Dieffler Pietà

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Dieffler Pietà, Saarland Museum, old collection, depot, dimensions 78 × 56 × 30 cm, inventory no. KII-63

The Dieffler Pietà is a representation of Mary as Mater Dolorosa (Mother of Sorrows) with the body of Jesus Christ removed from the cross on her lap. The devotional group made of oak (dimensions 78 × 56 × 30 cm) of rural cultural activity is dated to the period between the 16th century and the middle of the 18th century. The Dieffler Pietà , which was originally installed in the former Wendelinus chapel in Diefflen , has been in the Saarland Museum (old collection) in Saarbrücken since 1926 .

history

The Dieffler Pietà originally stood together with a baroque Wendalinus statue (oak, 70 cm high, today in the Diefflen rectory), also made of wood , in the Dieffler Wendalinus chapel on the "Kirchenweg" to Nalbach (today Nalbacher Straße ). In 1926 the Pietà came to Saarbrücken, where it is now kept in the old collection of the Saarland Museum, inaccessible to visitors. Due to the rawness of the body of the sculpture, it can be assumed to be used as a dressing figure, similar to the miraculous image of “ Our Lady of Todtmoos ”.

The piety-historical origin of the Dieffler Pietà can be seen - as with similar representations in Catholic churches and chapels - in the increased emotional turn to the suffering of Christ on the cross and to the pity of his mother and her son. The Pietà scene is the penultimate station of the Stations of the Cross . It is the main content of the prayer in memory of Mary's sorrows . The art-historical term Pietà comes from the Italian language and means “piety” or “compassion” with reference to the Latin honorary title Marias domina nostra de pietate (German: “our mistress of pity”). The form of representation of Jesus is also called the "Vesper picture". This name is based on the idea that, after the Descent from the Cross, Mary received the body of her son on Good Friday around the time of the evening prayer, Vespers .

Description and art-historical classification

Hermann Keuth (1888–1974), the folklorist and director of the Saarbrücken local history museum, describes the Dieffler Pietà in the language of his time in the magazine “Our Saar” in 1927 as follows:

“No one can say when the Sorrowful Mother was created with the body of Christ. No stylistic feature gives the possibility of a determination. It appears ancient, as primitive as the first beginning. But the whole structure seems closed. The image is not a stammer, it is all will. A raw, indented log is Maria's lower body, heavy and clumsy, then smoothed with a knife. The upper part of the body with the stiff cape rises rigidly on top of him, and the straight-ahead head with the eye-holes in which black jet buttons once shone gleamed out of it. The locust body of Christ lies ghostly over the lap. Strangely, the head is framed by stiff whiskers, the parallels of the hair scratched into it. The entire pictorial work, which is one of the museum's greatest treasures, is incredibly strange. "

The art historian Bernd Loch explains Keuth's appreciation of the Dieffler Pietà with the experience of Expressionism at the beginning of the 20th century with its recourse to the art of indigenous peoples and draws parallels to the woodcuts by Karl Schmidt-Rottluff . In addition, he wrote about Dieffler Pietà in 2004:

“The carver was very familiar with the iconography of the Vesper image: the dead Christ with bent legs lies in his mother's lap. Maria, carved out of the wood with a few powerful blows, stares rigidly in an unknown direction. The flat face, from which the nose protrudes pointedly, protrudes from the front of the hood. There is no eye contact with the son. The left arm points almost vertically, motionless, downwards, the other arm, slightly angled, leads towards the head of Christ. The tiny, barely worked hands are far too small to carry a body. Her almost voluminous, extremely high upper body contrasts with the emaciated body of her son. The elongated, dry body of Christ, barely erect, exposed in its nakedness, shows almost no traces of treatment. Only the ribs were executed with burr, parallel blows. The head, which is closer to the oval, with closed eyes, a pointed nose and segment-arched mouth, lets the hair fall down on both sides. The doll-like kinking of the spindle-thin legs reveals no movement, but only makes the rigidity even more intense. A simple rectangular, blunt board, on the narrow side of which another small board is nailed, serves as the plinth. Red paint residues on the Mary's robe suggest a partial polychroming.

