Cobweb painting, sometimes known as gossamer painting, is the delicate process of painting on canvases made from caterpillar and spider webs that have been collected, layered, cleaned, and framed. Fewer than 100 cobweb paintings are known to exist, many of which are housed in private collections. [1]
Cobwebs are formed by spiders from protein and extruded from spinnerets to form fine nets. The stickiness of spiders' webs that allows them to adhere to form a 'canvas' is due to droplets of glue suspended on the gossamer threads.
Web painting (Spinnwebenbilder [2] ) is first documented in the 16th century from the Puster Valley in the Austrian Tyrolean Alps, carried out by monks who produced paintings on canvases made entirely of spiders' webs or caterpillar silk. These religious miniatures were usually painted for convents, other religious institutions, the middle classes, and the minor aristocracy. Only around 100 are known to exist, primarily held in private collections. [1]
Elias Prunner from the Puster Valley was the first secular artist to practice cobweb painting, and in 1765 he painted the Empress Maria Theresa. [3] The celebrated beauty Philippine Welser (1527–1580) married Archduke Ferdinand II of Tyrol secretly, and she settled near Innsbruck, living in the Schloss Ambras. Small paintings of Philippine in oval shaped frames were sold to tourists by Franz Unterberger (1838–1902) of Innsbruck, an artist who employed other local artists to produce the portraits. [1] These cobweb paintings were exported to England, North America and Germany in significant numbers. [3]
In the 19th and early 20th century the cobweb artists of Innsbruck painted landscapes and scenes involving local peasants, as well as military engagements of the wars of independence. [3] The industrial revolution gave many new themes for cobweb artists to paint. From 1920 onwards no new cobweb paintings from the Tyrol have been recorded. [3]
Cobweb painting is still occasionally attempted. [4]
The cobwebs obtained for the early Austrian example came from Agelenidae funnel-web spiders, whose gossamer sheets were collected in the form of a thin canvas, then put under tension to make an oval blank. The canvas can be strengthened by brushing diluted milk onto the web with great care. [1] Considerable attention must be taken to clean the web, removing insect parts, spider droppings, etc. It is noted that people were employed specifically to collect the large amount of cobwebs required for the many canvases. [3]
Chester Cathedral possesses a cobweb image of the Virgin Mary, painted on the net of the moth caterpillar Yponomeuta evonymella , probably made by Johan Burgman (d. 1825) from the Tyrol, Austria. It is a copy of a painting by Lucas Cranach I (1472–1553) in Innsbruck Cathedral (Dom zu St. Jakob), Tyrol. [5]
Oil paints can also be employed, and stippling is a technique that can be used to reduce the chance of damage to the canvas, however this can be very time-consuming. [4] Chinese ink was also sometimes used. [3]
Oil painting is the process of painting with pigments with a medium of drying oil as the binder. It has been the most common technique for artistic painting on wood panel or canvas for several centuries, spreading from Europe to the rest of the world. The advantages of oil for painting images include "greater flexibility, richer and denser colour, the use of layers, and a wider range from light to dark". But the process is slower, especially when one layer of paint needs to be allowed to dry before another is applied.
Innsbruck is the capital of Tyrol and the fifth-largest city in Austria. On the River Inn, at its junction with the Wipp Valley, which provides access to the Brenner Pass 30 km (19 mi) to the south, it had a population of 132,493 in 2018.
The history of Tyrol, a historical region in the middle alpine area of Central Europe, dates back to early human settlements at the end of the last glacier period, around 12,000 BC. Sedentary settlements of farmers and herders can be traced back to 5000 BC. Many of the main and side valleys were settled during the early Bronze Age, from 1800 to 1300 BC. From these settlements, two prominent cultures emerged: the Laugen-Melaun culture in the Bronze Age, and the Fritzens-Sanzeno culture in the Iron Age.
An altarpiece is an artwork such as a painting, sculpture or relief representing a religious subject made for placing at the back of or behind the altar of a Christian church. Though most commonly used for a single work of art such as a painting or sculpture, or a set of them, the word can also be used of the whole ensemble behind an altar, otherwise known as a reredos, including what is often an elaborate frame for the central image or images. Altarpieces were one of the most important products of Christian art especially from the late Middle Ages to the era of the Counter-Reformation.
Jakob Hutter was a Tyrolean Anabaptist leader and founder of the Hutterites.
Brixen is a town in South Tyrol, northern Italy, located about 40 kilometres (25 mi) north of Bolzano.
Michael Pacher was a painter and sculptor from Tyrol active during the second half of the fifteenth century. He was one of the earliest artists to introduce the principles of Renaissance painting into Germany. Pacher was a comprehensive artist with a broad range of sculpting, painting, and architecture skills producing works of complex wood and stone. He painted structures for altarpieces on a scale unparalleled in North European art.
