperial Treasury
August 19th 2012
We only have 11 days left in Austria, so I decided to spend today at the imperial treasury, in hopes of learning more about how the Habsburg dynasty might have expressed their power and will through art, or symbolism. I was surprised to find that it was not very hard to interpret the meaning of a great many of art the artifacts on display in the imperial treasury, as they overtly expressed a narrative about the Habsburg dynasty. The objects associated with the royals themselves, such as the objects used in the coronation rituals seemed to almost have a propaganda like simplicity and clearness to their message. Furthermore, the coronation ritual seemed to change over time, as the requirements to legitimize the reign of a the Holy Roman emperor changed over time, suggesting that they may have been used to carefully craft political messages over the ages.
I observed that many objects used in the coronation of Holy Roman Emperors and Habsburg rulers were associated with Charlemagne in some way or another. Charlemagne was the warrior who first united many of the areas between France, Germany, and Eastern Europe under one rule, and he was the first person to be declared Holy Roman Emperor by the Pope in the 8th century. Because of this history, it is very important for future Holy Roman Emperor's to have a connection to Charlemagne. Even thought the position of Holy Roman Emperor is not hereditary, Emperor's still benefit from Charlemagne's legend if there able to say that they are as wise or strong as Charlemagne was. The use of relics associated with Charlemagne allow Emperors to do just that through the use of art as symbolism during their coronation. The Holy Roman Emperors since the time of Henry the 4th (and continuing on to include many of the Habsburgs) were knighted with a saber believed to be used by Charlemagne. In addition to the saber, a codex thought to be bond in Charlemagne's court is used in the ceremony, and the Emperor is crowned in Charlemagne's crown in order to establish a direct link to the man, despite a complete lack of any kind of hereditary connection. The need to establish a connection to Charlemagne seems clear from the fact that many of the objects used in the coronation ritual that bare a connection to the king are suspected of being forgeries, with the the saber being a known 10th century forgery (Audio Guide). This implies that the elective process was not enough to establish credibility on its own, and the need to create a narrative of inheritance from Charlemagne was so great, art objects were forged to do it.
The coronation robes used by the Habsburg dynasty before the dissolution of the Holy Roman Empire are another example of how art is used by rulers to create narratives of legitimacy. Despite the fact that the robes were used to in the coronations of the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation, only one piece of the robes were made in Germany. The rest of the set of garments were made in the royal courts of Italy, more specifically Palermo, between the 12th and 14th centuries (Audio Guide). For some reason, the Habsburgs found these articles of clothing, made for Italian nobles in Italian courts, and made them part of their coronation ritual. I suspect that these robes served a similar function as Charlemagne's articles. Much of Italy fell under control of the Holy Roman Empire over the course of it's reign, and I assume the Italian robes were added to the ritual as a way of strengthening the Holy Roman Emperors claims of legitimacy over the region. Like with Charlemagne's crown, the Italian garments were used by the last ruling noble house, and may serve as a tie to that dynasty (Audio Guide).
I saw this trend continue with the next set of coronation robes used by the Habsburg dynasty after 1830, although the meaning was very different. In 1830, Francis the 2nd of Austria had a new set of robes made in the style of Napoleons' coronation robes because he needed to express a new narrative of legitimacy when his heir was crowned. About 30 years earlier, Napoleon had dissolved the Holy Roman Empire through his conquest of Europe. His caused Francis the 2nd of the Holy Roman Empire to declare himself Francis the 1st of Austria, as Napoleon had declared himself Emperor of France, in order to retain rule of the Habsburg lands. 30 years later, the robes used by the Holy Roman Empire meant nothing, as that was no longer the source of the dynasty's power or legitimacy. Once again, Francis used art in ritual to create a narrative of legitimacy by appealing to the same source Napoleon used to establish his rule, as he did 30 year ago (Audio Guide).
My visit to the Imperial treasury taught me that art is immensely important to the way absolute monarchs express their power. The performance of the monarchy in coronation rituals is deeply important to the way the monarch establishes its right to rule, and how it articulates how others should view and the dynasty.
We only have 11 days left in Austria, so I decided to spend today at the imperial treasury, in hopes of learning more about how the Habsburg dynasty might have expressed their power and will through art, or symbolism. I was surprised to find that it was not very hard to interpret the meaning of a great many of art the artifacts on display in the imperial treasury, as they overtly expressed a narrative about the Habsburg dynasty. The objects associated with the royals themselves, such as the objects used in the coronation rituals seemed to almost have a propaganda like simplicity and clearness to their message. Furthermore, the coronation ritual seemed to change over time, as the requirements to legitimize the reign of a the Holy Roman emperor changed over time, suggesting that they may have been used to carefully craft political messages over the ages.
I observed that many objects used in the coronation of Holy Roman Emperors and Habsburg rulers were associated with Charlemagne in some way or another. Charlemagne was the warrior who first united many of the areas between France, Germany, and Eastern Europe under one rule, and he was the first person to be declared Holy Roman Emperor by the Pope in the 8th century. Because of this history, it is very important for future Holy Roman Emperor's to have a connection to Charlemagne. Even thought the position of Holy Roman Emperor is not hereditary, Emperor's still benefit from Charlemagne's legend if there able to say that they are as wise or strong as Charlemagne was. The use of relics associated with Charlemagne allow Emperors to do just that through the use of art as symbolism during their coronation. The Holy Roman Emperors since the time of Henry the 4th (and continuing on to include many of the Habsburgs) were knighted with a saber believed to be used by Charlemagne. In addition to the saber, a codex thought to be bond in Charlemagne's court is used in the ceremony, and the Emperor is crowned in Charlemagne's crown in order to establish a direct link to the man, despite a complete lack of any kind of hereditary connection. The need to establish a connection to Charlemagne seems clear from the fact that many of the objects used in the coronation ritual that bare a connection to the king are suspected of being forgeries, with the the saber being a known 10th century forgery (Audio Guide). This implies that the elective process was not enough to establish credibility on its own, and the need to create a narrative of inheritance from Charlemagne was so great, art objects were forged to do it.
The coronation robes used by the Habsburg dynasty before the dissolution of the Holy Roman Empire are another example of how art is used by rulers to create narratives of legitimacy. Despite the fact that the robes were used to in the coronations of the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation, only one piece of the robes were made in Germany. The rest of the set of garments were made in the royal courts of Italy, more specifically Palermo, between the 12th and 14th centuries (Audio Guide). For some reason, the Habsburgs found these articles of clothing, made for Italian nobles in Italian courts, and made them part of their coronation ritual. I suspect that these robes served a similar function as Charlemagne's articles. Much of Italy fell under control of the Holy Roman Empire over the course of it's reign, and I assume the Italian robes were added to the ritual as a way of strengthening the Holy Roman Emperors claims of legitimacy over the region. Like with Charlemagne's crown, the Italian garments were used by the last ruling noble house, and may serve as a tie to that dynasty (Audio Guide).
I saw this trend continue with the next set of coronation robes used by the Habsburg dynasty after 1830, although the meaning was very different. In 1830, Francis the 2nd of Austria had a new set of robes made in the style of Napoleons' coronation robes because he needed to express a new narrative of legitimacy when his heir was crowned. About 30 years earlier, Napoleon had dissolved the Holy Roman Empire through his conquest of Europe. His caused Francis the 2nd of the Holy Roman Empire to declare himself Francis the 1st of Austria, as Napoleon had declared himself Emperor of France, in order to retain rule of the Habsburg lands. 30 years later, the robes used by the Holy Roman Empire meant nothing, as that was no longer the source of the dynasty's power or legitimacy. Once again, Francis used art in ritual to create a narrative of legitimacy by appealing to the same source Napoleon used to establish his rule, as he did 30 year ago (Audio Guide).
My visit to the Imperial treasury taught me that art is immensely important to the way absolute monarchs express their power. The performance of the monarchy in coronation rituals is deeply important to the way the monarch establishes its right to rule, and how it articulates how others should view and the dynasty.
Friday, September 7, 2012
Vienna Relic Tour: St. Charles's and St. Peter's Church
Augest 18th 2012
While traveling on our Alps excursion, it dawned on me that the trip marked the half way point of my Study Aboard program. I have seen countless wonderful things in my time here, but I began to realize that I might not have time to see everything I wanted to see while in Vienna. That's why I decided to spend the free weekend I had after coming back from the Alps to explore some of the areas of Vienna mentioned in our class syllabubs that we would not visit as a group. I decided that seeing the saints relics scattered around Vienna was my highest priority, as such relics have often have a great deal of historical importance. I found out that St. Charles Church, the place where our class saw a performance of Mozart's requiem, had a collection of relics, so I decided to revisit the church and explore the collection in detail. I also intended to visit the relic collection as St. Peter's church, but I already knew the way to St. Charles, so I decided to start there.
Much to my surprise, St. Charles's church had an entire museum tucked into it's upper levels. I saw absolutely no sign of such a complex on my first visit, so I was instantly excited and intrigued to find out what could be hiding there. I eagerly climbed the flight of stairs to the muesli and was surprised to find a number of Baroque ear paintings and displays. There were paintings that were taken down and put in storage, and a replica palm donkey statue, referring to a 10 th century ritual where peasants would ride a donkey into town on palm Sunday, however I did not see anything that I thought looked like a relic, or more specifically, a holy object tied to a saint or holy person or place. I knew from previous history classes that relics were highly important during the medieval era, so I was expecting something in a Gothic style, but the museum only had Baroque looking pieces. I only found the relics after investigating for a bit. Two of the Church's relics were on display in a little self in the museum. One was a preserved section of a saint's intestinal tissue, and the other was a piece of the true cross, or the cross upon which Christ died. I didn't recognize this relics at first because they were housed in grandiose Baroque displays, which were so flashy that obscured the relic they were meant to display. The relic that held the gut of a certain saint was display in a bejeweled golden eagle statue which resembled to two headed eagle of the Habsburg's coat of arms. The piece of the true cross was likewise held in a very decorated gold cross, with a tiny bit of wood visible in a glass display in the center. The relic's displays were so fancy, I thought they were pieces of art with no additional value other than their artistic quality. It was only after careful examination that I realized these objects had religious importance.
St. Charles had one more set of relics on display in its museum, namely the robe and vestments of the Church's patron saint, Charles Borromeo. The audio guide for the museum explained that St. Charles in known as a plague saint, meaning that he is regarded as having divine power to aid with, or prevent an outbreak of plague. It was because of this that Charles the 6th (the Habsburg emperor) constructed St. Charles church in hopes of easing outbreaks of plague during the early 18th century. The vestments of Charles Barromeo were entrusted to Emperor Charles the 6th when he constructed the church, so that the saints relics could be displayed there. I found the fact that the church was build out of a state effort to deal with an outbreak of plague to be interesting, especially since it was 300 years after the renaissance, but what really surprised me were the dates regarding Charles Borromeo. He died in the late 16th century, and was canonized in the early 17th century. In other words, his life, canonization, and veneration started well into the early modern period, far after what I thought was the high point of relic worship in Europe had ended.
