Fieldwork – Camera Picta
type: channel
description: Explorations in Medieval Art
date: 2015-01-06T20:55:45Z
update period: hourly
update frequency: 1
update base: 2000-01-01T12:00+00:00
generator agent: https://wordpress.org
items: Three Magi and a Restoration
items: The Saint and the River (A Mural of St. Christopher pt. 2)
items: The Saint and the Friar (A Mural of St. Christopher pt. 1)
items: A room full of heroes: Giacomino da Ivrea’s frescoes at Marseiller (Valle d’Aosta)
items: The 14th-Century Wall Paintings in Zahling (Austria), or Who Needs Progress Anyway?
items: The Weird and the Beautiful, part 2
items: The Weird and the Beautiful, part 1

Three Magi and a Restoration
type: item
creator: Christian Nikolaus Opitz
date: 2015-01-06T20:55:45Z
subject: Fieldwork
subject: Alpine region
subject: Austria
subject: iconography
subject: International Gothic
subject: restoration
subject: wall painting
description: So, today is the feast of the Epiphany, and what better excuse to post a couple of wall paintings showing the Adoration of the Magi. Or, to be more precise, not just the Adoration but also the Journey of the … Continue reading →
encoded: So, today is the feast of the Epiphany, and what better excuse to post a couple of wall paintings showing the Adoration of the Magi. Or, to be more precise, not just the Adoration but also the Journey of the Magi. Murals packing both the Journey of the Magi and the ensuing Adoration into one long, frieze-like composition were extremely popular in 15th-century Austria, especially in the country’s southern states Styria and Carinthia, as well as in neighbouring Slovenia.1 It is not quite clear why exactly these composition were so popular, but it may simply have had to do with the fact that they allowed painters and viewers to revel in lavish, elaborate mass scenes full of courtly splendour. Indeed, depicting the Magi and their entourage may have been the closest medieval artists ever got to something like Joseph L. Mankiewicz’ Cleopatra. The Massacre of the Innocents & the Flight into Egypt (upper tier), The Journey & the Adoration of the Magi (lower tier), wall painting, 1435, Maria Saal (Carinthia), Cathedral Just take a look at, for instance, this example in the “Cathedral” of Maria Saal (pictured above and below), which happens to be one of the few cases that can actually be dated with precision: As an inscription informs us, it was painted in 1435 on commission of a local nobleman called Wilhelm von Neuschwert.2 Stylistically, it shows the merging of the International Gothic style prevalent in Central Europe with Northern Italian, especially Veronese elements, so characteristic for the art of the Alpine region at the time.3 The Journey of the Magi, wall painting, 1435, Maria Saal (Carinthia), Cathedral As befits Three Kings, the Magi and their servants are equipped in the most dazzling courtly fashion, sporting fancy long sleeves, expensive fabrics, belts with bells (a must-have fashion accessory of the day), and the kind of headgear that would make some of the ladies at Ascot jealous: The Journey of the Magi, detail, wall painting, 1435, Maria Saal (Carinthia),…

