Expressionist church painting

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Expressionist church painting was a style in art at the beginning of the 20th century, which was used in churches by church painters.

Essence

Expressionist church painters broke with the established church images in their work. The classic motifs now got a modern interpretation, they were often associated with the past First World War. For example, World War II participant Peter Hecker painted a trench in the St. Audomar Church in Frechen. In it you can see soldiers praying to a trumpet-blowing angel of the Apocalypse . But not only the traumas of the First World War found their way into these pictures, but also criticism of society and capitalism . Peter Hecker's no longer preserved Savior of the 20th Century shows decadent metropolitan nightlife as well as the Savior who gathers the losers of such a society around him. Franz M. Jansen even painted Christ as a cinema doorman, also against a decadent background. Christ moved to the center of this new iconography. This broke with the tradition of mainly depicting legends of saints. Pope Pius X wanted to see the holy festivals pushed back in favor of the veneration of Christ and the Trinity .

Expressionist church painting coincided with a time when traditional forms were breaking up in the church. A strict historicism (as recently as 1913, the Archbishop of Cologne, Cardinal Fischer, secured this with the "Gothic Decree"), which preserved the traditional forms that had been valid in art since the Middle Ages, wanted from a young guard of religiously motivated artists and Builders to be overcome. With Dominikus Böhm , the church interior was radically transformed. His early work St. Engelbert in Cologne-Riehl was an aesthetic shock for many churchgoers and clergymen. St. Engelbert is reminiscent of a lemon squeezer . Böhm designed his churches in such a way that the altar moved towards the believers. This was called Christocentric Building after a book published in 1922 by the Gladbeck clergyman Johannes van Acken ; that font was illustrated by Dominikus Böhm. Like other church builders of the time (e.g. Clemens Holzmeister and Rudolf Schwarz ) , Böhm was very much influenced by Romano Guardini in his idea . Later, the Second Vatican Council made an altar arrangement oriented towards the congregation mandatory. The builders understood their work as a total work of art. Ideally, space and equipment resulted in a unity. As a result, other disciplines also experienced a vitalization. Jan Thorn Prikker was at the beginning of the new church painting . This also revolutionized the church window, for which he is better known. Often the disciplines mixed up. Peter Hecker also designed vestments, Böhm, Zepter and Hecker also designed church windows. The St. Elisabeth Hospital Church is an impressive monument. Commissioned by the art-loving prelate Johannes van Ackern, Dominikus Böhm created the complex building, Peter Hecker painted the chancel , Ludwig Baur mosaics and Ewald Mataré created an Ecce Homo and the grave of Johannes van Acken in the crypt .

It was not always easy to get the sometimes very unusual wall paintings through in the parishes and dioceses. For many believers the sometimes strange looking paintings were an impertinence. Quite a few of these works have been lost over the decades. Often destroyed by bombs dropped in World War II, but also by church officials who had such works removed or painted over. Ultimately, especially in the 1960s, many church murals fell victim to the idea behind them. On the other hand, the mosaic by Ludwig Baur in the church of St. Clemens in Oberhausen, which shows a risen Christ, was only created at the beginning of the 1960s. In the Christ-centered teaching the altar belongs as a simple table in the middle of the believers. Since he stands for Christ, he is central. When the paradigm shift took place in church art, the priest still celebrated mass with his back to the congregation, standing in front of a high altar (this is known today as the old rite ). Some of the paintings in the interwar period served as bridges. Since the structural arrangement was not Christ-centered, the assumed deficit was bridged by means of painting. The painting in the Church of the Exaltation of the Cross by Peter Hecker fulfilled such a task. When the altars were moved to where they belonged in the Christ-centered view, the wall paintings became superfluous, even disturbing, as they could distract the faithful from the liturgical events. This barreness has been retained in church construction to this day.

Even today, when the protection of historical monuments is trying to protect existing portraits and to expose those that have been painted over, some of these works are not only making friends. There was a discussion about whether the ceiling paintings by Hans Zepter in St. Peter (Cologne) , which were rediscovered during a renovation of the church, should not be removed. At least they convey intolerant messages that are no longer valid today.

Well-known representatives

Forerunners (selection)

Churches (selection)

literature

  • Elisabeth Peters : Church wall painting in the Rhineland 1920–1940. A contribution to the history of the Cologne Institute for Religious Art . CMZ-Verlag , Rheinbach , 1996, ISBN 978-3-87062-026-4 .
  • Horst Hahn: Remains of the choir painting by Hans Zepter exposed. In: Denkmalpflege im Rheinland 14 (1997) pp. 26–28: Ill. (Concerns St. Peter, Cologne)
  • Sankt Arnold in Düren-Arnoldsweiler / Ruth Schlotterhose - Aachen: Einhand-Verlag, 1997 ISBN 3-930701-37-5
  • Barbara Kahle: German Church Architecture of the 20th Century, Darmstadt 1990. Especially the chapter: The liturgical movement as a pioneer of modern church construction
  • Johannes van Ackern: Christocentric church art. A draft for the liturgical total work of art, Gladbeck 1922

Web links