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Jupiter fighting giants by Johann Georg Pinsel. In search of the genesis of composition
Abstract
This article is devoted to the search for the possible compositional patterns for the sculpture Jupiter Fighting the Giants by Johann Georg Pinsel, from the attic of the Buchach (Buczacz) town hall (c. 1750, arch. Bernard Meretyn). One of the first issues was the correct interpretation of the subject depicted, as the statue has been interpreted differently in the literature to date. It would seem that one of the literary sources for the entire iconographic program of sculptural decoration of the Buchach Town Hall is Ovid’s ‘Metamorphoses’; thus, the statue of interest to us most likely depicts Jupiter during the Gigantomachy (and not Neptune, an unidentified king, or the river idol Archelaos). As for the sources of the figure’s composition, it is conceivable that it may have been influenced to some extent by Gianlorenzo Bernini’s sculpture of Neptune (perhaps known to Pinsel through printmaking) which has influenced its misinterpretation. Far more significant, however, are the compositional precedents to be found in the sculptures by Balthasar Permoser (from the Grünes Gewölbe collection and from Apels Garten (before 1717)) and the work of Ferdinand Tietz (1708-1777). Attention should also be drawn to the multi-faceted sculptural group located in the garden of the palace at Seehof near Bamberg (1748) and its bozzetto, which is stored in the Bode Museum in Berlin. It is possible that pattern engravings by Johann Georg Bergmüller or Johann Esaias Nilson, and published by Johann Georg Hertel (series no. 45), also played an important role in the Buchach sculpture. This article also raises the question of the patterns for the ornamental decoration of the building, which appears to be based on a specifically imagined rocaille ornament found on Augsburg engravings by Jeremias Wachsmuth, and published in the early 1940s by Martin Engelbrecht (series 23, Allerneuste Facon einger Schild oder Cartouches), and which are clearly identical to those seen in Meretin’s design for the church of St. George in Lviv, dated 1744.
Keywords:
sculpture, rococo, Buchach/Buczacz, Lviv, designs, decoration, programme, iconographyDetails
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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
