Christian Heinrich Siegel ΚΡΙΣΤΙΑΝ ΧΕΙΝΡΙΧ ΣΙΥΚΕΛ
Born 1806 in Germany Died 1883 in Athens
Row E right at the far end of the Protestant Cemetery
It is true that Christian Heinrich Siegel the first teacher of modelling and sculpture at the newly formed Athens School of Arts has not left much of a visible legacy (a huge sleeping lion in Nauplio and a sculpted grave in the First Cemetery) but his spiritual legacy is immense because he helped to mold the aesthetic and the skills of the first generation of Greece’s sculptors. The details of his almost 50 years in Greece are sketchy but worth examining because his time in Greece offers a glimpse into the beginnings of the modern state. His life is typical of the optimism, skill sets, and entrepreneurship that characterized so many young Europeans who came to Greece to help create the nation and, hopefully, to make their fortunes. Like many artists-entrepreneurs of that era, Siegel would dabble extensively in archaeology, real estate, and business, in his case marble quarries. Unlike many Germans, he chose to stay and even began to sign his name in the Greek fashion- ΣΙΓΚΕΛΟΣ, quite a compliment to his adopted country.
His Life
Christian was born in Wandsbek, now a district in the city of Hamburg, Germany in 1808. He travelled due north to study at Copenhagen’s Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts, modelled after the Academy of Fine Arts in Paris and then one of the best Academies in Europe. Denmark was undergoing a cultural renaissance of sorts after the Napoleonic wars and this school would produce famous sculptors such as Herman Freund (1786-1840) and Bertel Thorvaldsen (1797-1838). The neoclassical style, in vogue at the time, would be absorbed by the young Christian and later by his pupils in Greece. He completed his studies in the Munich Academy under Ludwig Michael Schwanthaler and in 1837-8 back in Hamburg under Otto Sigsmund Runge.
The Danish Academy’s Seal
The European Academies and the spread of Neoclassicism
It is amazing in that pre-internet world, how interconnected and homogeneous the aesthetic ideals at these academies were and how easily ideas gravitated from one centre to the other. Many students studied in multiple academies before graduation and, no doubt, this would have produced a kind of ‘old boys’ network valuable to students, not just for a shared aesthetic, but also because of the connections they made that could lead to those all important future commissions.
The Neoclassical style itself was partly a reaction against rococo excesses but was also fuelled by the intense contemporary interest in all things classical, especially classical sculpture which, literally, was being unearthed in Italy and Greece during that period. Students at European art academies were always tasked with copying these newly discovered forms which then became a part of their artistic DNA. Neoclassicism, like classicism itself, placed emphases on clarity of contour, the idealization of faces and bodies, decorum in positioning, and an overall sense of repose which, all together, projected a sense of timelessness and the ideal. The preferred attire was classical rather than contemporary. (1) The Venus de Milo, discovered in 1820, could be taken as a beau ideal for neoclassical sculpture.
Neoclassicism was a style that suited 19th century Greece perfectly, not just because it was already popular in Europe and the natural heritage of the country, but also because one of the aims of the new state was to stress its connection with the ancient Greece and to present the modern state in an equally idealized form.
Greece gets a German King in 1832 and a lot of Germans Answer his Call
Greece’s fight for freedom had captured the imagination of Europe as did the investiture in 1832 of 17 year old King Othon, the son of Ludwig I of Bavaria. Greece provided opportunities for European artists and architects with the right connections, - connections which Christian Siegel had. His teacher in Munich was one of King Ludwig’s master craftsmen and Hans Christian Hansen (1803-1883), the Danish architect who would have such an early influence in Athens had been a student in Copenhagen during the same period as Siegel.
Siegel arrived in Greece in 1834, (2) to work with Hansen who needed artisans to decorate a building complex planned for land bought by Georgios Kantakouzenos at the corner of Millerou and Leonidou in what is today’s Metaxourgeio. Siegel was in his late twenties and Hansen in his early thirties. Works were being sponsored by King Ludwig, and the many wealthy Greeks who had flocked to Greece from the diaspora to buy land and finance the reconstruction of the city. It was a wonderful time to be an architect or artisan; Athens was rising from the ashes of the War of Independence and had just been designated as Greece’s capital city.
A False Start in Metaxourgeiou
Kantakouzenos, a wealthy Phanariot, had bought this site for development primarily because it would be near the proposed royal palace then planned in today’s Omonia Square. He was not the only land speculator to be bitterly disappointed when the palace was actually built on the east side of today’s Syntagma Square. The new Athens elite all wanted to build near that all important palace. As a result, the area where the Kantakouzenos complex had been planned became less desirable, and more industrial. The complex was abandoned for a time and then altered to later become the site of the silk factory that has given the district its name today. Its latest incarnation is as the Athens Municipal Art Gallery. (3)
1: where Kantakouzenos bought, 2: the
proposed palace site, and 3: where it was built. These distances in today’s
mega city seem small, but they were not considered small in the 1830s.
