Thousands of monuments and monuments adorn the squares, parks and squares of cities around the world. As a rule, all of them are dedicated to great people or major historical events. However, today I want to dwell on the most unusual sculptures dedicated to heroes, which, in general, did not exist at all, characters who were only a figment of the imagination of artists, poets and writers. Acquainted with many of them in early childhood, millions of people around the world became their close friends, so the people, as a sign of their sincere love, perpetuated heroes in bronze, marble and wood.
Monument to the Bremen Town Musicians in Bremen
For example, the memory of the characters in the fairy tale "The Bremen Town Musicians" (Grimm) still lives today, and not only in the authors' homeland, in the German city of Bremen, but also in many others, such as Tsyulpich, Leipzig, Fuerth, Erfurt, Kawaguchi-go (Japan), St. Petersburg, Sochi, Krasnoyarsk, Riga, Lipetsk and Khabarovsk. The very first monument to the Bremen Town Musicians was erected in the center of Bremen in 1951. Its author was a fairly successful German sculptor Gerhard Marx.
In his sculptural composition made of bronze, the artist captured an episode of a fairy tale in which all the animals climbed on their backs to each other to see in the window what the band of robbers in the forest house was doing. At the base of the pyramid stands a strong donkey, on it is a dog, then a cat, and the proud crown of a cock crowns the composition. Interestingly, a donkey standing in Riga often rubbed its nose, so this part of the bronze sculpture is always lighter than the rest. And, of course, you grab luck by the tail if you reach for the rooster! The monument to Bremen’s musicians, created in Russia, even carries a certain national flavor: Troubadour is present among fairy-tale musicians only here thanks to the cartoon we loved from childhood, because the Grimm brothers did not have such a hero.
Interesting monuments to literary heroes
It would certainly be worth a look at other monuments of the world dedicated to fairy-tale heroes. In the capital of Denmark, Copenhagen, in the port, there is a monument to the Little Mermaid - the heroine of the most beautiful and sad tale of the great Hans Christian Andersen. For more than a hundred years, she has been sitting on a rock among the waves at the entrance to the harbor, and is waiting for her prince.
Australia, Adelaide. Stone Alice in the middle of a flower bed. There is a monument to the heroine beloved by many in the UK and in the central park of New York. On the hat of a huge mushroom, Alice gathered her many friends for a strange tea party.
In 1956, the famous Emilio Greco created a sculpture of the long-nosed Pinocchio. A monument to this immortal fairy-tale hero is erected in the small Italian village of Collodi.
Germany, Bodenwerder. An original monument-fountain to the most truthful person in the world - Baron Munchausen. Proudly riding a horse, half of which was demolished during the battle, he is surprised to see how water flows from her belly.
German city Schwalm. It was here that the Grimm brothers recorded their version of “Little Red Riding Hood” and, of course, there is also a monument to Little Red Riding Hood and the Gray Wolf, to which, according to the established tradition, girls in red headdresses come to the holidays, and young men in wolf masks.
Surprisingly, the Grimm brothers were serious scientists, but their works are not as famous as fairy tales loved by everyone, and today around the world you can find not only a monument to Bremen Town Musicians and Little Red Riding Hood, but also many others dedicated to the wonderful, loved by all heroes of their immortal works .