St. Josef (Starnberg)

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St. Josef from the north side from the castle garden in winter

St. Joseph is one of the Rococo originating branch church in Starnberg . It was built in the second half of the 18th century and the high quality of the furnishings is significant. The best known is the high altar of the church, an excellent work by Ignaz Günther . The church is a listed building .

Location and naming

The inside of the church

The church is located on an elevation of the range of hills on the west side of Starnberg. It is directly adjacent to the small castle garden that lies between it and Starnberg Castle . She has her patronage from St. Joseph , patron of Bavaria since 1764 . However, this has only been the case since the 19th century. Originally it was consecrated to six holy persons, besides Joseph also Maria, Jesus and the Saints Peter, Georg and Sebastian.

Building history

The location of the church is no accident. The guest and dance house, also known as the summer house, of the neighboring then electoral palace from the late Gothic period , which was no longer used, was originally located here . Elector Maximilian III. Joseph had this building abandoned. He himself was the commissioner and sponsor of the church, which undoubtedly contributed to the fact that the church received its high-quality furnishings. The actually estimated construction costs of 2,145 guilders rose more than three times as the work progressed. Ultimately, the building cost 7,537 guilders, and that did not include the cost of the high altar of the church. The foundation stone was laid on May 13th, 1764, the church was consecrated on August 6th, 1770. Leonhard Matthäus Gießl from Vienna is named as the planning builder. Two people led the work on the church, one Johann Däxner, then from 1765 Matthias Mittermaier .

Basic structure

View from the lake side with the segment-arched apse , to the left of it the sacristy and to the right the church tower

The church has a single nave with a retracted choir. The slender, three-story church tower rises to the north of the choir. It is square on the lower floor, merges into an octagonal structure on the middle floor and ends with a - classic Bavarian - double onion roof on the top floor. To the south of the choir is the small sacristy . The apse facing the lake is arched in segments. Inside, the nave is divided into two bays, with an intermediate bay towards the choir. The painted belt arches sit on pillars with presented double pilasters , which are repeated "halved" to the wall surfaces. The pilasters basically follow the Corinthian order , but are heavily modified in the capital area : only the outer ones of the usual acanthus flowers are executed, between these and the Ionic elements, the volutes , a pentagonal medallion-like surface is cut out, which contains a variant of the Christ monogram . Because of the retracted choir it was necessary to place the front pilasters of the pair of pilasters of the triumphal arch at an angle in the room, also to achieve the rhythmic and elegant effect of the room. This type of architecture is reminiscent of Borromini's work . The two yokes are flat coupled and painted, as is the dome over the choir.

The Ignaz Günther high altar

On the west side there is a two-storey, white and stuccoed gallery, which contains the organ of the church on the upper level.

The spatial impression is severely disturbed by a modern grid between the first rows of the chairs and the gallery.

The actual entrances to the church are, unusually, on the long sides to the north and south of the nave. The southern entrance contains memorial plaques for soldiers who died in the First World War or who later died of their injuries, on the left for soldiers who died in the Franco-Prussian War of 1870/71.

Furnishing

The pilasters are made, despite prima facie, not of marble or stucco marble but are painted only marbled.

The flat domes of the nave are, like the dome of the choir, frescoed . They are all works by Christian Wink , created between 1765 and 1766, it was his first complete cycle. They are made using the trompe-l'œil technique, thus simulating the continuation of the church interior vertically into the sky. The first fresco in the first yoke above the gallery contains a work Divina Providentia , i.e. the Divine Providence. The middle fresco depicts the everyday life of the Holy Family in the carpenter's workshop in Nazareth . The dome fresco of the choir ultimately contains a depiction of a request from the estates to St. Mary and Joseph for intercession with the Holy Trinity . Various people known by name are depicted, including the then electoral keeper Franz Weigl, the pastor Bschaidn and the estate keeper Pentenrieder, along with farmers and fishermen, indicated by a cart in the lower part of the fresco. The main character of the fresco is a female allegory of spa Bavaria , according to another interpretation the wife of the elector, Maria Anna von Sachsen herself. Pages hold an image of the originally existing summer house in front of her, whereby its appearance, besides only one other source, has been handed down . The pendants contain representations of an Old Testament predecessor of Joseph with the same name, Joseph , the son of Jacob, from the 1st book of Moses , in which the sun, moon, stars and sheaves bow before him (cf. Gen 37.7-9  EU ).

