Johann Georg succeeded his father as Elector when he died on 8 October1656.
His reign was marked of the economic reconstruction of Saxony after the Thirty Years' War. The economy animated itself slowly again, to which established and also new trades and manufacture contributed (textile industry, promotion of hard coal and glass, among other things). The silver extracted of his mountains filled the empty arcs of the Electorate, and the Leipzig Trade Fair gained new incomes. Also the bohemian Exulanten (1654) contributed a new income to the economics.
In 1657 he made an arrangement with his three brothers with the object of preventing disputes over their separate territories, and in 1664 he entered into friendly relations with Louis XIV. He received money from the French king, but the existence of a strong anti-French party in Saxony induced him occasionally to respond to the overtures of the emperor Leopold I.
The elector's primary interests were not in politics, but in music and art. He adorned Dresden, which under him became the musical centre of Germany; welcoming foreign musicians and others he gathered around him a large and splendid court, and his capital was the constant scene of musical and other festivals. His enormous expenditure compelled him in 1661 to grant greater control over monetary matters to the estates, a step which laid the foundation of the later system of finance in Saxony. Also, his government activity was inferior in the development of the Absolutism and a Standing army in comparison with Bohemia and Prussia.
Mary E. Frandsen: Crossing Confessional Boundaries. The Patronage of Italian Sacred Music in 17th Century Dresden. New York: Oxford University Press, 2006. ISBN 0195178319
