But back to the discussion at hand...this time it will be the Ehekarussell - Marriage Carousel. It is a bizarre but interesting fountain in the southern part of the inner circle of Nürnberg. It was built in 1984, so rather new to the town, by Jürgen Weber, from Braunschweig. A very controversial statue that had the city up in arms for quite a while. It depicts the poem, written some 400 years ago, from Han Sachs, a famous Nürnberger "The Bitter Sweet Marital Life." The poem itself is carved into a large granite heart at the start of the carousel. Weber shows six different parts from many in the poem. The ups and downs of married life, perhaps!
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| Mother feeding her children - pelican carousel, Chinese legend reference. |
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| a rather large women devouring cakes while her husband is skinny, Wolverine carousel |
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| old skeleton couple, eternal fighting, carousel of lizard |
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| loving young couple in a swan bed |
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| to the left, young women rising out of a shell with the trumpeter and billy goat representing lust. the rose column on the right shows the names of the artist and his second wife,,,hmmm |
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| Hans Sachs the author of the poem depicted is on top of the ear of corn dancing |
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A few verses from Hans Sachs poem.
How often during our 33 years of married life
Were sweet and sour flavors
Mixed with happiness and suffering
First up, then down...
My wife is the heaven of my soul,
But also often my pain and hell.
She is my freedom and my choice
And often my prison and cause of nostalgia...
My wife is often amenable and good;
She is also often angry and furious.
She is my bliss and my heavy load.
She is my wound and my bandage.
She is my heart's delight
And she makes me old and gray.
Interestingly enough while doing research on this fountain I found this newspaper article from the "The Indiana Gazette" dated November 1, 1984. A pretty interesting read.
Nuremberg citizens assail fountain
portraying ups, downs of marriage
The lndiana Gazette / Thursday, November 1, 1984— Page 3
By BRENDA WATSON
Associated Press Writer
NUREMBERG, West Germany
(AP) — In the heart of old Nuremberg is a fountain so controversial that a closed-circuit video camera is trained on it around the clock to guard against vandalism. Called the Marriage Carousel, the 15-foot-high fountain depicts the joys and tribulations of wedded life as described fay Nuremberg's famed medieval poet Hans Sachs.Feminists don't like it because, as one said, "It portrays women as evil. It puts the entire blame for a bad marriage on them."Others pan it on grounds that it clashes with a nearby medieval tower.Either the fountain or the tower has to go," said Helmut Bloss, a City Council member.
It was built at a cost of 2 million marks ($660,000) in taxpayers' money over a seven-year period to conceal a subway grate, prompting a citizen to write in a letter to the editor of the newspaper Nurernberger Zeitung that it is "the world's most expensive cover for an air shaft."The newspaper devoted an entire page to letters from readers, with most attacking the fountain.A guard had to be posted at the fountain for six weeks this past spring to discourage vandalism as the statues were being installed. Police now keep watch via a closed-circuit camera linked to a nearby precinct station, but vandals have managed to throw liquid soap, red dye and even a rusty bicycle into the fountain.
The Marriage Carousel is a collection of statues portraying scenes from six phases of married life described in Sachs' poem, "Bittersweet Married Life." It was designed by Juergen Weber, a wellknown artist from Brunswick."She is a heaven to my soul, she is also often my agony and hell," goes a typical line from the poem, which stresses the ambivalence of married life.In the fountain, scenes from early,blissful stages of marriage are interspersed with the artist's conception of the tender union gone sour.A young nude couple embraces atop a swan. Next to them, a half decomposed old woman strangles her likewise degenerating husband atop a grotesque dragon-like creature.A compassionate young mother feeds two children as her husband looks on. Alongside them, a fat woman gorges on cake and coffee as her emaciated husband watches in horror.A young man trumpets his love fora beautiful woman while, next to them, a couple sits chained together in flames near a sign: " 'til death do you part."On top of it all is a statue of Hans Sachs, dancing gleefully.
City spokesman Norbert Neudecker said the fountain incited one of the loudest civic disputes in postwar Nuremberg. For two weeks in the spring, he said in an interview, the mayor's office spent more time dealing with the fountain than "really important issues," such as unemployment.That was when a newly elected City Council threatened to stop payment of the final 115,000 marks($37,000) needed to complete the fountain, Neudecker added. Lastminute political maneuvering saved it.Otto Peter Goerl, an architect by profession and a city councilman for 15 years, originally persuaded the council to accept Weber's design after proposals by other artists were rejected as too modernistic."Some people oppose it, others accept it, but it is always discussed. You can't walk by it without being affected in some way," Goerl said in an interview. "That is the purpose of art." Goerl maintains that the opponents of the fountain don't understand it. At his instigation, posters explaining the fountain are on display in the square accompanied by a statement from Weber urging citizens to view his work with a "sense of humor."
So art is art and I am sure there are admires. I find myself stopping whenever I walk by and re-looking at this fountain. I don't really like it, yet I am drawn to the "art" parts of it. Subject matter not so much. So if you are in Nürnberg, stop by and see what all the fuss is about.
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