Buzási Enikő szerk.: In Europe' Princely Courts, Ádám Mányoki, Actors and venues of a portraitist's career (A Magyar Nemzeti Galéria kiadványai 2003/1)

Harald Marx: "THE LUCKY STAR OF PAINTING HAS RISEN" Painting and Art Patronage in Dresden under Augustus the Strong and Augustus III

touched the heart of Ismael [...] Oh, the omnipotent power of music! From that moment on, brusque Ismael could not resist Annibale, who, like Orpheus, began to control this Danish Rhadamantos as he wished."

101 This detour into the realm of private collectors' and artists' friendships sheds light on several things. It reveals that Ismael Mengs respected count Keyserling, who, in turn, was advised by Christian Wilhelm Ernst Dietrich on artistic questions. They met, among others, at Louis de Silvestre's, where music evenings were held just like at Keyserling's. Dietrich, similarly to his teacher Johann Alexander Thiele, was patronised by Brühl. Silvestre was also bound by close ties to the court, especially to Brühl. Christian Ludwig von Hagedorn, who played a salient role in the art life of Dresden after the Seven Years' War collected the pictures of Thiele and Dietrich: the web of relations was indeed tightly woven. The point of these statements is that the musicians, artists, and their clients also met in private friendly circles. Music was not fostered only in the court, in churches and the Opera; for in "Augustan" Dresden art was pursued at a variety of levels; there was communication between the court and the intimate private circles. Is it surprising then that Anton Raphael Mengs painted a pastel portrait of his father's friend Louis de Silvestre?

102 Does not such personal familiarity suffice to explain why Mengs' famous pastel portrait of Augustus III looks like a variant of the king's portrait by Silvestre?

103 On September 1, 1756, Anton Raphael Mengs wrote a letter to Johann Georg Wille in Paris, asking him to remember him to Louis de Silvestre. The relationships established in Dresden lived on later, though somewhat slackened. The request proves that Mengs still remembered Silvestre with friendly feelings, though they had not met for many years.

104 There were tendencies already detectable under Augustus the Strong that reflected the increasing influence of the heir to the throne of that time and his wife, Maria Josepha. Under Augustus III other trends strengthened, too, which added up to political rétablissement and massive artistic emancipation after 1763. The heir to the throne, Frederick Christian, patronised and supported these endeavours.

105 Already before the Seven Years' War, Brühl and his governing methods, as well as his much-criticised extravagance, elicited strong opposition even within the court. The heir and his wife, Maria Antonia, princess of Bavaria (1724-1780), became the centre of a quiet opposition encompassing all walks of life and art. Yet many artists managed to pull the stunt of remaining in the favour of both the king and Brühl on the one hand, and the young couple awaiting the throne, on the other. Both Mengs and Dietrich aptly exemplify it. Johann Joachim Winckelmann was attracted more and more to Frederick Christian, and had the latter had more than three months to reign, the art life of Dresden would have presumably changed: "Unlike his father, the heir to the throne was engrossed in the exploration and revival of antiquity instead of knowing and collecting the modern painting of Italy or the Netherlands as it developed from the Renaissance."

106 If a close friend of Mengs, Winckelmann declares: "The only way for us to become great, and, if possible, inimitable, is by copying the ancient masters [...]"

107

, then there was more than just a need to change tastes: the day was breaking on a new age. If one remembers what Winckelmann said about the social foundations of the efflorescence of ancient classical art he set as a model, one will understand what a great political importance the unfolding of Neoclassicism implied in Germany in the middle of the century. "In the constitution and governance of Greece," Winckelmann says in his history of ancient art, "freedom is the main motive for the cultivation of the arts."

108 The aesthetic theory is combined with a political programme, revealing that early German Neoclassicism not only brought about a stylistic turn but also implied bourgeois democratic endeavours.

109 There was an astonishing and varied - although chiefly Catholic - efflorescence of the arts in Dresden in the first half of the 18

th century, which has nurtured the art life of Dresden to this day. Bernhard Lindau wrote in 1885, "The generous devotion [...] that promoted the development and perfection of the outward appearance of Dresden in the 18

th century, fostered, enriched and complemented the essential inner contents - the treasures of science and art - to which Dresden owes its place among the most popular towns in Europe much more than to its outward appearance."

110 During the decades of Augustus Ill's reign and count Brühl's government - the Augustan era of Saxony, that is, the "essential inner contents" were enriched with significant and unmistakable elements.