Court Culture in Early Modern Dresden by Helen Watanabe-O'Kelly (review)

Abstract

MLRy 99.1, 2004 241 Court Culture in Early Modern Dresden. By Helen Watanabe-O'Kelly. Bas? ingstoke: Palgrave. 2002. xiv + 3iopp. ?30. ISBN 0-333-98448-x(hbk). The Dresden that the visitor encounters today is largely the creation of Friedrich August I (1670-1733) and Friedrich August II (1696-1763). Their reigns as Electors of Saxony in some ways marked the glorious apotheosis of their dynasty.Yet they also represented a sharp break with Saxon tradition. Both were elected kings of Poland, and in order to achieve this dignity Friedrich August I had embraced Catholicism in 1694. F?r one and a half centuries before then his predecessors had been Lutherans, and Dresden had been the most important bastion ofthe Protestant cause in the Holy Roman Empire. Indeed, in some senses the Electors of Saxony were as important politically as the Emperors themselves: their unswerving loyalty to the crown ensured that the Protestant princes repeatedly responded to appeals forthe unity of the Reich. Helen Watanabe-O' Kelly's study makes ample use of the sources that have become fully accessible for the first time since 1989 to explore the cultural ramifications of the Saxon Electors' key political role. Fundamental was the advertisement of their religious identity through the patronage of church music and Lutheran biblical drama and the way that they presented themselves in funerary monuments, paintings, and bas-reliefs. From the second half of the sixteenth century the official culture of Lutheranism was complemented and enriched by the discovery of ltalian art and science. This major development in North German taste influenced virtually every aspect of Dresden's court culture by the 1580s, while Johann Georg I's year-long ltalian tour in 1601 resulted in the physical transformation of the capital into an Italianate city during his reign after 1611. Watanabe-O'Kelly's account of successive building projects and court activities (including 'sectarian' jousting tournaments in the later sixteenth century and ambi? tious cultural propaganda in the middle decades of the seventeenth century) makes fascinating reading. Even more interesting and important, however, is her account of the intellectual and scientific activities that also unfolded at the Saxon court. Vast cabinets of curiosities contained collections aimed at representing, understanding, and controlling the natural world. Patronage of magicians and of adepts of the occult was a logical extension of the business of acquiring, ordering, and managing know? ledge. Similarly, the Saxon dynasty's traditional interest in mining, the mainstay of its revenues since the fifteenthcentury, led naturally to a preoccupation with alchemy and the dream of turning base metals into gold. The reign of Friedrich August I broke with this complex and multifaceted tradition in a number of ways. Conversion to Catholicism for the sake of being elected to the Polish throne undermined the Saxon leadership of the Protestant princes in the Reich. The dynastic alliances that were forged with the Catholic ruling houses of Europe during the Polish period brought but temporary glory; Saxony's pre-eminent position in the Reich was progressively taken by Brandenburg-Prussia. In cultural terms, too, there was a shift as France replaced Italy as a source of inspiration. Gradually the preoccupation with occult science turned into a fascination with more obviously useful applications of knowledge in manufacture, particularly of metals. Not least, though largely accidental, the search for gold yielded the discovery of the secret of porcelain, the manufacture ofwhich rapidly became an obsession throughout Europe, with European products soon rivalling the Chinese wares that had long fascinated the West. Helen Watanabe-O'Kelly has written a fascinating book which illuminates the culture ofa major German court. It will be of interest to all students of early modern Germany and its culture. Gonville & Caius College, Cambridge Joachim Whaley ...