Lorch Monastery from the North, South, East, and West; shown in a drawing, as a transfer picture, as a romantic postcard motif or as an oil painting - today pictures are taken for granted. But that wasn't always so. The reproduction of a certain place, a person or an occasion requires a presence of mind for the importance of the depicted subject. And the resulting pictures were only accessible to a very few for a long time, and this included Lorch Monastery. The first illustrations of the complex and its church are hidden among the initials of the choir books and on the walls of the monastery church.
The monastery's founding, which was linked with its designation as the future tomb of the Staufer dynasty, is the first motif in which the monastery was depicted. Around 1530 a number of Staufer pictures were painted in the monastery church. These include the founder Duke Friedrich of Swabia and his wife Agnes of Waiblingen, who hold a model of the church in their hands as a symbol of their donation. The model shows the state of the building at that time, i.e. without the two Romanesque towers, of which the last was destroyed by a fire in the Monastery in 1525 during the Peasants' Wars. In contrast to this, the Lorch Choir Books of 1511-1512 contain a representation based on the Romanesque church building. The two towers of the West Building (Westbau) can be clearly recognized on the far left.
Then, nearly three centuries later - with the further discovery of the sleepy, romantic ruins of the monastery complex in the early 19th century - the monastery was a popular subject of pictures. Tourists with a keen interest in culture, serious painters, poets, musicians and even scientists visited the former Staufer tomb and let themselves be inspired by the magic of the place and the spirit of the past. For example, a watercolor and ink drawing of the Gmünd drawing teacher Johann Sebald Baumeister shows the Monastery in 1804 high above the still unwooded monastery mountain. The photographer Jakob August Lorent recorded the Monastery in 1866 for his three-volume publication "Denkmale des Mittelalters im Königreiche Württemberg" (Medieval Monuments in the Kingdom of Württemberg). And the architect Richard Raisch produced drawings of the outside and inside of the church around 1890 following the major restoration of 1879-1883.
Lorch was soon a permanent destination for excursions in Württemberg, which resulted in the postcard industry taking possession of the monastery motif in a large number of different ways. Colorful, hand-colored greeting cards appeared around 1900, while in the 20th century the greetings from afar became sober and photographically precise.
The Lorch Anniversary Exhibition contains many historical views of the Monastery from every phase of its history. A separate exhibition in the Städtisches Museum (Town Museum) in the "Storchen" in Göppingen will also show historical views of the castles of the Staufer country beginning 10 July 2002. At the head of all this is, of course, Hohenstaufen; but also venerable old walls such as the Wäscher Palace and the ruins of Staufeneck come alive again in views from times ages.