My visit to St. Peter's church also affirmed that relics were not simply a part of the medieval era. Indeed, the two bodies of martyrs at St. Peter's church shows that the veneration of relics was not only alive and well during the Baroque era, but the Baroque era might very well have seen a boom in the veneration of relics. When I walked into St. Peter's, it appeared to be a rather unassuming church. It was being visited by religious locals as part of there everyday services, in fact, the church had a sign out front that told visitors to be mindful, as the building is a place of worship, not a museum. Indeed, St. Peter's remains the headquarters of Opus Dei, a very conservative religious order in the catholic church. But as unassuming as this church appeared at first glance, it happened to have two human skeletons resting in glass coffins below to of the side alters in the church. These skeletons were dressed in very strange clothes, that looked like roman style outfits made out of extravagant silk with gold and sliver thread, and then covered in precious jewels. I read the information packet that I was handed at the door in order to learn more about these immaculately dressed skeletons, and discovered that they were roman christens who were martyred for their faith. However, these people died in roman times, there were somehow discovered in the catacombs of Vienna during 18th century , and recognized as roman martyrs. The displays and their clothing were then made in the Baroque era so the bodies could be displayed and venerated. Despite doing my best to inquire at the time, I was unable to find any information to explain how anyone in the 18th century could have possibly known that these two bodies came from Christian martyrs who must have died more than 1400 years before anyone realized they were important.
My personal believe and explication for this is simply that the story behind the bodies was made up during the Baroque period. I believe the people at St. Peter's church needed relics, so they simply pulled up two bodies and decided they were Christians who died for their faith. Honestly, they were in the catacombs, they graves were not likely marked, so I do not know how anyone could possibly know anything about them. I then interpret this, along with the display of relics at St. Charles to indicate that the Baroque period had a large demand for holy relics, and other such objects that could make the Catholic faith real to people. The Baroque period was defined by the Catholic counter reformation against the protestants, meaning that the Catholics were facing a challenge to prove the legitimacy of many aspects of their faith that were not spelled out in the bible, such as faith, and the order of the church. I believe this caused the role of relics to change in the Baroque period to some sort of physical proof that the Catholic faith was true, and the Protestant claims were false. This would explain why relics were important enough to be given to Kings for the completion of church or important enough to sudden "discover" in the catacombs after centuries.
While traveling on our Alps excursion, it dawned on me that the trip marked the half way point of my Study Aboard program. I have seen countless wonderful things in my time here, but I began to realize that I might not have time to see everything I wanted to see while in Vienna. That's why I decided to spend the free weekend I had after coming back from the Alps to explore some of the areas of Vienna mentioned in our class syllabubs that we would not visit as a group. I decided that seeing the saints relics scattered around Vienna was my highest priority, as such relics have often have a great deal of historical importance. I found out that St. Charles Church, the place where our class saw a performance of Mozart's requiem, had a collection of relics, so I decided to revisit the church and explore the collection in detail. I also intended to visit the relic collection as St. Peter's church, but I already knew the way to St. Charles, so I decided to start there.
Much to my surprise, St. Charles's church had an entire museum tucked into it's upper levels. I saw absolutely no sign of such a complex on my first visit, so I was instantly excited and intrigued to find out what could be hiding there. I eagerly climbed the flight of stairs to the muesli and was surprised to find a number of Baroque ear paintings and displays. There were paintings that were taken down and put in storage, and a replica palm donkey statue, referring to a 10 th century ritual where peasants would ride a donkey into town on palm Sunday, however I did not see anything that I thought looked like a relic, or more specifically, a holy object tied to a saint or holy person or place. I knew from previous history classes that relics were highly important during the medieval era, so I was expecting something in a Gothic style, but the museum only had Baroque looking pieces. I only found the relics after investigating for a bit. Two of the Church's relics were on display in a little self in the museum. One was a preserved section of a saint's intestinal tissue, and the other was a piece of the true cross, or the cross upon which Christ died. I didn't recognize this relics at first because they were housed in grandiose Baroque displays, which were so flashy that obscured the relic they were meant to display. The relic that held the gut of a certain saint was display in a bejeweled golden eagle statue which resembled to two headed eagle of the Habsburg's coat of arms. The piece of the true cross was likewise held in a very decorated gold cross, with a tiny bit of wood visible in a glass display in the center. The relic's displays were so fancy, I thought they were pieces of art with no additional value other than their artistic quality. It was only after careful examination that I realized these objects had religious importance.
St. Charles had one more set of relics on display in its museum, namely the robe and vestments of the Church's patron saint, Charles Borromeo. The audio guide for the museum explained that St. Charles in known as a plague saint, meaning that he is regarded as having divine power to aid with, or prevent an outbreak of plague. It was because of this that Charles the 6th (the Habsburg emperor) constructed St. Charles church in hopes of easing outbreaks of plague during the early 18th century. The vestments of Charles Barromeo were entrusted to Emperor Charles the 6th when he constructed the church, so that the saints relics could be displayed there. I found the fact that the church was build out of a state effort to deal with an outbreak of plague to be interesting, especially since it was 300 years after the renaissance, but what really surprised me were the dates regarding Charles Borromeo. He died in the late 16th century, and was canonized in the early 17th century. In other words, his life, canonization, and veneration started well into the early modern period, far after what I thought was the high point of relic worship in Europe had ended.
My visit to St. Peter's church also affirmed that relics were not simply a part of the medieval era. Indeed, the two bodies of martyrs at St. Peter's church shows that the veneration of relics was not only alive and well during the Baroque era, but the Baroque era might very well have seen a boom in the veneration of relics. When I walked into St. Peter's, it appeared to be a rather unassuming church. It was being visited by religious locals as part of there everyday services, in fact, the church had a sign out front that told visitors to be mindful, as the building is a place of worship, not a museum. Indeed, St. Peter's remains the headquarters of Opus Dei, a very conservative religious order in the catholic church. But as unassuming as this church appeared at first glance, it happened to have two human skeletons resting in glass coffins below to of the side alters in the church. These skeletons were dressed in very strange clothes, that looked like roman style outfits made out of extravagant silk with gold and sliver thread, and then covered in precious jewels. I read the information packet that I was handed at the door in order to learn more about these immaculately dressed skeletons, and discovered that they were roman christens who were martyred for their faith. However, these people died in roman times, there were somehow discovered in the catacombs of Vienna during 18th century , and recognized as roman martyrs. The displays and their clothing were then made in the Baroque era so the bodies could be displayed and venerated. Despite doing my best to inquire at the time, I was unable to find any information to explain how anyone in the 18th century could have possibly known that these two bodies came from Christian martyrs who must have died more than 1400 years before anyone realized they were important.
My personal believe and explication for this is simply that the story behind the bodies was made up during the Baroque period. I believe the people at St. Peter's church needed relics, so they simply pulled up two bodies and decided they were Christians who died for their faith. Honestly, they were in the catacombs, they graves were not likely marked, so I do not know how anyone could possibly know anything about them. I then interpret this, along with the display of relics at St. Charles to indicate that the Baroque period had a large demand for holy relics, and other such objects that could make the Catholic faith real to people. The Baroque period was defined by the Catholic counter reformation against the protestants, meaning that the Catholics were facing a challenge to prove the legitimacy of many aspects of their faith that were not spelled out in the bible, such as faith, and the order of the church. I believe this caused the role of relics to change in the Baroque period to some sort of physical proof that the Catholic faith was true, and the Protestant claims were false. This would explain why relics were important enough to be given to Kings for the completion of church or important enough to sudden "discover" in the catacombs after centuries.
Alps Excursion Day Three
August 17th 2012
Despite hiking over 20 miles yesterday, I woke up feeling surprising well. I was more exhausted than I had ever been after spending my day trekking through the alps, but I managed to get an incredibly good nights sleep at the hostel, so I was ready our scheduled walking tour of an Esterhazy castle. Our class planned stop by the castle on our way back to Vienna from the Alps, so before we could travel anywhere, we had to pack up everything we had brought along with us. Everyone managed to get there things together by 10 am, and we set off on our way home around 10:30. Unfortunately, the bus nearly broke down on our way to the castle, so our plans for the day were delayed. We were sitting in a stalled bus for about half an hour while the bus driver frantically called the charter company for another bus. However sometime around the point when Kathy started debating changing the days actives to include a picnic in the lovely meadow we happened to break down next to, the bus started running again, and we were able to progress on our way toward the castle.
Despite hiking over 20 miles yesterday, I woke up feeling surprising well. I was more exhausted than I had ever been after spending my day trekking through the alps, but I managed to get an incredibly good nights sleep at the hostel, so I was ready our scheduled walking tour of an Esterhazy castle. Our class planned stop by the castle on our way back to Vienna from the Alps, so before we could travel anywhere, we had to pack up everything we had brought along with us. Everyone managed to get there things together by 10 am, and we set off on our way home around 10:30. Unfortunately, the bus nearly broke down on our way to the castle, so our plans for the day were delayed. We were sitting in a stalled bus for about half an hour while the bus driver frantically called the charter company for another bus. However sometime around the point when Kathy started debating changing the days actives to include a picnic in the lovely meadow we happened to break down next to, the bus started running again, and we were able to progress on our way toward the castle.
We arrived there around 11 am and started a walking tour of the castle and it's various displays after a short lunch break. The architectural make up of the castle itself was interesting to see, because it consisted of two layers of construction. The lower sections of the castle were done in a Gothic style, and dated back to the castle's original construction in the middle ages. A second Baroque style facade rested on top of the Gothic section of the castle, and was added in the 17th century when parts of the castle were renovated or restored. The renovation and addition of a Baroque facade suggests that the castle remained important building for quite a long time, and indeed, this turned out to be true. The castle's tour guide told our group that the castle was given to the Esterhazy family as a gift from the Hasburgs, but it remained a very important strategical point against invading Turkish forces in the 16th and 17th centuries. The Baroque style renovations make a great deal of sense given the castle use in combat Kathy explained that 13th and 14th century fortifications were not designed to withstand cannon blasts and gun powder weapons, to the changes in design likely served a tactile purpose as well as a cosmetic one.
The military history of the castle was further explained by the large number of weapons, armor, and military uniforms displayed in the castle. Organized displays of showed everything from swords and steel breast plates to the brightly colored military dress worn on battle fields before the invention of smokeless gun powder. Much of the weapons and uniforms were of a Hungarian design, and were consisted of what the troops lead by the Esterhazy family would have worn into battle, but a great deal of foreign arms and uniforms were on display as spoils of war. The castle boasted a small collection of French uniforms, guns, and cannons, as well as a rather large collection of Turkish weapons, bows, and military tents. The assorted displays certainly portrayed the Esterhazy family as great military leaders and warriors, as the presence of such a collection was very impressive to see. As the tour continued, I wondered if the collection and preservation of such displays might serve some sort of public relations purpose. Our tour guide continued to two more exhibits, one was on hunting, and the other was a collection of Esterhazy family portraits. Viewing the portraits made it more clear to me that the collection and display of art and military gear was indeed attempting to create a narrative about the Esterhazy family as being a line of powerful military leaders. Nearly all the family portraits displayed the men in the family as warriors, wearing armor or military uniforms, and carrying a collection of weapons. Women were not displayed as warriors, but they were painted with symbols of wealth and status, such as gold and jewels. The paintings seem to be a type of advertisement as well as a work of art, as they displayed members of the family as part of a proud military tradition.
All of the paintings may display Esterhazy men as powerful and prestigious, however one painting in particular is especially demonstrative of a controlled attempt to create a narrative about the Esterhazy lineage. A portrait of Vlad the Impaler, the man who inspired the Dracula legend, was on display along with other portraits in the Esterhazy gallery. At first, it was not clear to us why the Esterhazy had this portrait, but our tour guide later explained that the Esterhazy displayed the portrait because they wanted to make a connection between the brutal Vlad and their own lineage because Vlad the Impaler was famous for fighting back the Ottoman Turks. The very same Turks had long been enemies of the Esterhazy and the Habsburgs, so the Esterhazy wanted to connect Vlads curtly with their war accomplishments. Having the portrait in their gallery was an attempt to put the Esterhazy name on this same level as Vlad when it came to defeating the Turkish threat in combat. After seeing this portrait, it became clear to me what kind of narrative the Esterhazy were trying to express with their display and collection. There saying that they are powerful protectors of the empire, and that they fight bravely against the Habsburgs great enemy, the Ottomans.
