Master Bertram

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Master Bertram: Grabower Altar (1375–1383), scene: The creation of animals
Adoration of the Magi, detail of the Petri altar by Master Bertram, on the Berlin Christmas stamp from 1982

Bertram of Minden , also known as Master Bertram (* around 1340 in or near Minden (Westfalen) , † 1414 or 1415 in Hamburg ) was one of the most important painters of the Gothic . The district Bierde of Peter Hagen at the Weser applies in addition to being the birthplace of Minden Master Bertram, since his brother documented as Cord van Byrde a Toponym wore. Its exact lifetime is unknown. It is believed that he trained with the court artists of Emperor Charles IV in Prague .

Life

In 1367 he was first mentioned in Hamburg as Bertram Pictor . Despite the designation Pictor for painter, he was not insignificantly active as a wood carver and illuminator . In 1371 he bought a house on today's Schmiedestrasse (then Sattlerstrasse), which was 50 meters from the west portal of the Mariendom and 100 meters from the south portal of St. Petri . In 1383 he bought another house on the same street. Another painter Nycolaus lived in the immediate vicinity.

Bertram von Minden ran a large workshop in which painters and carvers worked to carry out a wide variety of jobs. According to the statutes of the painter's office, two journeymen and two apprentices were at his side. For the city of Hamburg and for private individuals, he or his workshop took care of the setting, varnishing and restoration of sculptures, painted document bags and saddlebags as well as a candlestick or hanging chandelier.

Bertram received the most important artistic commissions of the time in the Hanseatic city, including the main altar of the St. Petri Church , the first parish church in Hamburg. The altar is his main work and is now called the Grabower Altar (see below). The date of its completion is passed down as 1383.

In Bertram's first will of 1390 there is talk of a planned pilgrimage to Rome . Whether this pilgrimage actually took place cannot be proven by written documents. However, some art historians would like to trace Bertram's stylistic development back to this trip to Italy . In 1410, Master Bertram wrote another will in which he considered his underage daughter Gesa. It can be concluded from this that his wife must have died shortly beforehand, as he had appointed his wife as heir in the previous will. The last surviving document from Bertram comes from 1410. After Bertram's death, his house was taken over by a painter named Johannes and was probably the workshop successor.

Training and stylistic development

One can only speculate about his training path. Volker Plagemann thinks an apprenticeship in Minden is quite conceivable, as Minden Cathedral was completed in the 14th century and had to be equipped. There were also three parish churches in the episcopal city of Minden. Plagemann also suspects that Bertram, as a traveling journeyman, visited large art centers such as Prague, the seat of the Roman-German Emperor Charles IV , and, traveling along the Rhine , Strasbourg and Cologne .

Bertram's work can be assigned to the International Gothic style , which was particularly popular in Prague and Strasbourg. Due to the stylistic affinity with the paintings of Master Theodoric in the Karlštejn Castle near Prague , one can also draw a line of origin from Bohemian painting. Several art scholars consider Bertram's stay in Prague for a long time to be likely.

There is also a relationship with Westphalian art, which is not surprising given his birthplace. The “Passion Altar” from Osnabrück in the Wallraf-Richartz Museum in Cologne is related to Bertram's style .

The depictions of animals and landscapes in his paintings also show a close proximity to French book illumination , which set the tone at the time. In Bertram research, the question is repeatedly raised whether and to what extent someone who, according to the opinion of the time, belonged to the artisan class could have access to such books. But Bertram came from a wealthy family who had access to education. One of Bertram's family members was a priest.

plant

Grabower Altar

history

The work is the earlier altar of the St. Petrikirche in Hamburg and at the same time the earliest completely preserved winged altar in northern Germany. It was brought from Hamburg's St. Petrikirche to Grabow in Mecklenburg in the 18th century because the town church there had lost its altar in a fire. As a result of this change of location, he was spared the devastating Hamburg fire of 1842, which also destroyed St. Petrikirche. In 1903 Alfred Lichtwark acquired the altar , now known as the Grabower Altar , for the Hamburger Kunsthalle . The discovery of the altar in the Grabow church only started research into late medieval panel painting in northern Germany.

In its basic features, the Landkirchen reredos from around 1380 from Master Bertram's environment corresponds to the Grabower Altar.

description

The folding or winged altar was originally set up in the choir of St. Petri. When open, it is over 7.26 meters wide and 2.77 meters high. The altar consists of a central shrine, four wings, a predella and a crowning tracery bar. The altar includes 79 carved figures and 24 individual panel paintings. The outer sides of the outer pair of wings, which are visible when closed, have lost their original painting, only remnants of a subsequent overpainting are preserved. When you open it, the painted insides appear, in the middle you can see the painted backs of the two inner wings. If you then unfold these inner wings, you can see their carved insides and the carved central shrine. The predella and the crowning tracery comb are decorated with further carved figures. When fully open, the winged altar is completely decorated with carved figures, while the closed state and the first opening show (s) paintings. In today's presentation in the Hamburger Kunsthalle, the sides of the panels are separated from each other so that all sides of the panels can be viewed at the same time. The first opening shows on the painted panels the famous, iconographically very rich picture cycle of the creation story , the story of the patriarchs of the Old Testament and the childhood of Christ. When open, only the crucifixion group in the middle extends over the full height of the shrine, otherwise the altar is divided into two registers. They are provided with a series of standing individual figures, which are crowned by canopies on buttresses. The central shrine shows five figures on each floor to the left and right of the central group, making a total of 20 figures. The wings each have six figures per floor, so a total of 24 figures. The predella has twelve seated figures. In total, the altar has 56 figures plus the three figures of the crucifixion group. There are also 20 half-length busts in the upper tracery balustrade.

