Gutachten Dresden_englisch_dritte f.indd - Fakultät für Architektur ...

for the national press when making often rather simplistic reference to the proposed
construction of the Waldschlösschen Bridge, should therefore only be considered as
metaphorical.
In the 18th century, artists explored a new view of the city – from Bautzner Strasse on
the outskirts of town. Travellers from the east came to Dresden via this route. At several
points, the forest cleared to reveal a broad panoramic view of the city. Over several
decades, numerous pictures were produced depicting the Elbe valley as seen from
Bautzner Strasse.
In his painting “Prospect von Dresden vom Wege nach Bautzen aufgenommen”
(Dresden, before 1740), Alexander Thiele presents an especially expansive view of the
river and city, with gently sloping meadows and isolated low trees. From this perspec-
tive the outline of the inner city seems to stretch out across the horizon, and the bends
in the Elbe makes the river appear to be very wide. While Thiele represents the surroun-
ding vegetation very accurately; he also uses it compositionally to embed the Dresden
city outline in the surrounding landscape.
Approximately 70 years later, around 1810, an anonymous painter depicted the city
of Dresden from a similar perspective. The composition of this painting differs to
Thiele’s in that it integrates not only “natural” elements such as the vegetation into the
structure of the painting but also “unnatural” elements such as the twists and turns of
Bautzner Strasse and a series of distinctive, individual buildings across the terrain.
A watercolour by Schinkel, painted after 1803, shows the city more distantly from the
northeast. The two bends in the river, painted in light colours, are at the centre of the
composition. The city outline rising above the wide, light river bend is located in the left
half of this circular painting – at first glance, it is barely discernible. The colours used
and the composition de-emphasise the city to a point where it becomes just one of the
valley’s many features. In Schinkel’s depiction, the city fuses almost completely with the
surrounding landscape.
Franz Wilhelm Leuteritz’s painting shows Dresden from “Dinglingers Weinberg”
[Dinglinger’s Vineyard] in the Loschwitz Heights. On the right, the Elbe castles can be
seen in the painting’s foreground. The small, distant city outline is shown above the
broad, low meadow in the Elbe river bend.
From the mid-19th century, the first city panoramas were painted from the perspective
of the Waldschlösschen. This marked the beginning of the renowned Waldschlösschen
view.
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