Ludwig van Beethoven, Denkmal in Heiligenstadt, um 1910 - Plastik von Robert Weigl von 1902, Fotografie, Wien, 1910

In the beginning of the 20th century, Robert Weigl (1851/52-1902) was commissioned to design a Beethoven statue for the Viennese district "Heiligenstadt". While most of the fine artists of that time had a very romantic idea of Beethoven and made almost a "superman" out of the composer, Weigl's concept completely differed from this perspective. His Beethoven statue rather reflects the naturalistic ideas of the mid-19th century.

The Beethoven figure is directly modelled on a lithograph of Martin Tejcek (1780-1847), which shows Beethoven while he went for a walk. Weigl almost completely took over this depiction from the first half of the 19th century and integrated it in his sculpture, which made the depiction of Beethoven downright realistic. This statue is supposed to give the impression as if the contemplator directly meets the composer on his walk in the nature.

Already a few years after the erection of the sculpture, Weigl's concept was considered not to be monumental enough. As a result, in 1910, an architectural surround was created, which encircled the sculpture with columns, in order to remove the statue optically from the world of the contemplator and put it to its own sublime sphere.(S.B.)