Study for a Ceiling Fresco

Aegidius Quirinus Asam belonged to a very famous German family of artists. The father, a Bavarian painter familiar with the Italian High Baroque, helped train his sons, Cosmas Damian and Aegidius Quirinus to become outstanding exponents of German Baroque art in the earlier 18th century. After working with his father, Aegidius Asam apprenticed with sculptor Anton Faistenberger in Munich. He presumably accompanied his brother to Rome (1711-1713), where he studied works by Bernini, Pietro da Cortona and Domenico Zampieri, who worked at the Palatinate court of Germany. In 1724 he became a valet and court stuccoist to the Prince Bishop of Freising and in 1730 a valet to the Elector of Bavaria.
Asam excuted many of the decorations for the churches and convents of Freistadt, Metten, Amberg, Gunching, Aldersback, Munich, Innsbruck, Einsiedein, Freising, Strallbing-Pfaffenhoten, and Ratisbonne. He undoubtedly collaborated on some of his brother’s frescoes, while the frescoes (c. 1740) in the vault of the pilgrimage church of Maria Doria Dorfen are his own creation. Aegidius Asam was also responsible for the designs and models of the church and the stuccowork in the choir. Asam also worked alone on the church of the monastery of Rohr, near Abensberg, and the principal altar of the church of Saint Anne on the Lehel (near Munich) and furnished the statues of Saint Augustine and Saint Jerome. He sculpted the altars of the church in Osterhofen and the parochial church of Sandizell, and statues for the church of the convent Atwetterberg. In Straubling he completed Cosmas Damian’s frescoes in the Ursuline Church, but he is more important as a sculptor and stuccoist. His altars became Baroque theatrical stages involving the onlooker in the pathos of his figures. His use of lighting and setting also played a crucial role in Aegidius Asam’s sculptural work.
His stuccowork provided a framework for the frescoes, forming a connection with the paintings. Often markedly three dimensional, clouds and figures seeming to spring from the architecture. He was also a successful engraver and draughtsman, as can be seen by this drawing for a ceiling design.
Asam was deeply religious and never married, and from 1729 his entire fortune went to the construction and furnishing of a private church, St. Johann Nepomuk in Munich. At his brother’s death in 1739 he devoted himself to completing it. He was skilled in organizing groups of statues: so that not the single figure, but the whole group acted out the story on the stage of the theatrum sacrum.