After it had been created at the negotiating table 210 years ago, people wanted to get a picture of it: As a great unknown, the Palatinate initially attracted the curious eyes of draughtsmen and painters after 1816, who explored it and recorded it in their sketchbooks. The growing demand for illustrated books and affordable pictures soon led to a boom in printmaking. Lithographs, steel and wood engravings presented the landscape with its towns, villages and castle ruins or folkloristic themes such as traditional costumes, customs and traditions to a wide audience. Finally, photography conquered the image market, which it shaped from then on, first in collotype, then in offset printing, and still dominates today with digital postings, for example. The lecture takes a look at the protagonists and key works of this development and includes selected exhibits from the "Making of Pfalz" exhibition. It examines the emergence and transformation of those visual worlds in which a regional identity is negotiated. Ways of migrating motifs will be discussed as well as processes of popularization and canon formation.

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Organizer: Institute for Art Studies and Fine Arts