Wednesday, August 29, 2012
Alps Excursion Day 2: Hiking
August 16th 2012
This is our group's first full day in the Alps, and we have it set aside for hiking. There's no class today, no lessons or reading to be done, instead were free to explore the Austrian Alps to our hearts content. For this reason, I'm not going to try to stress a historical point or lesson, instead I'm just going to recount my hiking experience and explain what it meant to me. I had a fairly exciting time out on the trails, as you're about to find out, so I'm just going to focusing on making it an exciting story.
Everyone in our group set out hiking at about 10am in the morning after having breakfast together at 9. I wasn't feeling very well that morning because I didn't sleep very well the night before, so I wasn't expecting very much of myself today. I had been told yesterday that the hike was only supposed to be as intense as we wanted it to be, as we were free to quite any time (turns out it wasn't quite that simple), so I was expecting to go to two or three stops before heading back sometime around 2pm in the afternoon. However I ended up having quite a bit of fun on the first part of the trail, and the hike wasn't nearly as intense as I thought it would be, so I was quite optimistic about the rest of the day. I was still in worse physical shape than the rest of the group, not to mention I had absolutely no hiking experience, but I was able to roughly keep up with the slower group of hikers. I was behind them most of the time, and I lost visual contact occasionally, but I was having no point keeping up. Things were like this until we reached the first major check point in our hike, a large cross overlooking the Alps from high atop a mountain peek. I was very excited when I reached this point because I meet up with Kathy at this point, and she had shot ahead of even the fastest hikers in the beginning of the day.
Things started to change after we set off for the next leg of our journey. The path of much stepper than before, with much of the way passing over uneven rock steps that could get up to as much as two and a half feet high. The road was much more trying and exhausting than before, I and quickly fell so far behind the group that I was all alone. I didn't have others to help my find my way, but the path was marked by the red colored markers on the ground, so I was eventually able to find my way to the next check point on our hike, a rest stop called the Habsburg house. The name likely has no relation to the famous Habsburg family, but I was still thrilled to see the place, as it meant that I was one the right path, and more importantly, that I could take a much needed break. I meet up with the rest of the hiking group, who seemed legitimately impressed that I made it out as far as the rest of them ( I didn't really know the way back so I really couldn't have gone home had I wanted to, but still). The Habsburg house served food, and I decided to order a hearty plate of pasta in addition to a few beers and plenty of water, as it was past noon and I needed to get some food in my stomach if I was to continue hiking. After eating, everyone in the group took time to relax and recovery, and we were even lucky enough to witness a very Austrian musical performance by rest-house owner's children, who played to tuba and accordion for us while wearing traditional Austrian lederhosen. It was wonderful to see, but after a while, we all had to go, so everyone meet up with Kathy to discuss how were going to march down the mountain and return home.
It became glaringly apparent to me on the hike up to the Habsburg house that going down hill on the steep, rocky, and uneven hill could prove extremely dangerous, so I was very pleased to hear that we would be taking a different route back home, the only condition was that we were required to take a the right turn off on an upcoming fork in the road or we would become completely lost, which is a very bad thing to happen on an Alpine trail. I was very nervous that I would fall behind, as I had done so earlier in the day, so I decided to push myself as hard as I could to keep up with the group. The trail appeared to be getting less and less kept up as we went along, so I feared I would not be able to find markers like I had before if I got lost. I managed to keep up with the others for until I slipped on a downhill section. Luckily I was not hurt, but I decided not to hurry after that. I fell behind from time to time, but people had gotten tired, so Kahtey decided to take frequent rests and allow people to catch up before continuing. This allowed me to keep in town with everyone despite my lower speed. We made it to the turn off together, and everyone managed to get themselves on the right path. However the trails we were hiking on narrowed and became more dangerous and taxing after this point. They were step, unkempt, and looked more like animal trails that the roads we had been taking earlier. It got so bad that we literally had inch along steep slopes at times to prevent from falling to what would have been very severe injury at best.
Eventually, after we had hiked about 15 miles in total from the beginning of the day, we managed to reach a point where the path started to get easier. At this point, I was totally exhausted, and could only manage to shuffle along at a snails pace. I had gone from keeping up with Kathy's group, to walking with the slowest group traveling behind her. However after a while, I had fallen behind even the slowest group, but we were on a safe, wide, and clearly marked path at the moment so I didn't mind. I thought everything was fine, until I caught up with the group traveling behind Kathy's that had previously passed me by. They were taking the road in the opposite direction that I was, and they told me that they though Kathy was traveling the wrong way down the road ever since we got off the more dangerous trail. At this point, I didn't know what to believe, so I decided to keep going in the diction I was traveling in, reasoning that if I was going the wrong way, Kathy's group would have to double back, and I'd meet them on the way. If I didn't see them, then that would mean I was going the right way. After a while, I cam across a sign that told me were I was on the trail. To my horror, I had been going the wrong way and I had almost reached the Habsburg house. Further complicating matters, the road forked at this sign, and I did not know which direction Kathy ended up taking. I was officially lost in the Alps at this point.
At first I panicked, thinking that maybe if I took the path a little father, it would twist around toward the hostel, but after a while I came to my senses and realized that the experienced group with two Ph. d.'s in it had gotten lost. I was exhausted, tired, and out of water, but my only chance was to double back on the trail I had been taking and go the other way. I knew where I was going at this point, but I was still quite scared, as it was starting to look it it would rain. It also felt colder, but the clouds in the sky kept me from telling how late it was getting. Regardless, I expected it might get dark soon. I just kept dragging my feet along the path I thought was right until I happened upon an earlier landmark that I recognize earlier. I reached ottohaus after a while, and realized where I was. I continued walking until I finally returned to the hostile, where everyone was very glad to see me. Much to my surprise, everyone was keeping track of who returned and when, and since I didn't return until 7:50 pm, everyone was starting to panic. Kathy was about to call in a search and rescue team for me, but I managed to get myself home in time. I even managed to make it home in time for dinner too. I took a shower, and finished dinner before turning in for the best night of sleep in my life. I managed to walk hike somewhere between 20 and 25 miles that day, and it was only my first time hiking. I'd like to do it again, but I think I've had my fair share of hiking for at least a while.
This is our group's first full day in the Alps, and we have it set aside for hiking. There's no class today, no lessons or reading to be done, instead were free to explore the Austrian Alps to our hearts content. For this reason, I'm not going to try to stress a historical point or lesson, instead I'm just going to recount my hiking experience and explain what it meant to me. I had a fairly exciting time out on the trails, as you're about to find out, so I'm just going to focusing on making it an exciting story.
Everyone in our group set out hiking at about 10am in the morning after having breakfast together at 9. I wasn't feeling very well that morning because I didn't sleep very well the night before, so I wasn't expecting very much of myself today. I had been told yesterday that the hike was only supposed to be as intense as we wanted it to be, as we were free to quite any time (turns out it wasn't quite that simple), so I was expecting to go to two or three stops before heading back sometime around 2pm in the afternoon. However I ended up having quite a bit of fun on the first part of the trail, and the hike wasn't nearly as intense as I thought it would be, so I was quite optimistic about the rest of the day. I was still in worse physical shape than the rest of the group, not to mention I had absolutely no hiking experience, but I was able to roughly keep up with the slower group of hikers. I was behind them most of the time, and I lost visual contact occasionally, but I was having no point keeping up. Things were like this until we reached the first major check point in our hike, a large cross overlooking the Alps from high atop a mountain peek. I was very excited when I reached this point because I meet up with Kathy at this point, and she had shot ahead of even the fastest hikers in the beginning of the day.
Things started to change after we set off for the next leg of our journey. The path of much stepper than before, with much of the way passing over uneven rock steps that could get up to as much as two and a half feet high. The road was much more trying and exhausting than before, I and quickly fell so far behind the group that I was all alone. I didn't have others to help my find my way, but the path was marked by the red colored markers on the ground, so I was eventually able to find my way to the next check point on our hike, a rest stop called the Habsburg house. The name likely has no relation to the famous Habsburg family, but I was still thrilled to see the place, as it meant that I was one the right path, and more importantly, that I could take a much needed break. I meet up with the rest of the hiking group, who seemed legitimately impressed that I made it out as far as the rest of them ( I didn't really know the way back so I really couldn't have gone home had I wanted to, but still). The Habsburg house served food, and I decided to order a hearty plate of pasta in addition to a few beers and plenty of water, as it was past noon and I needed to get some food in my stomach if I was to continue hiking. After eating, everyone in the group took time to relax and recovery, and we were even lucky enough to witness a very Austrian musical performance by rest-house owner's children, who played to tuba and accordion for us while wearing traditional Austrian lederhosen. It was wonderful to see, but after a while, we all had to go, so everyone meet up with Kathy to discuss how were going to march down the mountain and return home.
It became glaringly apparent to me on the hike up to the Habsburg house that going down hill on the steep, rocky, and uneven hill could prove extremely dangerous, so I was very pleased to hear that we would be taking a different route back home, the only condition was that we were required to take a the right turn off on an upcoming fork in the road or we would become completely lost, which is a very bad thing to happen on an Alpine trail. I was very nervous that I would fall behind, as I had done so earlier in the day, so I decided to push myself as hard as I could to keep up with the group. The trail appeared to be getting less and less kept up as we went along, so I feared I would not be able to find markers like I had before if I got lost. I managed to keep up with the others for until I slipped on a downhill section. Luckily I was not hurt, but I decided not to hurry after that. I fell behind from time to time, but people had gotten tired, so Kahtey decided to take frequent rests and allow people to catch up before continuing. This allowed me to keep in town with everyone despite my lower speed. We made it to the turn off together, and everyone managed to get themselves on the right path. However the trails we were hiking on narrowed and became more dangerous and taxing after this point. They were step, unkempt, and looked more like animal trails that the roads we had been taking earlier. It got so bad that we literally had inch along steep slopes at times to prevent from falling to what would have been very severe injury at best.
Eventually, after we had hiked about 15 miles in total from the beginning of the day, we managed to reach a point where the path started to get easier. At this point, I was totally exhausted, and could only manage to shuffle along at a snails pace. I had gone from keeping up with Kathy's group, to walking with the slowest group traveling behind her. However after a while, I had fallen behind even the slowest group, but we were on a safe, wide, and clearly marked path at the moment so I didn't mind. I thought everything was fine, until I caught up with the group traveling behind Kathy's that had previously passed me by. They were taking the road in the opposite direction that I was, and they told me that they though Kathy was traveling the wrong way down the road ever since we got off the more dangerous trail. At this point, I didn't know what to believe, so I decided to keep going in the diction I was traveling in, reasoning that if I was going the wrong way, Kathy's group would have to double back, and I'd meet them on the way. If I didn't see them, then that would mean I was going the right way. After a while, I cam across a sign that told me were I was on the trail. To my horror, I had been going the wrong way and I had almost reached the Habsburg house. Further complicating matters, the road forked at this sign, and I did not know which direction Kathy ended up taking. I was officially lost in the Alps at this point.
