ASAM, COSMAS DAMIAN; AND ASAM, EGID QUIRIN

born Sept. 29, 1686, Benediktbeuren, Bavaria [now in Germany] died May 10, 1739, Munich born Sept. 1, 1692, Tegernsee, Bavaria died April 29, 1750, Mannheim, Palatinate Altar of the monastery church at Rohr, Germany, by Cosmas Damian Asam and Egid Quirin Asam, principal late Baroque exponents of illusionist decoration in religious architecture. The Asam brothers were part of a generation of Germans educated in Rome in the Italian Baroque tradition. Their works, primarily produced in collaboration, are notable for their profound and dramatic intensity of religious feeling. Cosmas Damian, primarily a fresco painter, and Egid Quirin, an architect and a sculptor of stucco, were the sons of Hans Georg Asam, the leading fresco painter of his generation in Bavaria. Cosmas Damian studied in Rome with Pierleone Ghezzi in 171214. The brothers' first religious commissions show the influence of Gian Lorenzo Bernini, especially in the concept of the theatrum sacrum, or sacred theatre, in which all decorative elements combine to involve the spectator in a vivid religious drama. In many of their creations, the complex weaving of architectural and decorative elements makes difficult any distinction of the brothers' individual contributions. The Church of St. John of Nepomuk in Munich (173346), also known as the Asamkirche in honour of the brothers, is their masterwork and is an early contribution to the Bavarian Rococo style. The high, narrow interior, mysteriously lit from above, is richly decorated with paint, stuccowork, sculpture, and gilt. The ceiling is decorated with painted figures ascending into a space that seems to transcend architectural boundaries. The building's relatively uncomplicated yet dramatic facade testifies to Egid Quirin's ability to generate a sense of movement in carved stone. The brothers sometimes collaborated in the decoration of buildings designed by others, as in Johann Michael Fischer's Premonstratensian abbey church in Osterhofen (172628; decoration c. 1730). Their other major works include the cloister church in the Benedictine abbey of Weltenburg (171621), where Egid Quirin's gilded sculpture St. George and the Dragon (1721), dominates the high altar, and the Ursuline church at Straubing (173841), in which the architectural plan is by Egid Quirin and the light Rococo interior, planned by Cosmas Damian, was completed by Egid Quirin after his brother's death.