Stuppacher Madonna
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| The Stuppacher Madonna |
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| Matthias Grünewald , 1514–1516 |
| Mixed media on softwood |
| 186 × 150 cm |
| Bad Mergentheim-Stuppach , parish church of the Coronation of Mary |
The Stuppacher Madonna is a picture of Mary by Matthias Grünewald , created around 1516. It is located in a chapel built for this purpose in the 19th century at the parish church of the Coronation of Mary in Bad Mergentheim-Stuppach ( Franconia ). Along with the Isenheim Altarpiece, the representation is one of Grünewald's main works.
history
Emergence
Due to a closed in 1515 contract in the estate of Grünewald and the inscription on the base of the frame in Aschaffenburg Collegiate Church of St. Peter and Alexander that the Aschaffenburg pin is believed canons Heinrich Reitzmann the image to 1514 the artist in order gave. It was created during the work on the Isenheim Altarpiece in his workshop there. A hand drawing by Grünewald "crowned Madonna with a winged child", which is referred to as a study of the Stuppach Madonna, is in the Berlin copper engraving cabinet and one in the Stuttgart State gallery copper engraving cabinet .
The painting was intended as a devotional picture for the new chapel (today Maria-Schnee-Kapelle) in the collegiate church in Aschaffenburg . It should be placed on the wall behind the altar . The chapel was built by Kaspar Schantz and his brother Georg. When it was inaugurated on October 21, 1516 by Archbishop Albrecht von Brandenburg , the picture was most likely already in its intended place, as it was said to have been completed in 1517. The devotional picture was framed by a head field - still present in the Aschaffenburg Chapel today - and probably, like most of the contemporary devotional pictures, also by a base field of the same type. A third sheet mask, which comes from the removed base field, is still in the treasury.
It was painted on softwood boards of selected quality. In the lower part these are covered with a very fine fabric. For the color pigments, Grünewald used different tempera as binders, which is why this painting is called a mixed technique .
Part of the Maria-Schnee-Altar
In 1517 Heinrich Reitzmann ordered another picture from Grünewald, depicting the snow miracle . According to his testamentary decree, it should be hung on the already completed tablet. However, since there was probably no suitable place for the further picture in the small room, it was decided to make the existing devotional picture the middle part of a triptych and attach the snow miracle picture to it as a wing. For this purpose, today's 'Stuppacher Madonna' was cut from originally approx. 195 × 161 cm to 186 × 150 cm.
This is how the “Maria-Schnee-Altar” was built between 1517 and 1519. Grünewald now had to place the portrait of the snow miracle on the narrow right wing of the altar (today in the Augustinermuseum in Freiburg im Breisgau ). The lost left wing probably showed the three donors of the altar and chapel against an unknown background. Due to the low height of the room, the base of the original devotional image was removed and replaced by a low frieze-like beam. The back of the wings with the epiphany and the inactive wings that were added later were made by an unknown artist. After the necessary modifications, the triptych was placed on the altar table as a retable .
The Stuppach Madonna was taken out of the frame as early as 1531, as the Maria-Schnee-Altar was called the Three Kings Altar from that year onwards. This means that the closed wings replaced the central picture. The further fate of the picture in the following centuries is in the dark.
Mergentheim and Stuppach
In 1809 it was discovered in the chapel of the former Teutonic Order Palace in Mergentheim when the order was dissolved. In 1812 Balthasar Blumhofer, pastor in the Teutonic parish of Stuppach , bought the picture for his church. It was then ascribed to Rubens. In 1854 the church was redesigned in a neo-Gothic style. The frame for the picture integrated in the new high altar turned out to be too small. It therefore had to be trimmed on all sides.
In 1881 it was recognized as a creation by Matthias Grünewald during a restoration. This did not particularly please the Stuppachers, as the name “Rubens” had a better sound than the name “Grünewald”, which was only known to a few experts.
Restorations 1833–1931
The picture has been restored several times since it was in Stuppach, including 1926 to 1931. After the overpainting was removed, the desolate state of the picture, which had arisen over five centuries, became apparent. The damage to the Madonna showed that there was hardly any more undamaged or unprocessed section. The art historian Wilhelm Fraenger wrote about the condition at the time: It happened to this picture that a peasant painter restored the damaged parts in his own way. So the evil brush of this master whitewater smeared the whole sky and distorted the dance of angels floating there in God's glory beyond recognition. The face of the Madonna, as well as the head and body of the baby Jesus, were covered with a thick crust of paint, just as the rough shape of the rainbow was ultimately part of the botched work of this restorer.
