Stephan Kessler (painter)

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"The Expulsion of Heliodorus from the Temple", oil on canvas, c. 1670

Stephan Kessler (born January 16, 1622 in Donauwörth ; † August 31, 1700 in Brixen ) was one of the most important baroque painters in Tyrol . As a sought-after artist of the urban clergy and nobility, he painted among other things altar leaves and biblical history pictures and designed the baroque hall of the Benediktbeuern monastery together with Caspar Feichtmayr .

Life

Numerous traces of Stephan Kessler's life can be found in the archives of his homeland. They concern, for example, marriages and child baptisms, inheritance and property matters, agreements and disputes about fees. A completely closed biography, reliable information about the character and way of life of the painter cannot be derived from it.

Kessler's father Georg was a painter by trade and came to Donauwörth from Breslau . There he married Anna, his master's widow, in 1621. Stephan Kessler, the son of this marriage, was born on January 16, 1622 in Donauwörth. His stay in Brixen is guaranteed for 1643, in 1644 he was granted citizenship there , and it was suggested that instead of the payment due for it, he should paint a plaque for the town hall; it is not known how the painter decided on this matter. Kessler had his first marriage in 1643 and had seven children with his wife Margretha. After his wife died in 1692, he entered into a second marriage a few months later and in 1698, for the same reason and after an equally short period, married for the third time. Almost two years later, on August 31, 1700, Stephan Kessler, “the freyen Khunst Mahler”, died.

Soon after his arrival in Brixen, Kessler founded a painting workshop and ran it with great entrepreneurial skill. After a short time he received many orders from church and noble clients. He became known beyond South Tyrol and had customers in cities like Graz and Vienna . In later years his sons Michael, Gabriel and Raphael worked in his workshop.

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General

During Kessler's lifetime it was common practice among visual artists to fall back on picture formulations that had been developed by famous colleagues. In Kessler's entire work, more or less detailed pictorial citations of this kind can be recognized, building blocks, so to speak, that were used in changing frameworks. At the time, such behavior was generally not condemned as an attempt at plagiarism , on the contrary, it was recognized as evidence of professional knowledge. In addition to some influences from Germany and Italy (including Paolo Veronese ), it was mainly the work of the Flemish painter Peter Paul Rubens that provided Stephan Kessler with inspiration for his large-format, detailed and colorful works. It was helpful that Rubens' pictures had long been widespread as graphic reproductions . The influence of Jan Brueghel the Elder cannot be overlooked either.

In 2005, Stephan Kessler was presented with a large special exhibition entitled “Stephan Kessler. A Tyrolean painter of the Rubens period ”, in which numerous pictures from private collections were made available to the public for the first time. The exhibition took place in the Diocesan Museum in the Hofburg Bressanone and in the branch offices of the Augustinian Canons' Monastery of Neustift , Schenna Castle and Fahlburg Castle (South Tyrol). The reviewer of a local newspaper said on the occasion of this exhibition: “The lush decorations, the sumptuous costumes, the gorgeous snapshots with children, the devoted musicians, the exuberant, swirling, erotic dance scenes, the voluptuous“ easy girls ”are in stark contrast to [his ] pious scenes from the Old and New Testament with the sensuality and corporeality inherent in the Baroque. "

Sacred art

Kessler was often commissioned by individual donors and the Catholic clergy to design altarpieces . His altarpieces can be found in numerous churches in Tyrol, but are now also kept in some museums, including the Merano City Museum and the Tyrolean State Museum . In addition, Kessler painted images of saints, scenes from the life of Christ and other depictions of biblical history.

The best known is his elongated picture of the “Banquet in Simon's House” from 1660, which is installed in the Augustinian canons of Neustift Abbey above the baroque paneling on the north wall of the refectory . It is 10.20 m wide, 2.35 m high and with an area of ​​approx. 24.5 m² it is an unusually large canvas picture. The central motif is the washing of Christ's feet by Mary Magdalene . The left half of the table can be traced back to a Rubens stitch. Other parts refer to pictures of the banquet by Paolo Veronese - this applies to the architectural frame as well as to the apostle with a white beard on the far right and the seated dog in the right half of the picture. On the collar of the painter has the coat of arms of the then reigning provost attached to his own initials (SK). The figure of a standing servant with a beer mug on the right edge of the picture is occasionally interpreted as a self-portrait of Kessler.

  • "The feast in Simon's house", overview picture.

  • "The feast in Simon's house", left margin.

  • "The feast in Simon's house", middle section.

  • "The feast in Simon's house", right edge of the picture.

