The calling
|
| The calling |
|---|
| Hans Bertle , 1920 |
| Oil on canvas |
| 278 × 168.5 cm |
| vorarlberg museum , Bregenz |
The vocation is a painting made in1920 by the Austrian painter Hans Bertle . The painting shows the politician Jodok Fink after the artist's introduction at the moment when he, standing as a farmer with his plow in the field,learnsof his eponymous appointment as Austrian Vice Chancellor . The work is owned by the vorarlberg museum and is exhibited on loan in the Andelsbuch town hall, the home community of Finks.
description
The painting shows Jodok Fink as a farmer standing in a field in his home town of Andelsbuch in the Bregenzerwald, propped up on a plow . Fink wears a dark, unbuttoned vest, dark trousers and a white shirt, the sleeves of which are rolled up for work and the top buttons of which are undone. He looks at a uniformed postman approaching him who is holding a document in his left hand that is obviously intended for Fink. The background shows the landscape of the central Bregenz Forest with the parish church of Andelsbuch in the middle of the picture.
Origin and Myth
Hans Bertle, the best-known offspring of the Montafon artist family Bertle , had in mind Jodok Fink's appointment as Austrian Vice Chancellor on October 17, 1919 when he designed the painting entitled “The Call”. Fink's biographer, Hermann Deuring , however, wrote in his biography from 1932 the circumstances leading to the creation of the painting in such a way that they fit into Fink's appointment to the provisional Vorarlberg state assembly in 1918. Even though the actual events both during the appointment as Vice Chancellor and during the consultation with Fink by the provisional Vorarlberg regional assembly do not match the circumstances shown in the picture - Fink standing as a farmer in the field, propped up on his plow and waiting for the postman with the news of his appointment - both representations developed a comprehensive myth about Jodok Fink. In particular, the story described by Deuring, according to which the social democrat Fritz Preiss himself steered a special train on the Bregenzerwaldbahn to Andelsbuch in order to inform Jodok Fink of his calling and to bring him to Bregenz, should be referred to the realm of the imagination.
The caricaturist Theodor Zasche had already published a similar-looking caricature of Jodok Fink as a farmer in the “Vienna Voices” of April 2, 1919. This caricature showed how the young Austria with a Jacobin cap brought a sheet of paper with the inscription VICE KANZLER to the plowing “Finch Jodocus Cincinnatus” . In exaggerated form, Zasche drew the allegory on Lucius Quinctius Cincinnatus , who, according to Roman tradition, should have left his field without hesitation at the request of the Senate in order to direct the destiny of Rome in great need as a temporary dictator. Bertle also clearly referred to the allegory of Cincinnatus in his portrayal of the events.
Whereabouts
For a long time the painting had a place of honor in the building of the Vorarlberg Chamber of Agriculture in Bregenz . In 1951 it was copied by Bartle Kleber in a smaller format for the state mortgage bank. Today the painting is in the possession of the vorarlberg museum in Bregenz and is shown on loan in the town hall of Andelsbuch , Jodok Fink's home community and the location where the painting is depicted.
literature
- Ulrich Nachbaur : A Jodok Fink legend . In: V-Dialog. Magazine for employees of the Vorarlberg regional administration . No. 4 , December 2008, p. 16 ( full text as PDF on the Vorarlberger Landesarchiv website ).
- Vorarlberger Landesarchiv (Ed.): Jodok Fink (1853 to 1929). Memories of an Austrian democrat and statesman (= exhibition catalog of the Vorarlberger Landesarchiv . No. 9 ). 2nd, improved edition. Bregenz March 2003, p. 33–34 ( full text as PDF on the website of the Vorarlberger Landesarchiv).
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ Ulrich Nachbaur : November 3, 1918 and Vorarlberg (= Vorarlberger Landesarchiv [Hrsg.]: Verba volant. Online contributions from the Vorarlberger Landesarchiv . No. 95 ). Bregenz November 3, 2018, p. 3–4 ( full text as PDF on the Vorarlberger Landesarchiv's website).
- ↑ a b Ulrich Nachbaur : A Jodok-Fink legend .
- ↑ a b Vorarlberger Landesarchiv (Ed.): Jodok Fink (1853 to 1929). Memories of an Austrian Democrat and Statesman , pp. 33–34.