Hans Bocksberger the Elder

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Portrait (lithograph from the artist gallery of Maximilian Franck 1818)
Painting by Emperor Ferdinand I (around 1550)

Hans Bocksberger the Elder (* around 1510 in Mondsee , Prince Archbishopric of Salzburg ; † 1561 in Salzburg ; also Bocksperger ) was a painter of the High Renaissance .

Life

Hans Bocksberger was (most likely) the son of Ulrich Bocksberger († before 1546) and his wife Anna. The work of his father Ulrich Bocksberger is largely unknown. Probably the only work that has survived are the pictures created in 1518 on the back of the altar for the Church of St. Blaise in Abtenau , which depict the story of St. Blaise , of which the inscription Hoc opus pinxit Utalricus Pocksberger Lunelacensis (“this work was created by U (ta) lrich Bocksberger from Mondsee ”) testifies.

Little is known about the apprenticeship of the older Hans Bocksberger (formerly often called Johann B.). He must have learned the basics of painting from his father and spent further years of apprenticeship and traveling in Italy , in any case he had precise knowledge of the Italian style elements of the time. In 1542 Hans Bocksberger married his wife Margarethe, who died before 1579. With his death in 1561, Hans Bocksberger left behind an already mature child named Anna, as well as eight minor children (i.e. under the age of 24): Hans Bocksberger d. J., Heinrich, Georg, Sabine, Catharina, Elisabeth, Margarethe and Lucia (the latter was still a toddler or infant when the father died). His style shows both German elements, as used by Albrecht Dürer, as well as Italian elements of the Renaissance and Mannerism .

His son Hans Bocksberger the Younger (* 1539 in Salzburg, † 1587 in Maastricht) and his cousin Melchior Bocksberger (* around 1537, † 1585/87) both learned from Hans Bocksberger the Elder. Ä. her painting craft.

The works of Hans Bocksberger the Elder

  • The frescoes Bock Bergers in the Protestant chapel to Neuburg an der Donau : The chapel in Neuburg an der Donau (built 1537-1545) became in 1542 the world's oldest used only in the Protestant rite sacred space, the 1543 the declared Protestants was painted Bocksberger. The wall paintings were whitewashed in the decades after 1600 and only exposed again between 1933 and 1950. The cycle of images is unique in the history of Protestant church building. It shows above all those scenes from the Old Testament that are closely related to the Reformation and begins with the image of the creation of Eve and the fall of man . This is followed by the ten plagues of Pharaoh and images of human violations of the commandments of Moses . The other pictures show Christ's death on the cross, baptism and communion as an overall composition . The ceiling of the chapel shows a fresco with the Ascension of Christ .
  • Frescoes in several halls of the Landshut city ​​residence (around 1542/1543) (ground floor, Italian hall, Apollo room, chapel corridor). The second oldest view of the city of Salzburg can be found in the September lunette (hunting scene with heron stain) .

The following works are ascribed to him:

literature

  • Max Goering: The younger members of the Bocksberger family of painters: a contribution to the history of Mannerist painting in southern Germany . Knorr & Hirth, Munich 1930.
  • Susanne Kaeppele: The Bocksberger family of painters from Salzburg - painting between the Reformation and the Italian Renaissance . Salzburg 2003. ISBN 3-9500712-8-8
  • Erwin Pokorny: "Festzug und Allegorie - Der Freskensaal", in: Freisaal: The Palace in the Mirror of History (Salzburg Contributions to Art and Monument Preservation, Vol. V, edited by Robert Gobiet), Salzburg 2012, pp. 97–122.
  • Lothar Pretzell:  Bocksberger, Johann the Elder. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 2, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1955, ISBN 3-428-00183-4 , p. 345 ( digitized version ).

Web links

Commons : Hans Bocksberger the Elder  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Digital copies:

personal data
SURNAME Bocksberger, Hans the Elder
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Austrian painter
DATE OF BIRTH around 1510
PLACE OF BIRTH Mondsee
DATE OF DEATH 1561
Place of death Salzburg