Sachsler meditation cloth

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Sachsler meditation cloth

The Sachsler meditation cloth , also meditation picture of Niklaus von Flüe , viewing picture of St. Brother Klaus u. Ä. Called, is a late medieval cloth picture that is closely related to the life of the Swiss national saint Niklaus von Flüe (1417–1487). The image is in tempera on an approximately square linen cloth painted (87.5 x 80.5 cm). It consists of a central and six equally large round pictures with biblical representations arranged in a circle . In the corners there are square images of the evangelist symbols .

The original is the property of the Catholic parish of Sachseln and is kept inaccessible. A replica can be found in the parish and pilgrimage church of Sachseln , where it has been on display since 1608 , as well as in the Brother Klaus Sachseln museum . The picture gained great fame because it was used in 1981 and 1987 by the Swiss aid organizations Fastenopfer and Bread for All, and in 1980 and 1998 by Misereor as a hunger cloth motif .

description

The most unusual part of the overall picture is the central medallion. In a white inner circle on a red background it shows a crowned male face with a beard and long hair, the Christ type in the imitation of the Abgar image . The area between the inner circle and the red edge of the medallion is black. Across this area, six golden rays connect the face with the six external images, in such a way that three of the rays are pointed on the outside and straight on the inside and three - alternating with the others - are pointed on the inside and straight on the outside, indicating a movement in opposite directions: from the center to the periphery  - from the periphery to the center. There are no parallels in art history for this symbolic figure.

The six surrounding circular images show in more conventional iconography , starting from the bottom:

1. Announcement of the birth of Jesus to Mary (beam to the center)
2nd birth of Christ (ray from the center)
3. God the Father as Creator , worshiped by three angels (beam to the center)
4. Capture of Jesus (ray from the center)
5th crucifixion of Christ (beam to the center)
6. Transformation at Holy Mass (ray from the center).

Interpretative approaches

The message of the picture is complex and controversial in detail. The double triad of rays suggests a Trinitarian interpretation; this is also supported by the Niklaus biography (see below). The three medallions from which the rays go inwards are obviously assigned to God the Father - here the earthly work of Jesus would be expected in chronological order - God the Son and God the Holy Spirit  - the dove as the starting point of the incarnation  . The rays denote an interaction between inside and outside and can be related to corresponding statements of Christian mysticism .

On the six exterior images there are attributes that allow them to be assigned works of mercy : on picture 1 two crutches for the care of the sick, on picture 2 pilgrim's staff and bag for sheltering strangers, on picture 3 bread, fish and wine can for the food of the starving, on picture 4 a chain for visiting the prisoners, on picture 5 a robe (the cloak of Jesus) to clothe the naked and on picture 6 in the background a coffin for burying the dead.

Origin and reception

Wheel scheme of the pilgrims' tract (Augsburg version)
Woodcut in the pilgrims' tract

The most important source for the history of the cloth is Heinrich Gundelfingen (around 1440–1490), professor of theology in Freiburg i. B. He visited Niklaus von Flüe in the winter of 1480/1481 in his hermitage and then wrote the Historia Nicolai Underwaldensis heremite , a manuscript that he donated to the city of Lucerne in 1488. He probably also wrote the so-called pilgrims' tract with the title Brůder Claus , which appeared in print in Augsburg in 1488 and, slightly different, in Nuremberg in the same year without a statement of the author.

The pilgrim of the pilgrims' tract reports from the course of his conversation with Niklaus von Flüe: «[Brother Klaus:] I want to let you see my book, in which I learn and seek the art of this. And he brought me a figure in the same line as a wheel with six spokes in this shape as afterwards. " The pilgrims' tract illustrates this statement with a wheel sketch, but also with a woodcut rendering of the entire meditation cloth. It also says there:

«And he picked up and said to me: Do you see this figure? So there is the divine being. In the middle, that is undivided, gothic, in which all the wretched rejoice. The three spiczen, dÿe do geen in the point of the inner czirckels, these are the three person and geent outside of the gotheÿt and have included the himel and darczů all world, they are in your power. And as a s

It is controversial whether Niklaus showed the pilgrim the abstract wheel sketch or the whole cloth picture. In the first case the cloth image would be a secondary formation, in the second the wheel sketch would be a reduction of the then completely new central medallion. It is also controversial how much of the Trinitarian statements of interpretation can be traced back to Niklaus himself and how much the pilgrim added.

Since the cloth picture is art-historically classified in the third quarter of the 15th century and in the Sundgau region - presumably created there as a Lenten cloth - there is much to suggest that Niklaus von Flüe received it as a gift and has since used it as his “book” of faith.

After Niklaus' death the picture passed through different hands until it reached the Sachsler Church in 1608. There it was stretched on a wooden plate in 1611 and provided with an inscription.

literature

Web links

Commons : Sachsler meditation cloth  - collection of images

Remarks

  1. ↑ X-rays showed, however, that this type only arose when a more youthful and beardless face was painted over.
  2. ↑ These statements are close to the trinity theological heresy called Sabellianism .