Wettinger baby Jesus
The baby Jesus from Wettinger is a saint . It hangs above the altar of the cloister chapel in the former Cistercian Abbey of Maris Stella (Maria Meerstern), the Wettingen monastery in the canton of Aargau in Switzerland .
The wood painting
The naked baby Jesus sits smiling on a red pillow in the middle of a green meadow. His left leg is straight and the right one is bent. He holds a long banner in his raised hands and looks up into the dark, red-violet colored sky. Unfortunately, the writing on the banner can hardly be read because several letters are missing. To close after the last word “jar”, it would be a German text. In the past, devotional pictures of the baby Jesus were often sent with New Year's greetings.
The picture could have been created around 1450 (perhaps under Abbot Rudolf Wülflinger) for the Wettingen monastery and decorated one of the abbot's rooms there. The panel consists of two wooden boards of the same size. The picture measures 86 × 71 cm and in its artistic manner still shows the influences of the so-called beautiful style , which was widespread north of the Alps around 1400 and until the late 15th century and is characterized by its soft outlines.
An artist's signature is missing on the picture, as is an archive source that would name the author. The painter's workshop could have been in the monastery itself or in Baden or Basel (Abbot Wülflinger had a special relationship with Basel). It cannot be ruled out that a monk would have made the picture, but it is rather unlikely.
history
Convent fire of 1507
The wood painting miraculously survived the devastating fire of the monastery on White Sunday 1507 (April 11th) despite the greatest danger: The flames created numerous ember holes in a special arrangement. In the center of the image of grace there is a heart-shaped ember hole, which was also interpreted as the Sacred Heart of Jesus .
According to the Cistercian Chronicle of 1894, the young conventual and later abbot Johann Schnewly is said to have practiced the manufacture of rockets; According to the Elogia Abbatum Marisstellae of 1695, an unguarded candle caused the fire.
The then abbot Johann Müller (abbot time 1486–1521) is said to have said the following according to the report of an informant:
“The day was mentioned in Albis, but marked by ominous coal it should be called the day of ashes. [...] I saw the phoenix of heaven and earth - Christ the Savior - intact in the image of the Child Jesus. May this publicly hung picture remind all those born afterwards of the miracle sign and at the same time urge them to be careful. "
The mythological bird phoenix symbolizes life, resurrection and chastity . It is one of the oldest symbols of Christ and has been used in catacomb painting since the 2nd century . According to legend, the phoenix goes up in flames to rise from the ashes rejuvenated. Apparently, in Abbot Müller's time, the picture was hung in a clearly visible place where all visitors to the monastery could see it.
On April 11th, the Wettinger Nekrologium commemorates a Valentin Scharpf, who died in an accident that happened during fire-fighting:
«One thinks of Valentin Scharpf from Ysvelt, who wanted to save the walls of the church and the holy altars with great zeal when fighting the fire from the wine cellar on Sunday Quasimodo 1507. When pulling out a burning beam, he was hit in the head and was able to confess his sins with the last sighs for half an hour before he died. He left us an honorable memory. "
Iconoclasm of 1529
Abbot Georg Müller (elected abbot in 1528) joined the Zwingli reform in 1529 with 17 monks living in the monastery . They put the religious habit on, fair and choral prayers were abolished. According to Bullinger, unsavory things are said to have happened after the transfer. For some time, chaos and mob ruled the monastery. In doing so, the "pictures and decorations were put on, everyday and idols broken and dismissed" , although the fickle abbot Georg Müller had tried to get his conventuals to "hide the idols quietly and with breeding."
After the Second Battle of Kappel in 1531, the Catholic cantons immediately campaigned for the monastery to be re-Catholic. Father Johann Schnewly, who, as a young conventual, caused the monastery fire of 1507, was appointed the new abbot. At the end of November 1531 he began to worship again with four monks who had remained Catholic .
Wing paintings from 1602
In 1602, just under a hundred years after the fire, the portrait was joined together with two wing paintings that were newly created at the time to form the now preserved altarpiece . Presumably Abbot Peter Schmid (Abbot's time 1594–1633) had the altarpiece set up in the abbot's chapel, which was newly renovated at the time, behind the so-called «summer abbey». He ordered the production of the additional depictions of Our Lady of Wettingen Monastery, the view of the monastery and the founder of the monastery, as well as the installation of the extensive inscriptions. The inscription under the monastery adute on the left wing reads: "The Maris Stella monastery burned down on April 11, 1507, whereby the image of the Child Jesus (reused in this reredos) survived the fire unscathed".
In this case, too, no artist name has survived. Above all, the image of the Virgin Mary "Our Lady of Wettingen Monastery" shows, with its daring architectural perspective, pronounced Renaissance features, as can be seen in similar glass paintings (including those in the cloister of Wettingen). Abbot Peter Schmid came from Baar (Canton Zug) and used central Swiss artists for a lot of the decoration work in his monastery. In some cases, Central Switzerland played a role as a "gateway" for the Italian forms of the Renaissance. Presumably a glass or panel painter from Central Switzerland was the artist of the two reredos.
