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.
Wednesday, August 29, 2012
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.
Saturday, August 11, 2012
St. Stephan's Cathedral As the Center of Vienna
Augest 7th 2012
I talked yesterday about how St. Stephan's Cathedral was built, and how the history of its construction was linked to the linage of Fredrick the Third, however I decided to give the Cathedral another look because there was so much more I wanted to understand about it. After class today, I meet up with several classmates and returned to the St. Stephan's, as there was simply much to much to explore in a single day. After our last visit with Dr. O, I wanted to climb the famous tower of St. Stephan's, but the tour of the crypt ran late, and I did not have enough time before closing, so I decided to return today, and climb the countless steps to the highest point in Vienna. I managed to make my way up the tower, (after quite a few rests) and was rewarded with a fantastic view of the beautiful city of Vienna. Not only is the tower the highest point in Vienna, but it is located in the center of town, so one couldn't possible ask for a better view of the city. However, as I contemplated the wonders of Vienna's city-scape, I began to wonder how such a fantastic view of the city was possible from a building that finished long before much of what I was gazing on had been build.
It was at that moment that I began to suspect that the view from St. Stephan's Cathedral did not happen by accident. It was quite clear that the city had been planned around the Cathedral. I already had some understanding of this from one of Dr. O's lectures, when she mentioned that a law was passed in Vienna that forbid building higher than the top of St. Stephan's tower. The law seems to suggest that the people of Vienna at some point developed a great fondness for the building, and wanted to enshrine in an honorable location our of a sense of favoritism. I recalled more statement's from Dr. O's lecture from yesterday's visit that only strengthened this observation. For example, Dr. O told us a story about how the towns people of Vienna put their own lives at risk to put out a fire in the Cathedral during world war 2. People with no fire fighting experience formed a bucket brigade at 3am in the morning to try to save the building, but sadly a great deal of damage was done to the building despite their efforts. However, would never know this from taking a look inside the building as everything has been restored as best as it could. Furthermore, it's clear from the building condition that it was preserved with great care. Dr. O pointed out that many of the original pieces of artwork were still in the Cathedral because the people of Vienna took the care to take every thing not nailed to the foundation to safe locations during bombing raids in World War 2. In addition to this, many more architectural features were added to the building since Fredrick the third's Gothic renovations, such as Baroque windows and many pieces of donated art. The Viennese simply adored this Cathedral, and appeared to being doing everything possible to honor it.
I can really only speculate to the reasons as to why this came to be, as it seemingly developed organically. There's no record of anyone decreeing that Saint Stephan's was going to be the most important building in town and that everyone in Vienna must love it. The best clues I can find to why the church might be beloved by the people of Vienna came with the crypt tour I took yesterday. The first thing I saw when entering the crypt were the fanatically decorated remains of the Bishops of St. Stephan's. Despite being long dead, the still look great, as they were buried in colored silk finery along with accompany jewelry. After seeing the next room, where urns containing the embalmed internal organs of the Hapsburg royals (excluding Fredrick the Third, who is the only royal entirely buried at St. Stephan's) were on display, I began to suspect that the popularity of the Cathedral arose out of its association with high society. So many important people are lied to rest in the St. Stephan's crypt that it almost begins to resemble who's who of Vienna's dead. The tour guide even said that they tired to move Mozart's grave to St. Stephan's, but were unable to identify his body. It appears that Fredrick the Third's successful attraction of Bishop made St. Stephan's the place to be, and everybody important wanted to receive services and be buried in the Cathedral. Dr. O even commented that even in today's time, it's an honor to be baptized at St. Stephan's, and the elite of the city strive to have Christianings there.
