Mount of Olives Group
A mount of Olives figuratively depicts the biblical scene of Jesus praying with his disciples in the garden of Gethsemane on the night before his crucifixion .
To the Bible story
The Mount of Olives scene is mentioned several times ( Mt 26.36–56 EU ; Mk 14.32–52 EU and Lk 22.39–53 EU ). The group usually consists of a figure of Jesus and figures of the sleeping disciples Peter , John and James as well as the angel who strengthens Jesus in his fear (Luke 22:43) and at the same time holds the chalice that is the figurative object of his prayer (the Clausula of the rosary mystery is “Jesus who sweated blood for us”).
History of representation
Mount of Olives groups emerged as places of worship in the Christian area after the crusade ideas had been abandoned and access to the original sites had become more difficult since the Islamic conquest of Constantinople (1453) . Around 1500 almost every Catholic parish church in Central Europe had a mount of olives group as a relief or fully sculptural representation. The group was set up on the south or cemetery side (warning and consolation). They remained on the outer walls of Protestant churches even after the Reformation, as they were not counted among the so-called "idols" by the reformers. After 1750, depictions of the Way of the Cross increasingly replaced groups of the Mount of Olives in the Catholic area . Many of these folk art pieces were removed in the 1950s. The tradition of the Mount of Olives group has recently been revived.
Well-known Mount of Olives groups
- Ölberggruppe by Tilman Riemenschneider , Catholic parish church St. Laurentius in Würzburg-Heidingsfeld (around 1505–1510)
- The Ölberggruppe from 1512 on the outside of the Walterichskirche in Murrhardt
- The Mount of Olives group of Moritz Schlachter in the Swabian Wolketsweiler (1898)
- Mount of Olives Landscape Garden in Görlitz
- Mount of Olives of the St. Jacob's Church in Rothenburg ob der Tauber (1450/60 and 1506/07)
literature
- Dieter Munk: The representation of the Mount of Olives in the monumental sculpture of southern Germany. Investigation and catalog. Erlangen 1968.
- Peter B. Steiner: Forgot Gethsemane? In: Christ in the Present. (CiG) No. 12/07, p. 91.
