Appenzell and Toggenburg Senntumsmalerei
The Senntumsmalerei developed in the 19th century in the farming community of Appenzell Slingerlands and Toggenburg s in Eastern Switzerland . It is part of the Appenzell and Toggenburg peasant painting , which is divided into furniture painting and Senntum painting.
The clients of the painting were herdsmen and farmers who wanted to have their world depicted. The focus is on the cows , which have been of central economic importance for Eastern Switzerland since the Middle Ages , the Alp , the Alpfahrt and the Appenzell and Toggenburg farmhouse . The painters were village craftsmen who, in two to three generations, founded the Appenzell and Toggenburg Senntumsmalerei, which is still of high artistic quality to this day.
prehistory
The period of the actual Appenzell-Toggenburg Senntum painting spans around 200 years. However, the roots go back further. Between 1550 and 1680, stained glass around the Säntis was particularly popular. Bourgeois representations of the rural world can be found on the Swiss discs . With the decline of glass painting, Appenzell and Toggenburg furniture painting emerged at the end of the 17th century . Initially, furniture and Toggenburg house organs were painted ornamentally , later with figurative motifs. The image motifs were taken from the biblical and rural world, but the image of the alpine journey was missing.
The classic peasant painters in the 19th century
Gontner Conrad Starck (1769–1817) initiated the transition to classic peasant painting . He is one of the few known furniture painters in the Appenzellerland and Toggenburg from that time. In the wreath of a box dated 1809 he left his signature and the first cattle stripe. The later popular mountain stripes show the alpine journey as a long procession of cows and herdsmen and were placed above the stable gate . Farmers at work and herdsmen on the alpine journey were also taken over by other furniture painters and were no longer uncommon after 1820 until furniture painting disappears after 1850.
The oldest dated Melkeimerbödeli was created in 1804 by an unknown painter. This round, painted board is attached to the bottom of the milking bucket when moving up and down the Alps and carried over the herdsman's shoulder. After 1850, the Alpfahrt or panel paintings appeared, which serve as wall decorations in the parlor and are still very popular today. The development of the panel painting goes back to the Ausserrhoder Bartholomäus Lämmler . He started as a furniture painter around 1830 and, after furniture painting had declined, he painted Eimerbödeli and Sennenstreifen. Lämmler imaginatively disregarded proportions and the rules of perspective and is considered to be one of the most important representatives of the classic sommelier painters, although only a few of his panel paintings have survived.
The pictures of the watchmaker Johannes Müller from Stein AR bear a clear signature despite the lack of drawing. He shaped the Senntummalerei with his accurate arrangement of animals, people, houses in the staggered landscape. Müller created a large number of panel paintings and Eimerbödeli and exerted a strong influence on other painters, whose works are now considered classics.
The Toggenburg peddler Anna Barbara Aemisegger-Giezendanner , called "s' Giezedanners Babeli", was in contact with Müller. The only peasant painter of the classical period is noticeably precise in drawing, with which she influenced all the peasant painters working in Toggenburg. Poetry albums with pictures and texts as well as the individual representations of house buildings go back to them. Your opponent was the Kappler roofers Felix Brander (1846-1924), who was especially individual houses.
The important Appenzell classics also include Johann Ulrich Knechtli (1845–1923), Franz Anton Heim , Johannes Zülle (1841–1938), Johann Jakob Heuscher (1843–1901) and Johann Baptist Zeller (1877–1959).
Johannes Müller: Arrival on the Alp, around 1865.
Johann Ulrich Knechtli: Hochalp , 1903
Franz Anton Haim: Alpine descent in front of the farmhouse, 1889
Johannes Zülle: View from the upper Petersälple ⊙ , around 1920
Johann Jakob Heuscher: Alpine trip at the inn to the Sennhof, 1895
Picture of Felix Brander from Toggenburg
Senntummalerei in the 20th and 21st centuries
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| Cattle stripes by Johannes Müller |
The following generation of painters was mostly active as early as the 20th century and has largely adopted the motif structure of the classic Senntummalerei for Alpfahrten and Eimerbödeli. Nevertheless, the fifty or so Senntum painters of this epoch have found their own personal style.
The rising economic development after the Second World War meant that descendants of the farming families moved to the up-and-coming central regions of the Central Plateau. Those who had moved away began to long for home and their higher incomes made it possible to purchase paintings. City citizens interested in art also showed interest. The motifs of peasant painting were used commercially and so from the 1960s onwards there was a heated controversy about the authenticity of current Senntummalerei.
The Appenzell and Toggenburg amateur artists have not lost their originality and continue to find new creative forms of expression for the well-known, old motifs of Senntum painting. Albert Enzler (1882–1974), Franz Wild (1883–1978) and Niklaus Wenk from Toggenburg are characterized by their own style. Christian Vetsch painted very naturalistically . In addition, artists such as Hans Krüsi , who is not a Senntum painter , or the Appenzell-born Sibylle Neff , who adopted the well-known image patterns of peasant painting and brought them into new forms. Successful contemporary peasant painters include Albert Manser , Willi Keller (* 1942), Johann Hautle (* 1945) and Theres Tobler-Manser (* 1953).
Look beyond the borders
A culture comparable to Senntum painting around the Säntis has developed without any demonstrable connection as Poya painting in the Gruyère district in the canton of Friborg. The wooden boards, decorated with scenes from the alpine journey, were hung over the barn entrance like the cattle stripes in Eastern Switzerland. The oldest pictures go back to the 1830s.
literature
- Hans Büchler: Peasant painting around the Säntis. On: Living Traditions, a website of the Federal Office of Culture . May 31, 2018 (PDF; 0.5 MB)
- Hans Büchler: Peasant painting from the Biedermeier idyll to painting the peasant . In: Toggenburger Jahrbuch 2020 . Toggenburger Verlag, Schwellbrunn 2019, ISBN 978-3-908166-87-0 , p. 101-124 .
Web links
- Peasant painting, on the website of the Appenzeller Folklore Museum Stein AR
- Appenzeller Bauernmalerei, on the website of the St. Gallen Art Museum
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b Appenzell peasant painting. On the website of the Kunstmuseum St. Gallen , accessed on August 1, 2019
- ↑ Peasant painting / art painting. On the Appenzellerland Tourismus AI website, accessed on August 1, 2019
- ^ Rudolf Hanhart: Starck, Conrad. On Sikart , website of the Swiss Institute for Art Research . 2008
- ^ Exhibition by Christian Vetsch. In: St. Galler Tagblatt (online) from November 5, 2010.