The restoration in Stuttgart, which was carried out by the restorer Joseph von Tettenborn, is extensively documented because there is a photo documentation of it. She has corrected much of the previous damage to the work. The replacement of a figure of Christ in the clouds (Christ as ruler of the world) by a God the Father, who is surrounded by a multitude of angels and modeled on that of the Isenheim Altarpiece, is, however, controversial. The art historian Ziermann refers to a preliminary study by Grünewald, which is now in the Kupferstichkabinett of the Staatsgalerie Stuttgart . It shows a Christ as ruler of the world, who carries a cross-crowned globe in his left hand and a scepter in his right. The cross at the top of the scepter, which has the same shape as the cross at the garden gate, points to him as the heavenly bridegroom of the Virgin. Two angels wear a crown from his throne to bring them to Mary as Queen of Heaven.
Recent past, today
In the 1980s, a coating was applied to the panel painting without monument preservation involvement, which had a negative impact on the conservation of the paint layers underneath, gave the painting an unnatural sheen and optically reinforced unevenness in the paint layers. The coating was removed again in 2012 as part of an extensive conservation inventory and restoration at the State Office for Monument Preservation in Esslingen.
For conservation reasons, the painting will not be loaned out if possible. During the restoration of the Stuppach Chapel, the parish had the picture exhibited in the State Gallery in Stuttgart and in the Diocesan Museum Rottenburg in 1998/99 . This was the first change of location of the picture since 1931.
From September 6th 2011 to January 8th 2012 it was shown in the exhibition “Heavenly Shine. Raffael, Dürer and Grünewald paint the Madonna “shown in the Vatican Museums and the Old Masters Picture Gallery in the Semperbau at the Dresden Zwinger . In view of the condition of this painting (the President of the Association of Restorers Volker Schaible spoke of a "ruin") this loan was controversial.
Image description
construction
The painting is divided into two halves by a diagonal from the bottom left to the top right. The right side of the picture, on which the church is located, appears darker and heavier. It seems to be closer to the viewer. The left side appears lighter and more ethereal due to its coloring. A second visual diagonal, which is less noticeable, runs from the bottom right to the top left from the hem of the coat over the hair to the clouds. The optical center of the picture is Mary with the child, who forms a triangle with her spread out coat. The tree on your right follows your body contour with a slight oscillation. Your head is at the intersection of the two diagonals. The hands are exactly in the physical center of the picture. Against the background of the coat, they form the strongest light-dark contrast in this picture.
presentation
The picture, painted true to detail, shows Mary sitting on the edge of a fountain or a bench. She wears her long, blonde hair loose and no crown crowns her head. The head is turned towards the child, who is standing on her lap and to whom she is holding a fig with her left hand. She holds the baby Jesus with her right hand, her fingers spread in an unnatural position. With equally unnatural finger gestures, the child reaches in the direction of the fig and at the same time points with his fingers at the tree shown. A rainbow arches over Mary's head, underneath an implied halo. The sky opens at the top left of the picture; God the father and angels are recognizable. The depiction of Mary is similar to that in the Isenheim Altarpiece that Grünewald had previously painted.
To the right of Maria is a tree whose crown has been cut off by the upper edge of the picture. It bears leaves , flowers and fruits at the same time . There is a vessel with flowers at the root of the tree. Roses and Madonna lilies can be clearly identified . In the background of the tree a church with protruding buttresses can be seen, which is partially cut off from the right edge of the picture. Art historians have recognized details of the Strasbourg cathedral in the church depicted .
On the left you can see a white ceramic bowl with a rosary and a jug. Above it, a fig tree can be seen winding around a wooden cross, and behind it a garden with a closed gate in the shape of a cross, beehives and above it a landscape with a village - it is said to be Seligenstadt -, mountains and in the distance an indicated sea.
Pictorial symbolism
As is typical for paintings of this time, most of the objects depicted in this carefully composed picture have a deep symbolism. However, the allegory here is very complex, referring to many mystical symbols, such as those in the visions of St. Birgitta of Sweden are called and play a role in German mysticism . The picture thus stands out from contemporary depictions of the Madonna. The symbolism of individual objects is partly only revealed in connection with the symbolism of other objects shown in the picture and leaves scope for a number of different reading methods. The imagery used was at least partly familiar to Grünewald's theologically educated contemporaries. In addition to the pure representation of the Madonna with the child, the picture served them as a meditation aid on beliefs.
Mary as mother of the church
In terms of art history, there is now broad consensus that the numerous details of the picture indicate that Grünewald's painting is to be interpreted as a representation of Mary as Mother of the Church . Berta Reichenauer wrote:
- Grünewald had to depict the church and its divine mission in his picture. Just as man is God's plaything, creation arose out of the divine game, so the church is also the play partner of the Most High. Mary is the mother of the church, according to the Song of Songs the bride of the Lord. Their game is nuptial game as the mystics understood it. (Reichenauer, p. 68)
In addition, there is a figure of Mary above the staircase of the church shown in the background - this is also an allusion to the honorary title of Mary as "figura ecclesiae" , as "image of the church". For the medieval theologians, however, Mary was not only “figura ecclesiae” , but also “Sponsa et mater Ecclesia” , bride and mother of the Church at the same time.
