Peter Rauth (1828-96)
From Farm Boy to Church Painter

 In the year 1810, a number of students left the Viennese Academy of Art in protest, because they took exception to the new style being taught there.  They went to Rome and formed a community under the patron saint of artists, St Luke the Evangelist.  They occupied an abandoned monastery, followed the routine of a religious community, and, as their distinctive dress, they wore old-fashioned German costume and wore their hair long alla Nazarena as the Romans called it.  What started as a term of ridicule quickly became a badge of honour, as people saw that they were living a simple, pious life and that they were expressing this in their art.  They referenced early German art, up to Albrecht Dürer, and early Italian painting as well.   With their use of rich, sun-bright colouring they wanted to get beyond a soulless classicism and its white pallor.

The animating spirit of this ‘Lucan-League’ was Friedrich Overbeck, a German from Lübeck.  He had converted to the Catholic faith and wanted to put his art at the service of religion.  He became a Roman citizen and is buried there.  For three generations, the Rohden family of German artists also kept the spirit of the Nazarenes alive.  Its youngest member, Albert von Rohden (+1924), lies buried in the Campo Santo Teutonico in Rome in the shadow of St Peter’s dome.  On his headstone, he is described as ‘the last Nazarene’.   Close by lies another artist from the group, a Tyrolean, Josef Anton Koch from Lechtal.

Rome was the place where the Nazarener-style began, which went on to win adherents and imitators throughout the German-speaking world.  One leading representative of this movement in Austria was Joseph Ritter von Führich (1800-1876), who specialised in historical themes, drawing and engraving, and is still widely admired today for his nativity scenes.

In Tyrol, the important Church painter Josef Arnold the elder (1788-1879), in the second half of his long life, became a bridge between the fading of baroque and the rise of Nazarener art.  Apart from his altarpieces, he is still renowned today for the Easter Tomb scenes he constructed.  We should also mention Franz Plattner from Zirl (1825-1887), who became a leading Tyrolean Nazarener artist of the second half of the nineteenth century, after studying at the Viennese academy under Professor Joseph V Führich and spending several years working in Rome. 

Of course, there were many other less talented artists active at this time; their work was modest, often far too sentimental and bordering on kitsch, as a result of which the Nazarene style gradually got a bad name.  In the mid-20th century, there was a general opinion it should be completely weeded out.  Particularly in North Tyrol, people took this to excess and, as churches were due to be re-ordered, they had almost anything which suggested a hint of the Nazarene destroyed without examination.   It was only much later that new personnel at the Office of Monuments and at the Regional Conservation Office began to resist this practice and declared that those remnants still left were well worthy of preservation.   Just a quarter of a century ago, a movement began to restore the Nazarene heritage.  As a result of this, much that had once been consigned to destruction and only been preserved in storage thanks to those with a bit of foresight, was now once more given the respect it deserved.        

Peter Rauth, a member of the second tier of these Tyrolean Nazarener artists, is particularly noteworthy, starting life as the son of a smallholder, eventually becoming ‘an Academy painter and Church artist’ with a workshop in Heidelberg, and whose work took him all over southern Germany. 

Peter Rauth’s father, Peter-Paul, moved from the Seefeld plateau to Rum at the beginning of the nineteenth century, where he purchased a modest farm-property in the lower village.  In 1826, he married Katharina Huter, the daughter of a worker at the royal salt-mines.  In 1828, her elder son, Peter, came into the world, followed two years later by her second son, Joseph.   But during the 1830s their father, Peter-Paul, lost first his second son, and then, shortly afterwards, his wife.  A widower though barely forty, he resolved to make a new start.  He sold his property in Rum to the Mesner-Hölbling family and moved with his son Peter to Mils, near Hall, where he remarried and soon bought another property.

Hall, the nearby town, had always been a fertile ground for artists, so we can readily imagine, it was here that Peter as a youngster got his first artistic training as an apprentice.  There is, however, no evidence for this.   Be that as it may, at twenty years old, in 1848, he had already provided a picture for his parish church in Mils, ‘Madonna with Christ-child’ and a flag-design for the local defence corps.  It was not until 1852 that the young artist got public recognition.  In Boten für Tirol, of June 1st, of that year we find the following report: 

