Johann Baptist Baader
Johann Baptist Baader (popularly "Lechhansl"; baptized on January 23, 1717 in Lechmühlen, Fuchstal ; † August 25, 1780 in Schlehdorf ) was a church painter of the Bavarian Rococo . His works can mainly be found in the Upper Bavarian Pfaffenwinkel .
life and work
Baader was the oldest of five children of a married couple from the hamlet of Lechmühlen near Seestall (today the municipality of Fuchstal in the Landsberg am Lech district ). His date of birth is unknown, the date of his baptism is recorded as January 23, 1717.
After training as a church painter , among others with Johann Georg Bergmüller in Augsburg , Baader worked mainly in his Upper Bavarian-Swabian homeland. A five-year stay in Italy (1752–1758) - no works by him from this period are known in Germany - made him familiar with Neapolitan ceiling painting, which from then on influenced him significantly.
Because of the close proximity of his home to the Wessobrunn monastery , Baader had close contact with the famous “ Wessobrunn School ” around the artist families Schmuzer and Zimmermann . Although he was not one of the “Wessobrunners” himself, he carried out numerous works on behalf of the monastery (parish church Wessobrunn , pilgrimage church Vilgertshofen , parish church Rott, etc.).
Baader's most important client, however, was the Augustinian canons of Polling near Weilheim in Upper Bavaria. Here he equipped the reliquary chapel of the collegiate church Heilig Kreuz as well as the monastery library, which with its picture program on the arts of philosophy, history and theology became the main work of the artist. For the canons' gallery of Pollingen provost Franz Töpsl, Baader painted numerous portraits of learned Augustinian canons , most of which are now in the archives of the Ludwig Maximilians University in Munich as a result of secularization . Pollinger commissioned work also included the church paintings in Aschering , Landstetten and Perchting (all in the Starnberg district) and in Jedelstetten in the Landsberg am Lech district.
Baader's last, unfinished job was to paint the Schlehdorf monastery church in the Bad Tölz-Wolfratshausen district. The "Lechhansl" died here on August 25, 1780, unmarried and childless, of dropsy of the chest . His grave is lost.
Aftermath
Baader is not one of the most virtuoso painters of the Bavarian Rococo , and his work was limited to his closer home between Lech and Loisach . In its aftermath, however, it gained its own popularity. By quoting the garments and customs of his Upper Bavarian-Swabian homeland, often not stylizing faces, painting well-known saints ( Sebastian , Laurentius , Johannes the Baptist ) and their legends, and also depicting some martyrdom scenes a little more drastically, Baader gave many of his pictures a particularly popular character - down-to-earth character. His often hidden self-portraits are particularly popular, for example in Wessobrunn , Türkenfeld (Fürstenfeldbruck district), Issing (Landsberg am Lech district) and Polling .
For a long time vilified as a “plait painter” by academic art, he was remembered by the residents of the Pfaffenwinkel as one of their own, as “Lechhansl”. The reminiscence also led to some distortion. Baader was neither the unsteady vagante that Peter Dörfler describes him as in his novel Die Wessobrunner , nor was he as eager to drink as many a painted wine jug makes him appear.
In the 300th year of his birth in 2017, Baader was erected a memorial made of two millstones in his place of birth, designed by Franz Bernhard Weißhaar from Landsberg am Lech with the participation of other artists. In 2017, the 91 kilometer long Johann Baptist Baader Cycle Path was signposted, which leads as a circular route through many stations of his work, including Lechmühlen, Dießen, Weilheim and Polling.
Works
- Main fresco "Feast of St. Oswald" in the Osterzell church , Ostallgäu district (1751)
- The ceiling painting in the library room of the monastery Santi Bonifacio e Alessio (dated 1754, unsigned) is ascribed to him as one of the works during his stay in Rome.