In any case, Hansen signed off the project almost immediately, angry that his original design was not being followed. He went on to greater things: the design and construction of the main building of the University of Athens and the excavation and reconstruction of the Acropolis’ temple of Athena Nike.
Siegel remained in Athens, looking for work.
In 1838, he received a commission from King Ludwig 1 to erect a suitable monument to the Royal Bavarian Guards who had succumbed to typhoid in Nauplio during the terrible epidemic of 1833-4. (4)
Completed in 1840-41, and located in the Pronoia district close to the city centre, it is carved out of the native slate rock and is 8 metres long and three metres high.
I love this monument. I came across it on one of my first visits to Greece and had no idea what an immense lion was doing, snoozing in a suburb of Nauplio. Its pose is wonderfully mournful, and those immense and relaxed paws are awesome yet somehow endearing as they hang over the ‘tomb’. Some have suggested that this lion was inspired the famous archaic lion of the island of Kea. It too was immense and carved from the living rock. But our feline’s true ancestor lives in Switzerland. He is the Lion of Lucerne, a memorial to fallen soldiers completed by Bertel Thorvaldsen in 1821. Bertel was nine years older than Siegel, more famous, and, like Siegel, a graduate of the Danish School of Fine Arts. His monument had clearly made an impression on Siegel. (5)
Thorvaldsen’s lion.
This early photograph taken by Carl Siele in 1910 gives you a better idea of the grandeur of ‘our’ lion’s situation and size. The effect is slightly hi-jacked these days by the children’s playground at its base. Still, the lion sleeps on....
1842 saw Siegel working on the decorative marble bits for the new palace of the King as well as taking part in the resurrection of some of the monuments on the Acropolis rock. It seems as if every philhellene did a little digging or resurrecting of the past during their careers.
At one time he apparently had a residence and workshop for modelling in the modified Kantakouzenos complex, the complex that had brought him to Greece in the first place. Another source has him living on either Piraeus or Menandrou Street, a neighbour of Duchess of Plaisance, an early benefactor of the Athens school of Arts; another has him living in a garden home of the Austrian Consul. Siegel was not making a lot of money during his early career which might explain his many moves. His main sources of income were marble busts. In those days before photography, the wealthy liked to immortalize themselves and their families in marble.
The School of Fine Arts
His work must have appreciated though because 1847 saw him, at the age of 41, hired to teach modelling and sculpture at the Athens school of Fine Arts, a position he would hold until 1859. This school was responsible for turning Greek marble workers into accomplished artists. The school had first opened in 1836 on weekends only because its students, of necessity, had day jobs. It apparently taught the Greek language as well because some of its early students had not attended school long enough to gain literacy or had not attended at all. By 1840, it was offering daily classes. The influence of this school and the art its graduates produced for buildings and public spaces in Athens would be impossible to over-estimate.
Siegel’s students read like a who’s who of 19th century Greek sculpture: the Kossos brothers, Demitrios (1819-1872) and Ioannis (1822-73), the Fytalis Brothers, Georgos ( 1830-73) and Lazaros (1831-1909) and, later, Leonidas Drosis (1834-1882) who did so much of the sculptural decoration for the Athens university and is now considered the greatest exponent of neoclassicism in Greece. He would have been 15 when Siegel stopped teaching, but many began their schooling at that age or younger. In any case, Siegel was a major influence. (6)
Some Neoclassic Busts of the Era
Psyche by Ioannis Kossos
Queen Amalia of Greece by the Fytalis Brothers now in the National Historical Museum on Stadiou Street
The Fytalis brothers again in 1883
Leonidas Drossis’ bust of Irini Mavrokordatos.
The Marble Trade
As you might expect of any sculptor in Greece, Siegel was fascinated by its storied ancient quarries, many of which were still producing. Marble was big business in the 19th century and there was an ever growing export market. Architects, diplomats, philhellenes and the artists themselves were eager to invest. Architect and town planner, Stamatis Kleanthis, already owned quarries on the island of Tinos in the 1840s. Siegel’s first investment was a quarry in Axinoi, on Tinos circa 1849-50. He successfully presented some of this marble at an exhibition in London in 1851. The Prussian king was so impressed, he made a large order through Karl Kloebe, his consul in Greece. Kloebe and Christian went into the marble business together. This is all very vague because there are very few records of ownership during this period. We do know that when Siegel died, Kloebe continued their business for a time.
Between 1850 and 1855, Siegel was often abroad, accepting European commissions and promoting Greek marble.
