For the Feast of the Assumption: the Art of the Brothers Asam

The brothers Asam, architects, sculptors and painters, represented the epitome of the baroque in the first half of the 18th century in the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation. They resided and did much their work in the electorate (principality) of Bavaria – an entity much smaller than the subsequent kingdom and present Land of that name – but were active in many other locations as well. But they only rarely had the opportunity to create an entirely new church, uniting all their talents in one unified work of art. Earlier, I have described one such example: their own house “chapel” of St. John Nepomuk in Munich. Another is the monastery church of Rohr, near Regensburg. Here Egid Quirin Asam created one of the three most famous images of the Assumption in European art. 1)

Rohr, now an out-of-the-way village, was in the time of the Asams the site of a monastery of the Augustinan canons. When we admire the almost innumerable number of baroque churches in 18th century Germany we forget that so many of these masterpieces were monastic churches. The eighteenth century in Germany was indeed the time of a great monastic flourishing after the tribulations of the Reformation and the wars of the 17th century – and before the destruction of the French Revolution and the subsequent secularizations (confiscations) by the German states. It was the patronage of these monks that in large part made possible the last great flowering of art in Europe in the age of the baroque and rococo. 2) The dedication of the Rohr monastery was to Our Lady of the Assumption.

The nave of Rohr is in a rather severe style, leading the visitor onwards to the main altar shimmering in the distance. Egid Quirin Asam was responsible for the decor and likely for the architecture as well.

The altar depicts the Assumption of Our Lady. Below, the apostles, in agitated conversation among themselves, marvel at finding her empty tomb strewn with flowers. Above, the Trinity and angels await the crowning of Our Lady as Queen of Heaven. The altar was the creation of Egid Quirin Asam in 1722-23.

Come away my Love,

Come away my Dove

Cast off delay:

The Court of Heav’n is come,

To wait upon thee home;

Come away, come away.

The ecstatic art of Egid Quirin Asam in Rohr corresponds to the expressive religious poetry of Richard Crashaw in the preceding century.

Thy sacred Name shall be

Thyself to us, and we

With holy cares will keep it by us,

We to the last,

Will hold it fast,

And no Asumption shall deny us.

All the sweetest showers,

Of our fairest Flowers

Will we strow upon it:

Though our sweetnees cannot make

It sweeter, they may take

Themselves new sweetness from it.

Richard Crashaw, “On the Assumption of the Virgin Mary”

1. The others are Titian’s great Frari Assumption in Venice and Riemenschneider’s masterpiece in Creglingen.
2. After World War II, German Benedictine monks expelled from Czechoslovakia came to Rohr and restored monastic life and many of the buildings.