Field Trip to See the Rosary Paintings by Ernst Fuchs

Next weekend, our class is taking a 4-hour train ride to Klagenfurt to see the Apocalypse Chapel painted by Professor Ernst Fuchs and his assistants, including our director Laurence Caruana. Today’s field trip, however, was much shorter.  We went to the parish church of Hetzendorf in Vienna to see his Three Mysteries of the Sacred Rosary Paintings

L to R: Lizzy, Martin, Clovis, Laurence, Rachel, Hadley, Kevin, Florence

There’s quite the story behind these paintings – their slashing by a psychopath (as described on the site) to winning a prize at the Sao Paulo Biennale (South America).  In addition to what you can read on the website, we learned from Laurence this morning in a presentation that these paintings were very controversial and that Fuchs received a lot of criticism because of them, including from the clergy.  He had won a competition to paint these after he had returned from his time in Israel and had decided to devote himself to religious art and to building bridges between the Jews and Christians (being a Christian of Jewish heritage – read more about his life on his website – I still say it would make an amazing movie).  Some of the symbols in these paintings reflect these efforts and are no doubt part of what caused such a storm.  There were many other reasons too – but I’m no expert on the matter and can’t recall all the details of this morning’s talk.  I’m not sure how different they are now than from before they were restored, but they were certainly more impressive in person than in our morning slideshow. Hopefully these photos give you a good idea anyway.   I really like the use of gold on paintings – those of you who know my work know that…

On the Way:

• I love field trips, especially when I get to walk / see places I’ve never been to before.
  
• We all met at Schönbrunn Palace after lunch.  I was there early and most others late, so I had time to play with a few panned shots of tourists.  They look better if you click on them to see them large  – always an option with these galleries.  We then walked through the gardens (which I’ve been to often and thoroughly enjoy) before going through a neighbourhood I hadn’t seen before.
  
  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  
• It was cooler than we’d expected, but still above freezing… check out the photo of a flowering tree – sweet smelling but alarmingly early!  Not sure what this is going to mean for the farmers, but it’s certainly not typical February weather for Vienna…
  
  

  

  
• On our way to the church (p.s., don’t always trust your iPhone GPS – good thing we had a paper version too), we walked by another little palace that I later explored (now a restaurant, spa and fashion school/museum +). There are palaces everywhere here.
  
• I had dressed up a little for the occasion – palaces and churches do that to me – and it felt so good to not be in my painting or hiking clothes for the first time in what seems like months!
• I’m not sure if it’s all my walking this week, or if it was this morning’s Kundalini yoga class, but my legs are letting me know they’ve been quite active lately. Good thing I have a day off before my Sunday hike with classmates – this time we’ll be doing #6, a 12.5 km (4.5 hour) hilly hikein District 23.