Ludwig van Beethoven - Zeichnung von Arthur Paunzen aus der Mitte des 20. Jahrhunderts, Reproduktion, um 1950?

At the end of the First World War Arthur Paunzen published a collection of eleven etchings under the title of "Phantasien über Beethoven-Symphonien" (Fantasies about Beethoven symphonies).

The individual sheets of this collection show allegorical depictions regarding the various Beethoven symphonies. There is a scene of the Fifth Symphony (C minor, op. 67) showing a Gothic facade with its spikes blurring with the clouds. Masses of people are fleeing from its portal as an immense claw-like hand reaches down from the clouds. Two other pictures bear the title "Eroica Trauermarsch" (Eroica funeral march) and refer to the second movement of the Third Symphony (E flat major, op. 55). Both represent Beethoven's music under opposite aspects. The foreground of the first sheet features a man with a flourish whereas in the background an array of attacking lance riders can be seen. Thus the picture's topic is the victory flourish which interrups the funeral march in Beethoven's music several times. The second scene shows a drab winter landscape with a lonesome and lost funeral march.

For the shown title page Paunzen designed a fantasy portrait of Beethoven. Like most fine artists he reverted to the Beethoven mask which Franz Klein had manufactured in 1812.(S.B.)