Michael Heinrich Rentz

Michael Heinrich Rentz (1775), portrait of his pupil Johann Balzer

Signature of Michael Heinrich Rentz

Michael Heinrich Rentz (also Renz ; Czech Michal Jindřich Rentz ; born January 6, 1698 in Nuremberg ; † 1st half of 1758 , Kukus in Bohemia) was an engraver and draftsman of the Bohemian high baroque.

Life

Michael Heinrich Rentz and Johann Daniel de Montalegre: Small view of Kukus, 1723

Michael Heinrich Rentz: Palace of Branicky (1752)

Michael Heinrich Rentz was born into a family of belters (in the church register under the entry "Rentz = brass smith, brass smith") and was therefore able to familiarize himself with the burin as a child . He learned copperplate engraving in Nuremberg, in the workshop of Josef à Montalegre. Rentz also deepened his knowledge in the Nuremberg drawing school of Johann Daniel Preissler . After the death of his master Josef à Montalegre (1718) Rentz continued the workshop with the help of his son Johann Daniel until 1722. Mainly engravings with details of the architecture of the time after drawings by Johann Jacob Schübler were engraved. The book “ PERSPECTIVA / PES PICTVRAE. . . as the main foundation of the noble Mahlerei ”, Nuremberg 1st edition 1720. It shows the first title pages of Rentz with around twenty sample projections of imaginary spaces and examples of the shadows cast by objects. In the Nuremberg workshop, Rentz engraved three large engravings after drawings by Jan Ferdinand Schorr, who was responsible for the so-called theatra honoris for the west facade of St. Vitus Cathedral in Prague on the occasion of the beatification of Johannes Nepomuk (who was saint from 1729) in 1721 . H. Ehrenpforten, had designed. At the invitation of Count Franz Anton Sporck, Rentz moved to Kukus in Bohemia, the seat of the Count, in the second half of 1722 . He was accompanied by the widow Susanna de Montalegre and her four children. Rentz worked in Kukus for the next fifteen years as an illustrator of the books published by Count Sporck. Hundreds of engravings were made in this way, until around 1725 with the collaboration of Johann Daniel de Montalegre.

After the death of the count's patron (1738) Rentz worked for another twenty years in the modest circumstances of the formerly famous baths of Kukus. Mostly "holy pictures" were created as insignificant commissioned works. In the period from 1747 to 1750 (?) Rentz drew and engraved views of the rule of the royal Hejtman Jan Klement Branicky in Białystok, Poland . In the Seven Years' War , after the lost battle of Leuthen , thousands of soldiers of the defeated Austrian army fled back, followed by a typhus epidemic, which killed Michael Heinrich Rentz along with many other victims in the reign of Sporck.

plant

Michael Heinrich Rentz had an excellent command of the technique of etching, combined with copper engraving. He became Count Sporck's court engraver and illustrated many of the books published by Sporck. He also managed the workshop, where, among others, Johann Balzer was an apprentice with him. Due to his independence, inventiveness as a draftsman and his mastery of graphic technology, he is considered one of the best Bohemian and important European graphic artists of the 18th century. On November 14, 2001, the Czech Post issued a 12 kronor stamp with Rentz's engraving of the Annunciation .

Engraver of Count FA Sporck

Above all, Rentz was the illustrator of several important and extensive cycles. Among these, the main work is " The Christian Year ", on which he worked for twelve years (from 1723 to 1735). The work with its 300 engravings is based on the artist's own drawings and follows the New Testament and the calendar of Catholic saints and martyrs. Rentz's mature artistic style becomes visible. For another work with 212 engravings - the life description of the holy old fathers, the so-called " Book of the Hermits " - an older French collection served as a template, which Rentz improved considerably. In addition, the artist created a series of vedute of Spork's rule (“ small and large view of Kukus”, “interior view of the count's tomb”, twice “Bonrepos hunting lodge”, “Bad Podoly near Hermannstädtel ”). A number of engravings reflect Spork's confrontation with his neighbors, the Jesuits (illustrations for the “ witch's songs”, “prayer with a stitch of St. Nepomuk”, “crucifixion with the Savior ”).

Late work

After Spork's death (1738) and no longer under his influence, Rentz engraved 52 outstanding copper plates in three editions (1753, 1767 and 1777) under the title Geistliche Todts-Gedancken ("Dance of Death") in the course of the 1840s . Rentz was among the European artists on this subject who followed the classical order. The Kukus, which was removed from the major cultural centers and largely abandoned twenty years after Sporck's death, offered only limited job opportunities for an engraver. Nevertheless Rentz was able to write a book on St. Illustrate Eligius and other patron saints of the Prague goldsmiths' guild (Prague 1752). He also designed the Theresian allegory of the victory over the occupiers of Prague in 1742. Rentz also engraved three engravings, which are a key document of the Prague coronation of Maria Theresa (Prague 1743) - unique original evidence ( Colligo flores , 1740, Colligo grana , 1741), and Views of the Aderspach Rocks , 1739. While Sporck was still alive, from 1732 to 1742 (1746?) He worked on two monumental panels for the Marian column in Polička. But above all he created small devotional pictures for pilgrimage sites in Bohemia and abroad, which monasteries and parishes ordered from him - vera effigies , true illustration . To date, over a hundred such saints have been discovered.

