!!!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.
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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.
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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).
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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).
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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.
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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.).
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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
P. v. Baldass et al., Renaissance in
Oesterreich, 1966; Maximilian I., exhibition catalogue, Innsbruck
1969; Renaissance in Oesterreich, exhibition catalogue, Schallaburg
1974; Prag um 1600, exhibition catalogue, Vienna 1988/89.
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