Views of the Rhine – The bridge in art
The old Rhine Bridge inspired artists for centuries – and the Middle Bridge followed suit. It appears in countless drawings, prints and paintings, including works by world-famous painters such as William Turner and Ernst Ludwig Kirchner; the latter captured it on canvas in 1927. However, the bridge itself is also an open-air gallery. Anyone walking across it encounters various artworks: At the Grossbasel bridgehead, Carl Burckhardt’s Amazon Leading a Horse (1926) stands guard. Lagerstätte, meaning ‘deposit’, is the title of Ludwig Stocker’s 1992 sculpture, which is anchored upstream at the first Kleinbasel bridge pier and can only be seen when the water level permits. Also on the Kleinbasel side is Bettina Eichin’s Helvetia on the Road (1980), who, having seemingly stepped out of a Swiss coin, has laid down her spear and shield to gaze pensively down the Rhine.
Bildquelle: Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, ‹Blick auf Basel mit Mittlerer Brücke und Münster› (1927/1928), Saint Louis Art Museum, Missouri