St. Michael wooden ceiling (Hildesheim)

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The ceiling paintings in their current condition
Painted wooden ceiling of the Michaeliskirche
Detail: the fall of man in paradise

The painted wooden ceiling of Hildesheim's Michaeliskirche in the nave of the nave measures 27.6 × 8.7 meters and consists of 1,300 oak planks . Along with the wooden ceilings from Zillis (Switzerland) and Dädesjö (Sweden), it is one of the only monumental panel paintings from the high Middle Ages that have survived .

Image program

The subject of the painting is the root Jesse . This family tree of Jesus appears divided into eight main fields. In the first (very western) main field, the fall of Adam and Eve in paradise is depicted. This corresponds to the version of the Evangelist Luke (3:23), who starts the family tree of Jesus with Adam. Christ can already be seen in the crown of a tree. The second main picture shows the sleeping Jesse , from whose body a tree sprouts and climbs through the following main pictures ( Jesse tree). These show the kings of Israel with David , Solomon , Hezekiah and Josiah ; each surrounded by four smaller images of the kings. The seventh field shows Mary with the allegories of the four cardinal virtues . She is holding a spindle with red thread. In the Protegospel of James , Mary is one of the seven virgins who wove the temple veil. The spindle in the hand of the Virgin belongs to the Byzantine image of the Annunciation. The eighth main field was destroyed when the eastern crossing tower collapsed in 1650. It was replaced by a picture panel that placed Christ next to Moses. When the wooden ceiling was reinstalled in 1960, a Christ enthroned as the judge of the world replaced it.

The image of paradise is surrounded by the four rivers of paradise and the evangelists Mark and Luke . The image of Christ is framed by the archangels Raphael , Uriel , Gabriel and Michael as well as the evangelists Matthew and John . Each of the other main images is flanked on each side by two rectangular representations (mainly prophets ); next to Mary are the Annunciation Angel and Isaiah on the right, and John the Baptist at the top left ; the fourth image cannot be clearly identified ( Aaron or Zacharias ). The symbols of the evangelists are shown in the four corner pictures.

There are also 42 medallions with the ancestors of Christ on the ceiling. According to the Gospel of Matthew , these are the generations from Abraham (who is in one of the medallions, but does not have a special position) to Jesus ( Mt 1.17  EU ). The portrayal of the ancestors is, however, taken from the Gospel of Luke , which mentions 78 ancestors and continues from David not about Solomon, but his brother Nathan ( 2 Sam 5.14  EU ) - not to be confused with the prophet ( Lk 2.23-38  EU ). Both the royal and the genealogical descent are documented.

history

Originally there was the cross altar with the Bernward cross under the top main picture , directly behind it was the Christ column .

Johannes Sommer, who in 1966 dated the ceiling painting at the same time as the west choir extensions to the years around 1200, was guided by the thought that after Abbot Theodoric II, resigned in 1204, there was no longer any personality in the monastery who could be trusted to perform such a feat . However, the dendrochronological examination in 1999 showed that the oak trees used for the ceiling were felled between 1190 and 1220. Thus, the painting was only created around 1230. This allows a connection with the cathedral pulpit of Bitonto (Apulia) from 1229, on which the Hohenstaufen rule of Emperor Frederick II is depicted in the form of a Jesse tree. The Hildesheim bishop Konrad II von Riesenberg , a partisan of Frederick II, traveled as a crusade preacher to Brindisi in 1227 , where the crusader army embarked for the 5th crusade. At that time, a monk in neighboring Bari described Frederick II as "the offspring of the root Jesse, who rose from the roots of the grandfather ( Friedrich I. Barbarossa ), he is his grandson, the lord and emperor." The ceiling was expanded in 1943 and on various Places stored. The boards that were replaced after the collapse of the eastern crossing tower remained in the church. The planks originally used thus outlived the Second World War. Before the reinstallation in 1960, all parts of the painting were carefully cleaned and restored. In 2006 a building archaeological examination of the ceiling was carried out.

literature

  • Cord Alphei: The Hildesheim Michaeliskirche under reconstruction 1945-1960. Georg Olms Verlag , Hildesheim 1993, ISBN 3-487-09812-1 .
  • Manfred Lausmann, Peter Königfeld : The Romanesque ceiling picture of the Ev. Parish church St. Michael in Hildesheim , in: Hans-Herbert Möller (Hrsg.): Restoration of cultural monuments. Examples from the preservation of monuments in Lower Saxony (= reports on preservation of monuments , supplement 2), Lower Saxony State Administration Office - Institute for Monument Preservation , Hameln: Niemeyer, 1989, ISBN 3-87585-152-8 , pp. 197-201
  • Marko Jelusić: "A lion in his field", How Joseph Bohland saved the ceiling painting of St. Michaelis from certain destruction. In: H. Kemmerer (Ed.), St. Michaelis zu Hildesheim. History and stories from 1000 years, publications of the Hildesheim Adult Education Center on the city history of Hildesheim 15 (Hildesheim 2010) 108–113. ISBN 978-3-8067-8736-8 ( online at academia.edu)
  • Christiane Segers-Glocke (Ed.): St. Michael in Hildesheim: Research results on building archaeological investigation in 2006. CW Niemeyer Buchverlage GmbH, Hameln 2008, Copyright: 2008 Lower Saxony State Office for Monument Preservation (= workbooks for monument preservation in Lower Saxony 34) ISBN 978- 3-8271-8034-6
  • Johannes Sommer: The ceiling picture of the Michaeliskirche in Hildesheim . Supplementary reprint of the first edition Hildesheim 1966 together with a critical overview of the research since 1999. Königstein i. Ts. 2000, ISBN 3-7845-7410-6
  • Rolf-Jürgen Grote, Vera Kellner [Hrsg.]: The picture ceiling of the Hildesheim Michaeliskirche: Research into a world cultural heritage; Current findings of the preservation of monuments in the context of the interdisciplinary preservation and maintenance planning of the ceiling painting. Munich [u. a.] (2002)
  • Angela Weyer / Gerhard Lutz (ed.): 1000 years of St. Michael in Hildesheim. Church-monastery donors. Petersberg 2012 (Writings of the Hornemann Institute, Volume 14). ISBN 978-3-86568-767-8

Web links

Commons : Holzdecke St. Michael (Hildesheim)  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Johannes Sommer: The ceiling picture of the Michaeliskirche in Hildesheim , 1999, p. 34. For further dates of the ceiling picture: p. 20 of the final chapter.
  2. ↑ cf. Ulfrid Müller: A difficult and long way from the tree in the forest to the finished painted ceiling. In: Grote, Kellner: The picture ceiling of Hildesheim's Michaeliskirche. P. 78 f.
  3. ↑ Peter Klein: Dendrochronological investigations on planks of the wooden ceiling in St. Michael. In: Grote, Kellner: The picture ceiling of Hildesheim's Michaeliskirche. P. 80
  4. ^ Bernhard Gallistl: Narrated World Heritage. Twelve Centuries Hildesheim , Hildesheim 2015. p. 109.