Master of the Karlsruhe Passion

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Master of the Karlsruhe Passion (Hans Hirtz?) : Christ's undressing (from the Karlsruhe Passion ), around 1440

A late Gothic painter from the Upper Rhine who painted a passion altar around 1450 is known as the master of the Karlsruhe Passion . The work and its master, probably intended for the St. Thomas Church in Strasbourg , had a decisive influence on the development of painting in the region. He may be identical to the Strasbourg painter Hans Hirtz .

Naming

The Passion Altar of the Master of the Karlsruhe Passion was divided and scattered after the Reformation . The emergency name of the artist whose name is not known for certain points to the current location of six recovered panels that are in the State Art Gallery in Karlsruhe . The work, now exhibited as a picture cycle, is considered to be a major piece of Gothic panel painting of its time.

Since 1858, most of the scattered parts have gradually been brought together again in Karlsruhe, the last one being acquired in 1998. An exception is a scene of the capture, which is in the Wallraf-Richartz Museum in Cologne .

Hans Hirtz?

It is believed that the painter Hans Hirtz, traceable in Strasbourg before 1460, was the master of the series of images known today as the Karlsruhe Passion.

The Karlsruhe Passion

The seven surviving panels of the Karlsruhe Passion depict the following scenes of the Passion of Christ . Today we can only speculate about the original composition of the pictures, each 46 centimeters wide and 67 centimeters high.

  • Prayer on the Mount of Olives

  • Capture

  • Flagellation

  • Crowning of thorns

  • Carrying the Cross

  • Undressing

  • crucifixion

The master's narrative language

His pictures show the special imagery and symbolic language of the master of the Karlsruhe Passion . He also includes people of lower social standing in the main event and wants to depict the event in a moving narrative. For example, the master wants to draw the viewer into the picture through a detailed and realistic representation of the suffering of Christ and the instruments of torture. The devotional interpretation of the Passion texts in the master’s picture is reminiscent of the goals of the Devotio moderna , a religious Christian movement of the late Middle Ages, which, in addition to pointing out independent text study, also wanted to establish a personal relationship with God.

Art historical importance

The narrative qualities of the Karlsruhe Passion are new in art on the Upper Rhine. The working method of the master of the Karlsruhe Passion seems to be reflected in some of the works of the following generation of painters. This underlines the importance of the Karlsruhe Passion for the art historical consideration of art on the Upper Rhine. The master thus plays an important role in the development of painting in the region. Stylistically, a similarity of the folds of the clothes depicted by the master of the Karlsruhe Passion with the typical pictures of the master of the study of clothes can be seen. The influence on this painter, who worked on the Upper Rhine and also in Strasbourg from around 1485 to around 1500, could be an example of the influence of the Passion Altar.

Other works

The master of the Karlsruhe Passion may also have been the creator of wall paintings in the former Dominican Church in Strasbourg, of which only a colored drawing and an etching from the 17th century have survived.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ museenkoeln.de | Museum Ludwig. Retrieved on April 16, 2017 (German).
  2. ↑ Cf. in particular R. Suckale: Süddeutsche stzenische Tafelbilder um 1420-1450, a narrative in the field of tension between cult and devotional images . In: W. Harms (ed.): Text and image, image and text. DFG Symposium 1988. Stuttgart 1990.
  3. ↑ See S. Tammen: Violence in Medieval Art: Iconographies, Perceptions, Aestheticizations . In: C. Herberichs, M. Braun: Violence in the Middle Ages. Munich 2005, p. 309.
  4. ↑ See e.g. B. also M. Roth: Strasbourg drawings in the succession of the Karlsruhe Passion . In: D. Lüdke et al .: The Karlsruhe Passion: a major work of late Gothic painting from Strasbourg. Ostfildern 1996.

literature

  • L. Fischel: The Karlsruhe Passion and its master . Karlsruhe 1952
  • F. Blasius: Image program and reality. Investigations on painting from the Upper Rhine around the middle of the 15th century using the example of the Karlsruhe Passion . Frankfurt 1986 (dissertation)
  • D. Lüdke, Staatliche Kunsthalle Karlsruhe (ed.): The Karlsruhe Passion: a major work of Strasbourg painting of the late Gothic , (catalog for the exhibition The Karlsruhe Passion , Staatliche Kunsthalle Karlsruhe 1996). Ostfildern 1996
  • W. Franzen: The Karlsruhe Passion and “storytelling in pictures”. Studies of southern German panel painting of the 15th century . Berlin 2002 (dissertation)

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