Ernst Alt

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Francis, 1976
Bronze portal at the St. Johann basilica

Ernst Alt (born January 22, 1935 in Saarbrücken ; † March 31, 2013 there ) was a German painter and sculptor .

Life

Ernst Alt was born as the first of three children to the married couple Katharina and August Alt. He grew up in the Hunsrück village of Merschbach , in a side valley of the Dhron , in very simple circumstances. Alt received his first artistic impulses in the religious and mythical rural landscape. Alt spent his high school days in the Bavarian foothills of the Alps, which was shaped by the baroque era , as he originally wanted to become a priest. There he experienced the baroque art of painting intensively and finally turned to art. In the spirit of old tradition, he spent years of apprenticeship and traveling in Italy, where he lived in Rome and Florencereceived his strongest impressions. It was there that his later art received important impulses: the Florentine Renaissance with its filigree sensuality and the Eternal City with its Latin-Roman formal language impressed Alt in a special way. Both were incorporated into his later work. After returning from Italy , he lived in his parents' house in Saarbrücken, where he set up his own studio. In 1957 he celebrated his first successes as an artist. With his predominantly sacred works, he gained nationwide importance.

Ernst Alt lived and worked in Saarbrücken. He died there on Easter vigil in March 2013.

Stylistic classification

Ernst Alt is best known for his paintings and sculptures with ancient-mythical, Judeo-Christian and religious-sacred motifs. He saw his work as memory work (mnemosyne). The subject of his work is very broad. He often found his subjects in sagas and myths or in classical literature. They were constant sources of inspiration and found their expression in painted diaries since the early 1980s. Alt continued to create a large number of altarpieces, mosaics and church windows. He paid particular attention to the design of liturgical rooms, for which he made bronze portals, groups of people and other building sculptures.

Alt became particularly well known for his gravestone sculptures in Saarland and Rhineland-Palatinate . They are meanwhile "... the epitome of an innovative, artistic renewal of modern tomb art in the second half of the 20th century". The last work Alt presented in the spring of 2010 was his bronze oozzetto for the Easter candlestick of St. Peter's Cathedral in Trier .

Museums

The private museum Ernst-Alt-Kunstforum in the former rectory of Rilchingen-Hanweiler was opened by his family in 2015 after the death of the Saarland artist Ernst Alt with many personal objects and works from all creative phases. In April 2017, the Ernst-Alt-Kunstforum was accepted into the Saarland Museum Association.

Large parts of the work are in the Episcopal Cathedral and Diocesan Museum Trier. These were given to the museum on permanent loan in summer 2012.

Ernst Alt's publicly accessible works include paintings and graphics, glass paintings, mosaics, sculptures, gravestone designs as well as the furnishing and reorganization of sacred spaces throughout Germany. An extensive catalog raisonné can be found in  Mnemosyne: The Painter and Sculptor Ernst Alt .

Works

  • Chapel painting “Sacra Conversazione” in the former St. Ludwig parish hall in Saarlouis
  • Numerous watercolors and graphics since the 1950s

literature

  • Armin Schmitt (Ed.): Mnemosyne. The painter and sculptor Ernst Alt . Blieskastel 2002, ISBN 3-935731-27-2 .
  • Josef Mischo: "See, I am with you every day", The parish church St. Ludwig - Saarlouis and its stained glass windows by Ernst Alt, thoughts on a work of art of our time, Saarlouis-Lisdorf 1993.
  • Josef Mischo: The history of salvation in color, The window cycle by Ernst Alt in the parish church of St. Ludwig Saarlouis, Dillingen / Merzig 2015.

Web links

Commons : Ernst Alt  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Albrecht, Thomas: Phoenix and Unicorn . For Ernst Alt's 75th birthday. In: Saar Revue, No. 74 (2010), pp. 30–31.
  2. ↑ a b Saarbrücker sculptor Ernst Alt dies - love of church art ( memento from March 13, 2017 in the Internet Archive ), Saarbrücker Zeitung, April 4, 2013.
  3. ↑ SMV current. Museum Association Saarland e. V., April 2017, accessed on May 17, 2017 .
  4. ↑ Episcopal Cathedral and Diocesan Museum: Episcopal Cathedral and Diocesan Museum - Ernst Alt - Wanderer between antiquity and Christianity. Retrieved May 12, 2017 .
personal data
SURNAME Old, serious
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German painter and sculptor
DATE OF BIRTH January 22, 1935
PLACE OF BIRTH Saarbrücken
DATE OF DEATH March 31, 2013
Place of death Saarbrücken