31 December 2007

Trapped in Amber


Remember in the movie Jurassic Park when the mad scientist recovered the dinosaur DNA from the insects trapped in the hard golden orbs of ancient tree sap? It made a hell of a premise and a blockbuster film. Everyone loved the raptors and the T-Rex.

In the script, everyone wound up very sorry, since the consequences were really bad. Sorrow goes along with amber, from classical times. Ovid wrote about it, telling the tale of Phaeton, son of sun-god Phoebus, who convinced his father to allow him to drive the sun chariot across the sky for a day.

As youthful drivers are wont, he swerved too near the earth, setting it alight. In order to save mankind, Jupiter was forced to strike Phaeton with thunderbolts, destroying the chariot and hurling him to doom. Phaeton's mother and sister were turned by their grief into trees, but still they wept.

Their tears of mourning were turned by the sun's heat to amber.

There are places stuck like the insects in the semi-precious stones. Reflections of things that were, and are long gone, except for the translucent spheres in which their shadows live.

Like the ancient city of Konigsberg, which might be the biggest insect ever trapped in amber. The biggest deposits of the fossilized tree-sap are located west of the city, which indicates that once there were great groves of gigantic trees, oozing sticky life under a tropical sky. Things change, and the Baltic is gray this time of year, gray and cold.

The Knights of Prussia had become Lutheran, long ago, though the black cross still flew on their banners. In addition to a carrying on a tradition with a certain martial flare, the Knights had produced generations of hard-working farmers who worked their fields in partnership with remarkable horses. In the city, there rose a guild of craftsmen without peer in the age of the Reformation.

Their works were things of wonder, crafted from the stones that came from the sandy soil along with the vegetables.

The renown of the craftsmen was cemented with their greatest work, the celebrated Room of Amber. The greatest work of the Knights was the creation of the extraordinary cavalry mount, the celebrated Trakehner horse.

The Amber Room project began in 1701, and took a decade to execute. Friedrich, first King of the Prussians, commissioned it. Of course, it was the at the urging   (as are so many great works) at the urgings of his consort Sophie Charlotte. The design was conceived by Andreas Schluter, and the sculpting supervised by master-carver Gottfried Wolfram. It was executed by amber masters Ernst Schaft and Gottfired Turau.

Friedrich intended the intricate yellow panels to decorate his palace at Charlottenburg, and it did, for his lifetime. His eccentric son, Friedrich Wilhelm I, assumed the throne upon his death, and hosted the towering Russian Czar Petr to improve relations and triangulate the increasingly bellicose Swedes against the power of Russia.

Veliki (Great) Petr stood six feet eight in his stockinged feet, and much admired the Amber panels. To him, they seemed to symbolize the culture of the West he desired to graft onto his homeland. In order to cement an alliance, Friedrich had the panels taken down and transferred to the Czar as a gift in 1716.

It took 18 large crates to move the paneling to the Winter House in St. Petersburg, the bold new city Peter had created as Russia's window on Europe. Forty years later, Czarina Elizabeth ordered the room moved to the Czar's Village at Pushkin, to the Catherine Palace. Italian designer Bartolomeo Francesco Rastrelli was hired to expand the paneling to fit into the new and larger space. Additional amber was shipped from Konigsberg to meet the demand.

When the project was complete, the paneling covered about 180 square feet, and it contained more than six tons of amber backed by gold leaf, inset with other semi-precious stones. The Amber Room became a centerpiece of Royal Russia in the imperial capital of St. Petersburg. By turns, it was initially a private meditation chamber for Czarina Elizabeth, a gathering room for Catherine the Great, and a space for Czar Alexander II to display his treasures.

Gold displayed before amber on gold, set with jewels.

Friedrich Wilhelm pursued multiple paths to deal with the threat of the Swedes from the north. He waged the peace offensive with the Russians in amber, and he redoubled his effort to strengthen the Prussian military. The Swedish cavalry was equipped with a remarkable horse with the speedy qualities of a thoroughbred, though high-stepping and graceful. Careful breeding brought them a mellow temperament that enabled them to perform to high standards in the chaos of the battlefield.

In 1732, the Prussian established his experimental breeding stable at a village called Trakehnen. He had his soldiers clear the brush and trees between the villages of Stalluponen and Gumbinnen, and commanded that the finest mares to Trakehnen's stallions. An aggressive program permitted him to swiftly transform the breed into one much sought after for army remounts, more than a match for the Swedish horses engaged in the Great Northern War. Friedrich's horses were sure-footed, intelligent, and athletic.

He formed a regiment of the tallest men in Europe, perhaps emulating the imposing presence of Great Peter himself.

Determined to make his son every bit as martial as himself, he exposed his heir to the sound of cannon fire at the age of six and equipping him with a battalion of other children to march about. Friedrich II, as he would be called when he assumed the throne, was driven quite to distraction and attempted to flee his father. Detained on the way to England, his little party was held before a military tribunal, and his close companion- don't ask, don't tell being another tradition of long standing in the Prussian military- was executed before his eyes.

I suppose it is only to be expected that some bizarre behavior should run in the family. But when Friedrich II began the long march toward German unification, his kingdom was at peace with Russia, bought with gifts of amber, and his soldiers were mounted on the extraordinary horses of the Royal Trakehner.

It was all quite remarkable, those times, and all completely gone. Except for the part that is trapped in amber, like a curious antique bug.

Copyright 2007 Vic Socotra
www.vicsocotra.com

Close Window