Nenninger Pietà
The Nenninger Pietà is the last completed work by the sculptor Franz Ignaz Günther . It is located in the Nenningen cemetery chapel .
History and description
The Oberhofmeister Max Emanuel von Rechberg and Rothenlöwen ordered a Pietà from Franz Ignaz Günther for the field chapel in Nenningen , which was newly built in 1774 and which became a cemetery chapel a century later . The work of art was delivered to Nenningen on December 8, 1774 and consecrated soon afterwards. Since then it has been - with interruptions caused by restorations and exhibitions - in the Nenninger cemetery chapel. It is the only work of art by Günther that came to Württemberg .
The group of figures is probably made of linden wood and consists of a piece of a tree trunk at its core, but was composed of a total of 18 parts that were glued and pegged to the main part. It is 163 cm high and 142 cm wide. Günther signed it on the back with “1774 FJ Güntter”. The seated figure of Mary is positioned on a suggested, naturalistically designed rock. Her upper body is erect, her head turned to the right is covered with an azure-blue widow's veil, she wears an earth-colored scarf around her neck, the dress is a pink that plays into gray. The blue overcoat has strikingly sharp-edged folds in places. On the face with the plaintive open mouth, there is a frown on the forehead and a tear under the left eye. The authors of a description of the Nenninger cemetery chapel and its Pietà speculated that the terminally ill sculptor, who lost his wife during this work, could have portrayed her in the work and thus created a monument for her.
The dead Jesus lies diagonally above his mother's knees. His upper body is raised forward, the lower body almost seems to slide to the ground, his right arm is swinging down while his left hand is held by Maria. In the center of the composition is the wound in his body.
In 1855 the sculpture was given a colored version by the painter Klein from Schwäbisch Gmünd . This painting was removed again in 1951 when the group of figures was removed from its original location for some time and presented in several exhibitions. When examining the original version, it turned out, among other things, that azurite had been used for the blue parts , although cheaper alternatives would already have existed in Günther's time. During the cleaning and restoration work, including retouching , attempts were made to make the original polychromy of the sculpture tangible again.
The Pietà was first shown in Munich in an exhibition of Günther's works in the 1950s , then in London , Paris and Brussels . In 1982 she was shown in a baroque exhibition in Bruchsal . During the renovation work on the chapel between 2003 and 2005, it was examined, cleaned and restored in the studio of the Baden-Württemberg State Monuments Office in Esslingen . Then she returned to Nenningen. The Nenningen cemetery chapel has not been heated since this last restoration, which is supposed to help preserve the wooden group of figures.
The Bavarian National Museum has had a model for the Nenninger Pietà since 1974, which Günther also carved from limewood. Günther had already dealt with the subject of the Lamentation of Mary in his Pietà von Weyarn . The Nenninger Pietà differs from this, however, not insignificantly: “The Nenninger Pietà shows the greatest possible reduction to the essential people and details [...] At the same time, the figure of Christ achieves a high degree of beautiful naturalness, which reflects the broken demeanor of Weyarner Leaves Christ behind. With the Nenninger Pietà, Günther goes beyond what has been achieved in the previous works [...] "
literature
- Parish of St. Martinus Lauterstein-Nenningen (ed.), Lauterstein-Nenningen cemetery chapel and Pieta by Franz Ignaz Günther (1725–1775) , Lauterstein-Nenningen 1981.
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b The Nenninger Pieta 1774 on www.denkmalpflege-bw.de (last accessed on June 26, 2019).
- ^ Parish office of St. Martinus Lauterstein-Nenningen (ed.), Lauterstein-Nenningen cemetery chapel and Pieta by Franz Ignaz Günther (1725–1775) , Lauterstein-Nenningen 1981, p. 14 f.
- ↑ Gerhard P. Woeckel, Ignaz Gunther: Franz Ignaz Günther: d. great sculptor d. bayer. Rococo . Pustet, 1977, ISBN 978-3-7917-0489-0 , p. 64.
- ↑ The Eighteenth Century . Wallstein Verlag, 1977, p. 71, ISSN 0722-740X .