Heinrich Murer's chronicle from 1631
The Carthusian and historian Heinrich Murer wrote numerous chronicles of monasteries, abbeys and dioceses in the Ittingen Charterhouse from 1614 to 1638, which were conceived as part of his unfinished main work Theatrum Ecclesiasticum Helvetiorum (“spiritual arena of Helvetia”). In his handwritten chronicle of the Wettingen monastery in 1631, he described the miraculous preservation of the Wettinger baby Jesus in the monastery fire of 1507:
«Anyone who has seen a table with a seated kindlin of Jesus painted in it in Wettingen in the Creutzgang in front of the Chapter [] was so wonderfully received by God in this heat, then this table with meals [so in the heat has been] hatt [.] And when the fiery and taffelin bit to a füeßlin of the kindlins [Jesus], the kindlin Jesu had miraculosé and from divine strength the one feußlin was drawn to itself and remained undeterred. "
Atlas Marianus from 1672
The winged altar of the Wettingen monastery presents itself to the believers like a large picture book. The image of Mary on the left outer side of the wing announces what is happening inside the reredos: The baby Jesus miraculously survived the devastating fire of the Maria Meerstern monastery.
Winged altar of the Wettinger baby Jesus closed
Left outside wing and Wettinger baby Jesus
Right wing outside and Wettinger baby Jesus
Winged altar of the Wettinger baby Jesus opened
In 1672 the Jesuit priest Wilhelm Gumppenberg recorded in his Latin "Atlas Marianus", which cataloged 1200 miraculous images of the Virgin Mary from Mexico to the Philippines, also the winged altar with the Wettinger baby Jesus. The contribution for the Atlas Marianus was written by the Jesuit father Wolfgang Lieb, who was mainly active in pastoral care in Lucerne. The entry in the Marian Atlas illustrates the great veneration of the winged altar with the Wettinger Infant Jesus by the population in the area around Wettingen in the 17th century.
Marian Atlas of 1673 and 1717
The Atlas Marianus became the most widespread spiritual illustration of the 17th century; the Latin first edition (Ingolstadt 1657) was followed by extended new editions and translations in German, Italian, Hungarian and Polish. One of the German translations of the Atlas Marianus and the description of the winged altar of the Wettinger Infant Jesus was made in 1673 by P. Maximilianum Wartenberg SJ:
«Vnser L. Frauen Bild zu Wettingen / in Upper Germany. IN the Wettingen monastery of the order of S. Bernardi / is a picture of the Mother of God / so the little JESUS child holds it on its arms / is very artfully ground on wood / and is held in high esteem in the same area. When the monastery once burned away from the ground / this picture is also stuck in the flame / but so / that it was burned from outside all and half / and the fire also come so far / that the child’s half feet would also be fused / when it was ground more stretched out would. The old devotion believes / the child pulled the little foot to itself. "
Another German translation of the Atlas Marianus was done in 1717 by P. Augustino Sartorio OCist:
- «ULF to Closter Wettingen. 6. to Wettingen. Ord.Cist. The neighbors have a special trust in this beautiful image of grace in the Cistercian Closter at Wettingen, and this is in the resulting fire, which caused the church to perish, even though it was in the middle of flames, but not burned up with it there are only a few burns left on those sides. Poësis: Even in the middle of the flame she remains undamaged / Drum she writes the true church that is intact. Where else the whole world would smoke from inherited sin / May it not breathe a hellish steam / no snake poison. Because she has remained free from all sin at all times / Do she also love all sins freely. "
Chronicle of the Cistercians from 1894
Father Dominicus Willi OCist , Abbot of Marienstatt and later Bishop of Limburg , wrote in 1894 in the Cistercian Chronicle of the Cistercian Abbey Wettingen-Mehrerau :
- «Before we leave the reading aisle, I want to draw the visitor's or reader's attention to a diptych which is now usually based on the abbot's seat and to which a strange incident is linked. The center picture shows a child Jesus painted on wood. This picture had its traditional position in the chapter house . During the great fire on April 11, 1507, it was seized by fire. The wooden panel burned brightly all around. The baby Jesus is said to have withdrawn his feet from the flames. The figure remained completely unharmed; the position of the feet is really remarkable, and makes an impression which gives the pious legend a high degree of probability. Deep scorch marks are visible next to the picture. Abbot Peter Schmid had the picture framed in the manner of a diptych and the monastery fire and other things painted on the wings. The Convent of Wettingen cherished the picture. It is still preserved as a historical peculiarity, but must be a witness to some mocking remarks about <monastic superstitions>. "
Monastery guide from 1908
In 1908, Hans Lehmann (art historian and director of the Swiss National Museum Zurich) wrote the following in his monastery guide about the Wettinger baby Jesus in the reading aisle:
- “We are particularly interested in the north arm, not only because of its advanced age, but also as a reading aisle in which the monks gather every evening for collation. On both sides of the wall there are still simple benches with unadorned abbots' seats (opposite the ogival window), on which the monks listened to their brother reading or held silent devotions during the day. The middle picture of the small winged altar set up here is said to have been miraculously spared from the flames during the monastery fire in 1507. It was renovated at the instigation of Abbot Peter II, partly spoiled by a monastery brother who wanted to clean it, at the end of the 18th century. "
Restoration from 1954
In 1954, the cloister chapel, which had been redesigned in the late 16th century, was reconstructed according to its condition in the 14th century. The small winged altar of the Wettinger baby Jesus, which was previously set up in the north arm of the cloister, was installed above the altar after its restoration in order not to leave the unadorned east wall of the cloister chapel unoccupied.
