Ludwig van Beethoven, Denkmal in Leipzig - Statue von Max Klinger aus dem Jahr 1902, Fotografie von Nicola Perscheid, um 1902

The Beethoven monument made by Max Klinger is the result of the sculptor's very personal admiration for Ludwig van Beethoven. It contains a number of different allusions and allegorical motives, and all of them celebrate Beethoven as the epitome of the ingenious artist.

In this respect, the composer is brought into connection of the most important Gods of the ancient world (Zeus or Jupiter). He is sitting on a gorgeously decorated throne, wearing only the wide coat which Gods and philosophers were wearing in the ancient time. The eagle of Zeus can be seen at his feet, looking into Beethoven's face. Max Klinger alludes to the Prometheus myth by using the motive of the eagle. According to the transmission of the ancient time, Prometheus created the human beings and was tortured by the eagle of Zeus, because he brought the fire to his creatures, which originally had been reserved to the Gods.

Already in the second half of the 19th century, this theme was again and again connected to Beethoven. In the romantic imagination of the time, the composer became the epitome of the creating, ingenious artist, who is in contact with the transcendental world of the Gods and therefore is condemned to suffer. Through the attitude of his Beethoven sculpture, which expresses an effort of will because of the tense expression of the face and the fist, Klinger wants to show the painful act of creation and the struggle for a higher truth.(S.B.)