Gabriele Baumgartner

2017

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.. Can art be compared to craftsmanship?

Art is a craft - and its content is merely the task for the corresponding craftsman.

Whether it becomes art depends on the character development, the talent of the performer. ..."

 

Josef Mikl, 2008

 

 

Josef Mikl was an exceptionally versatile artist who not only defined himself through his painterly and satirical works, but also created many sacred commissions such as stained glass windows, measuring instruments and chasubles in the course of his artistic career. It was precisely on these occasions that he was able to develop his technical and artistic skills in a special way. He responded to the given space or situation and created works of timeless aesthetics.

  

At the suggestion of architects Arbeitsgruppe 4, who converted the old Weichselbaumhof estate into Austria's first modern church for the Salzburg parish of Parsch, he received the commission for his first stained glass windows in 1955. Two stained glass windows were to be created in place of the former stable gates and Mikl was responsible for the design and execution. In the windows executed in 1956, he themed the birth of Christ and, opposite, the resurrection, reduced to the colors red, blue and yellow. The surviving designs, executed in tempera, show slight deviations from the windows finally executed as concrete glass windows and On August 4, 1956, the church was finally consecrated under the title "Church of the Most Precious Blood", where numerous Austrian artists were involved in the design - such as a concrete cross sculpture by Fritz Wotruba or the concrete doors based on designs by Oskar Kokoschka.

  

Just four years later, the international commission for the design of stained glass windows in the Friedenskirche in Hiroshima¹. The idea for a peace church was born after the end of the Second World War. It was to serve not only as a center for the Catholic community of Hiroshima, which is under the control of the German Jesuit Mission in Bonn, but also as a memorial and symbol of peace for the world. Numerous countries contributed to the financing and took over individual elements of the furnishings. Monsignor Otto Mauer reported that the Austrian ambassador in Tokyo, Dr. F. H. Leitner, gave Archbishop Dr. Rohracher the suggestion to participate in 1958. Austria took over the financing and design of the 16 stained glass windows on the upper floor of the nave. Several Austrian institutes and organizations participated in this project: on the one hand by raising the funds and on the other hand by organizing an artistic competition. On both sides of the nave, 8 windows were to be designed, each measuring 240 x 60 cm, rectangular with a Gothic trefoil shape. The artists were free to choose the subject matter, the only condition being a non-figurative form of expression. On June 30, 1959, the jury (Monsignor Professor Otto Mauer, Manfred Mautner Markhof, Dr. Alfred Schmeller and others) unanimously selected Josef Mikl as the winner of the competition². In Bonn, a second German-Japanese jury confirmed this Austrian decision. Josef Mikl had submitted designs on the themes of Christian love³ and For eternal peace, taken from Immanuel Kant's philosophical draft of the same title⁴, submitted for one side of the nave. The shapes, but above all the colors, were intended to convey the themes and evoke emotions. Mikl therefore immersed the depiction of love on one side of the wall in yellow and red tones. The opposite side forms the colour contrast in which blue tones dominate, symbolizing eternal peace. The stained glass windows were made in the glassworks of Schlierbach Abbey and installed in Hiroshima in the Obergarden. 

 

In 1963 / 64, Josef Mikl designed two long-format glass works for the Lehen parish church in Salzburg. Unfortunately, nothing has survived about their conception. These works are not actually stained glass windows, as they stand on feet directly in front of the wall and the white light from the windows shines through the works. In 1963, the artist was also commissioned to create 14 square windows for the church in Aderklaa in Lower Austria, which he completed in 1964. There are 7 on the right and 7 on the left in the nave. The surviving designs already show that Mikl used his designs as a guide for the production in the glass workshop at Schlierbach Abbey.  

 

A year later, in 1965, Josef Mikl was commissioned to design two stained glass windows for the Willersdorf branch church (a district of Oberschützen) in Burgenland. The church, which belongs to the parish of Bad Tatzmannsdorf, is dedicated to St. Catherine and is now used as a cemetery chapel. The windows of the towerless, rectangular, Romanesque church were altered several times in the 1960s and finally fitted with pointed arches. In the course of these changes, the parish entrusted Josef Mikl with the design. Under the theme of flame and cross, the artist executed the windows in black solder technique in the glassworks of Schlierbach Abbey. Unfortunately, the two windows were damaged at the end of the 1980s and Josef Mikl restored them himself in 1989.  

 

On the initiative of Alfred Schmeller, Josef Mikl was commissioned to design two windows for the parish of St. Margarethen in Burgenland in 1966 and 1970. Both times, the artist interpreted Sören Kierkegaard's words:  

 

In my conscience, God has cast his gaze upon me,

and now it is made impossible for me to forget

that this eye sees me.

