The Assumption of Mary

In the 1750's, Franz Anton Maulbertsch (1724-1796) developed a painting style marked by expressive drama and dynamism that was new in German art. His use of light and his method of paint application rob the figures of their clear contours, dissolving their bodies into glowing, blazing extended dappled surfaces. They are surrounded by flaming, convulsing light, or immersed in diffuse, almost impermeable nocturnal darkness in a space that defies precise definition.

In his "The Assumption of Mary" (c. 1755/56) - a subject that often occupied the artist - the apostles and watchmen appear in a bold vertical format, monumental in appearance, seized by immense internal and external forces. Caught up as though raised in the air by the wonderful heavenly events, they gaze upward, agitated, bewildered, fearful, and questioning. They gain a view into another world, into which Mary, radiant like a star, is transported by angels.