By Prof. David Clayton

The Beuronese School is an interesting cul-de-sac in the Christian tradition. It is named after the town of Beuron, in Germany, which is the location of the Benedictine community in which the school originated. The style is an attempt in the 19th century to revive Christian art, and is a reaction against the dominating over-sentimental naturalism of the time, which draws on Egyptian art and canon of proportion that was said to be derived from that of the ancient Greeks (although this is speculative, given that the canon of Polyclitus which is what the ancient Greeks used is lost).

The artists themselves were trained in the methods of the 19th-century atelier. The result is a curious mixture of 19th-century naturalism stiffened up, so to speak, by an injection of ancient Egyptian art and geometric patterns. Examples are to be found in central Europe and also at Conception Abbey in Missouri. The main artists in Europe are Lenz (d. 1928) and Gabriel Wüger (d. 1892). The artists of Conception Abbey, their website tells us, were trained in Beuron but moved to Missouri once the abbey was founded.

The example shown is of the Mother of God as Queen of Heaven flanked by Saints Scholastica and Benedict

An account of the geometric proportions used in the human form can be found in the book written by their main theorist, Fr. Desiderius Lenz, On the Aesthetic of Beuron. It is complex, so much so that my reaction is that it would be very difficult for any painter to use the canon successfully in any but very formal poses (although it might be possible for a sculptor to follow it). As soon as you have to twist and turn a pose, then the necessary foreshortening requires the painter to use an intuitive sense as to how the more distant parts relate to the nearer. To be able to do so would require the artist to have many years’ experience of working within that proportion, to the degree that it would be unnatural for him to do anything else. For this reason, those that have more formal poses are the most successful works. Those that attempt a more naturalistic pose work less well, in my opinion, and look like illustrations from the Bible I was given when I was a child.

The approach of Beuron school is idiosyncratic and as such sits outside the mainstream of Christian tradition. It does not as far as I can ascertain have its form integrated with theology in the way that the iconographic, the Baroque or the Gothic do. Nevertheless it does follow generally the traditional iconography (by this I mean the visual vocabulary of symbolism) that is traditional to Christian art and stylistically does have something of the sacred to it, in my opinion. It also has the one essential element of sacred art as articulated later, by Pope Pius XII, which is a balance of idealism and naturalism. Writing in 1947, he said,

Modern art should be given free scope in the due and reverent service of the church and the sacred rites, provided that they preserve a correct balance between styles tending neither to extreme realism nor to excessive “symbolism,” and that the needs of the Christian community are taken into consideration rather than the particular taste or talent of the individual artist.

He uses the word realism to mean corresponding to natural appearances—I prefer to use naturalism; and symbolism to mean highly stylized or corresponding to an ideal—I prefer to use the word idealism for this. The ideal form that the Beuronese artists drew on was the classical Egyptian style. This is analogous to the way that High Renaissance artists, for example, drew on the ideal of the classical Greek style.

The artist uses line to describe the form. There is very little tonal variation and the coloration is largely monotone. This again promotes the idealism (or ‘symbolism’) of the style and makes it less naturalistic. So, rather like the iconographic style of art such as we see in Greek icons, the appearance is flat. The marked stylization is introduced so that while it is still naturalistic enough that we recognize these as human figures, we cannot be confused into thinking that we are looking at reality and our imaginations take us to the real people in heaven.

Perhaps also their efforts to control individual expression have contributed to the sacredness of the art. The school stressed, for example, the value of the imitation of prototypes above the production of works originating in any one artist. The artists collaborated on works and did not sign them once finished, so it is not always clear who the artist is.

TITLE IMAGE: Fresco by Gabriel Wüger on the facade of St. Maur’s Chapel, Beuron (Danube Valley), built 1868–1870.