Bruneck (German pronunciation: [ˈbrʊnɛk]; Italian: Brunico[bruˈniːko] or [ˈbruːniko] Ladin: Bornech or Burnech; Latin: Branecium or Brunopolis is the largest town in the Puster Valley in the Italian province of South Tyrol.
The Prince-Bishopric of Brixen was an ecclesiastical principality of the Holy Roman Empire in the present-day northern Italian province of South Tyrol. It should not be confused with the larger Catholic diocese, over which the prince-bishops exercised only the ecclesiastical authority of an ordinary bishop. The bishopric in the Eisack/Isarco valley was established in the 6th century and gradually received more secular powers. It gained imperial immediacy in 1027 and remained an Imperial Estate until 1803, when it was secularised to Tyrol. The diocese, however, existed until 1964, and is now part of the Diocese of Bolzano-Brixen.
The Puster Valley is one of the largest longitudinal valleys in the Alps that runs in an east-west direction between Lienz in East Tyrol, Austria, and Mühlbach near Brixen in South Tyrol, Italy. The South Tyrolean municipalities of the Puster Valley constitute the Puster Valley district.
Karl von Blaas was an Austrian painter known for his portraits and religious compositions executed on canvas as well as in the form of frescoes.
Innichen is a municipality in South Tyrol in northern Italy.
Ambras Castle is a Renaissance castle and palace located in the hills above Innsbruck, Austria. Ambras Castle is 632 metres (2,073 ft) above sea level. Considered one of the most popular tourist attractions of the Tyrol, Ambras Castle was built in the 16th century on the spot of an earlier 10th-century castle, which became the seat of power for the Counts of Andechs. The cultural and historical importance of the castle is closely connected with Archduke Ferdinand II (1529–1595) and served as his family's residence from 1567 to 1595. Ferdinand was one of history's most prominent collectors of art. The princely sovereign of Tyrol, son of Emperor Ferdinand I, ordered that the medieval fortress at Ambras be turned into a Renaissance castle as a gift for his wife Philippine Welser. The cultured humanist from the House of Habsburg accommodated his world-famous collections in a museum: the collections, still in the Lower Castle built specifically for that museum's purpose, make Castle Ambras Innsbruck one of the oldest museums in the world.
Christopher Unterberger, also Christoph or Cristoforo was an Italian painter of the early-Neoclassical period.
Georg Mader was an Austrian painter.
Innsbruck Cathedral, also known as the Cathedral of St. James, is an eighteenth-century Baroque cathedral of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Innsbruck in the city of Innsbruck, Austria, dedicated to the apostle Saint James, son of Zebedee. Based on designs by the architect Johann Jakob Herkomer, the cathedral was built between 1717 and 1724 on the site of a twelfth-century Romanesque church. The interior is enclosed by three domed vaults spanning the nave, and a dome with lantern above the chancel. With its lavish Baroque interior, executed in part by the Asam brothers, St. James is considered among the most important Baroque buildings in the Tyrol.
The Hofburg is a former Habsburg palace in Innsbruck, Austria, and considered one of the three most significant cultural buildings in the country, along with the Hofburg Palace and Schönbrunn Palace in Vienna. The Hofburg is the main building of a large residential complex once used by the Habsburgs that still includes the Noblewomen's Collegiate Foundation, the Silver Chapel, the Hofkirche containing Emperor Maximilian's cenotaph and the Schwarzen Mandern, the Theological University, the Tyrolean Folk Art Museum, Innsbruck Cathedral, the Congress, and the Hofgarten.
The conservation and restoration of paintings is carried out by professional painting conservators. Paintings cover a wide range of various mediums, materials, and their supports. Painting types include fine art to decorative and functional objects spanning from acrylics, frescoes, and oil paint on various surfaces, egg tempera on panels and canvas, lacquer painting, water color and more. Knowing the materials of any given painting and its support allows for the proper restoration and conservation practices. All components of a painting will react to its environment differently, and impact the artwork as a whole. These material components along with collections care will determine the longevity of a painting. The first steps to conservation and restoration is preventive conservation followed by active restoration with the artist's intent in mind.
The Tirol Panorama with the Museum of the Imperial Infantry or Tirol Panorama is a museum in Innsbruck in the Austrian state of Tyrol, which is mainly important because it houses the Innsbruck Giant Panorama Painting.
Gabriele Maria Deininger-Arnhard (31 July 1855 in Munich – 19 October 1945 Rum, Tyrol) was a German-Austrian painter.
