Lenten cloth
The Lenten Veil (also breadline , Palm cloth , Passion cloth or Schmachtlappen , Latin velum Quadragesimale , "Fasting (time) velum") covered in Lent (Lent) in Catholic and Protestant church buildings , the pictorial representations of Jesus , usually the crucifix . It originated from the Jewish temple curtain , which is mentioned several times in the New Testament in connection with Jesus' death on the cross ( Mt 27.51 EU ; Mk 15.38 EU ; Lk 23.45 EU ). In Germany, the hunger cloths published by the Catholic aid organization Misereor are currently widely used .
liturgy
The Lent cloth can hang in the choir during the entire Lent period (hence the Latin velum quadragesimale "cloth of 40 days ", as a reference to the temple curtain also velum templi ). In some churches it is placed before Passion or Palm Sunday.
The cloth visually separates the congregation from the sanctuary and its decorations and allows the congregation to listen to the liturgy only. In addition to the physical penance of the fast, there is a spiritual one. The vernacular expression “gnaw on the hunger cloth” does not only refer to material poverty. The Lent Shawl was hung up after the Compline of the first Sunday of Lent and remained until the Compline of Wednesday in Holy Week . It was withdrawn on Sundays and during special services such as the ordination of priests , regionally also during the elevation at Holy Mass on weekdays. Some Lenten towels were divided in the middle and could be pulled apart on both sides.
Lent cloths of this type exist from the end of the 13th century ( St. Peter and Paul Cathedral, City of Brandenburg ) and from the 15th century ( Güglingen , Württemberg , and Dresden ).
Art history
The " Consuetudines " of Farfa Abbey mentioned the custom of the Lenten veil around the year 1000. Until the 12th century, this remained a purely symbolic object made of monochrome fabric - often linen, also silk - which was only decorated with ornamental embroidery in individual cases . Afterwards, the Lenten veil was discovered as a form of Christian art , which remained productive for several centuries. A description from 1493 shows that between 1126 and 1149 a (no longer preserved) Lent cloth with artistic representations was created in the St. Ulrich and Afra monastery in Augsburg .
The focus of artistic development was on the one hand the Alpine region, primarily Carinthia and Tyrol, on the other hand in northern Germany with Westphalia and Lower Saxony. The motifs of the depictions, which showed scenes from the life of Jesus Christ in the sense of a picture Bible , remained uniform, as the entire history of salvation continued , including scenes from the lives of the saints , locally limited .
With its dimensions of ten by twelve meters and a weight of more than a ton, the Freiburg fasting cloth is the largest surviving fasting cloth ever.
Alpine culture
The alpine tradition changed the materials; The Lenten cloth consisted of several horizontally sewn strips of solid canvas , which were already painted with tempera in the practice of so-called small handkerchief painting. This created an early form of cloth painting , while the most common painting surface remained wood until the 15th century . An artistic highlight is the Lenten veil in the Romanesque basilica in Gurk (1458), which shows 99 individual motifs in horizontally arranged strips. It is a typical example of sequential art in its combination of motifs and the narrative image structure . The Lenten shawl is usually a simple or whitewashed shawl , also with biblical representations.
North German cultural area
The creators of Lenten towels from Westphalia and Lower Saxony kept linen as the material and embroidery as the working technique, but changed the design by depicting individual motifs on smaller rectangles that are connected by linen webs - a rag or textile mosaic . Occasionally, however, painting was also attempted on taut linen.
Based on the North German tradition, motifs of the Passion of Christ gradually gained acceptance . A central theme since the 16th century was the depiction of the crucifixion of Christ ; the composition of the picture took on the Arma Christi (the instruments of Christ's passion ). This reveals a paradox between theological and artistic ideas, as the Lenten veil had previously served to temporarily conceal the sight of the crucifix .
The Marienfelder Lenten cloth served as a template for several other Lenten cloths in the Münsterland in the 19th century. Today there are still some based on this model in Billerbeck St. Johanni , Lüdinghausen St. Felizitas , Nordwalde St. Dionysius and Warendorf St. Laurentius .
regional customs
With a few exceptions, the manufacture and attachment of a fasting cloth was only retained as a religious custom in Catholic areas until the 18th century, as Luther spoke out against this tradition of sacred art as "juggling". Although it once extended far beyond the original borders, it was only preserved in the areas of origin after the Reformation ; there are still a few churches there that maintain the tradition. However, it turns out that the Lenten veil is being rediscovered as an art form.
Examples
Germany
- In its cathedral museum, Brandenburg houses the Brandenburg Hunger Cloth, which was embroidered around 1290 .
- The Everswinkeler Lenten cloth, embroidered with only 5 small pictures , was created in 1614; it is the oldest in the Münsterland .
- The Lenten veil in the Freiburg Minster from 1612 is the largest surviving piece in Europe with an area of 10.14 by 12.25 meters. As a late work from the post-Reformation period, it shows a close proximity to Dürer's imagery .
- In 1988 the Güglingen palm cloth replaced a historical palm cloth from the Mauritius church in Güglingen that was burned in 1849 . It was designed by 40 German artists.
- The Telgter Hunger Shawl from 1623 hangs in the Museum Relígio in Telgte , the 33 fields of which were made using the filet technique. It is 7.40 x 4.40 m in size.