“A young man in rustic attire has been sitting in one of the Museum galleries for a considerable length of time, painting a copy of Karl Blaas’ tender and attractive painting, ‘The Visitation of Maria’.  Many might consider such an undertaking dangerously audacious.  This makes the final result all the more a delightful surprise.  It is currently on display in the Unterberger Art Gallery, where it is attracting numerous viewers.   This copy is not simply a technically accurate reproduction of the painting, but it is a living imitation of the act of artistic genius which brought the original into existence.  The spirit of the whole and the inmost soul of the detail have been carefully felt and breathed into the forms and the features.  The treatment of the lines and colours of the original is carried out with admirable faithfulness, if only that the contrast in the shades is somewhat starker.  The artist clearly did this deliberately, anticipating that this would be slightly softened and evened by a darkening process.  The young man’s name is Peter Rauth and he lives in the village of Mils, near Hall.  He has already done considerable work for churches and graveyards around the countryside, the chapel at Pradl itself has his altar-pieces.  The progress shown in his achievements justifies the very best expectations.  The longing for a higher level of formation is eating away at his sensitive soul.  If only he could find some generous sponsor!  But paid commissions would also help him to his goal.”

Fate was kind to the young man, because, on 30th October 1852, he was actually accepted by the Academy of Fine Arts in Munich.  Unfortunately, most of the Academy’s files were burnt during the Second World War, so there is no further information available about Peter Rauth.  The usual course length was four years.  It is, however, known that he produced a number of sketches and paintings during his time as a student in Munich, which he exhibited in Tyrol and even sold. 

After completing his course at the Academy in Munich, it looks as though Peter Rauth’s commissions increased markedly.  In 1856, the Volks- und Schützenzeitung für Tirol und Vorarlberg (6 December) gave this verdict on an Easter Tomb for Karres near Imst:

“It is in harmony with the Gothic style of the church; the central concept is simple and effective; it is not simply art as decoration, rather you notice consistently that the artist kept his religious sensibilities and his noble conception before him, and thus faithfully accomplished his difficult task.” 

A year later we find him active in the lower Inntal.   He paints the altarpiece work ‘St Juliana’ for the parish church in Terfens and a Pietà for the church at Stans – a remarkably good piece.  The painting was restored a few years ago in the Wall-Bayerfels studio in Innsbruck and is now once more on view in the parish church at Stans.  In contrast, his oil-painting of ‘Mary with the Christ Child’, produced in 1859, has been lost.  When that picture was on display in the Innsbruck Museum, the Ferdinandeum, in the year of its production, the Innsbrucker Tagsblatt (23rd September 1859) delivered this verdict:

“Two artworks currently on display in the Museum here are attracting the attention of art-lovers.  One is Peter Rauth’s ‘Mary with the Christ-child’ and the other is ‘The Saviour with the Samaritan Woman at the Well’, by Matthias Schmid, who is a very gifted alumnus of Academy of Arts in Munich, born in See in Paznaun.  The artist Rauth has already painted an altar piece for the church in Terfens, which gave grounds to hope great things from him.  And the hope has not been disappointed.  The artwork currently on display, in its concept in its draughtsmanship, and its coloration is simply outstanding.   Similarly, in the case of Schmid’s work, we have to applaud accurate draughtsmanship, the effectively chosen positioning of the characters, and the felicitous choice of tone-mixture.  And we cannot thereby suppress the honourable wish that our young fellow-Tyrolean may soon find generous sponsors, to take his part and stand at the side of this Talent, striving for greatness on the often hard pathway of Art.”

This account is all the more interesting because here alongside Rauth, his contemporary Matthias Schmid gets his first mention in the press.  Schmid, who, like Franz von Defregger and Alois Gabl, was a student of Pilotys at the Munich Academy, is rated highly today for his socially critical representations (‘Karnerleute’, ‘The Expulsion of the Zillertaler Protestants in 1837’) and representations of daily life in the countryside (‘The Birdseller’ and ‘The Lovers’).  Peter Rauth must have seen, long before 1860, that Southern Germany offered him a considerably greater scope for artistic and financial progress than Tyrol.  From this time on he worked based in Munich; however commission work always took him back to his homeland.  Thus, in 1860 he produced an altar piece, ‘St Anthony’, for the Capuchin church at Mals in Vinschgau.  His client must have been satisfied with him, because the next year he was to construct an Easter Tomb for the same church.

Between 1863 and 1865, he completed the largest commission he had ever received in Tyrol.  He was given the chance to decorate the church in Rum, where long before he had been baptised, with four large ceiling frescoes on the themes Christ, Mary, St George (the patron of the Church) and martyrs, along with two altarpieces ‘The Immaculate’ and ‘St Joseph’.  His next big commission of this kind (ceiling and wall frescoes), was undertaken in the years 1866-1866 at the parish church in Thiersee.  One last example of his larger-scale works in Tyrol during this decade was produced in 1869, an altar piece depicting St Oswald for the parish church in Alpbach.  During the following decade, the artist worked mostly in the South German region, where his residence, according to the sources, was Kiefersfelden.