Mary's smile and the child's play
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The slight smile of Mary, which can be seen on numerous medieval depictions of the Madonna, acts as an emotional expression of a self-forgotten mother who plays with her child. It appears in a similar way, for example, in Raphael's “Madonna in the Green” or in Leonardo da Vinci's “Felsgrottenmadonna”. This smile, often captured by painting, is the painterly expression of an ancient theological reflection. The church fathers and the mystics had already dealt with Mary's relationship to her child and dealt with the question of what role play and smile played in it.
- See, under the love
- Vine, o Christ,
- plays full of peace,
- protected in the garden
- the holy church
it is already said by the monk Notker .
The theological conviction that the divine wisdom and serenity manifest in the smile and that the suffering God was also a playing God, a “Deus ludens” , is reflected in many paintings of the 15th and 16th centuries. With Raffael, for example, the baby Jesus plays with the cross, while with Grünewald the playing child not only reaches for the fig with his splayed fingers, but also uses this gesture to refer to the tree standing next to Mary, which here also has a layered symbolism and among other things indicates death on the cross.
The playing child on the mother's lap stands on heavy, preciously trimmed brocade , and above him the clouds open to reveal God the Father. In the Old Testament the cloud is a symbol of the presence of God, while in the New Testament it indicates his presence .
The tree
With the index finger of the left hand, the child points in the direction of the tree, which bears fruits and flowers at the same time, which is not the case with Central European tree species. The simultaneous fruiting and blooming, like the Madonna lilies at its roots, is above all a symbol of Mary's virginity. Here, too, Grünewald used a symbol that is not very often used - on many medieval panel paintings it is the wild strawberries that actually bloom and fruit at the same time that indicate this quality of Mary. At the same time, however, the tree indicates Christ's death on the cross and is thus the symbol of redemption .
Ziermann also points out, however, that the pointing direction of the fingers also point to the necklace of Mary: The contemporary observer read this jewelry as a sign of the marriage of Mary and the virgin conception. In the same sense he interpreted the cross at the gate to the closed garden (Ziermann, p. 156).
Church and rainbow
Detail of the Stuppach Madonna: the church painted as the background
The south transept of the Strasbourg cathedral with the double portal, the statue of Mary and the lancet windows
The north transept of the Strasbourg cathedral with the rose windows
Buttress attachments on the south side of the Strasbourg cathedral
In the depiction of the church in the background, Grünewald reproduced views of the Strasbourg cathedral , which he regularly had in front of his eyes. On the reproduced facade of the south transept, the (now defunct) court arbor in front of the double portal, the lancet windows on the first floor with a figure of Mary under a canopy and the walkway above can be recognized. Grünewald designed the rose windows in the style of the Strasbourg north transept, while he provided the church choir on the left with buttresses that are similar to those of the Strasbourg nave.
Some viewers recognize a sea in the distant background of the Stuppach Madonna. Christian literature often uses the image of the ship and the ark as symbols for the church and uses the phrase of the church, which sails like a ship through the "sea of the world". Since the beginning of Christian literature in late antiquity, just as in rabbinical literature, there have been interpretations of the name "Maria", which made a reference to the sea and which, among other things, led to numerous Latin and German Marian songs addressing Maria as "sea star", as a star that shows the way to the port of salvation.
A rainbow is clearly visible . In the Old Testament, the rainbow is the sign after the flood of the divine covenant (Genesis 9:13), which is renewed through Jesus Christ. A contemporary of Grünewald's familiar with Christian symbolism could therefore read in this picture that salvation could only be found in salvation by those who belong to the church directed by Mary - just as only those who were on the ark found salvation from the destruction by the Flood. However, art historians also point out that the rainbow can be interpreted differently. The rainbow also appears in the visions of St. Birgitta from Sweden . In these visions Birgitta speaks of the Mother of God, who stands like the rainbow above the clouds and, like this, leans down to the inhabitants of the earth, touching the good and the bad with her prayer.
The crownless Mary and the closed garden gate
For the interpretation of Mary as the bride of the church it is decisive that Mary - unlike on the preliminary study by Grünewald - does not wear a crown in the painting. Her necklace indicates the status of her groom, as does the ring on her left hand and her loose hair. Her dress is like that of a queen; however, her hairstyle is that of a simple girl, as mentioned in the Song of Songs of the Bible. The locked garden gate, the lilies, the seat under the tree, the honey indicated above the beehives, the rainbow and the fig tree that winds around a wooden cross in the garden all refer to this Bible text. The “ Hortus conclusus ” indicated by the closed garden gate is often supplemented in painting by depicting flowers, which are among the Marian symbols . In addition to roses, lilies and figs, carnations , hawthorns and chamomiles are arranged in a circle around Mary.