The Saint and the River (A Mural of St. Christopher pt. 2)
type: item
creator: Christian Nikolaus Opitz
date: 2014-08-09T15:34:42Z
subject: Fieldwork
subject: Austria
subject: Gothic
subject: iconography
subject: Renaissance
subject: town
subject: wall painting
description: In my previous post, I presented an early-16th-century St. Christopher mural on the façade of a townhouse in Steyr, Austria, saying there were two aspects of it which could be described as unusual/interesting. One was the kneeling donor figure which … Continue reading →
encoded: In my previous post, I presented an early-16th-century St. Christopher mural on the façade of a townhouse in Steyr, Austria, saying there were two aspects of it which could be described as unusual/interesting. One was the kneeling donor figure which I then went on to discuss at some length. Now, the other interesting thing is what’s going in the background landscape which is depicted in some detail. There is, for instance, a fine impression of a townscape, which is just realistic enough to tempt modern viewers to try and identify it as a real-world city. Most tempting of all is the idea that it could actually be a “portrait” of Steyr itself, but apart from very general features there aren’t any convincing similarities that would justify any such identification. There are other elements in the background landscape, however, that might reflect local circumstances. As usual, St. Christopher is depicted wading through a river populated by all kinds of strange fish and sea creatures, such as the sea snake visible in the following detail: But, as you can see in the picture, there are other things in the water as well, just above the sea snake, and at first they almost look like some sort of horned Chinese dragons. But on closer inspection they turn out to be logs afloat in the river and what creates the illusion of a dragon’s head are just bits of branches still sticking out from the trunks. More logs can be seen to the right of St. Christopher where the artist also depicted three men in a boat using oars and/or poles to navigate the river. The man in the middle, it seems, is using his pole to push away one of the logs, probably to move it out of the boat’s way: But there is another possibility to explain this detail, I believe: The men in the boat could actually be timber rafters or log drivers and their attempt to push one of the logs in a certain direction could be altogether more purposeful than just trying to get it out of their way. This may seem a bit far-fetched a…

The Saint and the Friar (A Mural of St. Christopher pt. 1)
type: item
creator: Christian Nikolaus Opitz
date: 2014-08-03T20:57:03Z
subject: Fieldwork
subject: Austria
subject: Gothic
subject: Mendicant Orders
subject: Renaissance
subject: town
subject: wall painting
description: I always find it nice to stumble upon medieval wall paintings on the facades of old houses when strolling through a historic city centre. In most cases, of course, such façade paintings are far from spectacular and consist of “standard” … Continue reading →
encoded: I always find it nice to stumble upon medieval wall paintings on the facades of old houses when strolling through a historic city centre. In most cases, of course, such façade paintings are far from spectacular and consist of “standard” representations of popular saints, most often the Virgin Mary… The Virgin with Child as the Woman of the Apocalypse, late 15th century, wall painting on a house in the old town of Althofen, Carinthia (Austria) Occasionally, however, one encounters an image which – while seemingly ordinary at first – reveals itself to be quite interesting once you look at it more closely. This is certainly the case with a mural I came across on a recent visit to Steyr, a small town in Upper Austria. One of the most important economic centres of the region from the Middle Ages onwards, Steyr has one of the best-preserved old towns in all of Austria, its often magnificent townhouses still bearing testimony to the wealth of its former inhabitants. Walking along its streets, one still finds many examples of façade decorations from the medieval and early modern periods,1 and among them there is this early 16th-century wall painting of Christopher: St. Christopher Carrying the Christ Child, early 16th century, wall painting on the house Berggasse 36 in Steyr (Austria) As is well-known, images of St. Christopher were incredibly popular during the later Middle Ages, because people ascribed all kinds of apotropaic effects to them. Most importantly, it was believed that seeing a picture of St. Christopher would prevent you from dying a sudden and unexpected death on that day,2 but it was also said to prevent you from getting tired and exhausted during a day’s work. Thus, depictions of the saint were pretty much ubiquitous. Typically, they were put up in places were many people would be able to see them, e.g. inside churches right next to or opposite from the entrance or even on the exterior walls where they were visible to passers-by. Finding a St. Christopher …

