Untitled (Cycle of creation)
In the Lake Constance region near Ravensburg, there is an extensive network of facilities run by the Zieglerische e. V., Wilhelmsdorfer Institutions of Protestant Diaconia. Andreas Felger helped design the chapel at one of its locations, Haslachmühle. The room is characterised by a four-part cycle of luminous stained glass windows and a wooden relief in a more subtle colour, whose gold leaf sections unfold a gentle glow.
The untitled stained glass windows show a cycle of creation. Oliver Kohler wrote about the second window: “The symphony of becoming has been intoned, the great celebration of life has begun. Colour and form are not sparingly accentuated in this window, but poured out in vibrant abundance. Macrocosm and microcosm, plant and animal celebrate the dawn of creation.”
And, more succinctly, Marie Luise Kaschnitz writes:
Can you see that it is good? / Flowers laugh, / birds find a nest, / everything created lives from closeness. // And the desert in you / will bloom again.
In relation to the first window (see below for the overall view), we observe an ascending shift in the picture planes, as if the buds have opened, the plants have grown and the previously hidden birds have now become visible. The earthly, colourful world takes up two thirds of the picture surface, and a stronger vertical development of the composition becomes apparent. Rising forms appear closer, as if we have entered the landscape that we previously saw from a distance. The curved lines in the upper third of the picture continue the prelude that began in the top left of the first window. The atmospheric sky currents connect the windows, while the figurative world of flora and fauna stand alone.
If we look at all four windows and proceed entirely from the immediate visual impression, then the window pictures can have different effects: moving from the lines, joyful in the objects of nature and their colourfulness, illuminating in the transparent, light-filled areas and giving clarity through the striking lines and formal framing, which give the picture and the viewer confidence.
Text by Marvin Altner
Marvin Altner holds a doctorate in art history and is a lecturer in art history at the University of Kassel. After a traineeship at the Hamburger Kunsthalle in Hamburg, he worked as a research assistant and curator at museums in Berlin and Hamburg and as a freelance author in the field of fine art from the 19th century to the present day. Since 2012, he has been teaching at the Kunsthochschule Kassel in the art studies programme and works as a research assistant for the Andreas Felger Cultural Foundation, including as an author, exhibition coordinator and administrator of the database of Andreas Felger’s works.
