Gymnastic Games

Later director of the Düsseldorf Art Academy, Bendemann worked as of 1839 on designs for the Dresden Schloss ballroom and concert hall, which was destroyed in 1945. The total of eight images for the frieze drew on antiquated figures, were made in white on a blue ground, and each carries an explanatory caption. From birth via youth, sporting challenges, victories won, wedding through to death, presenting the Greek ideal of life as a dance in which calm and motion, contemplation and dynamic action alternate. The figures are influenced by Roman models, and their clear marble tone sets them off from the blue ground; they are meant to create the illusion of a sculptural relief, and yet are more indebted to decorative Classicism than to Classical Rome. Despite the narrow and limited format, the frieze catches the eye with its vibrant mood, whereby this is duly ceremonial in line with the place where it was to stand. The worlds of gods and men mix casually in the intimated sequence of actions. Bendemann thus evokes an historicizing ideal which was to give way in the next generation of artists to a more realistic description of the lives they themselves experienced. (Frank Schmidt)