A room full of heroes: Giacomino da Ivrea’s frescoes at Marseiller (Valle d’Aosta)
type: item
creator: Christian Nikolaus Opitz
date: 2014-06-14T13:59:22Z
subject: Fieldwork
subject: Alpine region
subject: Giacomino da Ivrea
subject: Giacomo Jaquerio
subject: International Gothic
subject: Italy
subject: Maestro della Manta
subject: wall painting
description: While writing my previous post, I came to remember another set of wall paintings I visited several years ago in the Valle d’Aosta, Italy (and I will explain why they came to my mind a little further on). The frescos … Continue reading →
encoded: While writing my previous post, I came to remember another set of wall paintings I visited several years ago in the Valle d’Aosta, Italy (and I will explain why they came to my mind a little further on). The frescos in question are found in the casa forte [manor house] of the Salluard (or Saluard) family in a small village called Marseiller (Verrayes) and were presumably painted sometime in the 1430s or around 1440. Most likely they were commissioned by Jean de Salluard, notary to the Bishop of Aosta and thus an influential figure in the region. In a 1968 article, Augusta Lange first ascribed the paintings to Giacomino da Ivrea (c. 1400/1410 – c. 1470),1 a local artist first documented in 1426 who left several cycles of wall paintings in the Piedmontese province of Ivrea and in the neighbouring Valle d’Aosta.2 Giacomino da Ivrea, Saint Anthony Abbot and Saint Christopher, fresco, c. 1426, Ivrea Cathedral (Image by Laurom via Wikimedia Commons, used under the Creative Commons Attribution ShareAlike License v. 2.5) The attribution proposed by Lange has been widely accepted although it is not without problems. The problems arise mostly from the fact that Giacomino’s documented work only depicts religious subjects (cf. the image above), while the frescoes in Marseiller belong to the realm of secular art, depicting for the most part knights in armour – due to these differences in subject matter there is actually very little that may serve as a point of comparison. Then again, Giacomino’s authorship of the paintings in the manor house is supported by the fact that Jean de Salluard also commissioned him with the decoration of the Cappella di San Michele in Marseiller. But anyway, this post is not intended to be about problems of attribution, so for the sake of convenience let’s just accept Lange’s proposition and refer to the artist as Giacomino… So, without further ado, let’s enter the painted room on the ground floor of the manor house in Marseiller… The former Casa Fort…

The 14th-Century Wall Paintings in Zahling (Austria), or Who Needs Progress Anyway?
type: item
creator: Christian Nikolaus Opitz
date: 2014-06-03T21:48:08Z
subject: Fieldwork
subject: Austria
subject: Gothic
subject: Hungary
subject: Romanesque
subject: wall painting
description: I have to say, I generally don’t mind living in academia’s good ol’ ivory tower, but every now and then even I need to get out and get some fresh air. So this past weekend I went walking in the … Continue reading →
encoded: I have to say, I generally don’t mind living in academia’s good ol’ ivory tower, but every now and then even I need to get out and get some fresh air. So this past weekend I went walking in the hills of the southern Burgenland region, in Austria’s south-eastern-most corner. You probably won’t be surprised to hear, though, that I planned the route in such a way that I came by a church with medieval wall paintings in it. I hadn’t really intended to blog about these paintings because they really aren’t that noteworthy, but on second thought I believe they may be of a certain interest precisely because they are so ordinary… Church of St. Lawrence, Zahling (Austria) The wall paintings in question are found in the former parish church (now filial church) of St. Laurentius in a small village called Zahling or, in Hungarian, Ujkörtvelyes. In case you’re wondering about the bilingual denomination, up until the First World War this region was part of the kingdom of Hungary. However, its population has been German-speaking from roughly the 13th century onwards and therefore it was assigned to Austria when the Austro-Hungarian Empire was divided in 1918. To make linguistic matters even more complicated, the name Zahling is actually of Slavic origin – the Slovenian border is a mere 25 kilometres to the south – and first appears as Zolar in a document of 1346. No earlier mention of the place is known, but the church itself is clearly older. It has even been suggested that its tower may have begun its life as a Roman watchtower. But while several Roman burials have indeed been found in the area, this is pure speculation. What can be said with certainty, though, is that the present church is a mostly Romanesque structure, presumably dating to the (early?) 13th century and consisting of a western tower, a simple nave and a round apse, plus a small sacristy added at a later time. St. Christopher, wall painting, c. 1300 (?), Church of St. Lawrence, Zahling (Austria) On the outer wall,…

