The History and Fresco Painter Johann Holzer

Appendix.

The History and Fresco Painter Joh. Holzer.

Among the most distinguished Tyrolean painters of earlier times was Joh. Holzer, whose merits, however, are far less known in his native land than they richly deserve to be. The reason for this lies probably in the fact that this artist spent the greater part of his life outside Tyrol, and that his paintings are therefore mostly to be seen only abroad. For this reason, we briefly compile here what we have found scattered about him in various German publications. Among these, the most important regarding biographical data is the "Artistic and Honorary Memoir of Mr. Joh. Holzer" by Georg Christoph Kilian, published in Augsburg in 1765, which all subsequent writers who have treated Holzer have followed. We were also able to make use of the writings of Anton Roschmann, a contemporary of the artist, along with some more recent manuscript accounts, thereby partly supplementing and partly correcting Kilian's text.

Johann Evangelist Holzer was born on 24 December 1709 in Burgeis, a village in the Imperial-Royal Judicial District of Glurns at the foot of the mountain upon which the Benedictine Abbey of Marienberg stands. His parents were Christoph Holzer and Margarete, née Steck. He was, like Rembrandt, a miller's son; for his father was the abbey miller of the aforementioned monastery. Owing to the many talents he displayed as a boy, his father, a man of comfortable means, sent him to study, particularly as he had the nearest opportunity to do so since Latin schools were kept at Marienberg Abbey at that time, the gymnasium in Meran not yet having been established. When country folk in Tyrol dedicate a son to studies, this is usually done with the intention and hope that he might subsequently enter the clerical state, and this may indeed have been the case with Holzer's parents, as Kilian noted. Thus the boy studied all the subjects of gymnasial instruction according to the teaching methods of the day, even embarking on philosophical studies, with the finest progress. He thereby acquired a command of the Latin language, writing it quite well and reading and understanding Latin books with ease. He displayed an exceptional inclination toward poetry and history, in which his excellent memory served him very well. Aside from this, he also learned French in this monastery, in which he truly perfected himself only in later years, which subsequently proved very advantageous to him in dealing with foreigners and travelers.

At the same time, an extraordinary innate penchant for the draughtsman's arts was noticed in him, and he devoted to these every hour he could spare from his studies, so that he received many reprimands on this account and was deprived of all materials for it. This, however, altered his mind so little that it only sharpened his resolve, and he prepared makeshift tools for himself from all kinds of materials, with which he drew and painted on paper, canvas, and walls. In this he succeeded increasingly well, to such a degree that, although he had received no instruction whatever, he eventually even painted portraits, particularly that of the then prelate, earning so much applause thereby that the prelate and other sensible men finally persuaded his father to resist his son's genius no longer; and thus he was at last sent to apprentice with the painter Niklaus Auer.

This Auer, born in Meran on 4 December 1690, had learned the fundamentals of art from a painter in his native town, then trained in Munich, where the Electoral Bavarian Court Councillor Lechner, a native of Passeier, supported him, and even more in Augsburg, where he was one of the first pupils of the renowned Johann Georg Bergmüller; he then returned to his native land and, at the instigation of his friend Abbot Beda of Marienberg, settled in St. Martin in Passeier, where he died on 19 April 1753, well-to-do and universally respected. He was an artist consistently superior to mediocrity, as several altarpieces and other works painted by him in the churches of Passeier, in Marienberg Abbey, and at various places in that region attest; thus Holzer had the good fortune of entering a reasonably fine school at once.

There he first began to learn proper draughtsmanship; yet his great artistic genius also developed in a short time; he was soon more an inventor than a copyist, and he had scarcely completed his years of apprenticeship, stipulated according to the custom of the time, when he was already engaged by the painter Merz, who had received word of the young man's skill and talents, to come to Straubing to assist him in the undertaken fresco work of the church at Oberaltaich. Holzer accepted this gladly and fulfilled the expectations placed in him completely, to the great satisfaction of the master. For himself, this employment afforded the great advantage of gaining practice in fresco painting, of which he later became, as Court Councillor Zapf remarks, virtually the creator in Germany. According to Lipowski, he also painted an altarpiece in Straubing representing St. Anthony for the Franciscan church there. – From there, upon completing the work, he proceeded to Augsburg, where at that time there was greater prospect of earning and support for skilled artists than in nearly any other German city. He had not stayed there long working on his own when Bergmüller, having seen several drawings and paintings by the young artist, immediately sought to attract him and soon took him into his house. Bergmüller at that time had many and large commissions for fresco paintings in churches and public buildings, altarpieces, and other significant works. These he executed with great expression together with Holzer, whom he treated not as a pupil, but as his friend and associate. The latter remained with Bergmüller for six years, refining his art ever further through untiring activity; during this time he studied especially the works of Rembrandt, Van Dyck, Rubens, and Paolo Veronese, several originals of which were still to be seen among private collectors in Augsburg at that time, and he also began to use the etching needle with great success. He etched fourteen highly esteemed plates, which have now become extremely rare, in a grand painterly manner resembling Rembrandt's, partly after Bergmüller's designs and partly after his own inventions. From Roschmann's collection of copper engravings we also know two other pieces etched by Holzer from his own invention: the trade emblem of the firm of Heinzelmann in Kaufbeuren with the coats of arms of the family and the town and several allegorical figures; and then the Abbey of St. Ulrich in Augsburg, likewise with several decorative additions. – During this and subsequent periods he also supplied a large number of designs and drawings, mostly in grisaille, for art publishers and thesis engravers. – Bergmüller had grown so fond of him that he wished and sought to have him as his son-in-law. This proposal fell through, however, and was at the same time the occasion for Holzer's departure from this family, living thenceforth in Augsburg entirely independently for four years.

Continued**

… directly accessible in the digital Teßmann Archive (7 issues in total).