See also
literature
- Mariana Bucko: The Wettinger baby Jesus. Cistercian Chronicle published by the Cistercians in the Mehrerau. 120th year, 2013, issue 3.
- Mariana Bucko: The Wettinger Jesuskind - The radiant morning star in the Maria Meerstern monastery. An introduction to the religious interior of the Maris Stella Monastery with the preface by Abbot Dr. Kassian Lauterer OCist . Wettingen 2007.
- Peter Hoegger: The art monuments of the canton Aargau Volume VIII, The district of Baden III: The former Cistercian monastery Wettingen . Basel 1998, ISBN 3-909164-65-X .
- Rudolf Bruhin et al .: The restoration of the Wettingen monastery church. Aarau. AT Verlag, 1996, ISBN 3-85502-567-3 .
- Emil Maurer : Wettingen Monastery. Swiss art guide GSK . 1960.
- Hans Lehmann : Guide through the former Cistercian Abbey Wettingen near the thermal spa town of Baden (Switzerland). Aarau 1894 (first edition, 2nd edition 1908).
- P. Dominicus Willi OCist , Abbot of Marienstatt: Building history about the Wettingen monastery. Cistercian Chronicle . Edited by the Cistercians in the Mehrerau. 6th year, 1894, No. 59–70.
- P. Augustino Sartorio OCist: Marian Atlas. German translation. Volume 2.1717.
- P. Maximilianum Wartenberg SJ: Marian Atlas. German translation. Volume 2.1673.
- P. Wilhelm Gumppenberg SJ : Atlas Marianus. Volume 2. Munich 1672.
- P. Joseph Meglinger OCist: Elogia Abbatum Marisstellae. Monastery printing Wettingen 1695 (first edition 1670).
- Wettingen OCist: Necrologium Wettingense . Around 1420 to 1765. Aargau State Archives, AA / 3130.
Web links
- Wettinger baby Jesus
- Wettingen Monastery
- Wettingen-Mehrerau Cistercian Abbey
- Anton Kottmann: Wettingen (monastery). In: Historical Lexicon of Switzerland .
- Heinrich Murer: Chronicle of the monastery Wettingen . Frauenfeld, Cantonal Library of Thurgau Y 115. Digitized .
- Aargau State Archives: Catalog of medieval manuscripts from Wettingen Monastery. Digitized .
swell
- ↑ P. Dominicus Willi OCist, Abbot of Marienstatt: Cistercienser Chronik. 1894, p. 39
- ^ P. Joseph Meglinger OCist: Elogia Abbatum Marisstellae. 1695., p. 21
- ↑ Peter Hoegger, The former Cistercian monastery in Wettingen. 1998, p. 240
- ^ Necrologium Wettingense. April 11, 1507.
- ↑ Peter Hoegger, The former Cistercian monastery in Wettingen. 1998, p. 77
- ↑ Peter Hoegger, The former Cistercian monastery in Wettingen. 1998, p. 241
- ^ Heinrich Murer: Chronicle of the Wettingen Monastery, Frauenfeld, Cantonal Library Thurgau, Y 115, p. 27v
- ^ P. Wilhelm Gumppenberg SJ, Atlas Marianus, Volume 2. 1672, p. 464
- ↑ P. Maximilianum Wartenberg SJ: Marian Atlas. German translation. Volume 2.1673, p. 66
- ^ P. Augustino Sartorio OCist: Marian Atlas. German translation. Volume 2.1717, p. 493
- ↑ P. Dominicus Willi OCist, Abbot of Marienstatt: Building history about the Wettingen monastery. 1894, no. 59-70
- ^ Hans Lehmann: Guide through the former Cistercian abbey Wettingen near the thermal spa town of Baden (Switzerland). 1908, p. 27