3. - Schlösser-Magazin

3. Elector
112
3. Justification for Inscription
Carl Theodor’s removal to Munich
the garden lost its original function, but
it was still completed as a monument; the
Mosque and Temple of Mercury were built,
and with the great inspection record of 1795,
the “Protocollum Cmmissionale”, it was
preserved as a “Palatinate monument”. The
record contains guidelines for the further
preservation and maintenance of the garden.
Due to the desolate financial situation, and in
hopes of better times, the main focus was on
the conservation of the basic layout; some of
the fine structure was simplified. Maintenance
of the woody plants was to be reconciled
with artistic demands. These guidelines were
adhered to in the first half of the 19th-century,
the time of Garden Director Johann Michael
Zeyher, who declared that his creative ideas
were modelled on those of his predecessor,
Friedrich Ludwig von Sckell. He converted the
site of the former menagerie (discontinued in
1778) into a modern arboretum (continuing
the tradition of the first arboretum created
by von Sckell) and turned the great formal
basin into a natural-looking pond; at the same
time elements like the “Uncanny Grove” were
added to the landscape garden. The greening
of the former court of honour, now without
a function, was another change in the taste
of the time. However, the basic layout of the
garden remained untouched. In his garden
guidebook of 1829, Thomas Leger justly
praised Zeyher as a careful and intelligent
conservator of the greater whole. The
cultivation of the garden in the 19th-century
was done in full awareness of its historical
significance, and today it has become a part of
the garden monument in itself: it is preserved,
maintained, renewed and exhibited, as shown
by the publication of a guidebook specializing
on the arboreta in particular.
Numerous documents bear witness to
the efforts to maintain the garden. “If we
but look closely, we will see the laudable
endeavour to preserve this creation of an
earlier century, so rare in Germany, as best
the disposable means allow”, states a report
drawn up in 1882 by the Grand Duchy’s
gardens department. Numerous documents
from the second half of the 19th-century refer
to maintenance and renewal measures. The
successful rejuvenating of the avenues by
Garden Inspector Johan Wagner in particular
was widely acclaimed. This tradition of both
preserving and renewing the basic structure
was the first priority of Court Gardener Unselt
too. Overall there was a unique and “truly
exemplary continuity in the conservation and
preservation of a magnificent garden creation”
(von Krosigk, 2006). At the beginning of
the 20th-century experts were in agreement
that the great whole had been successfully
preserved and even enlarged upon (Schoch,
1900).
The positive response to Schwetzingen at
the beginning of the 20th-century was not
limited to the Baroque parts, quite contrary to
the fashion of the day. If anything, it was this
garden that brought the significance of the
picturesque style back into the awareness of
the art-loving public. Maintenance measures
following the reports by Hallbaum (1928)
and Heicke (1937) were based on gardening
experiences from the 19th-century and
remained comparatively modest in scope.
Neither in the 1930s nor the 1950s were
there large-scale alterations. Interest in the
garden was mainly scientific and historical in
those decades; in the name of the “Deutsche
Gesellschaft für Gartenkunst” (Germany
Society for Garden Art) Heicke suggested a
grand national renewal scheme, pointing out
the examples of Herrenhausen and Brühl, but
the appeal never went further.
It is important to note that the garden was
always maintained and rejuvenated in its
historicality, not restored to its late Baroque
appearance. If the focus, from the point of
view of monument protection, is on the late
18th-century, this concerns the basic structure
only. Later stages and additions such as the
arboretum, inspired by an interest in botanics
very characteristic of its time, are equally
accepted and considered equally worthy of
preservation; this goes for simplifications
carried out at certain points in history too.