106
ROBERT KEIL - "John the Baptist Blessing” and “Saint Catharine betöre the Emperor Maxentius"
Belvedere 1/2004
fered from LeBrun's method ("Conference sur l'expression
generale et particuliere”, 1688), which regarded the face as
the principal vehide for the expression of feelings. Each in
dividual figure of Füger's becomes, in its entire design, a car-
rier of meaning, a signifier, and is thus given an individual
Physiognomie characterisation. The position of the figures
and their pantomimic gestures correspond to declamation in
spoken drama. The comparison with drama and its scenic
performance on stage also appears formally in Füger's work,
in which the actors appear, in most cases, on a narrow stage
which is often closed off behind. This phenomenon of the
physiognomic characterisation of each individual signifier in
the picture, and the stage structure reminiscent of the thea-
tre, is also encountered in the works of European artists who
were more or less independent of one another, especially
Jacques Louis David, who adopted this approach most con-
sistently. Although slight differences are apparent in the re-
sults of their artistic formulations, the formal principles coin-
cide exactly in Füger's and David's work. 21
In the course of elaborating his physiognomic characters,
Füger also developed certain types or Schemata which recur
in different subjects. For instance, the drawing in the Muse
um of Fine Art in Budapest, "Jesus at the Age of Twelve in
the Temple", shows how interchangeable the meaning, in
terms of content, and the figures within the picture, were for
Füger while retaining the composition, since both Saint Ca-
tharine's attitude and the position adopted by the philoso-
phers arguing were anticipated here. 22 Above all, the accen-
tuated prominence given to the main figures who are of pri-
mary importance for the subject is a recurring motif in Füger's
work, whether in the historical painting "The Vestal Tuccia" 23 ,
executed in 1798, or the mythological painting "Alcestes Sa-
crificing Herseif for Admetos" 24 , produced in 1810, which on-
ce again conform to the type of Saint Catharine.
Füger set aside the previously accepted formulae for an al-
tarpiece, which consisted in representing emotionally the re-
lationship between the earthly and the transcendent sphere.
Owing to the interchangeability of forms, from the historical
via the mythological to the religious subject, the religious sub
ject itself now becomes a demonstrable historical act.
This is especially apparent from a comparison with Hubert
Maurer's formulation of the subject of Saint Catharine. He
interpreted the conventional, legendary representation, esta-
blished by tradition, of the handing over of the ring as a sign
of her mystic marriage with god.
Füger, by contrast, chose the moment of divine inspiration
during the intellectual disputation with the philosophers, in a
real location and in a plausible temporal frame of reference.
For the newly-built parish church “Maria Schnee" in Wiener
Neudorf, which die was consecrated in 1783, the paintings
for the two side-altars were produced by Hubert Maurer. The
left-hand side-altar shows the four doctors of the Church,
Ambrose, Augustine, Jerome, Pope Gregory the Great and
the Lamb of God on a book sealed with seven seals, while
the altarpiece which faces it, dated 1781, depicts the “Dy-
ing Saint Theresa in the Company of the Apostles Peter and
Paul and Saint John". Both pictures already show the pro-
blematics of the association of the earthly and heavenly re-
alms. The connection is created through the gestures of the
doctor of the Church and of Saint Paul. The heavenly realm
itself is indeed separated from the earthly realm by the dif
fuse clouds and the dark surround, but the angel (in the pic
ture of the Fathers of the Church) and Saint John (in the altar
depicting Saint Theresa), especially, show the same material
treatment and the same powerful, physical structure as the
figures acting in the lower part.
This conflict involved in plausibly associating the transcen
dent world of religious doctrine with the real world, which
was more or less unmanageable for the Classical, and in a
broader sense also for subsequent generations of artists,
was presented in exemplary fashion by Jacques Louis David
in the altarpiece painted in 1780, "Saint Roch Asking the
Virgin Mary to Heal those Afflicted with the Plague” (fig. 8) 25 .
The extreme realism is in stark contrast here with the irratio-
nality of belief in miracles. The plague sufferer, the saint and
the Virgin all possess the same material plasticity and are si-
tuated more or less in the same space, although according to
a religious conception they are on different levels.
Hubert Maurer, who spent a period in Rome from 1772 to
1776, with an Imperial scholarship, under the tutelage of
Anton von Maron (1733-1808), could not, during his stay in
Italy, become aware of the more radical attempts at a Solu
tion adopted by protagonists of Classicism such as Jean Fran-
gois Peyron (1744-1814) and Jacques Louis David. But the
three-dimensional materiality of Maron's or Mengs' pictures,
which give the figures represented - whether portraits or
mythological depictions - a very strongly-marked earthly pre-
sence, presents the artist, at the same time, with the Prob
lem of separating the heavenly realm formally and credibly
from the earthly.
By giving them the same formal treatment, Maurer indeed
set the different realms in a relationship of equality, but se
parated them strictly, with the dark colouring of the clouds,
into an upper and a lower scene. Their connection is estab-
lished only by the hands pointing upwards, since there is
no direct eye-contact between the figures acting on the
different levels. Mengs adopted a similar solution in the oil
sketch of a "handing over of keys" 26 , dating from 1772, in
which Christ was represented, with his hand raised hand,
as a mediator between the two strictly-separated realms.
While studying with Mengs and by visiting the exhibitions
held by which the French Academy in Rome in its premises