Beehives also appear in the visions of St. Birgitta from Sweden. In this mysticism, Mary is equated with a beehive, in whose lap God's Son “the highly praised bee” took a seat. Similar to the rainbow, the representation of the beehives is ambiguous.
Copy by Christian Schad 1947
Between 1943 and 1947, the well-known painter Christian Schad, who was valued for his knowledge of the painting technique of the old masters, copied Grünewald's Madonna on behalf of the city of Aschaffenburg . This copy is in the collegiate church of St. Peter and Alexander in Aschaffenburg, the original location of the Stuppach Madonna.
literature
- Bruno Hilsenbeck: The Stuppacher Madonna of Mathis Gothart Nithart - Matthias Grünewald and her message. A thank you to the friends of the Stuppach Madonna. Chapel maintenance Stuppacher Madonna, Stuppach - Bad Mergentheim 1972; 4th edition 2004 (large format with interpretations and color illustrations, full and detailed views).
- Hanns Hubach: Matthias Grünewald: The Aschaffenburger Maria-Schnee-Altar. History - reconstruction - iconography. With an excursus on the history of the Maria Schnee legend, its distribution and illustrations. (= Sources and treatises on church history in the Middle Rhine . Vol. 77). Self-published by the Society for Middle Rhine Church History, Mainz 1996, ISBN 3-929135-09-4 (also: Heidelberg, University, dissertation, 1994).
- Brigitte Barz: The Stuppacher Madonna by Matthias Grünewald. Urachhaus publishing house, Stuttgart 1998, ISBN 3-8251-7193-0 .
- Elsbeth Wiemann: The Stuppacher Madonna. Grünewald as guest. [On the occasion of the exhibition "Grünewald as guest - the Stuppach Madonna" in the State Gallery in Stuttgart from November 21, 1998 to February 14, 1999]. State Gallery, Stuttgart 1998.
- Tilman Daiber: The "Stuppacher Madonna" by Matthias Grünewald. Studies on painting technique. Diploma thesis Academy of Fine Arts, Stuttgart 1999.
- Werner Groß, Wolfgang Urban (Ed.): Beautifully splendid. The "Stuppacher Madonna" is a guest in the Rottenburg Diocesan Museum. An accompanying book for the exhibition from February 19 to April 25, 1999 Süddeutsche Verlags-Gesellschaft, Ulm 1999, ISBN 3-88294-280-0 .
- Ewald M. Vetter: The Stuppacher Maria of Matthias Grünewald. In: Journal of the German Association for Art History. Vol. 54/55, 2000/2001, ISSN 0044-2135 , pp. 141-175.
- Ludwig A. Mayer: New findings on the origin of the Maria-Schnee-Altar and opposing views on some MGN documents. In: Aschaffenburg yearbook. Vol. 22, 2002, ISSN 0518-8520 , pp. 11-38.
- Andreas Henning, Arnold Nesselrath (ed.): Heavenly shine. Raffael, Dürer and Grünewald paint the Madonna. (On the occasion of the exhibition Heavenly Shine. Raffael, Dürer and Grünewald Painting the Madonna, from September 6, 2011 to January 8, 2012 in the Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister, Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden). Prestel, Munich et al. 2011, ISBN 978-3-7913-5185-8 .
- Wolfgang Urban (conservator) : Parish church "Maria Krönung" in Stuppach. The Stuppacher Madonna. The masterpiece returns to Stuppach (= Vernissage , vol. 20, no. 6 = no. 196). Vernissage-Verlag, Heidelberg [2012] ( Vernissage masterpieces ).
- Andreas Menrad: Grünewald's icon in the State Office for Monument Preservation. The restoration of the "Stuppacher Madonna" . In: Preservation of Monuments in Baden-Württemberg , issue 2/2013, pp. 62–68 ( PDF file 688 kB)
- Ursula Fuhrer, Annette Kollmann: The “Stuppacher Madonna” in the light of restoration investigations. On the inventory, damage patterns, conservation and restoration measures . In: Monument Preservation in Baden-Württemberg , issue 2/2013, pp. 69–74 ( PDF file; 630 kB )
Web links
proof
- ^ Fraenger, p. 296
- ^ Andreas Menard: "Stuppacher Madonna" by Matthias Grünewald - investigation and restoration at the State Office for Monument Preservation in Esslingen. In: Denkmalpflege in Baden-Württemberg 41, 2012, pp. 175–176.
- ↑ Hanno Rauterberg, Madonna, help! , in: Die Zeit No. 36 of September 1, 2011.
Coordinates: 49 ° 26 ′ 37.4 " N , 9 ° 44 ′ 55.6" E