Photograph: Reprofoto,  © Reprofoto © National Institute for cultural heritage © National Institute for cultural heritagePhotograph: Pavel Čech,  © Moravská galerie v BrněPhotograph: Pavel Čech,  © Moravská galerie v Brně © Národní památkový ústav v Brně © Národní památkový ústav v Brně © Národní památkový ústav v BrněPhotograph: Reprofoto,  © Reprofoto


Name of Monument:

Zelená Hora, Church of St. John of Nepomuk

Location:

Zelená Hora, Moravia, Czech Republic

Contact DetailsZelená Hora, Church of St. John of Nepomuk
Zelená Hora, near Žďár nad Sázavou, 75 km north-west of Brno
T : + 420 566 622 855
E : zel.hora@brno.npu.cz
Institute of National Heritage, Telč (Responsible Institution)

Date:

1719–1722

Artists:

Jan Blažej Santini-Aichl (1677–1723, Prague), František Benedikt Klíčník (1677 Ivanovice na Hané – 1755 Brno), Jan Pavel Čechpauer – Řehoř Thény (1695, Burgeis – 1759, Jaroměř)

Denomination / Type of monument:

Religious – Pilgrimage Church

Patron(s):

Cistercian Monastery in Žďár nad Sázavou – Abbot Václav Vejmluva (1670 Brno – 1738 Žďár nad Sázavou)

History:

The establishment of the church was associated with the upcoming beatification and canonisation of John of Nepomuk after his miraculously intact tongue had been found in his grave in St. Vitus Cathedral, Prague. The construction was initiated by V. Vejmluva, abbot of the nearby Cistercian Monastery, who named the hill above it after Zelená Hora, near Nepomuk, the martyr’s birthplace and the place from which the first Cistercians came to Žďár. In 1722 the church was consecrated and construction work continued with cloisters with five chapels and five gates. After the architect’s death, the complex was completed by F. B. Klíčník who was, like Santini, a member of the Penitent Brotherhood in the monastery which was founded in 1722.

Description:

The church construction combines two chief motifs, a tongue, and a five-pointed star, creating a unique building. The expansive intertwining shapes and movement of light provide it with a striking dynamism. Here, V. Vejmluva established a “spiritual mausoleum” for John of Nepomuk, a saint canonised in 1729, and whose cult became one of the most widespread in Central Europe.

View Short Description

This pilgrimage church is one of the most remarkable buildings in Czech lands. It combines two main motifs: a tongue, and a five-pointed star. The expansive, intertwining shapes and movement of light provide the geometrical central building with a striking dynamism. The building mythologizes in visual form a previously insignificant place and presents its origin as a divine miracle. It was here that a learned abbot of the Cistercian Monastery established a “spiritual mausoleum” for John of Nepomuk, a saint canonised in 1729, and whose cult became one of the most widespread in Central Europe.

How Monument was dated:

Historical context and archive material

Special features

Sketch of the frontage

1719

Jan Blažej Santini-Aichl (1677–1723, Prague)

The building, designed by Santini, was executed by local master bricklayers.
The sketch shows that a double staircase in the front leading to the gallery opposite the high altar was dropped. The basic layout and volume of the building were thus geometrised into perfect symmetry – situated on top of a hill – between heaven and earth.

Ground plan

1719

Jan Blažej Santini-Aichl (1677–1723, Prague)

The principal compositional element is a five-pointed star (five-pointed ground plan, five entrances, five altar niches, ten chapels surrounding the central space, five stars and five angels on the high altar), symbolising the five wounds of Christ, five letters in the Latin word tacui (“I was silent”) and, in particular, five stars in the halo of St. John of Nepomuk. Legend has it that the stars appeared in the River Vltava after the martyr had been drowned in it.

Vaulting

Interior, Church of St. John of Nepomuk

1720–1722

Jan Blažej Santini-Aichl (1677–1723, Prague)

The symbol of St. John of Nepomuk at the top of the vaulting is the central motif of the church interior. It is a symbol repeated in the shape of the pointed windows; their incorporation into “lantern” chapels above the entrance vestibules, resembles a sword in a sheath. The metaphor also appears in the legend of St. John of Nepomuk; he refused to break the confidentiality of the confessional, his tongue being like a sword in a sheath.

