Why are the pictures so different despite seemingly all taking inspiration of the same thing?

6 comments

1. These are all different techniques and sources. The First one is a painting based on reports and printed engravings done by different artists. There is no “original”. It’s Like Reading different newspaper articles nowadays and seeing different photos from the same occasion.

2. The German flag dates back to the colours of some regiment in the Napoleonic wars. You must remember that Germany before the 1870s was not a national state but more of a conglomerate of different principalities each having their own currency, customs, national colours,… The Hambaches Fest has often been seen as the birth of a German national identity. From then on, the colours black, gold, red (the original order) become a common denominator of German national movements.

   edit: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flag_of_Germany](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flag_of_Germany)

3. The Hambacher Fest was if you so will one if not the birthing moment of the German national state but it was also one of the first times that the people of Europe voiced their wish to become friends with each other (there were delegations from France, England and several other european countries too, especially Poland). Even women were invited and allowed to attend which was very uncommon for that time. Thousands of people walked – peacefully – up that hill where speeches were held that generally voiced that the common people wanted a constitution, unity, free speech and most of all an end of aristocratic rulership.

4. I think the last one is most likely to be the original. The first two are clearly copies, because they show the German tricolor in the modern style, with black at the top; at the Hambacher Fest the flags they used had gold at the top.

5. So without knowing all in detail, I think the last one is actually the oldest, as it is from 1832. The second one looks like a completely colored “copy” of it but modernised to include the final flag design. (Gold red black was one of the old designs when there was no official design)

   Third one appears to be very old as well, but probably focues more on the different cities (the one in the center speels Landau and the one on the left is also wearing some text)

   And the first one is probably just a romantic view, proven by the “Polenschwärmerei” with including the Polish flag. The red/white/red flag could either be Hessen or Austria, in the context probably Hessen (Austria didnt use that flag at that time)

   With a higher quality version, you can see the text “nach einer alten Zeichnung” – “according to an old drawing” which underlines its interpretation. A page regarding that pictures states it is inspired by an old wood engraving.

   I cant tell what head is supposed be in the castle.

   It doesnt look like it, but in german art its usally always Bismarck and it could be a play with his role 39 years later.

6. Ok local German here.
   I don’t live next to the castle anymore, but I grew up near it. It’s the hambacher schloss, Hambach today being part of Neustadt an der Weinstraße. The forest is called Pfälzer Wald.

   There is no way you can see the castle from any perspective but next to it or far (far!) below it. When you walk to that castle you’ll walk through a nice forest, with big trees, rocks etc. You can see the castle from the villages at the food of the hill, but no way you get a perspective like those pictures. Theyd have to remove a shit ton of trees to get a comparable view to the pictures.

   When they had their party up there you could for sure see and hear it from the villages. But not the trail, you cant see people walk up there. You could encounter/see them near a village, then theyd walk through the forest and then arrive on the castle, where you could once again see them.

   This is artists showing what happend and telling the story, not what people could see directly.