17th Century German Sculpture

1. The development of sculpture in Germany of the XVII century

Sculptural works in Germany in the 17th century were carried out mainly by Italian and Dutch masters, since the national schools were practically not represented. Wood carvings of churches and civil buildings, as well as tombstones made by local craftsmen, had a certain originality.

In the seventeenth century in Germany no field of artistic activity represented such a hopeless wasteland as sculpture. Not only at the end of the XVI century, but also in the XVII, all significant sculptural works were performed for ill-fated Germany by foreign, mostly Dutch, hands. Peter de Witte, nominated by Candido (1548–1628), a multilateral native of Bruges, executed his Munich works, namely, the symbolic images and figures of princes cast by Dionysus Frey for the old monument to the emperor Ludwig in the Church of the Virgin, and also the excellently cast Hans Cruumber “Bavaria” The round temple of Gofgarten, already at the beginning of the XVII century, and the spectacular copper archangel Michael Hubert Gergard was completed a little earlier. Adrien de Vries (c. 1560–1627), who studied with Giovanni da Bologna, the Hague master, about the famous Augsburg reservoirs of which 1599 and 1602. we have already mentioned, influenced the German sculpture of the first quarter of the XVII century from Prague, where he became the court sculptor of Emperor Rudolph II. A coherent overview of his activities gave Buchwald. In the smooth, aspiring style of his teacher, he performed a significant amount of expressive, but not deep bronze works, mostly marked with his name written in gothic type. His strength was expressed in decorative sculpture, which shows a delightful font in the city church in Bukeburg. In portrait plastic, he gave things of high esteem, as shown by the copper equestrian statuette of Duke Heinrich Julius in the Braunschweig Museum, the busts of Rudolf II in the Vienna Court Museum and the cleverly conceived bust of Christian II in Albertinum in Dresden. His reliefs, like a mannered-style board depicting Vincent and allegory of patronage to the arts and the war of the emperor in Windsor Castle and in the Vienna Court Museum, are overloaded in a picturesque respect. Decorative groups of the master, in which he loved to combine strong figures with comely ones, such as Mercury and Psyche (1593) in the Louvre, Sampson and Philistines in the Edinburgh National Gallery (1612), Abduction of Proserpina (1621) and "Acteon" (1621) in Bukeburg castle park, characterized by its average style. The best works of his belong to the tombstone of Prince Ernst of Schaumburg in the Nossenis mausoleum in Stadtgagen (1618–1620). For Berlin, Artus Quellinus, or rather, the younger, not the eldest, completed the noble wall tomb of Field Marshal Count Sparre (died in 1668) in the church of Mary, the Gennegautsman Franz Dusar finished in 1652 a rough marble statue of the great Elector, now placed in one from the driveways of the palace. The architect, Matias Smides, is responsible for his life's picturesque high relief of galloping horses at the court stable. On the contrary, for Düsseldorf Gabriel Grupello (1644–1730) only in 1711 performed a sweeping baroque equestrian statue of Elector Johann Wilhelm.

There were fewer Italians in the field of sculpture in southern Germany than the Dutch. In the church of sv. Trinity in Munich is a large wax "Pieta" in 1630 by Alessandro Abondio. The Roseni also worked, as before, and now, in Saxony. Luxurious, decorated with majestic reliefs in the lines, the main altar of the church of St.. Sofia in Dresden (1606) is owned by Giovanni Maria Rosseni (1544–1620).

For all that, in Germany there was no shortage of good foundry workers or handicraft-skillful carvers in stone. In local histories of art, in large “inventory works”, even in inscriptions we find numerous names of German sculptors, and on altars, tombs and chairs of churches, in decorations of the facades of castles and town halls - no less numerous statues that can not find places. in the general history of art, since they reveal neither artistry nor originality.

In any case, of the secular decorative works deserve mentioning the plastic decorations of the palace in the Great Garden in Dresden, among which one can distinguish more skillful Dutch and more rough, cartoonish German work; The well-composed sculptures of the portals of the Nuremberg town hall of Christoph Jamnitser and Leongard Kern (1616 and 1617) cannot be ignored either, but the sculptures of the portal of the Augsburg Gaut Gaul's should be noted. The bronze group of the city, depicting the Archangel Michael between two angels, ready to crush Satan, was cast by Hans Reichel. "She," says Derio, is more than an ornament, it is an integral part, even the center of an architectonic composition. Rich plastic embossed decorations of the Bremen Town Hall, the individual forms of which are mostly made according to old or modern engravings, were investigated by Pauli.

In churches we can everywhere find among the epitaphs modest German statues of the XVII century. The monument to the duke Augustus of Lauenburg and his wife (1649) in the Ratseburgh cathedral, considered at the same time as a magnificent specimen of the German cartilaginous style, belongs to the luxurious tombstones. In the Stuttgart Hospital Church there is a powerful tombstone of Benjamin von Bawinghausen (died in 1635), in the Koenigsberg cathedral the tomb of chancellor Johann von Kospot (died in 1665) with a reclining, leaning, statue of Michael Debel in the church of Magdalen in Breslavl is the high tomb of Adam von Arzat (died in 1677) by Matthias Rauchmüller.

One of the most remarkable works of German altar plastics of the time is the wooden carved main altar (1613–1634) of Yörg Zürn in Münster on Uberlingen: the Adoration of the Shepherds under the main niche, the Annunciation under it, the Coronation of St. Virgo, everything is cut with great scope and inspiration in a brownish golden wood, lively and clearly written. In the church of sv. Ulrich and sv. Afra in Augsburg, the large cast bronze group of the cross altar (1605) by Johann Reichel and Wolfgang Neidhardt already represents the work of a self-designed German renaissance. On the contrary, the gigantic altars and the pulpit of Johann Degler of the same church (1604, 1607, 1608), carved in wood, reveal, according to Degio, “not only random confusion of sketched forms, but considerable rhythmic power”. The weaker in their mannerisms are the figures of the main altar (four evangelists, the angel) of Balthazar Ableitner of the theater of the theaters in Munich. Ableytner were representatives of the family of sculptors of the XVII century, received a lot of orders. But in the far north of Germany, old art has not yet died away, as the luxurious tree-carved altar by Hans Goodweedt in Kappeln (1641), published by Mr. Brandt, in 1651, with ornamentation that prefers the style of auricle in all its fussiness, while in rich figured carving still feels sophisticated in its vitality, the style of Hans Bruggemann.

From private houses, decorated with sculptural works, it is necessary to name, besides the Pollerovsky house in Nuremberg, Steffen's house in Danzig, whose rich sculptural decorations were made by Rostock carver Hans Voigt between 1609–1617.

These specimens can be limited. The rise in this area was caused by Andreas Schlüter, but none of the best sculptural works was completed before 1700.