This is the third article I have written on Rococo buildings in South Germany. The first concentrated on the famous pilgrimage churches of Ottobueren, Die Wies and Vierzehnheiligen. The second looked only at secular buildings, the Residenz at Wurzburg, the Amalienburg at Nymphenburg, the Cuvillies Theatre at Munich and Linderhof Palace. I now want to share my pleasure in five more modest but still sumptuous Rococo churches at Regensburg, Weltenburg, Munich, Steingaden and Oberammergau. I have visited them all and apologise for the omission of those others I have either simply overlooked or not managed to inspect in person.
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I have come to realise that splendid as many of the secular Rococo buildings are, there is an extra dimension in the religious ones. This is a hard admission for me to make as I am a self-proclaimed sceptic, proud of my rationalist and humanist credentials. The sinuous, uninhibited delights of Rococo architecture, the dizzying vistas, the extravagant ornamentation, the sheer physical beauty of the paintings, stucco figures and asymmetrical decorations intoxicate, inspire and delight the viewer, raising him to new levels of joy and, yes, I say the word, of spirituality.
Our first stop is St Emmeram, Regensburg. The former Imperial Free City of Regensburg has had two millennia of distinguished history starting as an ancient Roman bishopric and thriving as a great trading city on the Danube. It escaped serious war bombing damage and has an enviable heritage of fine buildings and churches. It is flatteringly twinned with my home town of Aberdeen.
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| St Emmeran, Regensburg |
The church is by the gatehouse to the Schloss Thurn und Taxis, the T&T family being immensely rich benefactors of the city (they held the postal monopoly in Germany at one time). The church was a medieval foundation but was remodelled in the Rococo manner in the 1720s by the famous Asam brothers, painter Cosmas Damian Asam and sculptor Egid Quirin Asam. A glorious painted ceiling, white and gold walls, rapt saintly figures and a galleried balcony grace this lovely church.
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A short rural trip from Regensburg takes us to our second highlight, Weltenburg Abbey Church, near Kelheim, attractively situated in the Danube Gorge. It is a popular excursion destination as visitors allow their children to paddle and their dogs to swim in the river from the pebbly banks; the Abbey has a famous brewery with a delightful beer garden where one can eat and drink lazily in the summer sun.
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| Weltenburg Abbey |
The large Benedictine Abbey, which still functions, is in the Baroque style while the Abbey Church was decorated, again by the Asam brothers, the great Rococo masters. The Abbey Church is quite small but the Asam brothers and other artists have covered every surface with their lavish decoration. There are various scenes appropriately from the life of St Benedict and other saints, stunning allegorical painted ceilings, augmented by a profusion of angels. The most striking feature, framed by splendid barley-sugar shaped columns, is the theatrically-lit high altar where a golden mounted St George slays the Dragon with exemplary aplomb.
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| Weltenburg Altar |
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Our third church is in central Munich, St John Nepomuk, known as the Asamkirche, after the famous brothers who designed and built it. It was intended to be their private church but local pressure forced them to open it to the public. It was built between 1733 and 1745 and is an illustration of the devout Catholic feeling in Europe at that time – in 1736, for example, Giovanni Battista Pergolesi was commissioned by a pious Neapolitan confraternity of laymen to write his wonderfully moving Stabat Mater.
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| Asamkirche, Munich |
St John Nepomuk was a Bohemian martyr, then recently canonised in 1729, and his life is venerated above the portal of the church. Great artistic genius and substantial wealth has been spent on this lovely place. The church is small and narrow with only 12 rows of pews but it is most opulently decorated. The walls are covered with frescos, beautifully carved animated wood and stucco figures abound and the church is suffused with a dark red and golden glow. A window behind the altar provides a bright, symbolically striking, sacred light.
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| Asamkirche interior |
As a footnote, a good friend of mine, a highly intelligent Scottish Episcopalian, was inspecting the holy water stoup here and was painfully stung by a Catholic wasp, settling perhaps an abstruse theological score!
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Our next church is on the Alpine foothills in Upper Bavaria. In the little town of Steingaden stands a now dissolved monastery and its abbey church is now the town parish church of St John the Baptist, Steingaden. This church is often overlooked as it cannot rival nearby Die Wies, a world heritage site, but it has its own lively charm.
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| Steingaden ceiling |
Originally a Romanesque building, after burning and looting in 16th and 17th century wars, it was decorated in the Rococo style in the 1740s, under the supervision of the fresco painter Johann Georg Bergmuller. South German craftsmen, along with Austrians and Bohemians, had developed over the years great expertise in wood-carving and wood painting. This expertise was easily enough transferred in the Rococo period to carving and painting plaster stucco and also to a huge talent for ceiling paintings, those rapt and flowing apotheoses which enliven so many Rococo churches. Many of the builders and artisans are not known by name but how much pleasure they gave and they too could echo Wren’s epitaph; “Si monumentum requiris, circumspice”
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Our final stop is St Peter and St Paul, Oberammergau, the little Bavarian town famous for its Passion Play, held every 10 years as a 1635 promise by those villagers spared from a devastating plague. It is now performed in years ending in a zero. The Rococo parish church, with its distinctive onion dome, much seen in Central Europe, nestles in a town where many houses are adorned by attractive devotional murals.
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| Oberammergau |
The sumptuous Rococo interior (1736-42) was the work of Josef Schmuzer and the ceiling paintings were created by Matthaus Günter. The ecstatic saintly figures crowd in on all sides and the delightful decoration of this beautiful pink church make it a most memorable sight. When my wife and I visited, a young woman was rehearsing a baroque aria from a balcony vantage point. The lovely music and the singer’s clear soprano voice complemented this splendid church in a unique way, raising our morale and enthusing us, which is one of the great merits of the Rococo style.
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| Oberammergau church interior |
SMD
10.03.12
Text copyright Sidney Donald 2012
Dear Sidney
ReplyDeleteJust came across your blog .Its really interesting.I have an interest in plasterwork and stucco through my work,but looking at this its like some kind of magic.Well done ,all the best Phil Bailey
Dear Phil, Your comments are very kind and I hope you enjoy my other pieces about Rococo. Good luck in your studies of plasterwork and stucco - there are fine examples all over Europe. Best wishes, Sidney Donald
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