Johann Wolfgang Baumgartner
(June 16, 1712 - September 7, 1761) |
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Art Work
| Name: |
Johann Wolfgang Baumgartner |
| Gender: |
Female |
| Place of Birth: |
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| Nationality: |
German |
| Birth: |
June 16, 1712 |
| Death: |
September 7, 1761 |
| Website: |
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| Past Auctions: |
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Quick Facts
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| Medium: |
Painting |
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Biography
Kilian, his earliest biographer, stated that after training as a blacksmith with his father, he learnt the art of glass painting in Salzburg. Following travels through Austria, Hungary and Italy, Baumgartner was authorized in late 1733 to live in Augsburg, on condition that he only worked as a glass painter.Only a few examples of Baumgartners own glass paintings have survived; however, he must have meanwhile worked intensively on drawings for copperplate engraving. There are hundreds of these drawings; they were made with extreme care, often on tinted paper and often on a very large scale, for publishers in Augsburg such as Klauber, Engelbrecht and Kilian. Designs in oil on canvas for engravings, such as Moses Ordering the Killing of the Midianite Women (1760; Augsburg, Schaezlerpal.), were a particular speciality of Baumgartner. By far the largest series numerically is for a calendar of saints, the Tagliche Erbauung eines wahres Christen (4 vols; Augsburg, 1753-4). Judging from the addresses of the engravers, over 300 of the designs for engravings were by Baumgartner; nearly 70 oil sketches and drawings belonging to the series have been found, all much larger than the printed work. Baumgartners designs play with Rococo ornamentation in a highly distinctive manner. He did not merely surround scenes as cartouches but rather gave a Rocaille quality to nature, buildings, forms, the figures and the whole image.It was not until 1746, when he was awarded citizenship in Augsburg, having been sponsored by a publisher, that Baumgartner had permission to work in oil and fresco. Nothing concerning his training as a fresco painter is known. His earliest reliably dated frescoes are from 1754, in St Jacob, Gersthofen, near Augsburg. These, like other decorations by him for the church, are destroyed; only his two altarpieces survive in situ. His next and largest commission (1756-8) was for ten frescoes, some very large, and three of the five altarpieces for the Kloster- und Wallfahrtskirche Heilige Kreuz in Bergen near Neuburg an der Donau. These frescoes were carefully planned with eight drawings and one oil sketch. With their rich use of colours and their wealth of motifs and figures, they stand in a class of their own, showing Baumgartners ability to combine representational images with ornamentation in the most imaginative way. His work in the oratories and side-chapels completely dispenses with frames. The scenes look light and pale, as if painted in watercolours, against the light background of the vaulting; trees, mountains and architecture dissolve into ornaments and fade into the light background. The confessional chapel in the Wallfahrtskirche of St Maria von Loreto (Kobel-Kirche) near Augsburg was also painted in 1758.Only two more fresco commissions were completed before Baumgartners early death. In the garden pavilion of the Schloss Meersburg on the Bodensee, Baumgartner painted a largely faithful reproduction (1760) of Johann Evangelist Holzers ceiling fresco Omnia tempus habent (1737; Augsburg, Pfeffelschen Haus; destr.). (There is also a preparatory drawing, 1760, Nuremberg, Ger. Nmus., for an unexecuted fresco for the staircase or the banqueting hall.) In the Wallfahrtskirche at Baitenhausen, also on the Bodensee, Baumgartners five frescoes (1760) represent his highest achievement. Here in the transepts he again painted scenes without frames; in this case he used as backgrounds wonderful topographical views of the immediate surroundings of the church.The five fresco cycles painted in only six years, the altarpieces and the number of panel paintings (which increases as new finds are made) suggest, taken with the abundant graphic production, that Baumgartner must have worked very industriously and quickly. Through his singular approach to Rococo and the wealth of his designs, he is seen as a leading representative of the Augsburg taste, highly popular in its time but shortly afterwards despised by the
Neo-classicists. |
Samples of Work
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