St. Martin and other saints pay homage to Mary
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| St. Martin and other saints pay homage to Mary |
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| Johann Georg Bergmüller , 1716 |
| Oil on canvas |
| 500 × 300 cm |
| Parish Church of St. Martin (Tannheim) |
St. Martin and other saints pay homage to Maria is the high altar painting by Johann Georg Bergmüller in the early baroque Roman Catholic parish church of St. Martin in Tannheim in the district of Biberach in Upper Swabia .
description
In the right half of the picture, the Mother of God sits in the clouds with her child. Maria's dress is in shades of brown. She wears a blue cloak that also covers her head and slides far down over her shoulders. Seven stars, arranged in a three-quarter circle, with an eighth star in the center of the circle float above her head. The wreath of stars and the crescent moon at their feet allude to the representation of the apocalyptic woman , as described in the Revelation of John (12.1 EU ). The baby Jesus kneels with one leg on Mary's lap, the other is stretched downwards. Maria embraces her naked child in her right hand and at the same time holds a white cloth in front of his hips. Jesus raised his hand to bless and is placed exactly on the central axis of the picture. His mother grabs the blue cloak with her left hand at head height and looks down at Mary Magdalene , who is kneeling in front of the baby Jesus on the right. Magdalena has long, loose hair, her shoulders and arms are bare. She bends over to the child's leg, touches his foot with her right hand and holds her attribute, an ointment vessel, in her left. Her bare shoulders mark her as a sinner. The depiction recalls the story in the Gospel according to Luke , when Jesus was a guest in the house of a Pharisee and a sinner anointed Jesus' feet with oil ( Lk 7.38 EU ). The ointment vessel also relates to the resurrection story. In his Gospel , Mark tells how Mary Magdalene bought oil to anoint the body of Jesus ( Mk 16.1 EU ).
Below Mary, the archangel Michael fights against the devil, who falls headlong to the earth under Michael's feet - a motif from the Revelation of John ( Rev 12.7 EU ) - and is sent to hell. The fight is accompanied by Michael's call Quis ut Deus (“Who is like God?”), The Latin translation of the Hebrew Mi cha El , readable in the picture by lightning bolts in the form of letters. The lightning bolts emanate from a shield that the archangel directs with his left hand like a weapon of attack against the devil. Michael, who is dressed like a Roman legionnaire with a diadem , red tunic and breastplate , points with his right arm up towards the baby Jesus. The naked devil is girded with a serpent, a reference to the serpent of paradise, while a peacock behind his head symbolizes pride and vanity. The breasts shown indicate the sin of lust.
To Michael’s right, a saint is fighting the devil by holding a cross at him. If one remembers that the devil is also called a dragon, this saint can be identified as Margaret, who, in addition to the cross and dragon, also includes the attributes of palm and sword. Before she was executed by the sword, she was threatened by a dragon in prison, against which she was able to defend herself successfully with the sign of the cross.
The dragon also belongs as an attribute to another saint, who can be seen in the left half of the picture, moved back a little, next to Mary. It is St. George who appears here in the armor of a knight with a lance and shield and is marked as a martyr by a palm branch. According to legend, he fought against evil in the form of a dragon and thus has similarities to the Archangel Michael. While Maria is the patroness of the Benedictines , St. George is the patron saint of the Ochsenhausen monastery, to which the church in Tannheim belonged at the time of its construction.
Below St. George, St. Martin , the patron saint of the Tannheim Church, kneels in front of Mary and Jesus. His bishop's mantle is adorned with a picture of the Evangelist John , who is identified by his attribute, the eagle. John is the author of the Apocalypse, in which the battle of the archangel Michael against the devil is reported. Martin is surrounded by angels who present his attributes: the bishop's staff and miter are above him, the parapet and helmet are on the lowest step of a staircase, below a goose. Legend has it that geese betrayed the place where Martin hid in order to evade his ordination as bishop. The beggar for whom Martin had shared his cloak with the sword sits on the stairs in the middle.
Design drawing
Bergmüller's design drawing of St. Martin pays homage to Mary has a width of 20 and a height of 34 centimeters and is located in the Crocker Art Museum in Sacramento . It is executed in pencil, ink and watercolor and signed with Joh Georg Berckhmiller fec. Anno 1715 . The design and construction are essentially the same, but there are also differences. In the design, the angel under Martin holds the sword with which the saint shared the cloak instead of the goose. The shield of the Archangel Michael, who hurls lightning at the devil with his right hand, bears the inscription Quis ut Deus . In the altarpiece, the round shield is unlabeled, the lightning bolts emanate from its center and take the form of words: Quis ut Deus . In the design, the beggar, who sits on the steps with bent legs and looks up at St. Martin, still holds a dominant position. On the altarpiece he is pushed a little to the left, the line of sight to the saint is blocked by the half-coat and the viewer's gaze is distracted from the beggar by an inserted balustrade .
Bergmüller designed the design carefully. With the order for this picture, he probably also wanted to secure follow-up orders from the Ochsenhausen monastery.
literature
- Alois Epple: The altar paintings by Johann Georg Bergmüller in Aldersbach. In: East Bavarian border marks. Vol. 33, 1991, pp. 123-129, IV-XI.
- Catholic parish Tannheim (Ed.): 300 years of the Church of St. Martin Tannheim. Festschrift for the jubilee in 2002. Catholic parish Tannheim, Tannheim 2002.
- Günter Hütter: Church and chapels in Tannheim / Württemberg = Catholic parish church Sankt Martin in Tannheim (= art guide. No. 2033, ZDB -ID 51387-8 ). Schnell & Steiner, Munich et al. 1992.