After reviewing my history, the best conclusion am can come to about the popularity of St. Stephan's throughout the ages is simply a matter of fashion. All the important people of Vienna, Bishops,Emperors, and heroes alike a buried at St. Stephan's, witch made in popular and stylize to be involved in the church. However, this explains the tradition of the of St. Stephan's and not the origin of its special status. I best answer I have for that is the presence of the Bishop, and the elevation of St. Stephan's from church to Cathedral. As I stare out at the city from atop the Church's tower, I find it amazing that the current cities layout could have been shaped so much from the actions of Fredrick the Third centuries ago. Had he not obtained his Bishopric, this wonderful old quarter of town might have become ugly uniform glass sky scrapers.
Tuesday, August 7, 2012
Visit to the Stehandsom (St. Stephen's Cathedral)
August 6th 2012
Today or class meet up once again with Dr. O for a tour of the Gothic style Cathedral in the center of town, dedicated to Saint Stephen, the or the Stehandsom, as it is known in German. The church wasn't quite what I expected a Gothic Cathedral to be, as the entrance was done up in an entirely different, Romanesque style, typical of earlier churches. Thankfully, Dr. O was able to explain this curious contradiction by explaining that St. Stephen's was originally a Romanesque church, that was redone in a Gothic style by the Habsburg Emperor Fredrick the third, who wanted to attract a Bishop to Vienna in order to increase the prestige of his capital. In explaining the context of the architecture, Dr. O revealed an other surprising fact about the building, it was a Gothic style cathedral build in the early 16th century. This is very unusual, as the rest of Europe had been building in the Renaissance style for quite some time, and the works of Micheal Anglo and Leonardo Da Vinci are well known. The style was so out of place for its time that the conservative, ethnically conscious Viennese had to import the Czech Anton Pilgram, who was known as the last Gothic Stone mansion in order to finish the job.
The Viennese are know to be conservative in their architectural, but I sill find building a Gothic cathedral in the height of the Renascence to absurd. I can only assume that Fredrick the Third really wanted his bishopric, perhaps thinking a proper Gothic Cathedral would be the best thing to attract a proper bishop. Whatever the case I suspected that there was some sort of unusual motivation behind the choice to spend such a great deal of money to build a rather out dated structure. I looked up the cultural context of Saint Stephen's Cathedral in Nicholas Parson's Vienna : A Cultural History, and indeed found that Fredrick the third was under an unusual pressure to prove his Christian faith. When Fredrick the third came to power, the administrative finances in Vienna were in chaos. According to Pearson, Fredrick's administrators were forced to sleep in dormitories at court, and would often have to wait long periods before they were paid for there services, if they were paid at all (125). In order to get his finances in order, Fredrick made the wise but unthinkable decision of resuming financial relations with Vienna's Jews, whom served as bankers, money lenders and creditors to the empire, as they were excluded from religious laws that prevented Christian usury (the charging of interest) (Pearsons 123-125).
Jewish money lending restored his finances, but Fredrick's relationship with the Jews made him extremely unpopular with his nobles, who chastised him as "King of the Jews". I suspect that Fredrick's decision to build St. Stephan's, and his decisions to build it as Gothic may be heavily linked to a political need to distance himself from this antisemitic backlash. Fredrick build a church in a style that was not new and grand, but rather one that was highly iconic of the Church. I believe that Gothic style makes sense if one wishes to prioritize Catholic piety over displaying power and wealth. My belief is further bolstered by the fact that Fredrick the third is the only Hasberg Emperor buried in the Church. He rests in a highly visible marble alter that he himself designed. Unfortunately for Fredrick, he died many years before the tomb was finished, and had to be lied to rest in his carefully manicured resting place well after he was first berried. However in the end, St. Stephen's got it's bishop, and the credit went to Fredrick, whom everyone now associated with the cathedral.
St. Stephan's Cathedral has grown to be the center of town in Vienna, with the towers Fredrick oversaw being visible all over town. However the Gothic nature of the building, and the fact that Fredrick went well out of his way to ensure that the cathedral would be memorable and visible for ages suggests to me that this was more than a simple testament to the glory of God. I imagine Fredrick, who had received a great deal of humiliation throughout this reign wanted to ensure that he would be remembered far differently than he had been perceived (Pearson 125). For this reason he chose to build himself a grad monument that his contemporaries, and generations yet to come would associated with Christian majesty, namely, the Gothic Style.
