Rhine Romanticism

in the Historical Museum on the Rhine – Hildegard von Bingen

The Rhine Romanticism department in the museum is based on a unique and complete collection of printed graphics. As an example, the sketching of Bingen illustrates the history of Rhine Romanticism over a 100-year period, including the various forms of art during that period. There are valuable examples of illustrated Rhine books and travel guides from the 19th century, and the pictures in them show the original ideas artists had of the area. The picture gallery is supplemented by the history of travel along the Rhine and original furniture from the 19th century. It is here that Rhine Romanticism comes to life. The “Salon der Goethezeit” (Salon of the Goethe period) around 1850 demonstrates the literary and muse-filled middle-class core of the early phase. The Biedermeier-Salon (Victorian-period Salon) about 1850 shows how the middle-class people in those days concentrated on their life at home. A popular tourist guide in those days recommended travelers to journey along the Rhine in their own four walls – with romantic etchings instead of the original sites in front of them. The salon from the founding period (around 1890) is typical of the late epoch of Rhine Romanticism: alongside mass-tourism and the industrialization the nationalist emphasis on the river is in the foreground.