The Apotheosis of Beethoven in Danhauser’s Painting Liszt at the Piano

Abstract

This paper examines a painting by the prominent Biedermeier painter Josef Danhauser, Liszt at the Piano, a unique visual document of the Romantic generation’s cultic relationship and collective memory surrounding the virtually holy predecessor, Beethoven. It demonstrates the Beethoven reverence of (1) the commissioner Conrad Graf, a piano maker, who gave an instrument to Beethoven, (2) the painter Danhauser, who took the death mask of the German composer, and (3) Liszt, who considered himself the artistic heir to Beethoven. Although it is a well-known and thoroughly researched painting, its re-examination is still worthwhile. Focusing on aspects of cultural history, the contemporary reception of the painting should be reconsidered from a synthesizing point of view utilizing the results of art historical iconography and musicology. As a kind of cultural study, the paper attempts to demonstrate the background and motives that lead to the creation of the painting. I shall place the painting in the wider context of the history of ideas which is represented by the art-religious experience Liszt and his Paris companions gained from Beethoven’s music. An evaluation of the narrower, historical background — the Beethoven cult triggered by the piano concerts given by Liszt in Vienna in 1839–1840 — will also be discussed.