Triptych (Schramm-Heckmann)
Coordinates: 51 ° 10 ′ 46.2 " N , 6 ° 42 ′ 53" E
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The triptych is a winged altar by Liselotte Schramm-Heckmann , on which the Annunciation to the Shepherds , the Birth of Jesus and the Epiphany as well as the Annunciation to Mary are depicted. The altar was in the Evangelical Kreuzkirche in Neuss-Gnadental for 20 years . It was created between 1938 and 1942.
The triptych remains closed except for major Christian festivals such as Easter or Christmas. Then only the scene of the Annunciation can be seen.
Data
- Dimensions: The middle part has a size of 150 × 130 cm and the two outer wings are 150 × 55 cm in size.
- Dating: 1938–1945
description
The altarpiece is designed as a triptych and consists of a center piece and two side wings. With the wings open, the altar shows “The Birth of Christ” on the center piece, “The Shepherds in the Field” on the right, inner wing and “Arrival of the three kings” on the left, inner wing. The closed altar shows the "Annunciation". The panels are set in a simple wooden frame with a gilded bar.
Middle piece
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The middle panel of the opened altar shows Mary close-up with the Christ child on her lap, to the right of her Joseph kneels in adoration. The destroyed wooden hut, the crumbling stable, with its burned roof beams offers the family little protection. Only a column shaped like a fork cross and a side post are still standing. They provide a view of a glowing red sky, which looks like a cosmic vision and at the same time allows the association with the nights of bombing in the war. A little red sun stands above the head of the Christ child, to which dark clouds rise like puffs of smoke from the ground and partially cover them. The circle of the sun is surrounded by a bright yellow circular disc, the wide edge of which is colored glowing red. Here the sky is both a ball of fire and a sun. The viewer feels reminded of the glowing red sky on the painting of the Stuppach Madonna by Matthias Grünewald , which is also inscribed in the perfect shape of a circle through the rounding of a rainbow, the symbol of the old covenant between God and man. With Grünewald, however, the circular rainbow can also be read as a nimbus, as a halo assigned to Mary.
In the foreground of the middle panel on the left is a washtub over which a white cloth lies, next to it a jug with a bleeding heart - a self-explanatory plant symbol, also called the heart of Mary. A white Christmas rose , the symbol of redemption, blooms in the lower right corner . A butterfly has settled on the hem of the red robe of Mary, it is the resurrection symbol because it leaves the ugly caterpillar shell and then lives in the light. Two swallows above Josef's head, one of which sits between the beams while the other is just approaching, may indicate a new beginning and future salvation. In Christian iconography they stand for the incarnation of Christ and his resurrection. Ox and donkey, which are not mentioned in the accounts of the Gospels, have been found in depictions of the birth of Jesus since the early 4th century AD. They recall the complaint of Isaiah ( Isa 1,3 EU ) about the lack of understanding of his people: “The ox knows its owner and the donkey its master's manger; But Israel has no knowledge, my people have no insight. ”They are the witnesses of birth and the exhorters of faith. A banner bearing the words “Glory to God on high” flutters against a dark sky as a promise of divine peace in an ominous presence over the event.
Right, inner wing
The inside of the right wing shows the Annunciation to the Shepherds . The three figures are not depicted as the main characters in the biblical story, but as tiny background figures who stand or kneel together with the shepherd dog in a river landscape on the Lower Rhine bordered by willow and poplar trees. You look up at the night sky, from which a bundle of rays, into which small, winged putti are hardly noticeably woven, falls on the shepherds. The real protagonists of the biblical events, however, are the artist herself in traditional costume and with Norwegian shoes, as well as her daughter Johanna, who, like donor figures, stand in the foreground. Johanna, shown in profile to the left, holds a bouquet of bluebells in her hands, the artist's favorite flowers . Behind them in the middle distance sheep graze in a fenced-in enclosure, a yarrow blooms at the bottom of the picture. As in the “Self-Portrait with Family”, the painter looks at us from the picture, an indication of her authorship. A banner flutters down from above with the words: "And a pleasure to the people."