The blocky nature of the design and the almost linear schematism, expressed in the body postures and the direction of the limbs, lead to an inapproachability, alienation, and almost rejection. On the other hand, Mary, who grows out of the log, as it were, and Christ, whose physicality is more or less peeled off and lifted, emanates a mysterious presence, which in turn exerts an attraction on the viewer. (...) A stylistic and temporal classification is hardly possible. The work may not be assessed using art historical standards. It gets its meaning in the context of a rural folk art. The image is set back in a simple, unmistakable, unaffected language, the strength of which consists of clear lines. "

Style comparison with the Eiweiler Josefskulptur

The sculpture of Dieffler Pietà shows great design similarities to the figure of St. Joseph from the Vogelsborn Chapel in Eiweiler near Heusweiler . The head of Jesus' foster father is elongated and oval. It is only covered with short, indicated hair growth, the beard and neck appear to be identical. The face is worked in complete axial symmetry , with a pointed bridge of the nose forming the central axis. The eyes look straight ahead. The garment reaching to the base, under which the bare feet look out, shows a row of folds and valleys. While Joseph's right arm hangs down limply, the baby Jesus sits motionless on the bent left arm. It holds a globe in its left hand and blesses the viewer with its right hand. The hand position can also be interpreted as a pointing gesture in the direction of St. Joseph. As with the Dieffler Pietà, it is difficult to classify the statue of Joseph in Eiweiler in terms of art history. Since the type of portrayal of St. Joseph with the baby Jesus only appeared more and more in the Baroque period, dating back to the 18th century seems likely. Hermann Keuth writes in relation to the Joseph figure:

“The statue of Joseph is closely related to it (meaning the Dieffler Pietà), carved from a thick board, only one movement, knowing the vertical, which is not shifted by a millimeter by the weight of the Christ child, nor is it emphasized in the vertical Folds of the skirt. Her eyes, too, were jet buttons; the hair treatment is the same. It is also timeless, impersonal like an East Asian idol. One looks for something related to the two sculptures, finds it in the sculptural design of primitive peoples. The Joseph figure is reminiscent of a gingerbread or dough man. But this equality is only external. It lies in the primitive of form. His work was deadly serious to the artist. Deep piety, remote loneliness lies in him, making you forget the ridiculousness of the design. "

If the two sculptures - the Dieffler Pietà and the Eiweiler Josefsstatue - actually came from the same carving hand, the Dieffler Vesper picture would also have to be dated later.

literature

  • Catholic parish of St. Josef Diefflen (ed.): 100 years of the parish church of St. Josef Diefflen 1900–2000, Dillingen 2000, p. 23.
  • Hermann Keuth: Rural sculptures in the local museum of the city of Saarbrücken, in: Our Saar, 1, (1926/1927), No. 4, pp. 58–62.
  • Art Association Dillingen in the Old Castle, Dillingen / Saar (Ed.): Art Guide Dillingen / Saar, Dillingen 1999, p. 40.
  • Bernd Loch: The folklore collection, in: Ralph Melcher, Christoph Trepesch, Eva Wolf (eds.): A picture of culture, The history of the Saarland Museum, Blieskastel 2004, p. 123–143, here: p. 126–129.


Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Bernd Loch: The folkloric collection, in: Ralph Melcher, Christoph Trepesch, Eva Wolf (eds.): A picture of culture, The history of the Saarland Museum, Blieskastel 2004, p. 123-143, here: p. 127.
  2. ↑ Catholic parish of St. Josef Diefflen (ed.): 100 Years Parish Church of St. Josef Diefflen 1900–2000, Dillingen 2000, pp. 22–25.
  3. ^ Johann Spurk: Parish chronicle of St. Josef Diefflen 1900–1975, Saarlouis 1975, pp. 105–106.
  4. ↑ Kunstverein Dillingen in the Old Castle, Dillingen / Saar (ed.): Kunstführer Dillingen / Saar, Dillingen 1999, p. 40.
  5. ↑ Beatrize Söding: Pietà . In: Walter Kasper (Ed.): Lexicon for Theology and Church . 3. Edition. tape 8 . Herder, Freiburg im Breisgau 1999, Sp. 289 .
  6. ↑ quoted from: Katholische Kirchengemeinde St. Josef Diefflen (Ed.): 100 Years Parish Church St. Josef Diefflen 1900–2000, Dillingen 2000, p. 23.
  7. ^ Hermann Keuth: Rural sculptures in the local museum of the city of Saarbrücken, in: Our Saar, 1, (1926/1927), No. 4, pp. 58-62, here p. 61.
  8. ↑ Bernd Loch: The folkloric collection, in: Ralph Melcher, Christoph Trepesch, Eva Wolf (eds.): A picture of culture, The history of the Saarland Museum, Blieskastel 2004, pp. 123-143, here: pp. 126-129.
  9. ↑ Saarland Museum, Old Collection, inventory no. KII-72.
  10. ↑ Bernd Loch: Eiweiler - Hellenhausen - Kirschhof, history of three villages, Heusweiler 1998, pp. 272–273.
  11. ↑ Bernd Loch: The folklore collection, in: Ralph Melcher, Christoph Trepesch, Eva Wolf (eds.): A picture of culture, The history of the Saarland Museum, Blieskastel 2004, pp. 123-143, here: pp. 129-130.
  12. ^ Hermann Keuth: Rural sculptures in the local museum of the city of Saarbrücken, in: Our Saar, 1, (1926/1927), No. 4, pp. 58-62, here p. 61.