Monday, August 6, 2012
Race Relations in Vienna: What I've seen so far.
August 5th 2012
Today was a relativity small day for our class, as we meet to tour the Wien ( German for Vienna) Museum at 1pm today and were dismissed only 2 hours later. The museum was full of wonderful artifacts, of witch the medieval arms and amours were by far my personal favorites. Never the less, I'm certain I'll be better able to talk about what I say at the museum at in greater detail as I learn more about the historical context regarding the city, so I decided to take advantage of this relativity short day to catch up on my rest and reflect on what I have already seen in the city. In is in that spirit that I'm choosing to write about a subject which has been constantly present since I came to the city, ethnicity and race relations in Vienna. This has never been the focus of my experiences so far, but I could certainly tell from what I've heard from others and what I've seen for myself that Vienna is not a race blind society, and race is linked to social status, at least in the sense that social standing is not evenly distributed along racial lines. I'm not a sociologist, so I can really only write about my personal opinion and observations, but I believe I gained a number of legitimate insights into the subject.
The first thing I noticed about ethic relations in Vienna was that a unusually large number of people working in service positions are immigrants. On the first day I arrived, I was served by two Turkish immigrants at the airport. One worked at the currency exchange counter, the other drove the cab I took to Kandlgasse. I continued going about my day until I needed help dealing with the electricity in my apartment, where I was fortunate enough to be aided by the Slovak cleaning ladies. It was not until the end of the day when I first saw an actual Austrian working in Austria, and it was when I went to the grocery store. I only found Austrian people working in higher status service positions, where it was important for the business in question to give a positive image. Austrian employees were easy to spot in the cafes and restaurants where other Austrians or tourists would go to enjoy themselves, I even found an all Austrian staff working at the McDonald's, which I found very surprising as fast food restaurants in the US very frequently employ immigrant labor. In sharp contrast to this, all the business that do not appear concerned with service employed Turkish Immigrant labor. I've never seen an Austrian, or even light skinned person, working at one of the many food kiosks outside the U-ban stations. It is clearly apparent to me from simply shopping around that there is a racial hierarchy of employment here in Vienna. High status retail and service jobs appear to be reserved for people who meet an Austrian ideal of light skin and fair features, where as lower paying, dirtier, less pleasant work seems to be delegated to immigrant workers.
As uneven as the job market appears from my perspective, Turkish and Slovak immigrants are by no means at the bottom of Viennese society. There is a race of people, distinct in their appearance and mannerism, which the Viennese refer to as Gypsies. I use ambiguous langue here because I'm not entirely sure who these people are, as they are defined as being wanders, and allegedly lack a homeland and perhaps even a history or social voice, as I could find little information. My investigations suggest they may be a group of people called the Romani that originated come from India, but I have no way of knowing if these roma are the same Gypsies the Viennese despise. In either case, the gypsies are feared here as thieves, and beggars, and are seen to be universally below working class. My professor and classmates echo these sentiments, and from what I have personally witnessed, I cannot argue with them. I have only seen gypsies selling goods at the open air flee market, or begging for money from strangers on the subway or in the middle of the shopping districts. Despite this, I see the gypsies more as victims of prejudice, and I believe there current state as second class citizens results from a lack of infrastructure, resources, and social support. This was perhaps first caused by their wandering, but I believe it is today maintained by a universal social alienation. I believe the gypsies are actively excluded from Viennese society (as well as others) and they know it. I saw a young gypsy boy of about 12 years of age with a bad bleeding cut on his hand while I was walking in town the other day. I would imagine that any normal injured child on a street corner would go for help, and either approach an adult or call someone for help. Instead the boy simply stood their in obvious pain. I believe the boys withdrawal to be evidence of a serve form of social exclusion, which I suspect plays a role in the gypies's current place in Viennese society.
