Prameny k tvorbě Huberta Maurera a Johanna Georga Däringera

Abstract

A short study with an edition of the correspondence of the Viennese painters Hubert Maurer (1738–1818) and Johann Georg Däringer (1759–1809) gives several important details on painting practice in Central Europe at the end of the 18th century. In t he first place, the painter's method of working with drawn sketches is worthy of attention. On the one hand, Maurer used them for the continuous reworking of his earlier, frequently reused compositions. On the other hand, he used his working drawings to communicate with clients, to whom however they did not give them a completely accurate idea of the intended composition, and the painter himself urged them not to consider them completely binding, as he anticipated reconsideration of a composition during his work. This phase of the continuous search for a final shape might even coincide in time with the phase of starting work on the altarpiece itself. Maurer's reluctance to create sample oil sketches for the client was also related to this, since working on them would needlessly deprive him of the time needed to "better finalise the altarpiece itself" and would make his work disproportionately more expensive. In the end, the published correspondence bears witness to the financial problems which, at the time of the reforms of Emperor Joseph II in the 1780s and in the following two decades, complicated the new outfitting of sacral interiors.