The fact that God looked at me made me look at God.

had to and must look at God.

 

Josef Mikl had a special relationship with his patron saint. In 1975/76, he designed a window for the chapel of St. Joseph at the so-called Quellenhof of the Merk couple, who were friends, on the Kreuzberg in Lower Austria. A note by the artist reads: The window, dedicated to Joseph the Nurturing Father, bears the inscription:  

 

What eyes see, when we close our eyes,

For we will see and know much more, indeed everything.

 

(Andreas Gryphius)

 

He was commissioned to design the stained glass windows for the parish of Asten in Upper Austria in 1982. Initially, he was only asked to design three portrait-format, 212 x 46 cm windows for the baptistery and the south-east corner of the main room. Later, however, he was also commissioned to create two landscape-format, 152 x 352 cm stained glass windows in the Chapel of Our Lady. The Augustinian canon Franz Lang, parish priest and director of the center, specified the themes. The realization of these by Josef Mikl is illustrated by the designs he commented on.  

 

An initial design for the three narrow stained glass windows shows a separation into a blue upper section and a red lower section. According to the commission, Josef Mikl was to base the two windows for the baptistery on John 3:5 "... born of water and the Holy Spirit". On the design, he already described the direction he wanted to take by following this passage and noting a line following the biblical passage on the side: That which is born of the flesh is flesh and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. To underline his statement, he explicitly placed the word flesh next to the red zone and the word spirit next to the blue zone. In the executed glass version, the blue lines of the spirit penetrating the fleshly, earthly part like a serpentine can be seen.  

 

The third narrow window in the south-east corner of the main room depicts the Transfiguration of Jesus on Mount Tabor according to Matthew 17:1-8. Correspondence with Pastor Lang shows that this biblical passage in particular was to be illustrated for two reasons: The foundation stone of the church came from Mount Tabor and the church's patron saint, St. James, was a witness to Christ's transfiguration on the mountain. The inscription plaque on the side reads: "Foundation stone from Mount Tabor, July 25, 1981 (Matt. XVII, 1-8)". In this window, Mikl used two V-shapes, the earthly red, perhaps even alluded to as a symbol of Mount Tabor, and the heavenly blue. Already sketched in the design, there is a white square in the window between the two shapes. According to the Gospel of Matthew, Christ shone like the sun at the Transfiguration and his clothes became whiter than the light. Katharina Girardi-Haller quotes Mikl, who describes his composition: "The white crystal, Christ, is the mediator between the earthly (red) and spiritual world (blue)⁵.  

 

The themes of the Annunciation and the birth of Christ were specified for the Lady Chapel. The two horizontal windows next to each other are also in red and blue. Mikl now divided the color areas vertically into two zones. In the Annunciation, Mary can be seen in red - possibly also suggesting her upraised arms - while the blue heavenly being can be seen in the Annunciation. In the middle of the red is the white crystal. In contrast to Father Lang, Josef Mikl always named The Nativity with Holy Family. This is why he himself called the chapel a family chapel. Here, too, he described a design in which the two juxtaposed forms are even more reminiscent of houses: "The heavenly house founds the earthly house." Herbert Muck also refers to one of these preliminary designs when he writes: "In Mikl's work, we repeatedly find the figuration of the house as a symbol for the interior of the world. ...of the "house of the world", of this shrine, the teba, this container of the inside, in which the newly received is concealed..." ⁶  

 

After this major commission for Asten, Josef Mikl did not design any glass windows for almost 20 years. It was not until 1994 / 95 that he produced his last window for his private use, which he dedicated to his patron saint and quoted the old "Prayer to the holy patron saint Joseph". Mikl took one sentence and wrote on the bottom left of the blue glass: "Saint Joseph: You are the one to whom the most precious treasures of heaven and earth have been given for safekeeping." The stained glass window is now privately owned in Vienna.  

 

Josef Mikl produced the majority of his commissions - above all his two large commissions for Hiroshima and for the parish of Asten - together with the glass workshop of Schlierbach Abbey. Possibly due to the geographical distance or the client's specifications, he also occasionally produced with a Viennese glass workshop. It is known from the Schlierbach commissions in particular that Josef Mikl preferred hand-blown genuine antique glass. He used clear, bright, dark and rich colors, especially shades of red, yellow and blue. These hues are already present in the glass itself, so the artist could only use black solder as the actual liquid color when using the traditional technique. Mikl applied it to the glass with broad brushstrokes to shade and soften the colors. He used cloths to remove superfluous areas or create textured accents.

 

 

6Herbert Muck, Josef Mikl, in: Kunst für und ohne Kirche, Zur Ausstellung an der Akademie der bildenden Künste, Wien, 1983, S 85-86, S. 85