Today was a relativity small day for our class, as we meet to tour the Wien ( German for Vienna) Museum at 1pm today and were dismissed only 2 hours later. The museum was full of wonderful artifacts, of witch the medieval arms and amours were by far my personal favorites. Never the less, I'm certain I'll be better able to talk about what I say at the museum at in greater detail as I learn more about the historical context regarding the city, so I decided to take advantage of this relativity short day to catch up on my rest and reflect on what I have already seen in the city. In is in that spirit that I'm choosing to write about a subject which has been constantly present since I came to the city, ethnicity and race relations in Vienna. This has never been the focus of my experiences so far, but I could certainly tell from what I've heard from others and what I've seen for myself that Vienna is not a race blind society, and race is linked to social status, at least in the sense that social standing is not evenly distributed along racial lines. I'm not a sociologist, so I can really only write about my personal opinion and observations, but I believe I gained a number of legitimate insights into the subject.
The first thing I noticed about ethic relations in Vienna was that a unusually large number of people working in service positions are immigrants. On the first day I arrived, I was served by two Turkish immigrants at the airport. One worked at the currency exchange counter, the other drove the cab I took to Kandlgasse. I continued going about my day until I needed help dealing with the electricity in my apartment, where I was fortunate enough to be aided by the Slovak cleaning ladies. It was not until the end of the day when I first saw an actual Austrian working in Austria, and it was when I went to the grocery store. I only found Austrian people working in higher status service positions, where it was important for the business in question to give a positive image. Austrian employees were easy to spot in the cafes and restaurants where other Austrians or tourists would go to enjoy themselves, I even found an all Austrian staff working at the McDonald's, which I found very surprising as fast food restaurants in the US very frequently employ immigrant labor. In sharp contrast to this, all the business that do not appear concerned with service employed Turkish Immigrant labor. I've never seen an Austrian, or even light skinned person, working at one of the many food kiosks outside the U-ban stations. It is clearly apparent to me from simply shopping around that there is a racial hierarchy of employment here in Vienna. High status retail and service jobs appear to be reserved for people who meet an Austrian ideal of light skin and fair features, where as lower paying, dirtier, less pleasant work seems to be delegated to immigrant workers.
As uneven as the job market appears from my perspective, Turkish and Slovak immigrants are by no means at the bottom of Viennese society. There is a race of people, distinct in their appearance and mannerism, which the Viennese refer to as Gypsies. I use ambiguous langue here because I'm not entirely sure who these people are, as they are defined as being wanders, and allegedly lack a homeland and perhaps even a history or social voice, as I could find little information. My investigations suggest they may be a group of people called the Romani that originated come from India, but I have no way of knowing if these roma are the same Gypsies the Viennese despise. In either case, the gypsies are feared here as thieves, and beggars, and are seen to be universally below working class. My professor and classmates echo these sentiments, and from what I have personally witnessed, I cannot argue with them. I have only seen gypsies selling goods at the open air flee market, or begging for money from strangers on the subway or in the middle of the shopping districts. Despite this, I see the gypsies more as victims of prejudice, and I believe there current state as second class citizens results from a lack of infrastructure, resources, and social support. This was perhaps first caused by their wandering, but I believe it is today maintained by a universal social alienation. I believe the gypsies are actively excluded from Viennese society (as well as others) and they know it. I saw a young gypsy boy of about 12 years of age with a bad bleeding cut on his hand while I was walking in town the other day. I would imagine that any normal injured child on a street corner would go for help, and either approach an adult or call someone for help. Instead the boy simply stood their in obvious pain. I believe the boys withdrawal to be evidence of a serve form of social exclusion, which I suspect plays a role in the gypies's current place in Viennese society.