Profane art

Castle owners were often among those who commissioned Kessler's profane pictures. They usually ordered history pictures and portraits, but also pictures of festivities or the different seasons. Some pictures, for example the Turkish slave market or Columbus in front of the Kaziken, show that erotic-foreign topics were also in demand. Representations of the parable of the prodigal son were popular with the Tyrolean nobility, six of which have survived to this day; “The focus is on baroque festival culture, which is morally questioned. [...] All of these pictures ultimately serve edification and instruction, whereby the joy of the eyes should not be neglected. "

Ceiling painting

The ceiling paintings that Kessler created include the eight lives of the Virgin Mary in the Church of Our Lady on Säben and the hall ceiling in Fahlburg Castle in Prissian . The best known are his ceiling paintings in the large baroque ballroom in the west wing of the Benediktbeuern convent. He created them together with Caspar Feichtmayr in the period from 1672 to 1675. They show, among other things, the four elements, the earth as a unity of humans, animals and plants as well as ancient gods who represent the kingdom of the planets. There he also painted the twelve-part monthly series of paintings between 1675 and 1680 . There are also seven of twelve monthly pictures taken in 1675 in Schenna Castle.

Pictures of the life of Mary in the Liebfrauenkirche in Säben

Publicly accessible works

Image title Emergence Dimensions technology Repository
The sacrifice of Isaac around 1650/60 51 × 94 cm oil on wood Municipal art gallery in the Deutschordenshaus , Donauwörth
Engelspietà around 1650 153 × 110 cm Oil on canvas Brixner Dom
Marian life 1658 Fresco medallions Liebfrauenkirche ( Säben )
Jehu has the Baal servants executed around 1660 162 × 228 cm Oil on canvas Landesmuseum Joanneum , Graz
Banquet in Simon's house 1660 235 x 1010 cm Oil on canvas Augustinian canons monastery Neustift
The round of months 1675/1980 Ceiling pictures Benediktbeuern Monastery
The prodigal son's repentance around 1675/80 107 × 90 cm Oil on canvas Schenna Castle

literature

  • Leo Andergassen u. a. (Ed.): Stephan Kessler (1622–1700). A Tyrolean painter from the Rubens period . Diocesan Museum Hofburg Brixen, Brixen 2005, ISBN 88-88570-05-5 .
  • Rainer Gruenter: The round of months. The monthly pictures (1675/80) in the old ballroom of the Benediktbeuern Abbey by Stephan Kessler . In: Ders .: The realm of the seasons . OZV Offizin Verlags-AG, Zurich 1989, ISBN 3-907495-01-2 , pp. 38–45.
  • Anton Huber: The Kessler family of painters from Brixen. Stephan Kessler's painting in the assessment of Tyrolean art historiography II . Athesia Bozen, Brixen 1963.
  • Leo Weber : The early baroque ballroom and its ceiling paintings in the Benediktbeuern monastery . Bavarian People's Education Association, Munich 1996.
  • Peter Stoll: The South Tyrolean baroque painter Stephan Kessler in Swabia: Two biblical dinners and a Noah's Ark . University Library, Augsburg 2012 ( full text )
  • Timo Trümper: "(...) found in a miserable inn as wallpaper". On the history of a monumental battle picture with the liberation of Vienna in 1683 , in: Stiftung Schloss Friedenstein Gotha (Ed.): Contributions to residential culture. Festschrift for Bernd Schäfer. Gotha 2017, pp. 11–88.

Web links

Commons : Stephan Kessler  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Eduard Scheiber: “Archival documents on Stephan Kessler and his family”. In: “Stephan Kessler. A Tyrolean painter from the Rubens period. ”Exhibition catalog, p. 25 ff. Diözesanmuseum Hofburg Brixen, 2005.
  2. ↑ Eduard Scheiber: “Archival documents on Stephan Kessler and his family”. In: “Stephan Kessler. A Tyrolean painter from the Rubens period. ”Exhibition catalog, p. 25. Diözesanmuseum Hofburg Brixen, 2005.
  3. ^ Venti secoli d'arte in Alto Adige - Il periodo della controriforma - Pittura. Retrieved January 17, 2011 (Italian).
  4. ↑ NN: The dance around the golden calf. Exhibition Stephan Kessler in Schenna Castle . In: Dorfzeitung Schenna , edition of June 27, 2005, p. 15
  5. ↑ "Stephan Kessler. A Tyrolean painter from the Rubens period. ”Exhibition catalog, p. 230 ff. Diözesanmuseum Hofburg Brixen, 2005.
  6. ^ Helmut Stampfer : From festivals and histories - to Stephan Kessler's profane pictures . In: Stephan Kessler (1622–1700). A Tyrolean painter from the Rubens period . Brixen 2005
personal data
SURNAME Kessler, Stephan
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Baroque painter
DATE OF BIRTH January 16, 1622
PLACE OF BIRTH Donauwörth
DATE OF DEATH August 31, 1700
Place of death Brixen