Franz Anton Maulbertsch

Franz Anton Maulbertsch ( baptized June 7, 1724 in Langenargen on Lake Constance; † August 8, 1796 in Vienna, but also Maulpertsch ) was next to Martin Johann Schmidt the most outstanding painter of the Austrian late baroque. Its expressive art first broke with the tradition that culminated recently in the classicism and has the painting of the Austrian Baroque completed on original and independent way.

Life and work

Franz Anton Maulbertsch was the son of the painter Anton Maulbertsch. Franz Anton studied from 1739 to 1741 at the academy in Vienna under Jacob van shed. In 1750 he won the first prize in the painting competition of the Academy. He was inspired by various Italian painters, but also by Rembrandt, whose work he knew by engravings. In 1757 he was proposed as a professor, however, rejected as " too bold spirit ". It was not until 1770 he was appointed to the Board of the Academy.

1750 to 1751 he painted Triumph of Truth over time, a large oil painting for the ceiling of the castle ballroom Kirchstetten. His first fresco commissioned in 1752 is considered one of his major works: the 1753 completed five dome frescoes of Piaristenkirche Maria Treu in Vienna's Josefstadt. In the center is a representation of the Assumption of Mary into heaven, while the edge form scenes from the Old and New Testaments. All figures are intertwined, like a surging river; in the composition dominates the color of the contour. The construction, which is about to Daniel Gran, the early Paul Troger and later with the classicism in the foreground, resigns in favor of the play of light and color.

In the 1750s and 1760s Maulbertsch worked mainly in Hungary and the eastern parts of Austria, where he made the imposing frescoes ( Visitatio Mariae et Triumphus Trinity ) Cathedral to Waizen: as a fresco painter in the castles Ebenfurth and half turn, in the Sanctuary of the Holy Cross Gutenbrunn, the Hundsturmer chapel and in the parish churches of Schwechat and Sümeg. For the Abbey Altmünster (Mainz) in 1758, he made the altarpiece of the Assumption of the Virgin Mary hanging in St. Quintin (Mainz) today.

1767 got Maulbertsch again in Vienna orders where he increasingly approached to the classical spirit. Its ceiling fresco in John Hall of the Austrian Academy of Sciences (formerly New Hall, University of Vienna ) shows Christ in baptism in a mountain standing, which is also shown with a masterful hue as raging water. His last large order of court in 1772 was the ceiling fresco in the big hall of the Imperial Palace in Innsbruck, which is the union of the houses of Habsburg and Lorraine to the House of Habsburg -Lorraine. In this large fresco the classical moments are in the foreground, which probably has something to do with the fact that Joseph of Sperges ( the editor of Winkelmann ) program author was.

The jobs created in his last years, frescoes and stucco work of the Cathedral of Szombathely was destroyed in the Second World War. In contrast, Stephen ceiling frescoes are perfectly preserved in the 1795 consecrated St. Stephen's Church in Papa.

The virtuoso color treatment and anti-classical train at Maulbertsch are also evident in his oil paintings, as in the Holy Kinship, or in the earlier regarded as self-portrait painting, both in the Belvedere in Vienna. The latter represents a not yet clearly identified fellow artists with typical accessories dar.

The virtuoso handling of color and light effects anticipated in many respects already Impressionism, whose progeny of the late Baroque art comes to light here. Even if Maulbertsch his own radicalism not quite kept and at the end of his life, even assuming classical tendencies, he was a major inspirer of the art of Austrian modernism. Oskar Kokoschka complaining him as a model.

In 1961 in Vienna Dobling ( 19th district ) was named the Maulbertsch alley after him.

Works (selection)

• Early self-portrait, 1750, oil on canvas, Belvedere, Vienna
• The Academy with their attributes at the feet of Minerva, 1750, oil on canvas, Belvedere, Vienna
• Dome frescoes in the Piaristenkirche Maria Treu, 1752/53, Fresco painting, Piaristenkirche Maria Treu, Vienna
• Ceiling fresco in the chapel of the castle Ebenfurth, 1754, Fresco painting castle Ebenfurth
• The Holy Family, circa 1755, oil on canvas, Belvedere, Vienna
• Ceiling frescoes in the pilgrimage church of the Holy Cross Good Brunn, 1756/57, fresco, Holy Cross Gutenbrunn
• The cross, 1757/58, oil on canvas, Belvedere, Vienna
• Ceiling fresco in the ballroom of the estate, 1765/66, Fresco painting, Halbturn
• Ceiling fresco in the Hall of Giants of the Hofburg (Innsbruck ), 1772, fresco painting, Innsbruck