Wies

The church of pilgrimage of Wies ( Wieskirche ) is one of the most beautiful churches of style Rococo in the world.

It is located in the municipality of Steingaden in the district of Weilheim-Schongau, Bavaria, Germany.

History

The origin of this church " in the pré" is a miracle which occurred in 1738. An young woman saw crying a statue of Christ whipped. This miracle quickly had like consequence a pilgrimage. A small vault was built but it well quickly proved too small.

It was necessary that the chapter of Steingaden makes the decision to build a new church. In 1743, the abbot of Steingaden, Hyazinth Gassner, chose the directors of this image of Christ whipped. With a very Bavarian taste, it chose the best architect and the best sculptor: Dominikus Zimmermann and Anton Sturm. Dominikus Zimmermann had already proven reliable through all Bavaria and arrived at the end of its career. It was for him a kind of spiritual will in which it gave the best of him even. The first stone of die Wies was posed on August 31st, 1746. The solemn dedication was made on September 2nd, 1749, only three years later.

At the time of secularization at the beginning of the 19th century, the church was about to be sold and demolished, however because of the initiative of the local farmers, it was saved. In 1983, one added it to the list of the World heritage of UNESCO

From 1985 to 1991, the " Wieskirche" was the subject of an important restoration.

Art

The church with the strange shape of a kidney, could one say. Inside, an oval part where the faithful ones with on the left a pulpit and on the right a platform of cantor are received.

The high altar is in-depth. It was drawn by Zimmermann and mainly designed by Sturm. One finds there the Christ whipped with whom one owes the church. In the church, formed of a great largely opened oval, Zimmermann made spout out the light everywhere and exorcizes the shade unceasingly. It is the anti-baroque par excellence. The Baroque which creates the shade for better obviously putting the message of God who himself is the light. The rococo exorcizes the shade in order to better do to spout out, as in stereophony, the message of God.

Place from which the light comes, leaves a series arcs soustendus (arcs and arcs in Trompe-l'oeil, a set of full volutes of arcs and in hollow) creating one is delirious formal of more surprising. All the receipts that Zimmermann had invented during his career are applied here like a kind of will ultimate. All volumes which are caught and shown here unceasingly, are obvious also in the decoration. In paintings, the sculptures and the low-reliefs we find this set of full and vacuums which are really in perpetuum mobile. The pulpit represents the prow of the Holy Spirit, one of the great formulas of the rococo, entirely treated here out of wood and stucco, by craftsmen of Wessobrunn, on a drawing of Zimmermann. The great angel on the central part retains the storm of these conches and gilded and silver plated wood scums in which seems to lose the putti.

The platform of the cantors has as a decorative decoration as well as the organ loft testifying to the importance as one granted to the music. Dominikus Zimmermann, with the aim of create a plastic coherence in its church, went until drawing the benches of the faithful ones. One finds there same the conches and same the rates/rhythms as in all the church. At the four cardinal points of the church four figures dominate. They are the Pères of the church which Anton Sturm for Dominikus Zimmermann carved. Each one measures 2,90 meter height. In this church, which is already a church of the mobile perpetuum, these four figures, instead of retaining the church, give him the pace of a vessel whose veils inflate. One of most beautiful is Saint Jerome represented with the book but also with cranium of its meditation. It is the last which carved Sturm and certainly more succeeded.

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