At first I panicked, thinking that maybe if I took the path a little father, it would twist around toward the hostel, but after a while I came to my senses and realized that the experienced group with two Ph. d.'s in it had gotten lost. I was exhausted, tired, and out of water, but my only chance was to double back on the trail I had been taking and go the other way. I knew where I was going at this point, but I was still quite scared, as it was starting to look it it would rain. It also felt colder, but the clouds in the sky kept me from telling how late it was getting. Regardless, I expected it might get dark soon. I just kept dragging my feet along the path I thought was right until I happened upon an earlier landmark that I recognize earlier. I reached ottohaus after a while, and realized where I was. I continued walking until I finally returned to the hostile, where everyone was very glad to see me. Much to my surprise, everyone was keeping track of who returned and when, and since I didn't return until 7:50 pm, everyone was starting to panic. Kathy was about to call in a search and rescue team for me, but I managed to get myself home in time. I even managed to make it home in time for dinner too. I took a shower, and finished dinner before turning in for the best night of sleep in my life. I managed to walk hike somewhere between 20 and 25 miles that day, and it was only my first time hiking. I'd like to do it again, but I think I've had my fair share of hiking for at least a while.
Tuesday, August 28, 2012
Alps Excursion Day 1
August 14 & 15th 2012
I'm skipping over Tuesday in my blog because I simply didn't do anything very eventful or interesting. I realized that our trip was about half way over, and that we were going to be leaving for the Alps on Wednesday, so I decided to spend the day catching up on reading and school work I had been putting off to explore Vienna and the surrounding area. After I got out of class, I had lunch with Hans-Joerg, a friend of Kathy's that I had met during the program. We discussed topics ranging from politics to religion, before I left to spend the rest of the day studying at Vienna's famous Cafe Central. My conversation with Hans-Joerg was interesting, in addition to being an all around fascinating character,he's a historical researcher with a world renowned expertise regarding the printing press. However we really didn't conflict much in our view or conversation, we both turned out to be social welfare leftists and Buddhist leaning religious skeptics, so I can't really claim the conversation as a greatly educational experience, though I do appropriate meeting someone who shares such a similar world view to mine. Aside from this, I can really only say that spending the entire day studying at Cafe Central showed me that the reports I've herd that European cafes allow their customers to spend as much time relaxing as they'd like is somewhat exaggerated. If you stay passed the end of your waiter's shift, they do tend to get a little annoyed at you. I left the Cafe at around 7pm, ending what had been a very pleasant but routine day.
Unlike Tuesday, Wednesday was anything but retinue. Our class met up on a bus at 9am to embark on a three day tour of the Austrian alps and the surrounding countryside, but first we planned to stop off in a small town called Eisenstat to see some of the historical sites around the town. The first thing we toured in Eisenstat was the a grandiose late renaissance style place, that served as they summer home of the powerful Esterhazy family, who ruled over the area during the Habsburg regime. The Esterhazy family were a family of Hungarian nobles who served as bankers to the Habsburg emperors, in addition to further distinguishing themselves to the Habsburg dynasty by showing an intense loyalty to the Habsburg family. The Esterhazy were thus reward with great wealth and vasts lands, such as the city of Eisenstat.
But as impressive as the Esterhazy's palace was, it wasn't the only important site in Eisenstate. In addition to the palace, the town housed an elaborately constructed Baroque church, build to resemble Golgotha, the mountain Jesus was said to be crucified on. The building itself had the shape of an upward spiraling hill, as it sloped upward into a very distinct dome like shape. Despite it's over the top appearance, the unusual design of the church is actually quite functional if one views the church as a pilgrimage site. As one walks through the church, one see's statues at various stations through the structure that depict various scenes from Christ's life, with a focus on the passion story. The various statues and artistic depictions are ordered in such as way that if one were to view them in order, one would climb up the winding set of stair cases and climb higher and higher while watching the story of the passion play out, so that a visitor to the Church reenacts Christ's final trial, the assent up Golgotha, while contemplating the story of the passion through the art depicting it. The combination of the artwork, architectural design, and religious themes were all very intentional, as the church was specifically constructed in hopes of becoming a site of religious pilgrimage. Indeed, the effort was very successful, as the church developed a reputation for being a grate pilgrimage site during the Baroque period, and it still remains a popular site for religious pilgrimage in Austria today.
Aside from being a popular pilgrimage site, the church is historically important at the final resting place of Joseph Haydn, as well as a display of the Esterhazy families power and wealth. The Esterhazy family employed Haydn as a court musician for many years, and sometime after he died, the Esterhazy decided they wanted him to be buried close to their center of power in Eisenstat, however sometime between his small funeral in Vienna and the Esterhazy's petition to move Haydn' remains his head had gone missing. Apparently grave robbers had stolen the composers head the the behest of a contemporary researching trying to discover the source of musical talent in the shape of people's heads. After a long and sorted drama, the head of Haydn somehow ended up in the possession of a Vienna based group called the Society of the Friends of Music, while the body of Haydn rested with the Esterhazy. In order to try to coax the Society of the Friends of Music into returning the head, the Esterhazy paid for a very elaborate and beautiful tomb to be build for the composer, however the Society was unmoved, leaving a very beautiful but unused tomb in the aforementioned church. Years latter, the situation was resolved, and Haydn's head was reunited with his body in the tomb the Esterhazy had made for him, but this was accomplished only after years of posturing.
The last landmark that we visited before heading up to the Alps was also tied to the wealth of the Esterhazy family, however it was much less fantastic than the Baroque church and it's colorful history. After the church, we moved on the Jewish museum, build inside a massive Jewish ghetto of Eisenstat. The Esterhazy were bankers to the Habsburgs, but religious law forbid Christian from collecting interest from other Christians, meaning that Jews had to play an important role in banking and finance during this period of European history. But despite the important roles Jews placed in banking, antisemitism in the medieval and early modern period were often extreme, and Jewish populations were often driven away. Vienna, for example, expelled it's Jewish population several times during the early modern period. The Jewish ghetto in Eisenstat is different because the Jews were never expelled under the Esterhazy family, and the city retained a large Jewish population until the Nazi's took power in the 20th century. Our tour to the Jewish museum seemed to suggest that this may have been due to the Esterhazy's reliance on a Jewish community for banking. The museum and attached prayer house were build into a the remaining home of a very prominent Jewish man, how served the Esterhazy family as their court financier. His portrait hung on a wall, and our tour guide commented that his position allowed him to become a founder for the Jewish community in Eisenstat.
Form there, we continued on with our tour, eventually visiting the Jewish grave yard before continuing on to our hostel in the Alps. As we left the town, I took the time to study the passing area from the bus window, and I realized that everything I was seeing was somehow tied to a politically important family allied with the Habsburg dynasty. Seeing this helped me to realized just how much power the empire really had during it's reign.
I'm skipping over Tuesday in my blog because I simply didn't do anything very eventful or interesting. I realized that our trip was about half way over, and that we were going to be leaving for the Alps on Wednesday, so I decided to spend the day catching up on reading and school work I had been putting off to explore Vienna and the surrounding area. After I got out of class, I had lunch with Hans-Joerg, a friend of Kathy's that I had met during the program. We discussed topics ranging from politics to religion, before I left to spend the rest of the day studying at Vienna's famous Cafe Central. My conversation with Hans-Joerg was interesting, in addition to being an all around fascinating character,he's a historical researcher with a world renowned expertise regarding the printing press. However we really didn't conflict much in our view or conversation, we both turned out to be social welfare leftists and Buddhist leaning religious skeptics, so I can't really claim the conversation as a greatly educational experience, though I do appropriate meeting someone who shares such a similar world view to mine. Aside from this, I can really only say that spending the entire day studying at Cafe Central showed me that the reports I've herd that European cafes allow their customers to spend as much time relaxing as they'd like is somewhat exaggerated. If you stay passed the end of your waiter's shift, they do tend to get a little annoyed at you. I left the Cafe at around 7pm, ending what had been a very pleasant but routine day.
Unlike Tuesday, Wednesday was anything but retinue. Our class met up on a bus at 9am to embark on a three day tour of the Austrian alps and the surrounding countryside, but first we planned to stop off in a small town called Eisenstat to see some of the historical sites around the town. The first thing we toured in Eisenstat was the a grandiose late renaissance style place, that served as they summer home of the powerful Esterhazy family, who ruled over the area during the Habsburg regime. The Esterhazy family were a family of Hungarian nobles who served as bankers to the Habsburg emperors, in addition to further distinguishing themselves to the Habsburg dynasty by showing an intense loyalty to the Habsburg family. The Esterhazy were thus reward with great wealth and vasts lands, such as the city of Eisenstat.
But as impressive as the Esterhazy's palace was, it wasn't the only important site in Eisenstate. In addition to the palace, the town housed an elaborately constructed Baroque church, build to resemble Golgotha, the mountain Jesus was said to be crucified on. The building itself had the shape of an upward spiraling hill, as it sloped upward into a very distinct dome like shape. Despite it's over the top appearance, the unusual design of the church is actually quite functional if one views the church as a pilgrimage site. As one walks through the church, one see's statues at various stations through the structure that depict various scenes from Christ's life, with a focus on the passion story. The various statues and artistic depictions are ordered in such as way that if one were to view them in order, one would climb up the winding set of stair cases and climb higher and higher while watching the story of the passion play out, so that a visitor to the Church reenacts Christ's final trial, the assent up Golgotha, while contemplating the story of the passion through the art depicting it. The combination of the artwork, architectural design, and religious themes were all very intentional, as the church was specifically constructed in hopes of becoming a site of religious pilgrimage. Indeed, the effort was very successful, as the church developed a reputation for being a grate pilgrimage site during the Baroque period, and it still remains a popular site for religious pilgrimage in Austria today.
Aside from being a popular pilgrimage site, the church is historically important at the final resting place of Joseph Haydn, as well as a display of the Esterhazy families power and wealth. The Esterhazy family employed Haydn as a court musician for many years, and sometime after he died, the Esterhazy decided they wanted him to be buried close to their center of power in Eisenstat, however sometime between his small funeral in Vienna and the Esterhazy's petition to move Haydn' remains his head had gone missing. Apparently grave robbers had stolen the composers head the the behest of a contemporary researching trying to discover the source of musical talent in the shape of people's heads. After a long and sorted drama, the head of Haydn somehow ended up in the possession of a Vienna based group called the Society of the Friends of Music, while the body of Haydn rested with the Esterhazy. In order to try to coax the Society of the Friends of Music into returning the head, the Esterhazy paid for a very elaborate and beautiful tomb to be build for the composer, however the Society was unmoved, leaving a very beautiful but unused tomb in the aforementioned church. Years latter, the situation was resolved, and Haydn's head was reunited with his body in the tomb the Esterhazy had made for him, but this was accomplished only after years of posturing.
The last landmark that we visited before heading up to the Alps was also tied to the wealth of the Esterhazy family, however it was much less fantastic than the Baroque church and it's colorful history. After the church, we moved on the Jewish museum, build inside a massive Jewish ghetto of Eisenstat. The Esterhazy were bankers to the Habsburgs, but religious law forbid Christian from collecting interest from other Christians, meaning that Jews had to play an important role in banking and finance during this period of European history. But despite the important roles Jews placed in banking, antisemitism in the medieval and early modern period were often extreme, and Jewish populations were often driven away. Vienna, for example, expelled it's Jewish population several times during the early modern period. The Jewish ghetto in Eisenstat is different because the Jews were never expelled under the Esterhazy family, and the city retained a large Jewish population until the Nazi's took power in the 20th century. Our tour to the Jewish museum seemed to suggest that this may have been due to the Esterhazy's reliance on a Jewish community for banking. The museum and attached prayer house were build into a the remaining home of a very prominent Jewish man, how served the Esterhazy family as their court financier. His portrait hung on a wall, and our tour guide commented that his position allowed him to become a founder for the Jewish community in Eisenstat.
Form there, we continued on with our tour, eventually visiting the Jewish grave yard before continuing on to our hostel in the Alps. As we left the town, I took the time to study the passing area from the bus window, and I realized that everything I was seeing was somehow tied to a politically important family allied with the Habsburg dynasty. Seeing this helped me to realized just how much power the empire really had during it's reign.
