Naslov
Johann Baptist Ranger - Biblical Narratives and their Pictorial Solutions in the Pauline Monastic Churches of Remete and Lepoglava

Autori
Mirjana Repanić-Braun

Izvornik
Ars (Bratislava) (0044-9008) 47 (2014), 1; 40-50

Vrsta, podvrsta i kategorija rada
Radovi u časopisima, članak, znanstveni

Ključne riječi
Baroque ceiling painting; Johann Baptist Ranger; Biblical narratives

Sažetak
Johann Baptist Ranger, a Pauline lay brother, was among the most important artistic figures in the first half of the 18th century in Croatia. He brought the illusionist painting of north-western Croatia somewhat closer to the Central European Baroque by introducing the ceiling painting of considerable quality both into the newly built, Baroque churches as well as the older Gothic structures, transforming their spaces in accordance with the stylistic development in the neighbouring Carniola, Styria, and Tyrol. Even though some of his most appreciated works are to be found in parish or pilgrim churches, Ranger’s crucial compositions inspired by the Biblical narratives are those in the presbyteries of the monastic churches of the Pauline order, nowadays parish churches − St Mary in Lepoglava (1733−1743) and Our Lady in Remete (1745−1748). Biblical narratives representing the Cleansing of the Temple, the Child Jesus in the Temple, and King Solomon and Bathsheba, painted on the presbytery walls of the Pauline monastery churches in Remete and Lepoglava, express the basic idea of a temple within the temple. The surfaces of the triumphal arch wall in Lepoglava’s church of St Mary and the side walls of the elongated sanctuary surmounted by the Gothic ribbed vaulting inspired Ranger to create in 1742 his own vision of the two events from the Scripture taking place in the Temple. The trompe l’oeil architecture on the front surface of the triumphal arch, bearing in its upper central part the coat of arms of Order of Saint Paul, the First Hermit, and the inscription chronogram, is conceived as a kind of pictorial anaphoric emphasis of the Gothic arch defining the sanctuary as the triumphant Church. In the presbytery, beneath the persuasive painted architecture of the grooved pilasters and open galleries, in the fictive architectural space of the temple, the huge figurative composition depicting Christ Driving the Money Changers from the Temple strikes with a surprising immediacy, indicating the artist’s reliance on the Biblical reports on the event in the Gospels of John and Mark. Another Scriptural theme depicted on the southern wall of the Lepoglava church, the Twelve Year Old Jesus in Temple (The Boy Jesus in the Temple), illustrates the words of St Luke’s Gospel. Ranger’s frescoes in the church of Remete are related to the literary sources in two ways: to the Old Testament texts when it comes to the inspiration of the author, and to the writings of the Pauline priest and theologian Hilarion Gasparotti, his most famous work on the lives of saints named The Flower of Saints, when it comes to understanding their content, because of the missing parts due to the earthquake of 1881. The huge composition spanning over the northern wall of the presbytery in St Mary’s church in Remete, divided only by architectural elements into three parts, represents King Solomon receiving his mother Bathsheba. Yet while the image can be perceived as an illustration of the particular event described in the Book of Kings, it functions as well on the metaphorical level, as a representation of The Ark Brought to the Temple. The visual representation of the narrative further develops the concept of the Lepoglava paintings by merging the superposed layers of the composition into a more convincing whole and by establishing a horizontal continuity of Baroque trompe l’oeil galleries with fragments of architectural perspectives in their backgrounds.

Izvorni jezik
Engleski

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