Left, inner wing
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The artist uses the same compositional principle for the inside of the left wing with the depiction of the Three Kings , who in turn look up to the star of Bethlehem as small figures in the background. They are located in a landscape that reproduces the Duisburg harbor and reminds of the real environment of the family who previously lived in Lohausen . In the foreground is Werner Schramm, the painter's husband, who wears his paramedic uniform on leave from the front and with it consciously visualizes the time of the Second World War (as in the self-portrait of Max Beckmann as a paramedic). With his right arm he embraces his son Matthias, with his left arm he supports himself against a still fixed post of the crumbling stable. At the foot of the wooden post is a flower pot with a Christ thorn . A banner with the words "Peace on Earth" is brightly profiled against a dark sky. The respective landscape and the plants are based on studies of nature, the figures are based on the study of living models, family members or neighborly friends.
Closed altar
The outer sides of the two wings are dedicated to the Annunciation to Mary. When closed, a banner stretches across both panels: "The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you." ( Lk 1.35 EU ) Mary is in a blue dress and a green one, with a yellow one Clothed in fabric lined coat. Here the painter does not follow the usual iconography of Mary of a Madonna dressed in red and blue. She kneels on a red pillow with an open book in front of her, the New Testament . A white dove, which symbolizes the third person of the divine trinity, the Holy Spirit, flies under the veranda roof of the intact Duisburger Hütte, the artist's refuge since 1940. Between the angel and Mary there is a glass with columbine . In Christian iconography, the transparent glass next to the Virgin Mary means her immaculate conception, and the columbine a symbol of the Holy Spirit, since the honey leaf resembles the flower of a dove. Both figures are reproduced close-up in front of a wide, hilly landscape which, in keeping with the theme, shows no background figures.
The painter depicts herself and her family in a devout posture on the side wings. She personalizes and updates the Christmas events, the certainty that God has committed himself to life through the birth of Jesus. Liselotte Schramm-Heckmann links the joyous event of the Incarnation of Christ to the current war. The promise of divine peace and destruction, the ephemeral and the immortal, are at the same time themed here in one picture.
Creation of the altarpiece
Liselotte Schramm-Heckmann worked on the winged altar from 1938 to 1942. The reason for the altar was not a private one, but a public one. The triptych was not intended for private devotion in private rooms, but was intended for a place accessible to the public. It was Albert Rosenkranz, pastor of the Protestant Pauluskirche in Bad Kreuznach from 1921 to 1939, who commissioned Liselotte Schramm-Heckmann in 1938 for this work, which was intended for the church's chapel.
During the Second World War, the failed attempt by the Wehrmacht to blow up the old Nahe Bridge had fatal consequences: the explosion covered the roof of the church. The altar, which was completed in 1942, could no longer be delivered this way. The project failed. The church and chapel were not rebuilt until 1952-54.
The center piece was created in Düsseldorf-Lohausen between 1938 and 1939 . When the Second World War broke out in 1939, the artist feared air raids on Düsseldorf Airport , which was in the immediate vicinity of the studio and residential building. She therefore moved with her two children to Nordenau in the Sauerland, where the insides of the wings were made in 1940 and the outsides in 1941.
“The painting boards for the side panels were packed in boxes and sent to the Sauerland as express goods and brought from the train station to our solitude by a team of horses. The side panels were created in a small room under poor lighting conditions. Since there were no models, the inside shows my mother, my father during a vacation from military service as a paramedic, my brother and me. My brother also had to model the outside of the angel, while a girl from the village did this for Maria, ”explains Johanna Lauth-Jarzebski, the artist's daughter.
Due to the Second World War and the associated long period of creation, the picture remained in the family's possession. In 1995 the altarpiece was hung on permanent loan in the Evangelical Kreuzkirche in Neuss-Gnadental.
Individual evidence
- ↑ Jörg Hübner: The angel's message gives hope. Rheinische Post , Düsseldorf, December 24, 2001
- ↑ Der Weg , church newspaper of the Evangelical Churches in the Rhineland, December 24, 1995
- ↑ a b Wall altar by Liselotte Schramm-Heckmann. Bright colors even after 64 years. Neuss-Grevenbroicher Zeitung , January 15, 2012, accessed on March 19, 2014 .