Bernardine Weber
Bernardine Weber (born April 7, 1919 in Zilling near Hengersberg ; † March 28, 2012 in Munich ) was a German wood sculptor and nun .
Life
Early years and education
Rosa Weber, her baptismal name, was the eighth of nine children of a poor woodworker. Her early childhood in Zilling, a small village near Hengersberg , at the entrance to the Bavarian Forest, was formative . Her primary school teacher became aware of the lively girl and gave her a scholarship to attend the Lyceum with the English Misses in Wasserburg am Inn . For the eleven year old, this meant a painful turning point in her life. The stay in the boarding school of the monastery school (1930-1936) aroused her "homesickness for wood". After successfully attending school, from 1937 to 1939 she trained as an educator at the Institute of the English Fräulein in Haag . This profession was chosen by chance because, according to her statement, “no other profession was open ...”. When she worked with clay for the first time during this time, she formulated her career aspiration in front of her class: "... I finally know what I want to become, I will become a sculptor."
Entry to the monastery and World War II
On August 25, 1939 Rosa Weber entered the order of the English Misses in Munich- Nymphenburg . She was given the name Bernardine. Her goal was to go on the mission to India, "not to convert pagans, but to design chapels with figures, [...] not with paintings, but only with figures." This wish was destroyed with the outbreak of the Second World War. Instead, she was employed as a nurse after the order's school building had been converted by the Nazi regime into the "Auxiliary Hospital Nymphenburg on Maria-Ward-Strasse". From the opening in March 1940 until after the end of the war, she and her co-sisters looked after the "hopelessly ill" who were deported from other Munich clinics as care cases. In the absence of a lift, the hopelessly ill had to be carried into the shelter in the basement by the nuns during the air raids. Like her fellow sisters, Bernardine Weber went to the end of her physical strength.
Education
After the end of the Second World War, she approached the provincial superior of her religious order with the wish to receive an academic training as a sculptor. Approval was given on the condition that the entrance exam was passed at the first attempt. In 1946 she took the entrance exam at the Academy of Fine Arts in Munich and passed. This was followed by studies in Josef Henselmann's class . In addition, she was employed as a night watch and auxiliary nurse in the still existing Nymphenburg auxiliary hospital. In the Henselmanns class there were almost always war participants, such as Max Faller , Josef Hamberger and Anton Rückel . Henselmann stood for the conflict between traditional form and modern tendencies. Classes took place in the mornings, often with nude studies. The afternoon was free for the students to visit exhibitions and have discussions. Bernadine Weber discovered the right material for her: "After studying nude studies and dealing with clay were too boring for me, I went and took wood right away ...".
monastery
Bernardine Weber took her first professorship on August 24, 1941 and her perpetual professorship on August 23, 1947. After completing her art studies in 1950, she worked at the Institute of the English Misses in Munich- Nymphenburg as a sculptor in the mornings, and in the afternoons as an educator for 13- to 15-year-old boarders.
Artistic creation
The meeting with the sculptor and graphic artist Karl Knappe in 1950 was formative for Bernadine Weber's work . He saw nature as the medium of the divine, which allows people to sense something of the essence of creation. For him the tree stood for the order of the world. While looking at her work, he realized that she was working out of the structure of the wood “in the trunk” like he did. The artist, outlawed by the Nazi regime in 1933 , became their role model and master. The two worked together in Weber's Nymphenburg studio from 1952 to 1963. In doing so, she developed a special form of spirituality, corresponding to her existence as a religious . She also received suggestions for girls and women while she was working at the boarding school.
Bernadine Weber's main creative phase was in 1950 and 1970. Commissioned works for the private and sacred fields as well as individual pieces were created. She created sculptures of children and animals as well as numerous religious motifs such as crosses, cribs, figures of Mary and Christ, entire ways of the cross or church furnishings such as tabernacles or anvils . The limewood for this often came from their immediate vicinity, the Nymphenburg Palace Park . In her home town of Hengersberg, a work placed in front of her parents' house commemorates her, while another is outdoors under a tree.
Her work comprises 437 sculptures recorded by the Congregatio Jesu . In old age, Bernadine Weber was increasingly prevented from working on large-format sculptures due to illness. She died in the Munich-Nymphenburg monastery of the Congregatio Jesu (Maria-Ward-Straße 11) and found her final resting place in the Nymphenburg cemetery . Several works by Bernardine Weber can be seen in the monastery church of the Englische Fräulein on Maria-Ward-Straße. Her studio, which has largely been left in place, is also on Maria-Ward-Strasse. Selected works of art from her oeuvre were regularly shown to the public there until October 2017.
Estate and appreciation
In February 2012, a work exhibition with sculptures by Sr. Bernardine was opened in the branch of the Congregatio Jesu in Munich-Nymphenburg , which closed at the end of 2017 due to construction work. In spring 2019 the artist was honored with three exhibitions: in the church of the Congregatio Jesu in Munich-Nymphenburg, in the center of St. Michael and in the Iron House in the Nymphenburg palace gardens.
Works (selection)
- Seated Girl with a Tulip (1950)
- Annunciation (1951)
- Girl with Light (1954)
- Cross (1954)
- Good Shepherd (1955)
- Madonna in the Hollerbusch (1955)
- St. Raphael (1955)
- Flying Swan (1955)
- Stations of the Cross (1956)
- Maria Ward in the Coach (1957)
- Girl with a butterfly (1958)
- Girl with a Blossom Branch (1959)
- Spring (1959)
- Girl carrying bundles of ears (1959)
- Girl under the Chestnut Tree (1960)
- Nativity - Relief (1961)
- Woman with a Bundle of Wood (1962)
- Saint Joseph (1963)
- Ambo with priest's chair (1967)
- Madonna and Child (1968)
- Way of the Cross - Relief (1975)
- Holy Spirit Dove (1976)
- Nativity scene (1976), Herz-Jesu-Kirche (Munich)
- Mary with Child (1979)
- Christ Coming Again (1980)
- Pieta (1980)
- " Reichertshofer Heilige " (1982), parish church St. Margaretha in Reichertshofen
- Way of the Cross (1985), Parish Church of St. Margaretha in Reichertshofen
- Holy Spirit Relief (2004)
literature
- Bertholda Niederberger: The cribs of Bernadine Weber CJ 1919–2012 . Munich 2014.
- Bertholda Niederberger: Linger - Thoughts on the works of the sculptor Bernadine Weber CJ . Munich 2014.
- Gudrun Passarge: Living out of wood . In: Süddeutsche Zeitung , January 4, 2013 (No. 3).
- Herbert Schade: The tree as a space for the soul . Wuerzburg 1981.
Web links
- Portrait for the 100th birthday of Sr. Bernardine Weber CJ on the website of the Congregatio Jesu - Central European Province
Individual evidence
- ^ Lifelike, unconventional, mystical - exhibition with works by the sculptor Sr. Bernardine Weber CJ. Retrieved March 24, 2020 .
- ^ Exhibition in Nymphenburg Palace. Retrieved March 24, 2020 .
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Weber, Bernardine |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | German wood sculptor and nun |
| DATE OF BIRTH | April 7, 1919 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Zilling near Hengersberg |
| DATE OF DEATH | March 28, 2012 |
| Place of death | Munich |