Exhibitions (selection)

• 1997 Project Totentanz / Memento Mori , Museum Bochum
• 2003 Umění grafiky. Grafické techniky v průběhu šesti století , Salon, Kabinet, Olomouc
• 2011 Michael Jindřich Rentz , Národní galerie v Praze, Schwarzenberský palác

gallery

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  Michael Heinrich Rentz: "The devil, the pig and the procurator", illustration from the book "Litis abusus" (1726)

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  Michael Heinrich Rentz: “St. Gregorius von Natianz ”, illustration from“ The Book of the Hermits ”(1730–1732)

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  Michael Heinrich Rentz: Spork's imaginary monument “FAGUS” with the allegory of compassion and with the hospital in Kukus, 1732

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  Michael Heinrich Rentz: Title page to "The Christian Year" (1735)

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  Michael Heinrich Rentz: "Fall of the Angels", illustration from "The Christian Year" 1st half of the thirties of the 18th century.

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  Michael Heinrich Rentz: Signet for the Prague printer KF Rosenmüller COLLIGO FLORES (1740)

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  Michael Heinrich Rentz: St. Johannes de Deo with the Kukuser Hospital (after 1744) devotional pictures

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  Michael Heinrich Rentz: "The Swimmer", illustration from "The Dance of Death" (1753)

literature

"The erection of the cross", engraving by MJ Rentz, Graphic Collection of the Strahov Premonstratensian Monastery, Prague

• Benčová Monika: Michael Heinrich Rentz, Národní galerie v Praze 2010, ISBN 978-80-7035-462-9
• Michael Rentz fecit: Michael Jindřich Rentz, dvorní rytec hraběte Šporka, ISBN 978-80-246-1229-4
• Price, Pavel: František Antonín Špork a barokní kultura v Čechách. Paseka Praha 2003, ISBN 80-7185-573-1
• Spielmann, Peter: Project Totentanz / Memento Mori - Aspects of Death in Art. Documentation of an exhibition in the Museum Bochum from September 27 to November 23, 1997. With contributions by u. a. Gerti Maria Hoffijan and Hans Helmut Jansen, ISBN 978-3-8093-0210-0
• Šerých, Jiří: Rentz, Michael Jindřich, heslo Rentz in: Nová encyklopedie českého výtvarného umění, Academia Praha 1995, II, p. 679-680, ISBN 9788020005212
• Šerých, Jiří: Michael Jindřich Rentz: Tanec smrti, Paseka Praha 1995, ISBN 80-7185-028-4
• Price, Pavel: Buoy s dvouhlavou saní. František Antonín Špork a barokní kultura v Čechách. Prague 1981
• Horák, František: Česká kniha minulosti a její výzdoba, Praha 1948
• Benedikt Heinrich: Franz Anton Graf von Sporck, On the culture of the baroque period in Bohemia. Vienna, 1923
• Pacovský, Emil: Michael Heinrich Rentz, in Veraikon, II (1913), s. 1-4, 17-20, 33-37
• Eynern, Lotte by: Rentz Michael Heinrich, in: Thieme, Ulrich - Becker, Felix: General Lexicon of Visual Artists from Antiquity to the Present, Leipzig 1907–1950, sv. 25, p. 175-176
• Gustav Edmund Pazaurek: Franz Anton, Reichsgraf von Sporck: a patron of the baroque period and his favorite creation. Kukus. Leipzig, 1901
• Constantin von Wurzbach : Rentz, Michael Heinrich . In: Biographisches Lexikon des Kaiserthums Oesterreich . 25th part. Kaiserlich-Königliche Hof- und Staatsdruckerei, Vienna 1873, pp. 296–299 ( digitized version ).
• Nagler, KG: New general artist lexicon, Munich 1835–1852, sv. 13 (1843), heslo Rentz, p. 35-37
• Dlabacž, Johan Gottfried: General historical artist lexicon for Bohemia and partly also for Moravia and Silesia, Prague 1815, II, heslo Rentz, pp. 560–567
• Rentz, Michael Heinrich; 1698-1758; Painter, engraver (PND 122549023) Lipowsky, Felix Joseph: From P. to Z. Munich 1810 digitalizováno BDB

Web links

Commons : Michael Heinrich Rentz  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

• Literature and other media by and about Michael Heinrich Rentz in the catalog of the National Library of the Czech Republic
• Informační systém abART: Rentz Michael Jindřich
• Kuks: Umělci ve službách FA Šporka
• (en.) Rentzovo muzeum v Kuksu, 2014

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Portrét Rentze od Johanna Balzera ( Memento of the original from May 23, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. 
2. ↑ Europeana: Perspectiva: pes pictvrae
3. ↑ Postfila / 0309 ( Memento of the original dated March 9, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. 
4. ↑ engravings by Michael Heinrich Rentz (1701–1758) from The So-called Death Dance (1767), 2013
5. ↑ Dějiny a současnost, 2007, Vít Vlnas, recenze knihy