In 1857 he rediscovered the ancient marble quarries near Lagia (above the village of Dimaristika) in the Mani which contained the famous rosy rosso antico, quarried in Greece since Mycenean times. Even today it is an out of the way spot. It must have seemed like the back of the moon to Siegel
The Quarry near Lagia. Visiting today is still an adventure.
1859 saw him investing in another Tinian quarry, this time with green veins. Siegel could now boast red and green Greek marble, perhaps the rarest hues of all.
Siegel in the First Cemetery
Section 4, Number 102
In 1864, Siegel created the grave stele of Elisabeth Werberg in the First Cemetery. It is a bas relief, a version of the Mourning Spirit whose appearance in one form or another goes back to antiquity. She (or he in some cases, with or without wings), was a favourite motif in the 19th century and depictions go from severe neoclassical to downright romantic. She holds a long torch upside down to symbolize the end of life. The mourning spirit and the extinguished (or extinguishing) torch can be seen over and over again in the First Cemetery. That little Athenian owl at her feet is a harbinger of death; the laurel it is perched on a symbol of a life well lived. Siegel signed his name ΣΙΓΚΕΛΟΣ under the angel’s feet. (ΑΘΗΝΗΘΕΝ ΕΡΓΟΝ ΣΙΓΕΛΟΣ)
If this angel is not a perfect fit into the neoclassical mould promoted at the School of Fine Arts, it does well to remember that funeral monuments were an important source of income for sculptors in Greece, and were made to please the tastes of the families of the deceased.
Siegel’s angel closely resembles in stance and expression an earlier and smaller Mourning Spirit on a tomb of the Malakates brothers.
The Damaskinos Family, Section One, Number 172: Same hair, same pose, but no owl or laurel.
A Fytalis brothers’ mourning angel in Section 4, Number 183 done in 1883 with an owl
It can be an interesting pastime to track down these mourning figures and their symbols while walking in the First Cemetery. Some sport owls, others lamps or wreaths. All wear classical dress even if some of it is draped over a naked form.
Siegel’s Last Years and another Lion
Siegel’s career may have got off the ground with a sleeping lion, but it was intended to end with a sitting one. The head and paws of the Lion of Chaironeia had been discovered by British travellers in 1820 who promptly reburied it in order to save it for the British Museum. Luckily that never happened. There were several efforts to resurrect the lion, some of which involved Siegel.
The lion had been erected by Thebes to commemorate their war dead (the Sacred Band) after their defeat by Phillip of Macedonin in 388 BC
The Greek Archaeological Society had considered a restoration in 1839 and had successfully petitioned King Othon for the task, assuring him that German donors would pay the bill. That plan fell through in 1843 after a Greek uprising forced Othon to grant the country a constitution. This offended the donors. It seems they were willing to patronise only as long as they could also be patronising. They withdrew their money, their leader dismissing Greece as an ‘uppity mini country’. German phihellenism had its limits!
Siegel submitted his plan for restoring the lion in 1856 but nothing happened, not even after the summer of 1879 when he travelled to the site with Lazaris Fytalis in another attempt to resurrect the beast. Siegel was in his 70s then and still going strong. He wanted to take part in the excavation of ancient Chaironeia as well as placing the lion back on its paws.
The lion finally roared in 1902, and is a bit of a patchwork, not much of it Siegel’s.
Seigel died in 1883 and is buried in the Protestant Cemetery under a monument he would surely have approved of.
In an obituary at the time, his connection with the marble quarries in Lakonia and Tinos are mentioned. But his real legacy was the students he taught.
Footnotes
(1) A dress code exception was made for heroes of the revolution such as Varvakis and Capodistria.
(2) Some say 1835.
(3) The site, or part of it, is now the Athens Municipal Gallery, and well worth a visit if only to explore the old building and the area.
The Old silk factory has had a stylish makeover
(4) The Bavarian Guards who were sent to Greece, many of whom stayed on, have kind of slipped out of the national consciousness. They did not all die of Typhoid as the small Catholic church in the suburb of Palio Iraklio (an area set aside for the troops to live) testifies.
(5) Or maybe on King Ludwig who perhaps wanted to outdo the one in Lucerne.
(6) Whether or not the Malakates brothers from Tinos attended the school in its early days is unknown to me. They opened an Athenian workshop in 1834 and were reputed to be self taught. But, either they picked up the neoclassicist aesthetic from the air, or they too were early weekend attendees.
Sources
Sources on Siegel are few and far between
https://slpress.gr/politismos/enas-germanos-glyptis-sto-metaxoyrgeio/ best article on him
Material on Chaironeia from https://berlinarchaeology.files.wordpress.com/2012/08/ma-2008.pdf
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