Monday, August 27, 2012
Visit to the Neue Burg branch of the Kunsthistoriches Museum
August 13th 2012
I was exhausted after completing the 25 mile bike ride I described in Saturday's post, to spend Sunday resting and recovering in my apartment while catching up on some much needed schoolwork. After taking Sunday off I was feeling better, so I decided to meet up with some of my fellow bikers and explore some of the cities museums that we would not have time as a group to explore as a class. I chose to accompany some of my classmates on a trip to the Kunsthistoriches museum's collection of historical arms, armor, and musical instruments at the museum's Neue Burg extension simply out of a fascination with medieval knights and combat. Sure enough, the exhibit lived up to my greatest expectations. The arms and amour display held pieces of amour and weaponry from the medieval, renaissance, and early modern periods, including both displays of both functional and parade military gear.
The first thing I noticed upon examining the armor was it was made to fit very small warriors. The average piece of amour looked like it would fit a modern day 10 year old, provided that 10 year old had a slim build and was in very good athletic shape. All the pieces of amour had a very clear inward curve, meaning that they could only be worn by men with a V shaped waist. The amour was crafted this way because people were simply smaller at the time, due to poorer nutritional standards. The amour appeared to be made for smaller people, but the weapons on display were surprisingly bigger than expected. The handles seemed a little bit on the small side, but the sizes of the blades on some of the weapons approached 5 or more feet in some circumstances. The contrast between the small armor and larger weapons makes the high physical requirements of contemporary military service glearingly apparent. It would take quite a bit of strength, stamina, and training to control and fight with a five foot long blade over the course of a prolonged battle, but the fact that someone the size of an older child would need to muster that kind of strength is truly mind blogging for me.
I was much less interested in the music exhibit than the arms and armor exhibit, but it was entertaining to explore nonetheless. A few of the oldest pieces of musical equipment dated back to ancient Rome, but most were from either the renaissance, or the Baroque period with its accompany explosion of musical talent in Vienna. The information provided by the museum indicated that what kinds of musical equipment were used and in what circumstances, for example explaining if something was used primarily for church or common street music, or if a particular instrument was popular with nobility, or was played in the kinds of music played at the royal court. As I explored the music exhibit, it appeared that almost all of the musical instruments were featured in courtly music at one time or another, and furthermore suggesting that becoming popular with nobility help to preserve instruments, as more musical pieces were written for courtly instruments, ensuring them a sort of longevity.
I found the lack of focus on popular music to be interesting, because it seemed to indicate that culture and fashion were organized from the top down, with high society dictating what is popular and what is used or kept up. This is in contrast to our modern day consumer culture, were mass consumerism gives common tastes a fair bit of cultural power, so I became interested in investigating this more. I found additional evidence for a top town cultural organization by looking at the trends in fashion in armor, particularly in parade dress. The styles used in arms and amour were made to resemble contemporary fashions worn at court. For example, in the era of the Spanish Hapsburgs, a type of armor smiting that exposed the iron to extremely high temperatures called bluing came into practice because it gave the amour's metal a blue or black appearance. At the same time, the Hapsburgs popularized Spanish fashion at court, which consisted of plain suits consisting of high quality black fabrics.
Trends in music and amour suggest that noble culture was the primary area of cultural development, and that popular culture did not have much effect on fashions or music. I suspect that the historical reason for this trend has to do with money. As I described earlier, money plays a strong role in determining what is culturally significant today, and I suspect the same was true in past. I know that, in general, wealth was much more concentrated in the hands of the elite than it is in the modern era, so in terms of money and buying power, the common citizen may every well have had no voice to speak with. Regardless of what the facts may be, examining the exhibits on armor and music has given me a lot to think about regarding the way culture was shaped in the early modern and medieval periods.
I was exhausted after completing the 25 mile bike ride I described in Saturday's post, to spend Sunday resting and recovering in my apartment while catching up on some much needed schoolwork. After taking Sunday off I was feeling better, so I decided to meet up with some of my fellow bikers and explore some of the cities museums that we would not have time as a group to explore as a class. I chose to accompany some of my classmates on a trip to the Kunsthistoriches museum's collection of historical arms, armor, and musical instruments at the museum's Neue Burg extension simply out of a fascination with medieval knights and combat. Sure enough, the exhibit lived up to my greatest expectations. The arms and amour display held pieces of amour and weaponry from the medieval, renaissance, and early modern periods, including both displays of both functional and parade military gear.
The first thing I noticed upon examining the armor was it was made to fit very small warriors. The average piece of amour looked like it would fit a modern day 10 year old, provided that 10 year old had a slim build and was in very good athletic shape. All the pieces of amour had a very clear inward curve, meaning that they could only be worn by men with a V shaped waist. The amour was crafted this way because people were simply smaller at the time, due to poorer nutritional standards. The amour appeared to be made for smaller people, but the weapons on display were surprisingly bigger than expected. The handles seemed a little bit on the small side, but the sizes of the blades on some of the weapons approached 5 or more feet in some circumstances. The contrast between the small armor and larger weapons makes the high physical requirements of contemporary military service glearingly apparent. It would take quite a bit of strength, stamina, and training to control and fight with a five foot long blade over the course of a prolonged battle, but the fact that someone the size of an older child would need to muster that kind of strength is truly mind blogging for me.
I was much less interested in the music exhibit than the arms and armor exhibit, but it was entertaining to explore nonetheless. A few of the oldest pieces of musical equipment dated back to ancient Rome, but most were from either the renaissance, or the Baroque period with its accompany explosion of musical talent in Vienna. The information provided by the museum indicated that what kinds of musical equipment were used and in what circumstances, for example explaining if something was used primarily for church or common street music, or if a particular instrument was popular with nobility, or was played in the kinds of music played at the royal court. As I explored the music exhibit, it appeared that almost all of the musical instruments were featured in courtly music at one time or another, and furthermore suggesting that becoming popular with nobility help to preserve instruments, as more musical pieces were written for courtly instruments, ensuring them a sort of longevity.
I found the lack of focus on popular music to be interesting, because it seemed to indicate that culture and fashion were organized from the top down, with high society dictating what is popular and what is used or kept up. This is in contrast to our modern day consumer culture, were mass consumerism gives common tastes a fair bit of cultural power, so I became interested in investigating this more. I found additional evidence for a top town cultural organization by looking at the trends in fashion in armor, particularly in parade dress. The styles used in arms and amour were made to resemble contemporary fashions worn at court. For example, in the era of the Spanish Hapsburgs, a type of armor smiting that exposed the iron to extremely high temperatures called bluing came into practice because it gave the amour's metal a blue or black appearance. At the same time, the Hapsburgs popularized Spanish fashion at court, which consisted of plain suits consisting of high quality black fabrics.
Trends in music and amour suggest that noble culture was the primary area of cultural development, and that popular culture did not have much effect on fashions or music. I suspect that the historical reason for this trend has to do with money. As I described earlier, money plays a strong role in determining what is culturally significant today, and I suspect the same was true in past. I know that, in general, wealth was much more concentrated in the hands of the elite than it is in the modern era, so in terms of money and buying power, the common citizen may every well have had no voice to speak with. Regardless of what the facts may be, examining the exhibits on armor and music has given me a lot to think about regarding the way culture was shaped in the early modern and medieval periods.
Saturday, August 25, 2012
25 Mile Bike ride to Durnstein
August 11th 2012
It's Saturday today, so I didn't have class, and there were no actives planned for our study aboard group for the weekend. We were all free in Vienna for an extended period of time, and everyone in my class was scrambling to come up with something fun to do. A group of people chose to go to Prague for the weekend, but all they would really have time to do was hit the bars, and I didn't really feet it would be worth the train fare just to part for the weekend. So, against my better judgement, I decided to join a group that was going out on a bike ride along the Danube river in order to visit Durnstein, the castle in which king Richard the lion-heart of England was held captive on his return for the crusades. I was very reluctant to go on this excursion at first, because I'm not exactly in marathon shape. I've been obese since I was in grade school, and I haven't ridden my bicycle in Davis for at least 12 months, but two of my classmates convinced me that I could do it, as the biking gang would break up into different speed groups so less skilled people could still come.
I wasn't entirely persuaded, but I was deeply enthralled with the history of king Richard and his captivity at Durnstein that I decided to go ahead and risk whatever humiliation or physical aliments might result from biking 25 miles. I first learned about Richard the Lionheart in a previous history class at Davis. I instantly found the personality that I could infer from his actions and history to be immensely likable. I fancied him to be somewhat similar to a medieval Teddy Roosevelt, charging in to fight in the crusades himself, despite his high social status and wealth. He was greatly successful in his military campaign, but he was captured in Austria on his return as part of a diplomatic diabolical. According to Pearson Cultural History of Austria, Richard removed the heraldry or an Austrian noble during his the siege of Arce. The noble apparently never quite got over the insult and imprisoned him in Durnstein castle, demanding a ransom so large from his acting regnant Prince John, that it nearly bankrupted the English crown (In fact the ransom was so large the that Prince John's efforts to raise it cast him in the role of the tyrannical Prince John in the Robin Hood Legend). The history is fascinating, but I'll also admit that I favor Richard in part because of his sexuality. There is a great deal of evidence to support that Kind Richard was a homosexual, such as a tale of a male troubadour known as Blondle (German for Blondy, the man was known for having long locks of golden hair ) searching all over Europe for Richard during his imprisonment (Pearsons 131). Being a gay historian myself, I'm especially found of how Richard's heroic warrior image contrasts with the often negative effeminate stereotype applied to gay men today, and I've come to be a fan of the English king because I see him potentially positive gay historical figure. So, in this spirit, I decided to put my fears aside and follow in the footsteps of Blondle, as I set out for Durnstein in search of King Richard's history.
Our group woke up early to rent bicycles for out trip, before taking the train up form Vienna to Milck. We briefly toured the Baroque monastery before setting out on the bike trail, along some of the most beautiful Austrian countryside I have ever seen. We were biking through farm land for a good portion of the trip, and I even had the opportunity to by apricot jam and even apricot brandy at a local farm-side stand. About two hours into our bike ride, we stopped at a wine garden, where we were able to sample more local brandy, made from apricots and walnuts. We continued until we found an the ruins of an old castle, known as hinter-hold, unexpectedly. We decided to get off our bikes and hike up a small trail and explore the castle. It was a great deal of physical work to climb up the uneven steps and unsteady rock work to see the castle, but it was well worth it, as the view was incredible. We continued on for another hour before stopping for lunch at a lovely beer garden in a small Austrian country town. We were fortunate enough to sit down just as a local band was playing at the beer garden, so we got to enjoy our lunch in a traditional beer garden to traditional Austrian classical music. It was truly a wonderful experience. From there it was only another hour and a half ride trough beautiful countryside before reaching Durnstein.
At this point, I was exhausted from the trip, as we had biked at least 4 hours, and had gone up one hike to see castle hinter-hold. I was not pleased to discover that from the town at the base of the mountain, the hike of to Durnstein was harder. There must have been at least 2000 of what could lonely be called stairs in the most liberal sense of the word. The stone steps up to the Durnstein ruin were worn to the point of being complete uneven, and at parts, unsteady and unsafe, resembling more of a step rocky hiking trail than stairs. However, after what must have been 20 minutes of exhausted climbing, I managed to make it to the top of Durnstien, where I saw the cell where Richard was held prisoner, as well as the keep overlooking the entire valley below.
