the greycat blog

The most-read article on greycat.org over the last week has been ‘Dresden: the making of a baroque city’.

Baroque cities have been described as representing ‘the cosmic-dynastic grand illusion’ with the great palace acting as the focus, ‘sending its surveillance and benevolence into the far corners of the geometrically disciplined urban universe’. This vision is perhaps most dramatically expressed in completely new cities such as Karlsruhe and St Petersburg; but it is fully present, on a smaller scale, but nonetheless in the grand manner, in the development of Dresden during the baroque period.

The most-read essay on greycat.org over the last week has been ‘Dresden: the making of a baroque city’. Aristotle remains popular, and for the first time Rousseau has featured in the top three, but Dresden was the clear people’s choice.

The single most important factor in the architectural development of Dresden during the late seventeenth and early- to mid-eighteenth centuries was its role as capital of the Electorate of Saxony, and the location there of the Saxon court. From 1694 to 1733, the ruler of Saxony was Frederick Augustus I, known as ‘Augustus the Strong’, whose ambitions for himself and his state determined the development of his capital; in particular, his acquisition of the crown of Poland in 1696 was the spur to a large-scale programme of architectural improvements in Dresden which were intended to express the power prestige and glory of Saxony and her ruler. … In order to become King of Poland, Augustus I converted to Catholicism, and the presence in the capital of Protestant Saxony of a Catholic court provides an important context for the prolonged flourishing in Dresden of the baroque style.

To read more from this essay, which includes illustrations and maps, pay a visit to ‘Dresden: the making of a baroque city’.

Picture: Portrait of Augustus the Strong by Louis de Silvestre. [Source]