ABSTRACT
In the novella Lenz, Georg Buchner uses his eponymous hero to outline an aesthetic credo which has certain significant similarities to that of the Duke of Meiningen. The scenery of Preciosa exemplified one defect which the author have often noticed in the Meiningen mounting, namely a tendency to exclude all air and distance from exterior scenes. The ideal of beauty to which he subscribes is essentially a living one; this life is expressed in an unending process in which forms and colours are grouped, dissolve, and re-group themselves. In this context the actor is a mobile element within the static set, a carrier of spears and a wearer of costumes, the leader of a group of extras in crowd scenes. The Duke of Meiningen was concerned with what setting and costume would make the actor do; he was concerned with the function of all these things in creating a single, coherent meaning.