I took a while to savor the view before climbing back down and completing the additional hour bike ride to the train station that would take us back to Vienna. In the end, I managed to endure a 25 mile bike ride, and 2 mountain hikes in a single day. That may not be very impressive to most people, but for someone in my physical shape, it was quite the accomplishment. I managed to do everything on the trip, and until the very last stretch of the trip, I had no trouble keeping up with everyone else on their bikes. I concluded the day with a great feeling of pride in myself, and a new found sense of what I could accomplish physically (in addition to a great deal of pain of course). I look forward to seeing what other new challenges I can overcome during my time in Austria, as well as the knew places I'll have the opportunity to see and explore.
It's Saturday today, so I didn't have class, and there were no actives planned for our study aboard group for the weekend. We were all free in Vienna for an extended period of time, and everyone in my class was scrambling to come up with something fun to do. A group of people chose to go to Prague for the weekend, but all they would really have time to do was hit the bars, and I didn't really feet it would be worth the train fare just to part for the weekend. So, against my better judgement, I decided to join a group that was going out on a bike ride along the Danube river in order to visit Durnstein, the castle in which king Richard the lion-heart of England was held captive on his return for the crusades. I was very reluctant to go on this excursion at first, because I'm not exactly in marathon shape. I've been obese since I was in grade school, and I haven't ridden my bicycle in Davis for at least 12 months, but two of my classmates convinced me that I could do it, as the biking gang would break up into different speed groups so less skilled people could still come.
I wasn't entirely persuaded, but I was deeply enthralled with the history of king Richard and his captivity at Durnstein that I decided to go ahead and risk whatever humiliation or physical aliments might result from biking 25 miles. I first learned about Richard the Lionheart in a previous history class at Davis. I instantly found the personality that I could infer from his actions and history to be immensely likable. I fancied him to be somewhat similar to a medieval Teddy Roosevelt, charging in to fight in the crusades himself, despite his high social status and wealth. He was greatly successful in his military campaign, but he was captured in Austria on his return as part of a diplomatic diabolical. According to Pearson Cultural History of Austria, Richard removed the heraldry or an Austrian noble during his the siege of Arce. The noble apparently never quite got over the insult and imprisoned him in Durnstein castle, demanding a ransom so large from his acting regnant Prince John, that it nearly bankrupted the English crown (In fact the ransom was so large the that Prince John's efforts to raise it cast him in the role of the tyrannical Prince John in the Robin Hood Legend). The history is fascinating, but I'll also admit that I favor Richard in part because of his sexuality. There is a great deal of evidence to support that Kind Richard was a homosexual, such as a tale of a male troubadour known as Blondle (German for Blondy, the man was known for having long locks of golden hair ) searching all over Europe for Richard during his imprisonment (Pearsons 131). Being a gay historian myself, I'm especially found of how Richard's heroic warrior image contrasts with the often negative effeminate stereotype applied to gay men today, and I've come to be a fan of the English king because I see him potentially positive gay historical figure. So, in this spirit, I decided to put my fears aside and follow in the footsteps of Blondle, as I set out for Durnstein in search of King Richard's history.
Our group woke up early to rent bicycles for out trip, before taking the train up form Vienna to Milck. We briefly toured the Baroque monastery before setting out on the bike trail, along some of the most beautiful Austrian countryside I have ever seen. We were biking through farm land for a good portion of the trip, and I even had the opportunity to by apricot jam and even apricot brandy at a local farm-side stand. About two hours into our bike ride, we stopped at a wine garden, where we were able to sample more local brandy, made from apricots and walnuts. We continued until we found an the ruins of an old castle, known as hinter-hold, unexpectedly. We decided to get off our bikes and hike up a small trail and explore the castle. It was a great deal of physical work to climb up the uneven steps and unsteady rock work to see the castle, but it was well worth it, as the view was incredible. We continued on for another hour before stopping for lunch at a lovely beer garden in a small Austrian country town. We were fortunate enough to sit down just as a local band was playing at the beer garden, so we got to enjoy our lunch in a traditional beer garden to traditional Austrian classical music. It was truly a wonderful experience. From there it was only another hour and a half ride trough beautiful countryside before reaching Durnstein.
At this point, I was exhausted from the trip, as we had biked at least 4 hours, and had gone up one hike to see castle hinter-hold. I was not pleased to discover that from the town at the base of the mountain, the hike of to Durnstein was harder. There must have been at least 2000 of what could lonely be called stairs in the most liberal sense of the word. The stone steps up to the Durnstein ruin were worn to the point of being complete uneven, and at parts, unsteady and unsafe, resembling more of a step rocky hiking trail than stairs. However, after what must have been 20 minutes of exhausted climbing, I managed to make it to the top of Durnstien, where I saw the cell where Richard was held prisoner, as well as the keep overlooking the entire valley below.
I took a while to savor the view before climbing back down and completing the additional hour bike ride to the train station that would take us back to Vienna. In the end, I managed to endure a 25 mile bike ride, and 2 mountain hikes in a single day. That may not be very impressive to most people, but for someone in my physical shape, it was quite the accomplishment. I managed to do everything on the trip, and until the very last stretch of the trip, I had no trouble keeping up with everyone else on their bikes. I concluded the day with a great feeling of pride in myself, and a new found sense of what I could accomplish physically (in addition to a great deal of pain of course). I look forward to seeing what other new challenges I can overcome during my time in Austria, as well as the knew places I'll have the opportunity to see and explore.
Museum Tours and Thomas Frankl Presentation.
August 10th 2012
Class was pushed back until 4pm today because we were going to have a special guest speaker talk about this experience living through the holocaust. I wanted to make sure that I had enough of a background to understand the presentation and ask good questions, so I decided to take of our free time at the beginning of the day to explore the Jewish museum in hopes of learning more about the experience of the Viennese Jews during the holocaust, so I went out with my roommate Eric, and we managed to make it to the museum by noon.
The Jewish museum sits on the ringstrasse, just a short walk from St. Steven's Cathedral. The museum is in a rather small and unimpressive building, but it had three stories of displays, so there was plenty to see. The exhibits were up set up so that visitors climb to the third floor first, then visit the displays as they descent toward the exit. I found the first exhibit on the first floor to be extremely enjoyable, and I was able to infer a great deal of historical knowledge from investigating it carefully. The exhibit displayed a great deal of Jewish religious artifacts used directly in or associated with Jewish liturgy. The objects on display included gold and sliver candle holders and menorahs, gold and sliver rods used for reading religious text (one can not touch the Torah, so implements are used whenever it must be manipulated), along with varies assortments of decorative jewelry and textiles. I was eager to see these things because I was curious how Jewish liturgical objects compared to the lavishly decorated finery used in Catholic worship, which I have been seeing commonly on display since my arrival in Vienna. The Jewish objects seemed to be comparable in ornateness to medieval Catholic relics, but paled in comparison to Baroque liturgical objects, which tend to be far more ornate and complex in design. While I was examining these things, I wondered how these religious objects might be perceived by the contemporary non-Jewish inhabitants of Vienna. I know that Jewish religious practice was kept out of sight and underground by order of the Hapsburg monarchy, so it might be doubtful that Christians would have ever seen this objects, as Jewish synagogues were disguised, or prayer houses were often kept in private homes of Jewish residents. At the same time, I wondering if the rumors and prejudices that Jews carried secret stashes of gold could have stemmed from religious artifacts like these. If a Jewish community in Vienna had pooled their money to furnish gold and sliver for a community prayer house in a private citizens home, it's possible the Christians merchants might grow suspicious of large quantities of gold and silver being shipped to one person's private home. This is all just speculation, but I was nonetheless impressed that an underground religion managed to amass such a rich collection of liturgical objects.
Sadly, that speculation was the best history I was able to muster out of the Jewish museum. The last two floors were devoted to modern art exhibits amassed or created by prominent Jew's in Vienna. They touched on subjects such as sexuality through the life cycle, and exhibitionism as art, but nothing was of historical value. However, there was one art piece I enjoyed. It was a stair case made of of electrical speakers that played the sound of someone walking down on each step's speaker. As I stood at the foot of the display and herd the sound of boots walking forcefully down wooden stairs I envisioned an S.S. officer patrolling for hidden Jews, as it reminded me of a scene from Ann Frank's diary. I was unable to find out if that was the indeed purpose of the piece, as it was described only in German, but I don't mind not knowing, as I like my person take on the art piece perfectly well.
When I finished with the museum, I still had quite a bit of time before class, so I decided to revisit the national art museum that I visited the day before with Dr. O., before going on to the natural history museum. In the art museum, I took the time to examine the wall paintings, which were done by a very famous Viennese artist name Klimt very earlier into his career. I quickly explored the Greek and Egyptian art museums before briefly exploring the natural science museum's display of animal's and animal fossils. I think I saw a stuffed Tasmanian tiger, an animal that went extinct in the 19th century, on display there!
After the museums, it was time to attend class to here Thomas Frankl describe his experience of the holocaust first hand. Frankl's holocaust story is of particular interest because it is unlike most of the holocaust stories I have seen before, because Frankl was only 9 years old when he Jews were being deported from Vienna. His age makes his personal story rather rare, as most children under the age of 15 were killed upon arriving at a concentration camp, but Frankl was able to survive the holocaust due to the bravery of his mother, who tricked the Nazis into letter her and her family go. Frankl's mother told the Nazi's working on the train platform where the Jewish deportations were organized that she was a roman catholic women looking for her husband, who had been mistaking captured as a Jew. The Nazi believed her, and allowed her to leave the camp with her children, however Frankl's father was deported to a concentration camp.
Frankl went on to describe what it was like living in hiding during the Nazi regime. He explained to our class that his family was first taken in by a convent of nouns, and then latter by a caring christian family that protected the family from Nazis and even civilians that sympathized with the Nazi's cause. Frankl said that his family had to dress him up as a girl during this period because if people saw a boy walking around a convent or in the home of a family that only had daughters, it could tip off a Nazi search party. But this state of terror and hiding did not last forever, as Frankl was eventually found and liberated by Russian soldiers, and his family was able to return to the home they had had before the holocaust, where he was eventually reunited with his father, who survived the holocaust.
I'm very personally thankful to Frankl for sharing this very emotional personal story with our class because I feel like it provided us with a very rare look into the aspects of spying that made the holocaust possible. I could never quite figure out how exactly the Nazi's managed to find and deport so many European Jews. I was always wondering why more Jews were not more successful at hiding, or disguising themselves as Austrians or Germans, especially urban Jewish community like the one in Vienna, who were much more secular and integrated than rural Jewish populations. Frankl's story revealed that people were commonly watching and reporting on each other during this period. Frakl said his father found out that his family was turned in by the janitor who worked in their apartment building, after the man returned and begged for his father's forgiveness. This information leads me to believe that the Austrian population at the time of the holocaust most have been, at least at a very large scale, very compliant in, and aware of what was happening to the Jews. It simply could not have taken place without a large network of people watching and reporting what people were doing. Everyone already knew who was Jewish before Hitler came to power, and reported those families when asked to by the Nazis.
Class was pushed back until 4pm today because we were going to have a special guest speaker talk about this experience living through the holocaust. I wanted to make sure that I had enough of a background to understand the presentation and ask good questions, so I decided to take of our free time at the beginning of the day to explore the Jewish museum in hopes of learning more about the experience of the Viennese Jews during the holocaust, so I went out with my roommate Eric, and we managed to make it to the museum by noon.
