Works of art by one of the most important Baroque painters of Central Europe – Franz Anton Maulbertsch (1724 – 1796), have been attracting attention for more than a hundred years. He graduated from the Vienna Academy and was a member of the Academy from 1757. The painter Oskar Kokoschka compared his artistic impact, exceptionalism and eccentricity to the musical legacy of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. Hundreds of publications have been devoted to the identification, description and interpretation of his sketches, oil paintings, and murals. These interpretive texts of his artistic visuality also demonstrate how many potential directions are offered by the study of Maulbertsch՚s artistic oeuvre. From formal analysis, to iconographic studies, to a study of the development of the author's handwriting, luminosity and colour, or the evolution and shift of late Baroque painting towards Classicism, to a broader illustration of the political and sociological developments in Central Europe in the second half of the 18th century.
In particular the relationship between the Enlightenment and the subsequent reaction of the so-called anti-Enlightenment Catholic movement. Maulbertsch՚s work was highly original and is characterised by a very individual understanding and dynamic interpretation of colour, light and shape. In Slovakia this is represented by the signed painting of the Immaculata and St. Michael the Archangel from 1778 on the main altar of the parish church in Skalica. The light in this painting comes from several irrational sources and is perhaps the most important element in the construction of the whole, conveying the meaning. The centre of gravity of the diagonally composed, vertically developed composition is at the top, with the Immaculate with clasped hands at the apex, with her gloriole of stars and the dove of the Holy Spirit overhead. Beneath her, hovering in dynamic movement, the Archangel Michael, in armour, wearing a helmet, a shield and a sword, strikes down the demons. The Skalica painting, created for the magistrate of the free royal city, is one of Maulbertsch՚s finest oil paintings from the 1870s, and proves that even as his artistic style came to terms with the demands of the classical period, at all times he maintained his artistic qualities.
Barbara Hodásová
