Exterior view

The most grandiose of the monasteries rebuilt in Germany in the eighteenth century is the Benedictine Monastery of Ottobeuren near the frontier between Swabia and Bavaria; several architect (Simpert Kraemer, Joseph Effner, Johann Michael Fischer) worked on it and it was completed with all the buildings originally projected. The innumerable statues (mainly by Johann Josef Christian), ornamental motifs (by Johann Michael Feuchtmayer), and paintings (ceiling frescoes by Johann Jakob Zeiller) in the church join together rhythmically in that symphonic unity to which the Germans have given the name 'Gesamtkunstwerk.' The huge monastery, of which the church forms a part, is a kind of summing up of German Rococo.

The photo shows the exterior of the church.

Suggested listening (streaming mp3, 19 minutes): Piotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky: Variations on a Rococo Theme