Gebhard Flatz
Gebhard Flatz (born June 11, 1800 in Rickenbach , † May 19, 1881 in Bregenz ) was an Austrian painter of Nazarene art .
Beginnings and apprenticeship
Gebhard Flatz was born in 1800 in Rickenbach , a current part of the Wolfurt community , as the eleventh child of a baker. He spent his childhood in poverty. At school one recognized Flatz's talent; he attracted attention for his soldier pictures and painted his first religious pictures. At the age of 15 he completed an apprenticeship as a painter. In October 1816 he went to Vienna as a journeyman painter to become a painter. The time in Vienna was marked by hardship. Flatz worked as a waiter and carpenter, on Sundays he attended drawing school. It was only after four years that he was accepted by the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna , had to work on the side and sometimes went hungry. In the autumn of 1827 he left Vienna. He painted in Bregenz and from 1829 in Innsbruck , where he sold 150 portraits.
Life in Rome and Innsbruck
With the savings he went to Rome in 1833. He took up relationships with other artists of his time, including Friedrich Overbeck and Peter von Cornelius . Flatz joined the St. Luke League of the Nazarenes , an emphatically religious German art movement. The Nazarenes worked for the glory of the Catholic Church, they understood their activity as a kind of worship. Gebhard Flatz lived and worked alternately in Rome and Innsbruck . His friend and compatriot Johann Jakob Fink (1821–1846) and Caspar Jele were among his students .
In 1838 he married Marie Felicitas Freiin von Foullon-Norbeck. A defining stroke of fate was the death of the first child at birth. In 1840 the second child died in childbirth, Marie succumbed to the fever a few weeks later in Frascati and was buried there. Gebhard Flatz never quite got over this severe blow. Only after a year did he start painting again, his deep faith helped him. On the Campo Santo Teutonico, for whose arch brotherhood he held several offices, he had his wife set an epitaph .
After Italian troops marched into Rome , he returned to Vorarlberg in 1871 . He spent his last years in his retirement home near the Bregenz parish church. Until his death he was considered "the Catholic painter of his time".
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Gebhard Flatz enjoyed great recognition during his lifetime. Bertsch has a contemporary quote from Stuttgart professor Müller, in which he explains that “Flatz shares the fame with Overbeck of being one of the most important German painters in the religious field.” His pictures were coveted and were by collectors all over Europe acquired - among others by the archbishops of Wroclaw , Cologne , Gran , Đakovo and Trieste . He also sold works to Krakow, Kiev, Petersburg, Paris, London, Liverpool and other European cities. For the Imperial and Royal Hofburgkapelle, the emperor acquired a “Nativity” for around 1,800 guilders.
Not only his original pictures spread. Thousands of reproductions of his paintings were sent all over the world during his lifetime. The images with their gentle Madonnas, peaceable saviors and raptured saints corresponded to the taste of the Catholic masses. The simplified iconology , combined with a Catholic romanticism, made the paintings popular devotional images.
After his death, Gebhard Flatz was forgotten. In the exhibition “The Nazarenes” in Frankfurt am Main in 1977 he was mentioned in a short biography, but otherwise not mentioned in any exhibition outside Vorarlberg - not even in the exhibition “The Nazarenes in Austria 1809–1939” in Graz 1979. In Swozilek et al (P. 25) it is noted by Mag. Ute Pfanner that this "is strange considering the Flatzschen position in his time, because only a few Austrian artists in Rome attracted so many artists and recognized personalities in his time."
Flatz pictures in Wolfurt
In Wolfurt , the community of his origin, too , interest in “pious images” declined with the emergence of new art movements at the beginning of the 20th century. When Flatz donated the picture “Maria Krönung” for the parish church during his lifetime, it was picked up by the Wolfurt population in Bregenz and hung on the main altar of the church in a solemn ceremony.
After the popularity of Nazarene art had declined, the picture was placed on the north wall above the entrance to the tower in 1938. In an exhibition in 1982 and another exhibition in 2000 in Wolfurt, Gebhard Flatz's work was honored in his community of origin. In Wolfurt, in addition to the parish church of St. Nikolaus, there are also Flatz pictures in the Rickenbach chapel . A portrait of Flatz painted by Fra Silvestro is exhibited in the Wolfurt Middle School.
medal
- 1879 Knight of the Imperial Austrian Order of Franz Joseph
literature
- Flatz Gebhard. In: Austrian Biographical Lexicon 1815–1950 (ÖBL). Volume 1, Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, Vienna 1957, p. 327.
- Bernhard von Poten : Flatz, Gebhard . In: Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (ADB). Volume 48, Duncker & Humblot, Leipzig 1904, p. 575.
- Christoph Bertsch among others: Gebhard Flatz. Exhibition catalog on the occasion of the exhibition from May 1 to 23, 1982 in Wolfurt. Published by the market town of Wolfurt and the Vorarlberger Landesmuseum, Bregenz 1982
- Helmut Swozilek among others: Gebhard Flatz and Nazarenes in Vorarlberg. Exhibition catalog on the occasion of the exhibition from April 1 to 24, 2000 in Wolfurt. Published by the Vorarlberger Landesmuseum, Bregenz 2000
Individual evidence
- ^ Albrecht Weiland: The Campo Santo Teutonico in Rome and its grave monuments. Volume I , Herder, Freiburg im Breisgau 1988, ISBN 3451208822 , p. 364
- ^ Albrecht Weiland: The Campo Santo Teutonico in Rome and its grave monuments. Volume I , Herder, Freiburg im Breisgau 1988, ISBN 3451208822 , p. 380
- ↑ Bertsch, p. 51
- ↑ Bertsch, p. 49
Web links
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Flatz, Gebhard |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | Austrian painter of Nazarene art |
| DATE OF BIRTH | June 11, 1800 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Rickenbach |
| DATE OF DEATH | May 19, 1881 |
| Place of death | Bregenz |