Swiss disc
The Swiss pane is a colored, lead-glazed decorative window pane from Swiss glass production. It was used from the late 13th century and became popular in the early 14th century. The technology was further improved until the middle of the 19th century. Swiss panes are often referred to synonymously as coats of arms , because coats of arms are very often shown or, because of their relatively small size, as cabinet disks . A comprehensive overview can be found in the writings of the philologist Paul Boesch (1882–1955).
history
The earliest evidence goes back to the year 1200, but could only be secured as fragmentary archaeological finds . The earliest full glazing include Kappel am Albis (around 1300/1310), Königsfelden , St. Laurenzen in Frauenfeld-Oberkirch (1325–1330), Blumenstein and Köniz (both around 1330) and the Hauterive monastery in Freiburg (1330–1340). The works around 1300 were all in the high Gothic style with French influences. This was followed by influences from Alsace ( Niederhaslach , Rosenweiler and others) and Constance , from the middle of the 14th century also from Upper Rhine and South German provenance.
Window glass was a luxury good until the late Middle Ages . Especially in secular buildings , the window openings were small and mostly covered with oil-soaked animal skins, paper and fabric. Economic upturn and increasing prosperity caused higher living standards, which promoted wood paneling instead of raw walls and instead of an open fireplace only in the kitchen, tiled stoves also in the living room - in the so-called cabinet. The windows now received slug or diamond panes . Pictorial representations, which were taken for granted in the churches, were now also wanted in the guild and inn. This was the hour of birth of the cabinet disc. They were made for the width of the window openings - usually not more than half a meter wide - and rectangular, mostly almost square and attached at head height so that one could see the details closely.
One of the first image galleries of the coat of arms still exists from the council chamber in Stans from 1481, which represents the Stans decree . For 1501, Baden , in which the daily statutes took place at the time, is documented that all ten federal estates afforded themselves the luxury of putting up signs there. Some of these disks have been preserved and today represent the prototype of the Swiss disks. Since the late 15th century at the latest, the stalls began to hoard larger stocks of disks from year to year in order to give them, combined with a request To be able to give time to a certain person. The Swiss discs were thus used like a currency . The fact that these donations were not altruistic can be proven by various examples, as mutual interests were often affected.
In 1534, the club house of the Society of Bathers and Barbers in Zurich received a glass picture as a society pane, which is considered the oldest stained glass painting in Zurich.
Use of coat of arms
It is not entirely clear why the coat of arms was able to spread so widely in Switzerland. In terms of development, it has broken away from the group of monumental church windows and has become independent. The coats of arms , which are almost always shown, refer to the founder or the recipient or both. Initially, the discs were a welcome gift because of their high value, later a collector's item of the nobility and the wealthy class of the bourgeoisie, as the service nobility - the high nobility had died out in Switzerland - carried a coat of arms. In the Swiss Confederation, a loose, democratic confederation, there is a certain preference for heraldic self-portrayal. The successes after the victory of the Burgundian and Swabian Wars and the Lombard campaigns may also have contributed to a "greater need for legitimation and representation". This development of improving ceremonies and labels did not leave its mark on the craftsmen, farmers and innkeepers either; They too acquired "speaking signs like millwheel, jug and plow" - mostly on their own initiative.
This sign language, which originally comes from the oldest letters of the coat of arms and which in the high Middle Ages mainly showed stinging or visor helmets, later buckle and tournament helmets, was considered a secularized knight's badge. But the estates that organized themselves in Switzerland as places or cantons and issued their own rules of estates also used this "collective, heraldic sign language". In many cases, the original helmets have been replaced by fearsome sentinels in the form of heavily armed warriors, griffins, lions and so on. The imperial eagle , a symbol of imperial freedom of the Confederation, often towers over the coat of arms and is still used as a symbol of imperial immediacy even after the Peace of Westphalia , although it had become effectively independent.
Glass pane design
The thematic contents were given as described above. There are also many similarities in the formal design. Disregarding all other design elements, the closed framing of the picture motifs is style-defining compared to the monumental windows.
In the course of time, certain design patterns emerged. For example, there were panes with pannier-bearers, which represented a flag-bearer with an imposing figure and posture, figure panes in which saints, warriors or sutlers are the focus, or social panes that bring together his members of political, church or professional groups. Over time, the motifs became more and more arbitrary up to stereotypical images in which a woman handed a returning warrior a mug. In addition, biblical scenes from the Passion, or Pietà and Loreto representations are always popular. These typically stage-like and template-like, pompous and idealizing visualizations assign the Swiss discs to the popular art genre of handicrafts . This closeness to the people made the discs so popular in all social classes for a long time.
reception
Today, Swiss panes can be found in many collections of old stained glass in museums and castles, especially in England, but also in American and Russian collections. They often apply to Swiss stained glass as an example, while larger specimens remained on the spot and thus largely unknown abroad. Hermann Meyer goes into detail about the Swiss custom of giving windows and coats of arms.
literature
- Paul Boesch: (selection)
- Old coats of arms from Rorschach and the surrounding area.
- Aristotle and Phillis on glass paintings.
- The old stained glass in St. Gallen.
- On the history of Freiburg stained glass.
- The window and coat of arms donations to the Appenzellerland.
- Notes on the glass paintings in Wettingen.
- Two Kesselring Mötteli disks.
- Abraham Wirth (1616–1681), glass painter from Lichtensteig.
- Bartholomäus Lingg: Glass painter from Zug.
- Christ as an apothecary on glass paintings.
- The stained glass from the chapel in Haltikon.
- The Wiler glass painters and their work.
- The Winterthur glass painter Hans Jeggli and his Toggenburg panes.
- Josias Murer's disc of the Protestant preachers of Toggenburg for Jost Grob zum Furt.
- See Swiss Archives for Heraldry : 1899, Book I, pages 11–23
Individual evidence
- ^ A b Brigitte Kurmann-Schwarz: Glass painting. In: Historical Lexicon of Switzerland .
- ^ A b Hans Wentzel : A Swiss disc of the 14th century in London. In: Journal for Swiss Archeology and Art History , Volume 21, Issue 1, 1961. doi : 10.5169 / seals-164695
- ^ A b c d e Bernhard Anderes, Peter Hoegger: The glass paintings in the Wettingen monastery. Baden-Verlag, 1988, ISBN 3-85545-031-5 .
- ↑ Friedrich v. Zglinicki : Uroscopy in the fine arts. An art and medical historical study of the urine examination. Ernst Giebeler, Darmstadt 1982, ISBN 3-921956-24-2 , p. 75 f.
- ^ J. Schneider: The society disc of the Scherer and Bader in Zurich 1534. In: SAH . Volume 77, 1963, p. 38.
- ^ Hermann Meyer: The Swiss custom of giving windows and coats of arms from the XV. to XVII. Century. J. Huber, Frauenfeld 1884.