Circuit pédestre : un berceau de l'art Alsacien

Here is a circuit full of art.

Two departures are proposed:
- In Auenheim, at the house where Henri Loux was born, rue de l'Église near the town hall.
- In Sessenheim, at the Goethe memorial, rue Albert Fuchs on the D 737 towards Soufflenheim.

Do you know Henri Loux?
His work is widely known through the "Obernai tableware decorations" in which he immortalized the daily life of the Alsatian countryside of his time. He was born in 1873 in Auenheim but grew up in Sessenheim. The young Loux studied decorative arts in Strasbourg and in Germany.

His style of painting quickly became very famous. He lived all over the world and died in 1907 in Strasbourg. He produced 56 decorations for tableware, illustrated almanacs, brochures and packaging. In Rountzenheim, the neighboring village, you will discover another Alsatian artist: Alfred Marzolff, sculptor and medalist. He lived in Rountzenheim from 1914 to 1936, the date of his death, and is the author of about sixty works: statues, plaques and medallions, including, in Strasbourg, the Four Men of the Kennedy Bridge, in Sessenheim, the busts of Luther and Bucer, in front of the Protestant church, and in Rountzenheim, the monument to the dead. In Sessenheim, your itinerary passes (and back) to the Goethe memorial, installed in the former Napoleonic Guardhouse. Another start of the tour can be made here. The memory of Henri Loux is still alive in the town, but it is above all the memory of Goethe and his youthful romance with Frédérique Brion that makes Sessenheim famous. The romance was short-lived, but it is reflected in many of the poet's compositions (Willkommen und Abschied, Heidenröslein...). From there you take the road to Stattmatten, passing the protestant church where Frederique's parents are buried, their headstones are on the southern outer wall. A little further on, a mound called "Frederikensruhe" awaits you. It was frequented by the two lovers. Objects dating from 1000 to 400 BC were found there.

Stattmatten is a small, remote village. According to a legend, it was founded by a Swiss family who, amazed, moored their boat near a bank overlooking a meadow (hence the name: Statt en den Matten). This small village, close to the Rhine, lived from fishing, boating and agriculture until the middle of the last century. There were even gold diggers. On the way back to Auenheim, the path follows a meander of the Moder. Here the river has become a forest course. The surrounding fauna and flora are very rich: reedbeds, willow groves... up to 20 different plant species per are, an exceptional aquifauna: grebes, herons, egrets, bittern. You have arrived in Auenheim.

Route of the circuit : https://ignrando.fr/fr/parcours/68453-pr6-un-berceau-de-l-art-alsacien