- Frescoes in the parish church of St. Johannes Baptist in Wessobrunn , including the ceiling fresco "Baptism of Christ" (1759)
- Equipment of the Eichkapelle von Erpfting near Landsberg am Lech, including the ceiling fresco "Judith in Bethulia" (1762)
- Furnishing of the reliquary chapel in the collegiate church Heilig Kreuz in Polling near Weilheim (1764)
- Ceiling painting "Resurrection" in the prelate wing of Polling Monastery (1765)
- Altarpiece "Stoning of St. Stephen" in the pilgrimage church of Our Lady of Sorrows in Vilgertshofen in the Landsberg am Lech district, as well as three ceiling frescoes in the pilgrims' restaurant there (1770)
- Facade painting on Baader's house in Lechmühlen in the Landsberg am Lech district (1770, destroyed in 1924)
- Frescoes on the life and legend of St. Laurentius in the parish church of St. Laurentius in Pähl near Weilheim in Upper Bavaria (1772)
- Ceiling frescoes "Mariae Visitation" and "Martyrium of St. Sebastian" in the parish church Mariä Visitation Perchting near Starnberg (1774)
- Equipment of the Polling monastery library (main work by Baader, 1778/79), including the main fresco "Pope Gregor and Provost Töpsl with the fallen false teachers"
- Ceiling frescoes and altarpiece on the life of St. John the Baptist in the (old) parish church of St. John the Baptist in Rott , Landsberg am Lech district (1779)
- Ceiling frescoes on the life of St. Tertulin in the Schlehdorf monastery church , Bad Tölz-Wolfratshausen district (1780).
Further plants in the churches of Leeder , Lechmühlen, Jedelstetten , Pflugdorf , Stadl and Issing (all districts Landsberg am Lech), Türkenfeld (district Fürstenfeldbruck), Aschering and Landstetten (both districts Starnberg), Beuerberg (district Bad Tölz-Wolfratshausen) and Weilheim ( Unterhausen , Angerkapelle).
literature
- Peter Gayer: The signature of Johann Baptist Baader in the monastery of SS. Bonifacio e Alessio in Rome . Contribution to: Historischer Verein Landsberg am Lech e. V .: Landsberger Geschichtsblätter , 118th year. Self-published, Landsberg am Lech 2020, pp. 45–52.
- Peter Gayer: The Unknown Masterpiece - The ceiling painting by Johann Baptist Baaders in the library of the monastery of Santi Bonifacio e Alessio in Rome . Contribution to: Historischer Verein Landsberg am Lech e. V .: Landsberger Geschichtsblätter , 116th year. Self-published, Landsberg am Lech 2018, pp. 89-105.
- Werner Fees-Buchecker, Franz Bernhard Weißhaar, Albert Thurner, Günther Kraus, Thomas Hermann, Konrad Erhard: Johann Baptist Baader (1717–1780) on his 300th birthday . Five articles in: Historischer Verein Landsberg am Lech e. V .: Landsberger Geschichtsblätter , 115th year. Self-published, Landsberg am Lech 2017, pp. 145–184.
- Adolf Fuchs: Johann Baptist Baader, the Lechhansl. Our local painter's life and work. Buchloe 1959.
- Franz X. Schlagberger: Johann Baptist Baader (1717–1780), the Lech painter and Polling monastery, the picture guide to his frescoes and church paintings. Self-published, Prüm (no year)
- Franz X. Schlagberger, W. Bahnmüller: Johann Baptist Baader. Small Pannonia series, vol. 115. Freilassing 1983, ISBN 3-7897-0115-7 .
- Adelheid Simon-Schlagberger: Johann Baptist Baader 1717–1780. A Swabian-Bavarian painter between baroque and classicism. ISBN 3-87437-202-2 .
- Adelheid Simon: Johann Baptist Baader. With a critical catalog of the complete works, Diss. University of Munich 1973.
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ Peter Gayer: The Unknown Masterpiece - Johann Baptist Baader's ceiling painting in the library room of the monastery of Santi Bonifacio e Alessio in Rome . Contribution to: Historischer Verein Landsberg am Lech e. V .: Landsberger Geschichtsblätter , 116th year. Self-published, Landsberg am Lech 2018, pp. 89-105.
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Baader, Johann Baptist |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Lechhansl |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | German church painter |
| DATE OF BIRTH | baptized January 23, 1717 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Lechmühlen, Fuchstal |
| DATE OF DEATH | August 25, 1780 |
| Place of death | Schlehdorf |