Mozart at the Karlskirche
August 4th 2012
We started the day off with a walking tour, were we saw a great deal more of the Baroque style buildings that overwhelm one's senses with beatify religious artwork. While the tour was fantastic, and included many fascinating stops such as the Heldenplatz (Hero's Square), the real highlight of the day was a classical music performance in what many claim to be the most beautiful church in Central Europe, the Karlskirche (Church of Saint Charles). Our class dressed for the a rendition of Mozart's requiem which was performed on the church's magnificent alter. The beauty of the backdrop alone was enough to leave me speechless, and the combination of the music along with the church was so deeply moving to me that I found myself grieving, brooding, and sorrowfully reflecting according as the emotional tone of the music shifted throughout the performance. The fantastic acoustic qualities of the church greatly enhanced the experience, as I have never heard such an enchanting performance despite being involved in music for a great portion of my life.
I consider witnessing this performance to be a truly priceless event because it was as educational as it was emotionally moving. This is because a performance of Austria's finest music in the splendor of the Karlskirche is a perfect example of the kinds of sensory displaces used in the Baroque period to instill a sense of imperial power and Austrian nationality. The karlskirche itself is done in the Baroque style, and covered in symbols the represent the power of the catholic religion, and the Hapsburg empire. Historian Nicholas Parsons explains that the two pillars in the front of the building are symbols of imperial power while as well as an allusion to the bronze pillars of the Solomon's temple (165). Parson's explains that the symbols on Saint Charles's church represent a philosophy of stoicism that runs through Vienna's imperial history, however it was clear to me, despite my limited understanding of the langue of Baroque symbols, that this church was build to show off the power and wealth of it's creators.
Indeed, it was vary similar to kinds of buildings I have described in my previous posts, and while the symbolism of the baroque period is very strong and well represented on the Karlskirche, the same symbolism and style seem to by ubiquitous in Vienna. Pearson once again provides insights into my experiences with this unique and larger than life building style. According to Pearson, Vienna was an diverse and place during the baroque period. as Hapsburg lands included parts of Bohemia, Austria, and Hungary. The intensity of the Baroque period resulted as an attempt to unify the various peoples under Habsburg rule with a uniform cultural aesthetic (Persons 166). The various ethnic groups, united only by the Habsburgs claims over their lands, were now connected by a style of architectural, artistic, and musical expression that affirmed the values of the Habsberg empire, and the Catholic church that provided the legitimacy for their reign.
We started the day off with a walking tour, were we saw a great deal more of the Baroque style buildings that overwhelm one's senses with beatify religious artwork. While the tour was fantastic, and included many fascinating stops such as the Heldenplatz (Hero's Square), the real highlight of the day was a classical music performance in what many claim to be the most beautiful church in Central Europe, the Karlskirche (Church of Saint Charles). Our class dressed for the a rendition of Mozart's requiem which was performed on the church's magnificent alter. The beauty of the backdrop alone was enough to leave me speechless, and the combination of the music along with the church was so deeply moving to me that I found myself grieving, brooding, and sorrowfully reflecting according as the emotional tone of the music shifted throughout the performance. The fantastic acoustic qualities of the church greatly enhanced the experience, as I have never heard such an enchanting performance despite being involved in music for a great portion of my life.
I consider witnessing this performance to be a truly priceless event because it was as educational as it was emotionally moving. This is because a performance of Austria's finest music in the splendor of the Karlskirche is a perfect example of the kinds of sensory displaces used in the Baroque period to instill a sense of imperial power and Austrian nationality. The karlskirche itself is done in the Baroque style, and covered in symbols the represent the power of the catholic religion, and the Hapsburg empire. Historian Nicholas Parsons explains that the two pillars in the front of the building are symbols of imperial power while as well as an allusion to the bronze pillars of the Solomon's temple (165). Parson's explains that the symbols on Saint Charles's church represent a philosophy of stoicism that runs through Vienna's imperial history, however it was clear to me, despite my limited understanding of the langue of Baroque symbols, that this church was build to show off the power and wealth of it's creators.