Benefactor

As founder of the altar apply Bertram Horborch , the 1366-1396 Mayor was from Hamburg, and his brother, theology professor Wilhelm Horborch . The brothers came from an old Hamburg councilor family . The father of the two had already been mayor. For decades, Bertram Horborch took care of the new construction and expansion of the citizens' first parish church. The mayors of Hamburg called themselves "Patrone von St. Petri" even later.

The theologian Wilhelm Horborch belonged to the cathedral chapter of the Hamburg Mariendome. He had studied theology in Paris and pursued politics in the interests of the city of Hamburg with the Pope in Avignon . In 1361 Pope Innocent VI appointed him . to the papal nuncio and collector of the Archdiocese of Bremen as well as in the dioceses of Verden and Kammin . A year later he received a papal letter of protection to the population of Hamburg from the Pope in order to curb the beach robbery. In 1367, Horborch obtained his doctorate at the University of Bologna , and finally he gained an international reputation as a legal scholar. In 1384, a year after the high altar was erected, he died in Rome .

Since the church was consecrated to the apostles Peter and Paul in the 14th century , relics (or what was thought to be) of the two apostles must have been kept in the altar . Peter and Paul were seen as leaders of the early Christian church. Peter stood figuratively as the "rock" of the church. The Pope called himself the successor of Peter. Paul was the apostle of the Gentiles.

Changes

With the introduction of the Reformation , the two apostles lost their importance. Peter's high reputation in the papal church turned into its opposite - precisely because of the pope's reference to him. After the Reformation, the appreciation of the two saints in Hamburg declined rapidly. In 1556 the now Protestant parish of St. Petri sold the silver statues of the apostles that they had owned since ancient times.

In 1595, Johannes Schellhammer (1540-1620), pastor of the parish from Thuringia , had the two outer wings of the altar created by Master Bertram dismantled. In the same year they were made available to the painter Aegidius Coignet from the Netherlands, who painted pictures in the style of the time on Bertram's Gothic paintings. Coignet had fled his homeland for religious reasons. One of the panels he had overpainted had reached the Church of St. Jakobi, where the city archivist Dr. Lappenberg discovered. Alfred Lichtwark was able to locate Bertram's work in Grabow through his written evidence of the find. In Lappenberg's publication it was stated that the baroque painting still had a gold background and a naked figure on the back with the sun, moon and stars.

In 1596 Jost Rogge renewed the crucifixion scene in the center of the altar. The Golgotha hill is therefore signed today on the back of the altar with Rogges initials "IR" and the year "1596". Beutler even assumes that the crucifixion was not the original scene from the time it was made. Instead, the representation of Mary and Jesus is said to have stood in the center of the altar. Other art historians doubt this assumption. Ultimately, there is no certainty about the central original scene.

Attributed works

  • In Doberan Monastery : Two relief panels ( Nativity and Flight into Egypt ) for the rood screen as well as Old Testament kings, prophets and apostles on the inside of the winged altar (1467).
  • Pierpont Morgan Library , New York : Miniatures from a Missal . The three surviving pages show the resurrection of Christ , an act of mass on Corpus Christi and the presentation of Christ in the temple (dated to before 1381, the year of death of the client Johann von Wunstorp).
  • Musée des Arts Décoratifs , Paris : Six passion panels, which probably belonged to two altar panels.
  • Thyssen Collection in Castagnola : Small house altar with the Vera Icon in the middle . Considered an early work and related to book illumination.
  • Lower Saxony State Museum : The Passion Altar , probably made in 1394 (?) For the St. John's Church in Hamburg, which no longer exists today, shows a style that has been further developed based on the Grabower Altar , especially with regard to the architecture.

Workshop work

Sphere of activity

Documented works

These orders for the Hamburg Council are documented, but no longer preserved:

  • Wooden sculpture of a Maria in front of the Millerntor (1367)
  • Renewal of an angel sculpture in the town hall (1367)
  • Painting a messenger bag (1367)
  • Chandelier in the town hall (1372); its renewal in 1387
  • Holding the wooden Roland figure (1376, 1377, 1381, 1383, 1385, 1389)
  • Wooden sculpture of a Maria in front of the Lübeck Gate (1377)
  • Three wooden sculptures and six shields on the Winser tree (1385)
  • Wooden sculpture of St. Christopher and Christ (1385)

In Hamburg, Meister-Bertram-Strasse on the district boundary between Barmbek-Nord and Ohlsdorf is named after him.

literature

Web links

Commons : Meister Bertram  - Album with pictures, videos and audio files
personal data
SURNAME Master Bertram
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Bertram of Minden
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German painter
DATE OF BIRTH around 1340
PLACE OF BIRTH Minden (Westphalia) or Bierde near Petershagen
DATE OF DEATH 1414 or 1415
Place of death Hamburg