The Weird and the Beautiful, part 2
type: item
creator: Christian Nikolaus Opitz
date: 2014-03-27T22:57:27Z
subject: Fieldwork
subject: Alpine region
subject: Gothic
subject: iconography
subject: Romanesque
subject: wall painting
subject: Zackenstil
description: The more I think about it, the more I wonder whether “The Weird and the Beautiful” wouldn’t have been the perfect title for the blog as a whole. Of course, the subjects I am going to discuss here will be … Continue reading →
encoded: The more I think about it, the more I wonder whether “The Weird and the Beautiful” wouldn’t have been the perfect title for the blog as a whole. Of course, the subjects I am going to discuss here will be pertinent one way or another to my work as a researcher in late medieval art, but on a more basic level most of them will likely be things I find either particularly weird or exceptionally beautiful. Anyway, seeing as the first part of this post dealt with the beautiful, you know what to expect from today’s instalment… So, we left off in St. George’s Chapel in the Parish Church of Mariapfarr, Austria. Now, if one steps from the chapel into the adjacent presbytery of the church, one finds bits and pieces of 13th century paintings spread across its walls. Mariapfarr, Parish Church, South Wall of Presbytery, 1st Bay with Fragments of 13th-Century Wall Paintings (top left: Entry into Jerusalem; top right: Last Supper; bottom right: Crucifixion) and Doorway Leading to St. George’s Chapel These bits and pieces belong to what was once a cycle of the Life of Christ, beginning with the Annunciation and ending with the Crucifixion. As you can see in the above photo, though, they are heavily fragmented, and the only scene to survive in a more or less complete state is the Nativity on the north wall. Nativity and Fragment of the Adoration of the Magi (the Magi themselves having been swallowed up by the rib-vault inserted in the 14th century), Wall Painting, c. 1230-1240, Mariapfarr, Parish Church, North Wall of Presbytery Several motifs in this scene find close parallels in other works of art datable to c. 1220-1230 – for instance, the way Joseph has turned his head while resting it on his hand is also found in a manuscript illumination by the so-called Berthold-Master: Berthold Master (active 1210-1232): Nativity, Evangeliary from Weingarten Abbey, Württembergische Landesbibliothek Stuttgart H.B.II 46, fol. 12v (Image provided by the Württembergische Landesbibliothek Stuttgart…

The Weird and the Beautiful, part 1
type: item
creator: Christian Nikolaus Opitz
date: 2014-03-24T20:58:32Z
subject: Fieldwork
subject: Alpine region
subject: chapel
subject: International Gothic
subject: wall painting
description: I believe when one starts a new blog, it is customary to set up some kind of introductory post. However, I have always been terrible at smalltalk, I have already explained the scope and content of this blog in the … Continue reading →
encoded: I believe when one starts a new blog, it is customary to set up some kind of introductory post. However, I have always been terrible at smalltalk, I have already explained the scope and content of this blog in the About section, and I have just detailed my reasons for setting up this site in a lenghty farewell post over at my old blog. So, seeing as everything you might need to know is just a click away, I guess I’ll just skip the formalities here and get straight down to business… That said, where to begin? Well, the header image might be a good place to start. As I’m sure many of you have realised, it shows a detail from an image of St. George slaying the dragon. This particular depiction is found in the Parish Church of Mariapfarr in the Austrian state of Salzburg, more precisely in the Lungau region. Mariapfarr’s foremost claim to fame lies in the fact that here, in 1816, a young priest by the name of Joseph Mohr wrote the lyrics to what would become one of the most popular Christmas carols of all time, Silent Night. Apart from that, however, it is also an important pilgrimage site both literally for local Catholics and metaphorically for medieval wall painting aficionados like myself. Mariapfarr Parish Church, view from the presbytery towards the 15th century nave What makes the church of Mariapfarr so special is that it houses not only one but several sets of remarkable medieval murals, executed on three different occasions between c. 1230 and 1430. Thus, it offers something like a brief overview of Austrian wall painting from the 13th to the 15th century all in one place. Let me begin with the most recent of them, the decoration of St. George’s Chapel, a small space adjacent to the presbytery. After all, this is where the header image comes from… St. George Slaying the Dragon, Fresco, c. 1425, Mariapfarr Parish Church, St. George’s Chapel The chapel is first mentioned in 1421, and on stylistic grounds it can be argued that its painted decoration must have bee…