Publication details
„Z veliké a horlivé, též pobožné katolické náchylnosti“. Chrudimský epitaf rodiny Matyáše Heina z Heinbergu († 1653) jako obraz vzpomínání, liturgie a konverze
| Title in English | “Out of a great and fervent, as well as devout Catholic disposition.” The Chrudim epitaph of the family of Matyáš Hein of Heinberg (†1653) as an image of remembrance, liturgy, and conversion |
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| Year of publication | 2021 |
| Type | Chapter of a book |
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| Description | The study focuses on the often overlooked epitaph painting of the family of Matyáš Cyril Hein of Heinberg (†1653), which was originally part of the altar of St. Margaret in the Dean’s Church of the Assumption of the Virgin Mary in Chrudim, made in 1640. At first glance, the painting is a typical memorial object in which personal representation is linked to expressions of piety and affiliation with a collective religious identity. However, Hein’s painting is more than just an interesting example of a painting produced during the Thirty Years’ War. Through its iconography - the depiction of a sacral space dominated by an altar and a Catholic priest giving a blessing - it thematises the sacral Catholic space as a site of liturgy, in which the depicted members of the Hein family, through their ad perpetuum materialised memory, symbolically participate along with those, who are alive and take part in this memory in requiem masses. At the same time, the image is defined by typically Catholic attributes (rosaries, liturgy) that visually accentuate the context of the regular services celebrated thanks to Hein’s foundation in front of this altar. As part of the altar, the depicted requiem in Hein’s epitaph clearly expresses the current post-Tridentine liturgy and represents a distinct feature of Catholic religious identity. The painting, as well as the pious foundation of Matyáš Hein, thus clearly confirmed the propriety of the Catholic Dean’s church, which in turn “purified” itself from the previous non-Catholic (Utraquist) past of Chrudim and its churches that had dominated the town before 1620. The pictorial liturgical production was thus related to the specific confessional situation of the town in the first half of the 17th century, or rather to the position and socio-religious roles of its protagonists who variously participated in the conversion of Chrudim and its churches and religious life. |
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