Giner (artist family)

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The Giner family produced a number of painters and sculptors with roots in peasantry. It made the Tyrolean town of Thaur a stronghold of North Tyrolean crib construction in the 19th century . Craftsmanship, precision and attention to detail characterized every giner crib.

Joseph Giner (1728–1803) laid the foundation stone for the later wooden cribs. He was a student and employee of the Tyrolean baroque painter Josef Anton Zoller . As a trained fresco painter, he worked at a time when the fabric-clad nativity scene figures of the Baroque were replaced by paper cribs. The trigger for this was the ban on cribs of 1782. Emperor Joseph II prohibited the setting up of cribs in churches. However, the population did not want to do without the Christmas scenes and so the house cribs were created. Giner produced countless cardboard crib figures, which he painted and arranged. His work impressed his cousin Johann Nepomuk Giner so much that he used the figures as models for his wooden figures.

Johann Nepomuk Giner (1756–1833), also Johann Giner the Elder , founded Giner fame together with his older brothers Franz Xaver and Romedius. Like his two older brothers, he also learned handicrafts and founded a sculpture workshop in 1780. Before Johann turned to the cribs, he created many sacred works. These include figures of apostles and church fathers in the parish churches of Thaur and Wattens, angels in the Innsbruck court church , crucifixes, a Maria in Gossensaß and the four evangelists in Oberndorf near Salzburg . But it was the cribs that brought the talented sculptor national fame. The success of his works was not only due to his artistic talent. Giner knew how to depict people as they saw themselves. Just as the people appear in their cribs, they actually lived and worked.

Franz Xaver Giner (1740–1799) learned the painting trade from his cousin Joseph Giner and made a name for himself as a barrel painter. He refined the works of his brother Johann Nepomuk.

Romedius Giner (1750-1820) worked as a carver closely with his brother Johann Nepomuk Giner.

Johann Nepomuk Alois Giner (1806–1870), also Johann Giner the Younger , inherited his father's talent as the sixth of nine Giner children and worked in the workshop until his father's death, which he later took over. Stylistically, he continued the artistic legacy, but hardly developed the art of the crib. Society also changed during Johann Nepomuk Alois Giner's lifetime and people seem to find their salvation less and less in the religious. The great time of crib building was drawing to a close. No giner could carry on the tradition of making nativity scenes into the 20th century.

A successor to the Thaurer nativity scene of the Giner family was found in Johann Laimgruber (1823–1875), also from Thaur.

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