The Jewish museum sits on the ringstrasse, just a short walk from St. Steven's Cathedral. The museum is in a rather small and unimpressive building, but it had three stories of displays, so there was plenty to see. The exhibits were up set up so that visitors climb to the third floor first, then visit the displays as they descent toward the exit. I found the first exhibit on the first floor to be extremely enjoyable, and I was able to infer a great deal of historical knowledge from investigating it carefully. The exhibit displayed a great deal of Jewish religious artifacts used directly in or associated with Jewish liturgy. The objects on display included gold and sliver candle holders and menorahs, gold and sliver rods used for reading religious text (one can not touch the Torah, so implements are used whenever it must be manipulated), along with varies assortments of decorative jewelry and textiles. I was eager to see these things because I was curious how Jewish liturgical objects compared to the lavishly decorated finery used in Catholic worship, which I have been seeing commonly on display since my arrival in Vienna. The Jewish objects seemed to be comparable in ornateness to medieval Catholic relics, but paled in comparison to Baroque liturgical objects, which tend to be far more ornate and complex in design. While I was examining these things, I wondered how these religious objects might be perceived by the contemporary non-Jewish inhabitants of Vienna. I know that Jewish religious practice was kept out of sight and underground by order of the Hapsburg monarchy, so it might be doubtful that Christians would have ever seen this objects, as Jewish synagogues were disguised, or prayer houses were often kept in private homes of Jewish residents. At the same time, I wondering if the rumors and prejudices that Jews carried secret stashes of gold could have stemmed from religious artifacts like these. If a Jewish community in Vienna had pooled their money to furnish gold and sliver for a community prayer house in a private citizens home, it's possible the Christians merchants might grow suspicious of large quantities of gold and silver being shipped to one person's private home. This is all just speculation, but I was nonetheless impressed that an underground religion managed to amass such a rich collection of liturgical objects.
Sadly, that speculation was the best history I was able to muster out of the Jewish museum. The last two floors were devoted to modern art exhibits amassed or created by prominent Jew's in Vienna. They touched on subjects such as sexuality through the life cycle, and exhibitionism as art, but nothing was of historical value. However, there was one art piece I enjoyed. It was a stair case made of of electrical speakers that played the sound of someone walking down on each step's speaker. As I stood at the foot of the display and herd the sound of boots walking forcefully down wooden stairs I envisioned an S.S. officer patrolling for hidden Jews, as it reminded me of a scene from Ann Frank's diary. I was unable to find out if that was the indeed purpose of the piece, as it was described only in German, but I don't mind not knowing, as I like my person take on the art piece perfectly well.
When I finished with the museum, I still had quite a bit of time before class, so I decided to revisit the national art museum that I visited the day before with Dr. O., before going on to the natural history museum. In the art museum, I took the time to examine the wall paintings, which were done by a very famous Viennese artist name Klimt very earlier into his career. I quickly explored the Greek and Egyptian art museums before briefly exploring the natural science museum's display of animal's and animal fossils. I think I saw a stuffed Tasmanian tiger, an animal that went extinct in the 19th century, on display there!
After the museums, it was time to attend class to here Thomas Frankl describe his experience of the holocaust first hand. Frankl's holocaust story is of particular interest because it is unlike most of the holocaust stories I have seen before, because Frankl was only 9 years old when he Jews were being deported from Vienna. His age makes his personal story rather rare, as most children under the age of 15 were killed upon arriving at a concentration camp, but Frankl was able to survive the holocaust due to the bravery of his mother, who tricked the Nazis into letter her and her family go. Frankl's mother told the Nazi's working on the train platform where the Jewish deportations were organized that she was a roman catholic women looking for her husband, who had been mistaking captured as a Jew. The Nazi believed her, and allowed her to leave the camp with her children, however Frankl's father was deported to a concentration camp.
Frankl went on to describe what it was like living in hiding during the Nazi regime. He explained to our class that his family was first taken in by a convent of nouns, and then latter by a caring christian family that protected the family from Nazis and even civilians that sympathized with the Nazi's cause. Frankl said that his family had to dress him up as a girl during this period because if people saw a boy walking around a convent or in the home of a family that only had daughters, it could tip off a Nazi search party. But this state of terror and hiding did not last forever, as Frankl was eventually found and liberated by Russian soldiers, and his family was able to return to the home they had had before the holocaust, where he was eventually reunited with his father, who survived the holocaust.
I'm very personally thankful to Frankl for sharing this very emotional personal story with our class because I feel like it provided us with a very rare look into the aspects of spying that made the holocaust possible. I could never quite figure out how exactly the Nazi's managed to find and deport so many European Jews. I was always wondering why more Jews were not more successful at hiding, or disguising themselves as Austrians or Germans, especially urban Jewish community like the one in Vienna, who were much more secular and integrated than rural Jewish populations. Frankl's story revealed that people were commonly watching and reporting on each other during this period. Frakl said his father found out that his family was turned in by the janitor who worked in their apartment building, after the man returned and begged for his father's forgiveness. This information leads me to believe that the Austrian population at the time of the holocaust most have been, at least at a very large scale, very compliant in, and aware of what was happening to the Jews. It simply could not have taken place without a large network of people watching and reporting what people were doing. Everyone already knew who was Jewish before Hitler came to power, and reported those families when asked to by the Nazis.
Tuesday, August 21, 2012
Visit to the Kunsthistorische Museum with Dr. O.
August 9th 2012
Today, our class took another tour of Vienna's great art and architecture with Dr. O as we went to visit the Hapsburg's royal art collection in the Kunsthisorische museum, or more plainly, the national are history museum. The museum itself is one of two nearly identical neoclassical buildings that mirror each other across Maria Theresa square. The Kunsthisorsche's sister building is the national science museum, which holds the Hapsburg's dynasty collection of natural treasures such as fossils, rare geological rocks, and other such things. The contents of the are museum are much more historically relevant than the buildings themselves, however the fact that the Hapsburg's were so personalty wealthy that that it took two huge museums to house all the things that were not important enough to keep in their treasury (which is all in an other museum) is still a fact worth consideration.
Dr. O's tour gave us a personal look at a number of very famous paintings, including a number of original works by Renascence Masters such as Rapheal's Madonna of the Meadow, and works of another famous artist used inanimate objects to create faces. In fact, the Hapsburg's collection included so many of the famous pieces of art that I had recognized from books and paintings that I could barely go a few feet without recognizing something world famous. Despite the massive collection of artwork, Dr. O. had a limited amount of time, so she focused mainly on artwork relevant to the 16th and 17th century, as it's the period we are focusing on in our class. Two particular artists were very important for this time period, Rubin, a catholic painter who's art work played a major role in defining the Baroque style in art, and Rembrandt, a protestant painter who played a large role in defining the aesthetic and artwork of the Protestant reformation.
Rubin's art style is just what one would expect from the Baroque era, with its bombastic display of Church figures, and its emphases on the glory of God and the Catholic Church. The first thing one would notice about Rubin's art is that it is mostly very big, as in it looks like it was sized to be hung off of a large church wall (indeed, many of his works were made for church's to display in worship and during ceremonies). The next obvious feature of Rubin's works are that they use very bright colors, and have figures with often exaggerated or dramatic expressions and stances. Moving beyond the sensory level, Rubin's most prominent pieces of artwork feature important people, who are often doing important things. Rubin painted his fair share of rich nobles, however many of his paintings depict saints and angles, and often tell a church story of a miracle or explain the life of a saint.
Rembrandt, in contrast to Rubin, has a much more subdued style of painting. Rembrandt, and indeed Protestant artwork in general is much quieter than loud attention grabbing Baroque artwork of the Catholic counter reformation. Rembrandt tends to use dark colors in his work, often using a carefully balanced blends of blacks, grays, whites, and occasionally browns. This often stems from the subject matter of Rembrandt's works, which are often paintings of people of scenes of simple home life and everyday people. Unlike Rubin's works, Rembrandt's are about the size of what one would expect a typical painting to be, just a few feet in each dimension, rather than something that would take up a whole wall. There are also a lot less Rembrandt paintings than Rubin's simple because Rembrandt painted his own works, and Rubin had a workshop that produced Baroque works like a factory. Dr. O commented that every museum out there has a large Rubin collection because there are hundreds of "Rubin paintings" out there in the world. So in short, the artwork of Rembrandt and the protestant reformation are on a smaller scale than the Baroque.
This is not because Protestants had limited resources or had to hide their faith, there were plenty of Protestant nobles and Protestant lands in Europe. Instead, the difference in artwork reveals difference in sensibilities that I believe run to the core of both the protestant reformation and the catholic counter reformation. For example, Rubin's Baroque work reinforces the hierarchy of the Catholic Church and of the empire, as they either depict wealthy and powerful nobles in all their regalia and glory, or show the lives of divine Saints and other holy figures in the mist of divine glory and righteous greatness. Rubin's art makes important people in the Church and empire look as important, stately, divine, graceful, and fantastic as possible. Which are all great things to do in the Baroque periods when Catholics are trying to convince people that all the pomp and circumstance of the church, and all its associating powers, still matter.
Rembrandt's and other protestant works instead reflected the Protestant notation of equality implicit in the "priesthood of all believers" aspect of their faith by deeming everyday people and scenes of everyday life as being worthy of painting. There are no saints are super divine people to paint, as everyone is equal. Furthermore, the lack of bombastic style suggests that Protestant are sees no need to elevate people to a larger than live status through the use of art. Especially in the case of Rembrandt, there seems to be a deep reverence for humanity and the individual, as Rembrandt takes great care to express individual personality in his paintings. Dr. O described Rembrandt as being on of the great psychological painters of the world, and indeed, the subjects temperament, mood, and life story are expressed in his works in subtle ways that are complete absent from Baroque work.
Just from examining the artwork, it is possible to infer information about the great religious movements of the period. Luther wanted the freedom of Christians, meaning spiritual liberation from Church hierarchic, allowing people to have an individual level of religious worship. The Baroque art, on the other hand, seems determined to preserve social hierarchies by asserting the greatness of the high ranking church and secular rulers.
Today, our class took another tour of Vienna's great art and architecture with Dr. O as we went to visit the Hapsburg's royal art collection in the Kunsthisorische museum, or more plainly, the national are history museum. The museum itself is one of two nearly identical neoclassical buildings that mirror each other across Maria Theresa square. The Kunsthisorsche's sister building is the national science museum, which holds the Hapsburg's dynasty collection of natural treasures such as fossils, rare geological rocks, and other such things. The contents of the are museum are much more historically relevant than the buildings themselves, however the fact that the Hapsburg's were so personalty wealthy that that it took two huge museums to house all the things that were not important enough to keep in their treasury (which is all in an other museum) is still a fact worth consideration.
Dr. O's tour gave us a personal look at a number of very famous paintings, including a number of original works by Renascence Masters such as Rapheal's Madonna of the Meadow, and works of another famous artist used inanimate objects to create faces. In fact, the Hapsburg's collection included so many of the famous pieces of art that I had recognized from books and paintings that I could barely go a few feet without recognizing something world famous. Despite the massive collection of artwork, Dr. O. had a limited amount of time, so she focused mainly on artwork relevant to the 16th and 17th century, as it's the period we are focusing on in our class. Two particular artists were very important for this time period, Rubin, a catholic painter who's art work played a major role in defining the Baroque style in art, and Rembrandt, a protestant painter who played a large role in defining the aesthetic and artwork of the Protestant reformation.
Rubin's art style is just what one would expect from the Baroque era, with its bombastic display of Church figures, and its emphases on the glory of God and the Catholic Church. The first thing one would notice about Rubin's art is that it is mostly very big, as in it looks like it was sized to be hung off of a large church wall (indeed, many of his works were made for church's to display in worship and during ceremonies). The next obvious feature of Rubin's works are that they use very bright colors, and have figures with often exaggerated or dramatic expressions and stances. Moving beyond the sensory level, Rubin's most prominent pieces of artwork feature important people, who are often doing important things. Rubin painted his fair share of rich nobles, however many of his paintings depict saints and angles, and often tell a church story of a miracle or explain the life of a saint.
