Renaissance#

Renaissance, originally the "rebirth" of "true" art, movement in the arts and intellectual life that started and spread in Italy before it gained a foothold in the Central European countries, where the forms of Gothic art continued to hold sway for considerable time. The fields in which Renaissance thought first caught on in Austria were literature and science; this occurred towards the end of the 15th century amongst the scholars with whom Maximilian I had surrounded himself ( Humanism); the fine arts followed suit in due course.

From 1500 onwards Austrian art began to show clearly the influence of the Renaissance; first signs appeared in painting in Tirol, the land which had already been open to the artistic achievements of southern Europe at the time of M. Pacher. In fact, Pacher und M. Reichlich were among the first Austrian artists to integrate elements of the Italian Renaissance into their works. They were soon emulated by artists in the employ of Emperor Maximilian at Innsbruck, such as G. Sesselschreiber, L. Magt, S. Godl and the court painter J. Koelderer, who had a considerable number of young artists as his students. The emperor's artistic aspirations resulted in a lively exchange between Koelderer's workshop and the great centres of art, particularly in southern Germany. It was in this way that the Austrian Alpine regions were gradually seized by an organic Renaissance movement that grew out of the Gothic style. At the same time, the art of the Danube School began to flourish in the Danube countries. On the other hand, the influence of Italian Renaissance, particularly in architecture, was at least partly identified with Catholicism and an "untainted" Renaissance style was largely confined to the Court and its followers. Protestant princes and other sponsors tended to promote German and Dutch influences or deliberately favoured neo-medieval or Gothic elements. In many cases, the transition to Mannerism was fairly rapid.

Renaissance painting culminated in panel and mural painting. Side by side with some native Austrian painters (including J. Koelderer, J. Seisenegger) it was in particular painters from southern Germany who rose to fame at the Imperial Court in the first half of the 16th century. Among them were one painter known as Hans from Ulm, who settled at Schwaz in Tirol, as well as B. Strigel from Memmingen and A. Hirschvogel from Nuernberg.

Murals assumed a new proportion owing to the development of a new technique, sgraffito. Many buildings and halls in the Lower Austrian towns of Retz, Eggenburg and Horn as well as in Innsbruck are still decorated with sgraffiti from the Renaissance. Remarkable Renaissance frescoes are still found in Tratzberg castle, Schwaz, and Ambras Castle, all in Tirol, and in Millstatt and St. Kanzian near Villach in Carinthia.

In sculpture, the transition from the late Gothic tradition to the Danube School and Renaissance was also gradual. The works of the masterbuilder of Vienna's St. Stephen's Cathedral, A. Pilgram already show traces of stylistic elements of the Renaissance. Works such as the altar of Mauer bei Melk (ca. 1510/15), the "Toepferaltar" ("Potters' Altar") at Baden (ca. 1515) or the half figures on the parapet of the chancel gallery of the palace chapel at Sierndorf (Lower Austria, 1516) mark later stages of this transition. Among the principal works of early Renaissance sculpture in Austria are the tomb of Count Niklas Salm in the Votivkirche church in Vienna (ca. 1530-1533), probably from the workshop of L. Hering from Eichstaett and the tomb of Maximilian in Innsbruck (1508-1583), which is closely connected with the names of G. Sesselschreiber, L. Magt, S. Godl und A. Colin.

Examples of works in mature Renaissance style are the sculptures by H. Saphoy in the Lower Austrian Landhaus (Diet) building in Vienna (ca. 1571), the fountain in the Landhaus of Graz by T. Auer and M. Wening (1589/90) and the tomb of Archduke Maximilians III, by H. Gerhart and C. Gras, in the cathedral of St. Jakob in Innsbruck (early 17th century). The works of H. Waldburger in the Salzburg region mark the transition to early Baroque sculpture in Austria.

Initially, when Augsburg served as the principal model rather than Italian buildings, the effect of the Renaissance on Austrian architecture remained rather modest. About 1530 a new development in favour of Italian Renaissance art set in, at a time when the High Renaissance in Italy was already drawing to its close and giving way to its latest phase, Mannerism. In Austria, the achievements of local painters and sculptors were relegated to the background and architecture and the decorative arts came to the fore, and patrons increasingly called on artists from abroad. While in the field of painting it was the Dutch who predominated, side by side with local and German artists, architecture was the domain of Italian artists from the middle of the 16th century.

Secular art prevailed over religious buildings. Sumptuous palaces and burghers' mansions were built, including Porcia Palace in Spittal an der Drau (Carinthia, 1533-1597), Rosenburg Castle (Lower Austria, altered in 1593-1597), Schallaburg Castle (Lower Austria, altered in 1572-1600), Greillenstein Castle (Lower Austria, ca. 1570), the Landhaus (Diet) buildings in Graz (main wing 1557-1565) and Linz (large arcaded court 1568-1574), the Schweizertor gate (1552-1553), the Amalienburg wing (1575-1577) and the Stallburg court stables (ca. 1558-1569) of the Hofburg Imperial Palace in Vienna, the Salvator chapel in the Old Vienna Townhall (ca. 1520) and the Neugebaeude Palace built for Maximilian II in Vienna (after 1569). The Lower Austrian Landhaus (Diet) building in Vienna was transformed by H. Saphoy (1540-1586), Hochosterwitz (Carinthia, ca. 1570-1586) and Landskron castles (Carinthia, ca. 1542-1552) were equipped with Renaissance gates and bastions, and the vast "Spanischer Saal" (Spanish Hall - 1570-1571) was built and decorated at Schloss Ambras (Tirol).

The tomb of Maximilian in Innsbruck served as a model for the mausoleum of Archduke Karl II at Seckau (Styria, 1590-1600), E. Castello's mausoleum for Archbishop Wolf Dietrich von Raitenau in Salzburg (1597-1603), the mausoleum for the vanquisher of the Turks, Ruprecht von Eggenberg, at Ehrenhausen (Styria, 1609-1614) and the mausoleum of Emperor Ferdinand II in Graz (by P. de Pomis, 1614-1638).

In the second half of the 16th century international artists of the late Renaissance flocked to the secular and spiritual courts of Vienna, Salzburg, Graz and Innsbruck. When the Emperor's residence was moved from Vienna to Prague in 1583, most of the important artists went to the new court, including B. Spranger, J. Heintz the Elder, Hans von Aachen, G. Hoefnagel and R. Savery.

The decorative arts flourished in the court workshops, where precious objects were produced in the most diverse crafts (armour-making, goldsmithery, gem cutting, bell founding, stuccowork, medal cutting, cameo and intaglio work, intarsia work, tapestry, ivory cutting, production of clocks and astronomical instruments etc.).

The Renaissance was also the period when the idea of preserving and cultivating works of art was first conceived. Archduke Ferdinand II of Tirol started the first art collection in the Kunst- und Wunderkammer of Ambras Castle, Archduke Leopold Wilhelm began a collection of paintings in Vienna which formed the basis for the painting gallery of the Kunsthistorisches Museum, and Emperor Rudolf II collected works of art which are now also in the Kunsthistorisches Museum.

In architecture a slow transition from the Renaissance to early Baroque with Italian traits set in about 1600, while the other fine arts followed the trend somewhat later.

Literature#