Zprávy památkové péče 2017, 77(1-2):115-122

All Saints of Heřmánkovice: Folk or European Art?

Martin Mádl

Ústav dějin umění AV ČR, v. v. i.

The rural Church of All Saints in Heřmánkovice belongs to a group of churches built at the beginning of the 18th century in the monastery estates of the Benedictine monastery in Broumov. While the interesting and dynamically shaped architecture of the church, attributed to Kilian Ignaz Dientzenhofer, has received deserved attention from art historians, its interior ceiling painting, the work of the Broumov painter Johann Hausdorf in 1736, has been given only a brief iconographic designation. The painting was then understood as a manifestation of semi-folk art.
In the history of art, we often avoid deeper evaluative judgements on the quality of art, although we recognize the quality of works of art intuitively. We often lack the tools for evaluating works that originated in the countryside and did not achieve first-rate artistic values. At the same time, we place the quality of artworks into the context of the modern concept of the center and the periphery, where we automatically understand the cultural and artistic center to be the larger city. In the middle ages and early modern age, however, some significant architectural and artistic projects emerged quite far from the larger cities. An example of this would be large monastic complexes, one of which is the Broumov Monastery, which employed painters from Prague and other cities. The aforementioned painter Johann Hausdorf worked alongside them for the Benedictines here around the middle of the 18th century.
Hausdorf certainly was not a prime artist. He did, however, master the technique of fresco and the projection of large compositions onto large vaulted areas, for which we may presume his training by one of the experienced painters. The composition of his painting in the Heřmánkovice Church of All Saints presupposes a knowledge of the decoration of the provost Church of the Holy Cross and St. Hedwig in Silesia's Legnickie Pole, executed by the famous Bavarian fresco painter Cosmas Damian Asam in 1733. It can be assumed that the clients of this important project, the Břevnov-Broumov Benedictines, sent Hausdorf to Legnickie Pole to help with less important works, while at the same time he learned the art of fresco here under Asam.
The theme of the painting in Heřmánkovice, however, can not be understood as a manifestation of local folk art. The triumphal celebration of the Benedictine saints, headed by the order's patron saint St. Benedict and with St. Otmar and Behhon, who were the personal patrons of Abbot Otmar Zinke and his successor Bennon Löbl, is integrated into the celebration of All Saints. The presentation of St. Benedict as the most faithful follower of Christ and the foremost disseminator of the Christian faith comes from Benedictine spirituality and propaganda. We encounter other paintings that are thematically related to the Hausdorf fresco in Heřmánkovice in other Benedictine projects, such as in the Holy Trinity Church in Salzburg, in the Church of St. James in Ensdorf, and in the Church of St. Ulrich and Afra in Neresheim. The church in Heřmánkovice thus becomes a place of mediation of relatively important cultural stimuli. The meaning of the painting decoration of this church can thus only be appreciated in a wider European context.

Keywords: Johann Hausdorf, Baroque mural painting, Kilian Ignaz Dientzenhofer, Heřmánkovice, Benedictines

Published: March 1, 2017  Show citation