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![[Picture: Berlin’s Victory Avenue in Winter]](https://www.fromoldbooks.org/ModerneKunst-15/pages/173-berlin-winter/173-berlin-winter-q75-500x340.jpg "[Picture: Berlin’s Victory Avenue in Winter]")
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Berlin’s Victory Avenue in Winter, in Berlin, Berlin, Germany more
nationalism, winter, snow, spooky, statues, sculpture, roads, colour
We see a wide snow-covered avenue with mature trees on either side. It is night, and there are stars: the overall effect is blue and cold. There are white statues of people standing on tall plinths, each in a booth on the left side of the avenue, with three steps leading up to the base of the column with the statue on it, and stone benches on three sides. There are footprints in the snow.
Work on Siegesallee, or Victory Avenue, commissioned by Kaiser Wilhelm II, was finished in 1901, although the local people seem to have found it pretentious and overly nationalist. The 96 white marble statues were by 27 different sculptors and showed former Prussian royal figures and their associates and advisors.
This painting by Ewald Thiel was made in that first year, 1901, and has an almost spooky auroa to it.
“Berlin’s Victory Avenue in Winter” reveals a new facet of this often-discussed artistic creation. A profound silence hangs over the Tiergarten; only a few people stroll along its hushed paths. A single couple, walking home from a ball at “Krolls,” passes by; in the distance, the steady footsteps of the lone guard, keeping watch at the monument to the ancestors of Emperor Wilhelm, fade away. Silent stars twinkle from the sky; the glow of the electric light refracts dimly on the gold of Victoria, who gazes down from the tall Victory Column—it breaks clearly and sharply in the sparkling snow crystals, against whose dazzling white the marble pales. The stone princes gaze strangely out from under the snow caps that winter has placed upon them. The sight of the silent marble statues is so deeply etched into the soul that the memory of it never fades.
The original German reads as follows:
„Die Berliner Siegesallee im Winter“ gewinnt der oft besprochenen künstlerischen Anlage eine neue Seite ab. Tiefe Stille lagert über dem Thiergarten, nur wenige Menschen wandeln die schweigsamen Wege. Ein einziges Menshenpaar, das von einem Balle bei „Krolls“ nach Hause schereitet, geht vorüber; in der Ferne verhallen die gleichmässigen Schritte des einsamen Schutzmannnes, der Wacht hält bei den Vorfahren Kaiser Wilhelms. Stille Sterne blinken vom Himmel herab; der Schein des elektrischen Lichtes bricht sich matt auf dem Golde der Viktoria, die von der hohen Siegersäule herab schaut — es brichght sich klar und scharf in den funkelnden Schnee-kristallen, gegen deren blendendes Weiss der Marmor verbleicht. Die steinernen Fürsten schauen seltsam fremd aus den Schneemützen heraus, die ihnen der Winter aufgesatzt hat. Der Anblick der schweigenden Marmorstatuen deängt sich so tief in die Seele ein, dass die Erinnungun daran nicht verlöscht.