Rembrandt, in contrast to Rubin, has a much more subdued style of painting. Rembrandt, and indeed Protestant artwork in general is much quieter than loud attention grabbing Baroque artwork of the Catholic counter reformation. Rembrandt tends to use dark colors in his work, often using a carefully balanced blends of blacks, grays, whites, and occasionally browns. This often stems from the subject matter of Rembrandt's works, which are often paintings of people of scenes of simple home life and everyday people. Unlike Rubin's works, Rembrandt's are about the size of what one would expect a typical painting to be, just a few feet in each dimension, rather than something that would take up a whole wall. There are also a lot less Rembrandt paintings than Rubin's simple because Rembrandt painted his own works, and Rubin had a workshop that produced Baroque works like a factory. Dr. O commented that every museum out there has a large Rubin collection because there are hundreds of "Rubin paintings" out there in the world. So in short, the artwork of Rembrandt and the protestant reformation are on a smaller scale than the Baroque.
This is not because Protestants had limited resources or had to hide their faith, there were plenty of Protestant nobles and Protestant lands in Europe. Instead, the difference in artwork reveals difference in sensibilities that I believe run to the core of both the protestant reformation and the catholic counter reformation. For example, Rubin's Baroque work reinforces the hierarchy of the Catholic Church and of the empire, as they either depict wealthy and powerful nobles in all their regalia and glory, or show the lives of divine Saints and other holy figures in the mist of divine glory and righteous greatness. Rubin's art makes important people in the Church and empire look as important, stately, divine, graceful, and fantastic as possible. Which are all great things to do in the Baroque periods when Catholics are trying to convince people that all the pomp and circumstance of the church, and all its associating powers, still matter.
Rembrandt's and other protestant works instead reflected the Protestant notation of equality implicit in the "priesthood of all believers" aspect of their faith by deeming everyday people and scenes of everyday life as being worthy of painting. There are no saints are super divine people to paint, as everyone is equal. Furthermore, the lack of bombastic style suggests that Protestant are sees no need to elevate people to a larger than live status through the use of art. Especially in the case of Rembrandt, there seems to be a deep reverence for humanity and the individual, as Rembrandt takes great care to express individual personality in his paintings. Dr. O described Rembrandt as being on of the great psychological painters of the world, and indeed, the subjects temperament, mood, and life story are expressed in his works in subtle ways that are complete absent from Baroque work.
Just from examining the artwork, it is possible to infer information about the great religious movements of the period. Luther wanted the freedom of Christians, meaning spiritual liberation from Church hierarchic, allowing people to have an individual level of religious worship. The Baroque art, on the other hand, seems determined to preserve social hierarchies by asserting the greatness of the high ranking church and secular rulers.
Excursion to Klosterneuburg :Baroque Grandeur and the Relationship between The Church and the Empire
August 8th 2012
Today our class left Vienna for a field trip to the Augustinian Monastery of Klosteneuburg to learn more about Austria's ruling families, and to observe the amazing relics and treasures on display at the Monastery. Klosteneuburg is a very historically important site because it served as both the royal places of Austria's two royal families, the Babenburgs and the Hapsburgs. Klosteneuruburg was founded by Austria's patron saint, and Babenburg Margrave Leopold the Third (or St. Leopold) after he witnessed a miracle. During a hunting trip, Leopold found his wife's missing wedding veil hanging to a tree in a pristine condition after it had been missing for seven years. Convinced that the veil's miraculous preservation was a sign from God, Leopold built the foundation of Klosteneuburg over the very spot where he found his wife's veil. Leopold helped to develop and order of Cannons, and after a while moved his place of residence to Klosterneuburg, where the Babenburgs remained until the end of their reign. When the Hapsburg dynasty came to power, they ruled from Klosteneuburg, and even began renovating the monastery in a Baroque style. Charles the 6th began construction of a secular role place at Klosteneuburg, however it was never finished, as his daughter Maria Theresa stopped construction on the place when she came to power, deciding that she would rather have her place in Vienna.
When our class arrived at Klosteneuburg, much of the history of the monastery was easy to infer from the rich and varied architecture of monastery's buildings. A magnificent baroque facade was the first thing we could see as we entered the church, but as we continued with our tour, it became apparent that the building shifted and changed with the times. We first saw the Romanesque foundations of the church, revealing that it was build in the 10th century. As we moved forward, we saw Gothic windows and archways in the church's halls and interior, where some of the finest medieval art I'd ever seen was on display. However the artwork was nothing compared to the Verdun alter piece, which is a masterpiece of enamel work completed in the 12th century by Nicolas of Verdun. Further adding to the splendor of the scene were the relics of St. Leopold, which rested directly above Nicolas's work. Klosteneuburg simply continued to increase in grandeur as our tour group left the Gothic portion of the Church and continued to the Baroque chapel build by the Hapsburg dynasty. Upon entering the chapel, one's attention is dominated by towering marble columns adorned with handsome dark woodwork and shimmering gold leaf decorating the walls. These awe inspiring structures serve to bring one's attention upward to the ceiling, which is completely covered with a magnificent Baroque fresco displaying otherworldly visions of Angles, Saints, and the holy trinity. The Baroque opulence continued into the imperial place, which was build seeming as a monument to Charles the six, as it was adorned is throne, portrait, and personal motto. Lastly we saw the treasury, which contained the relics of saint Ursula, along with other priceless treasures.
As my description of Klosterneuburg demonstrates, the monastery and seat of imperial rule is exceedingly grand, as it bears treasures and renovations from nearly every period of Austrian history up until the end of the Baroque era, meaning that many different Austrian rulers, from two different dynasties, saw the monastery as an important enough to invest massive amounts of money into Klosteneuburg. This most likely stems from the fact that Klosteneuburg provided a means for Autria's rules to use the church as a claim for legitimacy. In the case of Austria, the Holy Roman Emperor was elected and then instated by the Pope to rule, so without the Catholic Church, the emperor had no authority to rule (at least fore a long portion of Austria's history). It was thus a good public relations move to adopt a position of extreme pity and virtue. This explains why relics formed such an important part of Klosteneuburg's treasury and display. The remains of saints provide a direct link from the ruler to the divine source of his authority. In the case of the Babenburg line, they literally could claim they build the seat of their rule at God's command, and the Hapsburgs could claim to be ruling from the seat of Austria's patron saint.
In the case of the Baroque period, the lavish additions to the Church communicated the power of Charles the 6th and other Hapsburg monarchs. The protestant reformation was serious challenge to the Habsburg's authority as the needed the Catholic church's approval for their rule to mean anything, so the Baroque architectural grandeur provided a very potent form of visual persuasion to Catholic church's spiritual authority, as well as serving as symbols of the Hapsburg's wealth and power. The various relics of Klosteneuburg still retain their importance in the Baroque period, as they serve as physical prove of the existence of saints, and by extension, evidence that the new protestant faith is false.
The Catholic Church is very important to Austria's ruling families before the 19th century, however the Holy Roman Emperor is not mixed into the Church, it is a secular office despite the acts of piety from both the Babenburgs and Habsburgs. However Klosteneuburg serves as an important connection between church and state. The Emperor's support the church with protection and money, and the church provides support for the emperor by means of establishing legitimacy, and by convincing people of the Emperor's power through pomp and circumstance.
Today our class left Vienna for a field trip to the Augustinian Monastery of Klosteneuburg to learn more about Austria's ruling families, and to observe the amazing relics and treasures on display at the Monastery. Klosteneuburg is a very historically important site because it served as both the royal places of Austria's two royal families, the Babenburgs and the Hapsburgs. Klosteneuruburg was founded by Austria's patron saint, and Babenburg Margrave Leopold the Third (or St. Leopold) after he witnessed a miracle. During a hunting trip, Leopold found his wife's missing wedding veil hanging to a tree in a pristine condition after it had been missing for seven years. Convinced that the veil's miraculous preservation was a sign from God, Leopold built the foundation of Klosteneuburg over the very spot where he found his wife's veil. Leopold helped to develop and order of Cannons, and after a while moved his place of residence to Klosterneuburg, where the Babenburgs remained until the end of their reign. When the Hapsburg dynasty came to power, they ruled from Klosteneuburg, and even began renovating the monastery in a Baroque style. Charles the 6th began construction of a secular role place at Klosteneuburg, however it was never finished, as his daughter Maria Theresa stopped construction on the place when she came to power, deciding that she would rather have her place in Vienna.
When our class arrived at Klosteneuburg, much of the history of the monastery was easy to infer from the rich and varied architecture of monastery's buildings. A magnificent baroque facade was the first thing we could see as we entered the church, but as we continued with our tour, it became apparent that the building shifted and changed with the times. We first saw the Romanesque foundations of the church, revealing that it was build in the 10th century. As we moved forward, we saw Gothic windows and archways in the church's halls and interior, where some of the finest medieval art I'd ever seen was on display. However the artwork was nothing compared to the Verdun alter piece, which is a masterpiece of enamel work completed in the 12th century by Nicolas of Verdun. Further adding to the splendor of the scene were the relics of St. Leopold, which rested directly above Nicolas's work. Klosteneuburg simply continued to increase in grandeur as our tour group left the Gothic portion of the Church and continued to the Baroque chapel build by the Hapsburg dynasty. Upon entering the chapel, one's attention is dominated by towering marble columns adorned with handsome dark woodwork and shimmering gold leaf decorating the walls. These awe inspiring structures serve to bring one's attention upward to the ceiling, which is completely covered with a magnificent Baroque fresco displaying otherworldly visions of Angles, Saints, and the holy trinity. The Baroque opulence continued into the imperial place, which was build seeming as a monument to Charles the six, as it was adorned is throne, portrait, and personal motto. Lastly we saw the treasury, which contained the relics of saint Ursula, along with other priceless treasures.
As my description of Klosterneuburg demonstrates, the monastery and seat of imperial rule is exceedingly grand, as it bears treasures and renovations from nearly every period of Austrian history up until the end of the Baroque era, meaning that many different Austrian rulers, from two different dynasties, saw the monastery as an important enough to invest massive amounts of money into Klosteneuburg. This most likely stems from the fact that Klosteneuburg provided a means for Autria's rules to use the church as a claim for legitimacy. In the case of Austria, the Holy Roman Emperor was elected and then instated by the Pope to rule, so without the Catholic Church, the emperor had no authority to rule (at least fore a long portion of Austria's history). It was thus a good public relations move to adopt a position of extreme pity and virtue. This explains why relics formed such an important part of Klosteneuburg's treasury and display. The remains of saints provide a direct link from the ruler to the divine source of his authority. In the case of the Babenburg line, they literally could claim they build the seat of their rule at God's command, and the Hapsburgs could claim to be ruling from the seat of Austria's patron saint.
In the case of the Baroque period, the lavish additions to the Church communicated the power of Charles the 6th and other Hapsburg monarchs. The protestant reformation was serious challenge to the Habsburg's authority as the needed the Catholic church's approval for their rule to mean anything, so the Baroque architectural grandeur provided a very potent form of visual persuasion to Catholic church's spiritual authority, as well as serving as symbols of the Hapsburg's wealth and power. The various relics of Klosteneuburg still retain their importance in the Baroque period, as they serve as physical prove of the existence of saints, and by extension, evidence that the new protestant faith is false.
The Catholic Church is very important to Austria's ruling families before the 19th century, however the Holy Roman Emperor is not mixed into the Church, it is a secular office despite the acts of piety from both the Babenburgs and Habsburgs. However Klosteneuburg serves as an important connection between church and state. The Emperor's support the church with protection and money, and the church provides support for the emperor by means of establishing legitimacy, and by convincing people of the Emperor's power through pomp and circumstance.
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