Indeed, it was vary similar to kinds of buildings I have described in my previous posts, and while the symbolism of the baroque period is very strong and well represented on the Karlskirche, the same symbolism and style seem to by ubiquitous in Vienna. Pearson once again provides insights into my experiences with this unique and larger than life building style. According to Pearson, Vienna was an diverse and place during the baroque period. as Hapsburg lands included parts of Bohemia, Austria, and Hungary. The intensity of the Baroque period resulted as an attempt to unify the various peoples under Habsburg rule with a uniform cultural aesthetic (Persons 166). The various ethnic groups, united only by the Habsburgs claims over their lands, were now connected by a style of architectural, artistic, and musical expression that affirmed the values of the Habsberg empire, and the Catholic church that provided the legitimacy for their reign.
Sunday, August 5, 2012
From Presence to Oppression, Absolute Monarchies and Broach architectural design
August 3rd 2012
Today, our class took traveled around Vienna on a bus tour guided by a delightful art historian named Dr. O. The doctor commented on many of the pieces of architecture that I commented on in my last blog post, and provided a great deal of historical context to the "cities sense of presence and personality" that I felt the Broach ear buildings and ancient towering churches gave to the city. It turns out that it's no mistake I was able to find helpful landmarks to guide my path. A centuries old law in Vienna states that not building can be make taller than the steeple on Saint Steven's cathedral, so it turns out that it was very intentional certain building and structures could be seen from all parts of town.
Ad Dr. O's tour continued, I learned that the positive, welcoming attitude that developed toward these majestic ever present, larger than life cityscapes may be entirely inappropriate. In my Modern age of science, democracy and personal freedoms mindset, I viewed my perception of the city's presence as a wonderful novelty, when it turns out the broach designs that create this presence are very much a deliberate invention of the absolute monarchs that reigned during their construction. This can partially be credited to the fact that these building projects requited massive amounts of money, and absolute monarchism definitely had all the requited resources, but I am beginning to believe, due to the pain and effort required to design a city like Vienna, that the absolutist monarchies that build in the broach style did so as a means of social control. I imaging that the average citizen at the time of these powerful hereditary rulers would look at the same city I had and feel a sense of jubilant awe at its splendor. Instead, I believe such a man would view these buildings and cathedral and palaces and towers and view the Emperors that build them with an air of superstitious awe.
I'm a man of the space age, with a world class science education and I was still dumbstruck by the countless statues and never ending displays of beautiful art pieces in the streets. What would a man you grew up in an era of religious theocracy, with perhaps traces of a medieval or early modern "magical world" world think when seeing these same splendors. I imagine it would leave little doubt at the claims of divine right made by absolutist monarchs. I believe the magnificent buildings were part of the Empires efforts to establish their right to rule. Investing in such grand public displays was likely an effort to prove that the Hapsbergs were in fact chosen by God to rule over Austria and other lands. Baroach architexture could very well be an other ritual used by the Habsburgs to cement their power over Austria and the Holy Roman Empire.
Today, our class took traveled around Vienna on a bus tour guided by a delightful art historian named Dr. O. The doctor commented on many of the pieces of architecture that I commented on in my last blog post, and provided a great deal of historical context to the "cities sense of presence and personality" that I felt the Broach ear buildings and ancient towering churches gave to the city. It turns out that it's no mistake I was able to find helpful landmarks to guide my path. A centuries old law in Vienna states that not building can be make taller than the steeple on Saint Steven's cathedral, so it turns out that it was very intentional certain building and structures could be seen from all parts of town.
