ZIMMERMANN, Dominikus
(b. 1685, Wessobrunn, d. 1766, Wies)

Exterior

begun 1743
Photo
Pilgrimage church, Wies

The German states, isolated from the community of European culture by the ravages of the Thirty Years' War and held back by the Reformation and the conflicts arising from it, did not join the general cultural movement again until the eve of the 18th century. In the Catholic south Prague, Vienna and Dresden were the centres of artistic rebirth which, about the middle of the century, assumed one of its most extreme forms in the Southern Bavarian pilgrimage church at Wies, the masterpiece of Dominikus Zimmermann.

Dominikus Zimmermann was awarded a contract to build the pilgrimage church of the Scourged Saviour, known as the Wieskirche. From Vorarlberg he knew oval ground plans and hall choirs, which he had applied earlier at Steinhausen in Upper Swabia. Steinhausen reappears, extensively transformed and dramatically enhanced in the Wieskirche.

Most "Bavarian" of all the stucco-workers from Wessobrunn, the architect and sculptor Zimmermann spent his whole life building rural churches, and died in Wies. This pilgrimage church and the one at Steinhausen are his masterpieces, achieving a poetic rendering of space and responding to a popular demand for enchantment and religious euphoria.

The picture shows the church seen from the southwest.