II. - Schloss Schwetzingen

derably in making the gardens widely known.
What helped even more was the introduction
of the picture postcard. In 1892, the Schwetzingen
publisher Otto Schwarz produced the
fi rst postcard depicting a number of small
views of the garden. Schwarz, too, chose follies
and architectural details for his card and
with his small Gruss aus Schwetzingen (“Greetings
from Schwetzingen”) created a medium
that proved to have excellent publicity value.
Today, more than 600 historical postcards
are proof not only of a successful small-town
publishing career, but also of the fl ourishing
tourism at the former electoral summer residence.
31
Schwetzingen – a Blend of Styles
Around 1770, a general enthusiasm for garden
design set in that lasted into the late 1790s,
and was encouraged by a large number of
publications on garden theory. Goethe summarized
this fashion in his annals, Tag- und
Jahreshefte, in 1797: “An irresistible urge towards
the country and garden life had gripped
everybody then.“ 32 This led not only to a new
type of educational tourism, the garden trip
undertaken by both experts and enthusiasts,
it also made gardens – both existing and in
the process of being created – into a topic
of public interest. Naturally Schwetzingen
became a subject of this interest too.
Schwetzingen, like Caserta near Naples and
the Nymphenburg Gardens at Munich, is one
of a very few gardens that present the contradictory
styles of the older, formal Baroque
garden and the new English landscape garden
side by side. The solution found by the garden
architect in charge, Friedrich Ludwig Sckell,
was one of integration and preservation, and
as such a novelty. As late as 1825, he described
this approach in his writings on garden
theory, Beiträge zur bildenden Gartenkunst,
and explained it from a historian’s perspec-
31 Wolfgang Schröck-Schmidt, “Postkarten vom Schwetzinger
Schloss im Wandel der Zeit”, Schwetzinger Zeitung vom 15.
Januar 2005, p. 10. Re. historical postcards in general cp.
Herbert Leclerc, “Ansichten über Ansichtskarten”, in: Archiv
für deutsche Postgeschichte, Frankfurt a. M. 1986.
32 Erich Trunz (ed.), Goethes Werke. Hamburger Ausgabe, Vol.
10. München 1981, p. 448.
III. Schwetzingen – Historical Context
tive: “Yet this symmetrical manner, described
by Curtius and Strabo in writing about the
hanging gardens of the Babylonians, by Homer
in writing about the gardens of Alcinous,
and by Pliny the Younger in writing about
his own Laurentinum, does have its merits
and should never be removed completely.“ 33
The reinterpretation of the non-modern as a
tradition worthy of being preserved and charged
with historical signifi cance legitimized
the preservation of the symmetrical sections
of the Schwetzingen grounds, thus creating
a unique document of a change in gardening
theory and taste. This phenomenon attracted
the experts as well. In the 1780s, Christian Cay
Lorenz Hirschfeld visited the garden, and paid
tribute to it in the fi fth volume of his massive
theoretical work, Theorie der Gartenkunst. 34
The juxtaposition of the two gardening styles,
one succeeding the other in the course of the
18th century, permitted contemporary visitors
to draw a direct comparison. From the Temple
of Apollo both the formal French garden and
the English landscape garden could be seen.
It may have been his familiarity with these
views that induced Friedrich Schiller, who
visited Schwetzingen several times between
1783 and 1785, to use the contrasting gardens
as a literary metaphor in his play, Don Carlos.
In the fi rst version of the play, the so-called
Thalia Fragment, the Queen deplores “this
magnifi cent maiming of God’s work” in the
famous gardens of Aranjuez, notwithstanding
the fact that they are considered the “eighth
wonder of the world”. In conversation with
the Marquis Posa, she is rather critical of the
topiary and the symmetrical borders: “Admire
these smooth walls of beech, the trees’ fearful
ceremony, dainty and stiff and frozen like the
court, like a sad parade all around me.” The
royal recluse, on the other hand, prefers the
natural refuge of the landscape garden: “Here
I will show you my own world. This place I
have chosen as my favourite. How beautiful it
33 Friedrich Ludwig Sckell, Beiträge zur bildenden Gartenkunst
für angehende Gartenkünstler und Gartenliebhaber, München
1825. Repr., Worms 1982, p. 3.
34 Christian Cay Lorenz Hirschfeld, Theorie der Gartenkunst, 5
vols., Leipzig 1779-1785. Here Vol. 5, pp. 344 ff.
III.
161