In 1870, Peter Rauth received a large and prestigious commission from Scotland – he was to complete a Stations of the Cross in gigantic proportions for the Sacred Heart Church in Edinburgh.   He depicted Christ’s suffering and death on fourteen panels each of size 5 x 2½ metres.  The panels were arranged each in one of seven niches, right and left, separated by pillars in the central nave of the Church, where they can still be viewed today.  In fact, only recently, after a three-and-a-half year restoration project, they have been returned to their pristine condition.

In 1877, our artist settled in Heidelberg, opened a workshop at 4 Sandgasse, and successfully built up a steady living and even a level of prosperity.  His letterhead presents an ornate crest, printed in red, with the text, ‘Peter Rauth, Academy Painter and Church Artist’.   The artist was nearly sixty when he decided to marry.  As was usual at the time, he had to provide a ‘permission to marry’ from Mils near Hall, the community which was still his home community in law.   We can gain a closer insight into his life at the time from the letter, which he wrote to the council leaders:

“As can be seen from the prestigious testimony and public acknowledgements, I have carried out work in the Grand Archduchy of Baden on behalf of the buildings managers of the Grand Archduke and the Archbishop, on a number of churches to their greatest satisfaction.   At present, several prestigious commissions have again been passed on to me.  …  In my current circumstances, it is absolutely essential for me to have a woman to look after the house; for I am an ageing man and can no longer live alone among strangers.” 

On 11th February 1888, Peter Rauth married 26 year-old Bertha Kuhn from Laudenbach near Weinheim in the Register Office at Heidelberg.  His co-worker, Guido Armbruster, acted as witness.  That same year, the newly-married Rauths had a son, Joseph.  He became a lawyer and later worked in Dortmund. 

In 1890, Rauth was working at the Church of the Holy Cross in Bietigheim, near Stuttgart; there he decorated the vault above the choir with various scenes; that is the last reliable report about his activities.   Peter Rauth died on 27th November 1896 in his chosen hometown of Heidelberg at the age of 68.  In 1922 his wife Bertha, left to live with her son in Dortmund and herself died in Bochum in 1928.  Peter Rauth would have been a hundred years old that year.  Rauth’s works in Tyrol (from Karres, Pradl, Rum, Mils, Terfens, Alpbach to Thiersee) lasted pretty much a hundred years.  The 1950s were the height of the witchhunt against the Nazarener style.  In every place named, churches were restored, but whatever was already in place had to give way to a new concept of art.   Above all, people believed that they had to completely efface the Nazarener style.

Naturally, a quarter of a century afterwards, people were thinking quite differently again.  Alongside the Pietà in Stans, only the two altarpieces from Rum were rescued, with the local crib-guild paying for the restoration.  They were returned to their place of honour in the sanctuary of the parish church and welcomed enthusiastically by the local people.  It was only in the Capuchin Convent at Mals in Vinschgau that Peter Rauth’s works were never removed.  We are happy to leave the final judgment on this to future generations and to history:  was the style which succeeded the Nazarener artistically so much better that it justified this fatal rage for destruction? The 175th anniversary of Peter Rauth’s birth took place in 2003.  He was certainly not the only bright star in the firmament of Tyrolean artists of the nineteenth century, but he certainly came very close in his life’s work to the ideal that the ‘Lucan Brethren’ set themselves in Rome, two hundred years ago.   In his birthplace, there are no memorials at all to this important son of the village.  He has no wall-plaque, no street is named after him, he never appears in accounts of the community history.  It is only in the church that the two picture-panels ‘Joseph’ and ‘Mary’, restored by the crib-guild, offer a reminder that once there was a man called Peter Rauth.  As it says in the New Testament, ‘Never has a prophet so little respect as in his own country’ (Mark 6:1-6).   

This essay by Franz Haidacher, Peter Rauth - Zur Erinnerung an einen vergessenen Künstler aus Rum (2019) is reproduced here with permission. The translation is by John Moffat sj.

Photographs by Peter Tuffy. Images ©2019 Jesuit Church of the Sacred Heart, Edinburgh

For more on the Nazarene School, see Lionel Gossman (Princeton University), Unwilling Moderns: The Nazarene Painters of the Nineteenth Century