The spandrels of the two yokes of the nave contain eight depictions of putti with different symbols, they are worked in monochrome . The putti hold symbols for those qualities that are ascribed to Joseph: purity, righteousness, meekness, temperance, diligence, knowledge of God, thrift - opposite the entrance on the northern side with the number 12,000 on a money bag - and virtue - on the other side above the Input.

The stucco of the interior comes from Franz Xaver Feuchtmayer the Elder. J. , created in the same period as the frescoes and can clearly be assigned to the Wessobrunn school .

The pavimentum comes from Sonthofen limestone slabs and was relocated in 1844.

Stalls and pulpit

right side altar and pulpit

The pews, the choir stalls, the confessionals and the lower pillars of the west gallery are the work of Bartholomäus Zwinck , who created them in Murnau in 1766.

The gilded pulpit on the right pillar of the triumphal arch is also made by Zwinck . It is considered a "cabinet piece". It refers to the evangelist John and shows his main attributes, taken from the Revelation of John : on the pulpit the eagle, next to the pulpit lion and man and below the bull. The pulpit was originally made for the Elisabeth Church in Munich and was also installed there; it has only been in St. Josef zu Starnberg since the beginning of the 19th century.

Vault frescos

The crucifix on the left is likely a work by Philipp Jakob Rämpl, also from the 18th century.

A former memorial stone for Anna Maria Lung, who died in 1617, is also remarkable. She was court master of Duke Albrecht VI's wife . von Bayern-Leuchtenberg , Duchess Mechthildis von Leuchtenberg . The marble stone with a crucifixion scene now serves as the upper part of the holy water basin on the north wall and was only walled up there in 1848.

Side altars

The side altars represent St. Peter on the left and St. Sebastian on the right . Both are shown with their attributes, Peter holds the key to heaven, Sebastian has an arrow in his side , corresponding to his martyrdom . They are neo-baroque works, created in 1854. The Petrus altar comes from Wilhelm Hauschild , the Sebastian altar from Eduard Schwoiser .

High altar

The highlight of the church is the high altar by Ignaz Günther. The group of the Holy Family, Mary holding the baby Jesus, Joseph on the right side around a globe, is carved from linden wood and the people next to the putti are painted white for emphasis. Except for the figures, the altar is gilded. It forms an imaginary triangle from the middle putto floating in a halo to the clouds on the left and the lying putto on the right. The lack of an altar painting is unusual, but due to the structure of this construction it was no longer necessary. The altar is accompanied by two figures also framed in white, on the left St. John Nepomuk and on the right St. Francis Xavier . The altar is considered "refined" and "excellent".

The church as a whole was built in the Rococo, the calm stucco, the little gilding and the very restrained, pastel-colored painting show the transition to classicism , according to art-historical opinion .

literature

  • Lothar Altmann: Catholic Churches - Starnberg , Kleine Kunstführer series No. 168, originally ed. by Hugo Schnell, 5th edition, Verlag Schnell & Steiner, Regensburg 2012

Individual evidence

  1. a b Altmann: Catholic Churches - Starnberg , p. 14.
  2. Altmann: Catholic Churches - Starnberg , p. 8.
  3. Bavarian monument, file number D-1-88-139-46
  4. Altmann: Catholic Churches - Starnberg , p. 4.
  5. a b Altmann: Catholic Churches - Starnberg , p. 11.
  6. a b c Altmann: Catholic Churches - Starnberg , p. 12.

Web links

Commons : St. Josef  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Coordinates: 47 ° 59 ′ 51.7 ″  N , 11 ° 20 ′ 17 ″  E