Bavaria: The world theater of the baroque – Bavaria

One encounters the full life in Regensburg almost everywhere, and that’s what happened on Thursday morning on the way from the train station to the House of Bavarian History, where a state exhibition will soon be on display, which really illuminates all the bright and dark sides of earthly existence . The communion children from Münchsmünster also left the train in the morning, as they were allowed to go on a trip to the city, which – like the state exhibition – aroused some expectations. So a boy asked an adult companion: “I’m going to Kuchlbauer now?” What he obviously had in mind was a tavern, but he was immediately slowed down: “No, no,” the supervisor informed him, “we’re going to the cathedral now.”

So this city regularly satisfies hopes and expectations, and this applies in particular to the new state exhibition, which will open next Tuesday in the House of Bavarian History. It is special because it will focus on Bavaria and Bohemia, a core area of ​​Europe. Although previous national exhibitions have been dedicated to the relationship between these two countries, this time the show was conceived together for the first time. The result is all the more exciting as the checkered history of Bavaria and the Czechs is assessed very differently in some cases. So it shouldn’t come as a surprise that Richard Loibl, the director of the House of Bavarian History, said during a tour on Thursday that despite all the treasures it wasn’t a jubilee show.

Nevertheless: “It is an incredible honor for us to be able to show this exhibition,” continued Loibl. Compared to the co-organiser, the National Museum in Prague, the House of Bavarian History is a very young house, which owns around 500,000 items in the collection, while the house in Prague has more than 20 million items. And it opened its treasure chests wide and made the finest pieces available. “Such an accumulation of absolute top objects will not be seen in Bavaria anytime soon,” said Loibl. From the wide field of art, everything that had rank and name in the Baroque era was represented, from Dientzenhofer to Tiepolo. More than 150 originals from both countries stand for the diversity and richness of an epoch full of abysses and illusions.

Open detailed view

Right at the entrance, visitors are greeted by a radiant favorite object of the curators, namely a magnificent horse harness that is preciously decorated. It is a piece of Prague provenance that was first listed in 1627 in the private chamber gallery of the Bavarian Elector Maximilian I. That Wittelsbacher Maximilian is one of the main characters of the exhibition, he was one of the most important actors of the time. The fact that he was given the title of elector by Emperor Ferdinand II at the Regensburg Princes’ Day in January 1623 is naturally of great importance in Bavaria. It was a result of the initial turmoil of the Thirty Years’ War, which reached its first gruesome climax in 1620 in the Battle of White Mountain. Maximilian I defeated the Bohemian army there and recaptured the renegades for the Habsburg Emperor.

However, the price for the electoral dignity was steep for the Bavarian subjects. Not only because Maximilian ruled with an iron broom as one of the leaders of the Catholic League. With his policy trimmed for rigorous efficiency, he brought the shattered state budget back on track, turned Bavaria into perhaps the most modern state in the Christian world at the time, but harassed the population with his Catholic fanaticism and his intolerance to the death. Loibl therefore does not think much of the common judgment about this religious and ascetic figure, instead he calls Maximilian a Machiavellian.

The portrait of Wallenstein alone arouses fears

The consequences of this power politics are still evident in Bohemia, where the defeat left a traumatic legacy. The disgrace that proud Bohemia lost its independence has not been forgotten there to this day. Walking through the exhibition, one becomes constantly aware that the world theater of that time, with its wars, hardships and epidemics, with its boundless violence and absurdity, even surpassed the idiocies of modernity. The portrait of Wallenstein alone arouses fears, as he invented the system of mercenary armies as a war entrepreneur in the Thirty Years’ War, who plundered and plundered their livelihood from the country.

Of course, the show does not only capture the dark sides of that time. The generic term baroque, which designates the epoch, also includes a popular style in art. It is a phenomenon that in times of misery, art often takes off. In any case, the two countries were gripped by an unprecedented construction boom, from which a common cultural area that was unique in Europe emerged. “It was a sort of Baroque Marshall plan,” as Loibl put it.

Last but not least, the joint project means that the House of Bavarian History cannot, as is the custom, turn the last minute screws on the exhibition this time, as next Tuesday, shortly before the opening of the exhibition in the museum, a Bavarian -Czech Council of Ministers meeting will take place. In return, the House of Bavarian History offers its guests free entry to the state and permanent exhibitions from May 10th to 14th.

The Bavarian-Czech State Exhibition “Baroque! Bavaria and Bohemia” can be seen from May 10th to October 3rd in the Danube Hall of the House of Bavarian History in Regensburg. From December 8th to May 8th, 2024 it will be presented in the National Museum in Prague.