300th birthday of Egid Quirin - Germany / Federal Republic of Germany 1992 - 60 Pfennig

The sculptor, master builder and stucco artist Egid Quirin Asam (1692-1750) must today be regarded as one of the most original and at the same time one of the most prolific artistic personalities of the 18th century. Up to the present, his works, which he has mostly created in collaboration with his congenial brother - the ceiling painter and architect Cosmas Damian Asam (1686-1739) - determine the artistic appearance of a whole epoch, for which splendid display of splendor was as characteristic as deep religiosity. The young artist Egid Quirin received his first artistic training as a painter together with his brother, who was six years older, in his father's workshop. Hans Georg Asam (1649-1711), son of a monastery employee from Rott am Inn, had worked his way up from humble beginnings as a barrel painter to become one of the first painters of large-scale ceiling paintings in southern Germany. At the time of Egid Quirin's birth, he and his family spent time in Tegernsee, where they decorated the monastery church of the Benedictines with ceiling frescoes. In the following years the family accompanied the father to the places of his respective assignments, which he carried out more often with the participation of his sons. The death of Hans Georg Asam in 1711 meant for a short time the end of the family business. In addition, since the financial power of the Bavarian patrons was weakened by the burden of the Spanish War of Succession (1701-1714), the two brothers made the clever decision, first to expand their artistic scope. Cosmas Damian turned to Italy to study the art of the Roman high baroque in Rome at the famous Accademia di San Luca. Egid Quirin, on the other hand, oriented himself to Munich and worked there for the Kurköln court artist Andreas Faistenberger to learn the sculpture. When he finished his apprenticeship after five years, the economic conditions for the artists had also changed fundamentally. Everywhere in the country after the end of the Austrian occupation of Bavaria, the left-over work on monasteries and churches was to be resumed; a situation for which the brothers and sisters were well equipped. After a few minor works in Ensdorf and Meßkirch, in 1717 Egid Quirin, not yet 25, received his first major order: the construction and equipping of the collegiate church in Rohr (1717-1723). Although the architecture of this church building is clearly influenced by Italian models, it is all the more the design of the high altar, which seems hardly possible without direct contact Egid Quirin with the Roman works of Gian Lorenzo Bernini or Andrea Pozzo. Egid Quirin staged an altar on him for the first time in Southern German art as a tremendous illusionist "Theatrum sacrum". On its stage is represented by sculpted stucco figures, the miracle of the Assumption of Mary, which hovers before the eyes of the apostles from their sarcophagus to heaven. The sovereign mastery of architectural and sculptural means to achieve a sculptural illusionism demonstrated by this early masterpiece was continued and increased in the monastery church of Weltenburg (1716-1724). Cosmas Damian as master builder and painter and Egid Quirin, who created the stucco and altarpieces, together realized one of the greatest sacral works of art of the baroque. Immediately after Weltenburg, the Asams took over the commission for the baroque transformation of the medieval cathedral of Freising, which earned them the rank of court artists. Numerous other lucrative large orders to the family enterprise followed not only from Bavaria, but also from Switzerland, from Silesia and from Bohemia. In 1732, they put Egid Quirin in a position to donate the construction and furnishing of a private votive church from their own resources - an absolutely singular process in the history of art and of artists. After initial difficulties with the planning permission developed starting from 1733 in Munich beside the dwelling house Egid Quirins the church of the pc. Johann Nepomuk, the so-called "Asamkirche". In this last joint and at the same time most personal project, the brothers were once again able to develop all possibilities of their artistic and sculptural staging art. When Cosmas Damian died in 1739 before the completion of the construction, Egid Quirin continued the work alone, although the cost several times brought him to the brink of financial ruin. Even in his last will, the unmarried artist, who had remained unmarried for his entire life, used his "liabs Kircherl" as the principal heir to his fortune and determined that he wanted to be buried there as well. However, this last wish of Egid Quirin Asam did not come true: he died in 1750, during the fitting out of the Jesuit church in Mannheim, where he was also buried - far from his hometown. The grave of the ingenious sculptor has disappeared today. (Text: Stephan Klingen, Kunsthistorisches Institut der Universität Bonn)