- In the former abbey church in Marienfeld there is a hunger cloth made of fillet stuffing and strips of linen . The crucifixion with the Blessed Mother and the Apostle John is shown on the 3 m high and 6.80 m wide work , four fields show the instruments of passion. The Lenten cloth is framed by a wide frieze with a leafy scroll pattern. The embroidered year 1867 comes from a repair. Experts date the emergence of the cloth in the second half of the 18th century.
- Zittau ( Upper Lusatia ) owns the Large Lent Cloth (8.20 × 6.80 m) donated by Jakob Gürtler in 1472 , which has 90 fields in 10 rows and is shown in the Kreuzkirche specially designed as a museum , and the Small Lent Cloth with the Arma Christi (4.31 × 3.49 m) from 1573 in the Kulturhistorisches Museum Franziskanerkloster , both in tempera on linen , two unique art treasures. The small as well as the large Zittau fasting cloth are the only surviving specimens of their kind in Germany and are among the most important of all.
- In 2007, the Catholic parish Herz Jesu in Bernau created the largest hunger kerchief in the world to date with young people in a 48-hour campaign with an “XXL hunger cloth” (over 220 m² area).
- In 2007, for the first time, a Lenten veil , created by the photographer and graphic artist Norbert Bach from Worms, hung in Bonn Minster . It refers to the Elizabeth year and connects the story of St. Elisabeth with other works of mercy.
- In 2015 there is a Lenten veil from the year 1584 in the St. Nikolaus Church in Bad Kreuznach , 195 × 135 cm. The linen cloth with embroidery is mentioned as early as 1900 in a church leader of St. Nicholas who was written under Pastor Johann-Benedikt Kirsch.
Austria
- The Lenten veil created by Konrad von Friesach in 1458 in the Gurk Cathedral is the largest (9 × 9 m) and oldest known Lenten veil in Austria.
- The parish church of Millstatt ( Carinthia ) houses a work painted by Oswald Kreusel in 1593 with 41 scenes, the original of which has been preserved.
- The early baroque Lenten veil from the St. Jacob's Church in Ortisei in Val Gardena can be viewed there in the Val Gardena Museum . The canvas with 24 images is 4.75 m wide and 3.65 m high.
- Traun in Upper Austria is more committed to the north German tradition, as it allows children to paint the picture surfaces.
- Villach in Carinthia uses a fasting cloth that was created in a school project in 2003.
- In the Austrian Folklore Museum in Vienna , a 32 m² Lenten cloth with 36 fields is on display. It probably comes from the Carinthian area and bears the year 1640.
- Lenten cloths in the form of modern art have been installed in St. Stephen's Cathedral in Vienna since 2015.
- The record of the world's greatest hunger in Bernau near Berlin was already outbid in the following year, in March 2008, by the Wendstattgasse music and sports school in Vienna's 10th district . In three weeks of work, the pupils of the two schools painted a 400 m² cloth with motifs from the life of Jesus and contemporary topics.
- The Austrian parishes Am Schüttel in Vienna and St. Othmar in Mödling have Lent cloths made by contemporary artists every year.
Switzerland
- The fasting cloth of the Christian Catholic town church St. Martin in Rheinfelden, Switzerland (3.24 x 2.53 m) remained hidden in the altar of the church for over 400 years and was only discovered by chance in 1977 during a civil defense exercise. In Switzerland, such an old Lenten veil is only known in Unterägeri .
- The Sachsler meditation shawl by Niklaus von Flüe was probably created as a fasting shawl.
Netherlands
- Museum Catherijneconvent Utrecht
- Rijksmuseum Twenthe (from the church of Korschenbroich, 1624)
Spain
- The Lenten veil of the church of Villoslada de Cameros in the autonomous region of La Rioja , created around 1560, is clearly of Flemish origin.
literature
- Markus Aronica (Ed.): Passion in White. The Freiburg Lent Cloth - a spiritual introduction. Promo Verlag, Freiburg im Breisgau 2013, ISBN 978-3-923288-77-9 .
Web links
- Fasting cloth (RdK laboratory)
- Zittauer Lenten towels
- Bonn fasting cloth
- Carinthian Lenten towels
Individual evidence
- ↑ Joseph Braun : The Liturgical Paraments in the present and past. A manual of paramentics. 2nd, improved edition. Herder, Freiburg (Breisgau) 1924 (Reprographischer Reprint. Verlag Nova und Vetera, Bonn 2005, ISBN 3-936741-07-7 ), p. 234f.
- ↑ Everswinkeler Fastentuch
- ↑ Badische-zeitung.de , News for Children , March 22, 2014, Claudia Füßler: The eyes renounce
- ↑ Badische-zeitung.de , Freiburg Mitte , February 20, 2015, “ahf”: The Lenten cloth has been hanging in the cathedral again since Thursday
- ↑ Bernd Hallier: Collectors, donors and patrons of the trade. EHI Eurohandelsinstitut Köln (2002), p. 246
- ↑ Volker Dudeck: The Great Zittauer Lenten Cloth in the Museum Church of the Holy Cross. In: Sächsische Heimatblätter 47 (2001) 4–5, pp. 212–217
- ↑ Art in the cathedral on dompfarre.info
- ↑ Badische-zeitung.de , Rheinfelden (CH) , February 19, 2015, Ingrid Arndt: The discovery of the fasting cloth is a stroke of luck