3. - Schlösser-Magazin

as it were, in the palace garden, the utopia had
found a place there, and it was only natural
that concrete elements of the Schwetzingen
palace garden should find their way into
painted scenes. The stage painter Giuseppe
Quaglio immortalized views of the garden’s
architectural features as scenery pieces in
a series of small watercolours (Apollo and
Minerva temples, Temple of Botany, Water
Tower, Mosque and Mercury temple). Operas
performed at Schwetzingen used the Apollo
temple as a prospect more than once (e.g. for
“Alceste”).
Criterion (iv). Schwetzingen as a princely
summer residence is an outstanding example
of an architectural ensemble which illustrates
a significant stage in human history.
The property, envisioned by Elector Palatine
Carl Theodor, planned by his congenial
architect Nicolas de Pigage and created
by eminent artists of the age, is a unique
synthesis of the intellectual and artistic
developments in the Europe of the second half
of the 18th-century. The turmoil of a society
in the period of transition from Absolutism
to Enlightenment is reflected by Elector
Carl Theodor’s retreat from his Mannheim
residence – one of the largest Baroque palaces
in Europe – into the intimate privacy of the
bathhouse in the Schwetzingen gardens, a
tiny pleasure palace modelled on Italian villas.
Schwetzingen demonstrates, in an exemplary
manner and on the highest artistic level, the
upheaval of European society towards the
end of the 18th-century. The transition in
art from Rococo to Classicism is reflected in
the personal artistic development of Nicolas
de Pigage, who started out by laying out a
formal Baroque garden and later, instead of
redesigning it once the landscape style gained
acceptance, as many others did, enlarged it
with the assistance of young Friedrich Ludwig
Sckell by congenially adding landscaped areas
and follies.
In the culturally and historically relevant
development of the princely summer
3. Justification for Inscription
residence, Schwetzingen marks both a high
point and a turning point.
1. The summer residence of Schwetzingen
represents the „most perfect synthesis of the
two gardening styles“ of the 18th-century.
Created for one and the same patron, the
palace garden, itself part of an ensemble
that is unique in the world, documents the
development of the philosophy of creating
Art out of Nature more vividly than any other
place.
The garden of Elector Carl Theodor provides
an excellent illustration of an epochal change
within European society as regards its
understanding of Nature and Art. The art
of the formal garden, which had reached its
magnificent zenith with French Baroque, was
replaced by a natural-looking style inspired
by picturesque arrangements. These two
gardening concepts with their opposing
characteristics have been connected at
Schwetzingen by way of paths and visual
axes, brought into tune with each other and
merged into a harmonious whole full of lively
contrasts. Sckell’s English landscape garden
surrounds the formal areas like a belt, creating
a new synthesis out of two domains.
A unique feature is the lavish and completely
preserved furnishing with a large number
of sculptures (the originals have been
mostly replaced with copies to protect
them from the weather, but are exhibited
in the “Lapidarium”) and architectural
elements, the “fabriques”. Every item of
the furnishing, whether in the Baroque or
the landscape garden, can be experienced
in its original context and thus create the
intended impression. While there are a
wealth of Baroque sculptures and important
fabriques in other gardens too, no other
18th-century garden presents the two stylistic
eras as closely interlinked and as lavishly
demonstrated as Schwetzingen.
Both garden styles are moreover distinguished
individually by remarkable artistic
achievements. The circular parterre by
Johann Ludwig Petri represents a unique
3.
35