Study for a Monument to Queen Louise

The picture shoes a design by the architect Schinkel for a Gothic mausoleum for the Prussian Queen Luise. This warm-hearted patron of the arts was much mourned, and Schinkel chose the Gothic style both as a patriotic expression, and for its echoes of organic natural forms, hinting at nature’s processes of renewal and thus of eternal life. The complex patterns of vaulted arches receding into a light-filled interior evoke the German forests. As things turned out, the grieving king preferred a classical scheme, which still stands in the park at Charlottenburg, and economic conditions after the War of Liberation left Schinkel’s grander vision for a vast Gothic cathedral in Berlin unrealized.