Ad Dr. O's tour continued, I learned that the positive, welcoming attitude that developed toward these majestic ever present, larger than life cityscapes may be entirely inappropriate. In my Modern age of science, democracy and personal freedoms mindset, I viewed my perception of the city's presence as a wonderful novelty, when it turns out the broach designs that create this presence are very much a deliberate invention of the absolute monarchs that reigned during their construction. This can partially be credited to the fact that these building projects requited massive amounts of money, and absolute monarchism definitely had all the requited resources, but I am beginning to believe, due to the pain and effort required to design a city like Vienna, that the absolutist monarchies that build in the broach style did so as a means of social control. I imaging that the average citizen at the time of these powerful hereditary rulers would look at the same city I had and feel a sense of jubilant awe at its splendor. Instead, I believe such a man would view these buildings and cathedral and palaces and towers and view the Emperors that build them with an air of superstitious awe.
I'm a man of the space age, with a world class science education and I was still dumbstruck by the countless statues and never ending displays of beautiful art pieces in the streets. What would a man you grew up in an era of religious theocracy, with perhaps traces of a medieval or early modern "magical world" world think when seeing these same splendors. I imagine it would leave little doubt at the claims of divine right made by absolutist monarchs. I believe the magnificent buildings were part of the Empires efforts to establish their right to rule. Investing in such grand public displays was likely an effort to prove that the Hapsbergs were in fact chosen by God to rule over Austria and other lands. Baroach architexture could very well be an other ritual used by the Habsburgs to cement their power over Austria and the Holy Roman Empire.
Thursday, August 2, 2012
A city with a presence, My first impressions of the imperial capital
Augest 2nd 2012
My name is Andrew Elliot. I've lived in California all my live, I don't speak a word of German and this trip to Vienna is the first time I've ever been aboard. As strange as it may sound, I find this foreign city to be more open and inviting than most of the places I've seen in america. Despite the language barrier, I feel accepted and welcomed by the cities people, and somehow the town easy seems traverse despite having no knowledge of it's geography. Everything I try to do here seems to work out in a positively even though I should lack many of the important skills requited to function in Vienna, everything simply seems to be clicking.
My name is Andrew Elliot. I've lived in California all my live, I don't speak a word of German and this trip to Vienna is the first time I've ever been aboard. As strange as it may sound, I find this foreign city to be more open and inviting than most of the places I've seen in america. Despite the language barrier, I feel accepted and welcomed by the cities people, and somehow the town easy seems traverse despite having no knowledge of it's geography. Everything I try to do here seems to work out in a positively even though I should lack many of the important skills requited to function in Vienna, everything simply seems to be clicking.
I discovered most of this information by following my professor's advice and simply got lost in the city. I took a tram to somewhere I had no knowledge of simply in search of some interesting place I read about in a tour guide. I ended up getting off the subway in the wrong place twice, but found myself successful in my pursuits. My first error in path-finding was corrected by a helpful local passerby who stopped and asked my in English if I needed help finding something. He pointed me to the museum district of Vienna after recommending several sites of interest. I remain astonished at his generosity, because something like this would never happen in america. I would never image that a foreign tourist would be lucky enough to receive unsolicited aid from a local in their native tongue in New York.
I made a second mistake after I got off on the wrong subway stop. (I found the subway system to be simple and easy to use, this was simply user error as I was mistaken to which stop was mine.) I was confused to where I was, but was instinctively drawn to a large church that I saw in the distance. As I got closer, I noticed a Belvedeer street, named after the famous landmark. I followed the street, and sure enough, I found my way to Savoy's great palace. In this instance, I feel as if the cityscape itself acted as a guide to me. The layout of the town was based around well known landmarks, which were easily spotted from a distance, as they often towered over newer buildings. I was able to find my way around using what I had seen from my cab ride from the airport using only the information I could gather from the layout of the town. This is unlike anything I've experienced in america, where I often find it much easier to lose my way in large cities.
I believe I find this city to be unthinkably welcoming because the city seems to be aware of the needs of tourists and newcomers. The people seem ready and willing to help strangers, and the layout of the city itself seems oddly accommodating. I feel as if Vienna is inviting me to explore it futhers, and I look forward to what I will find.
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