High altar

1720–1722

Jan Blažej Santini-Aichl (1677–1723, Prague)

The sculpted, distinctly vertical altar, symbolically shaped like a tongue, is placed within a tall arcade that reaches to the gallery on the second floor. Unlike many other constructions of its kind it does not dominate the church interior but symbolically enhances it. There is no ornamental decoration or painting. The building itself, created by matter and the work of light in space, is the sole bearer of meaning. Light is also symbolically divided in the space. In the bottom section the area is illuminated by candles, i.e. fire an earthly light, while on the first floor Divine Light enters the space through mirrors. The symbolic linking and oscillation of rays of light is portrayed in the ribbed walls of the first floor. The second floor and the top of the vaulting, where a symbol of the saint (epitomising a holy miracle) is found instead of the usual symbol of the Holy Spirit, are illuminated by pure light coming through the windows. Without a doubt this horizontal three-part approach also symbolises the Holy Trinity.

Angels

1722

Jan Pavel Čechpauer – Řehoř Thény

The decoration in the chapel originally consisted only of this group of sculpted angels bearing a celestial sphere decorated with five stars and with St. John of Nepomuk standing on top of it. The statues were created by local artists.

Selected bibliography:

Zdeněk Kudělka, in Ivo Krsek –­­ Zdeněk Kudělka (ed) –­­ Miloš Stehlík –­­ Josef Válka, Umění baroka na Moravě a ve Slezsku, Prague, 1996, pp. 274–281.
Dirk De Meyer, Johann Santini Aichl, Architectuur et ambiguiteit I-II, Eindhoven, 1997.
Mojmír Horyna, Jan Blažej Santini-Aichl, Prague, 1998, pp. 338–339.
Jiří Kroupa, in Jiří Kroupa (ed), Dans le miroir des ombres. La Moravie a la age baroque 1670–­­1790, Paris–­­Rennes–­­Brno, 2002, pp. 133–134, cat. 26.
Jiří Kroupa, Světlo jako architektonický element v tvorbě Jana Santiniho, in Morava v době baroka, Brno, 2004, pp. 78–83.
Jiří Kroupa, „Heiligkeit und Herrlichkeit in dem Heiligthum“ aneb Oslava svatořečení Jana Nepomuckého ve Žďáru, in: Lubomír Konečný – Jiří Kroupa – Michaela Šeferisová-Loudová, Orbis Atrium. K jubileu Lubomíra Slavíčka, Brno 2009, pp. 579–590.

Additional Copyright Information:

Copyright images "Národní památkový ústav v Brně": Národní památkový ústav – územní odborné pracoviště v Brně.
Copyright images "Národní památkový ústav v Telči": Národní památkový ústav – územní odborné pracoviště v Telči.

Citation of this web page:

Zora Wörgötter "Zelená Hora, Church of St. John of Nepomuk" in "Discover Baroque Art", Museum With No Frontiers, 2024. https://baroqueart.museumwnf.org/database_item.php?id=monument;BAR;cz;Mon11_D;15;en

Prepared by: Zora WörgötterZora Wörgötter

SURNAME: Wörgötter
NAME: Zora

AFFILIATION: Moravian Gallery in Brno

TITLE: Museum Curator and Local Co-ordinator

CV:
Zora Wörgötter studied Applied Painting at the Secondary School of Applied Arts, Video Art (Faculty of Fine Arts) at the University of Technology in Brno and Art History and Ethnology (Faculty of Arts) at Masaryk University, Brno. She has worked at the Moravian Gallery since 1997 and was curator of the Ancient Art Collection up until 2008. Specialising in Dutch and Central European painting of the 17th and 18th centuries, she has participated in the preparation of several exhibitions, catalogues and research projects in the Czech Republic and abroad, and published in the Moravian Gallery Bulletin, Opuscula historiae artium, and other journals. She is co-ordinator of the Art History Database www.ahice.net for the Czech Republic.

Copyedited by: Jiří KroupaJiří Kroupa

SURNAME: Kroupa
NAME: Jiří

AFFILIATION: Department of the History of Art (Faculty of Arts) Masaryk
University, Brno

TITLE: Professor

CV:
Professor Jiří Kroupa studied Art History, History and Sociology Masaryk University, Brno. He was a curator at the Kroměříž Museum and the Moravian Gallery in Brno before joining the staff at Masaryk University in 1988 (Head of the Department 1992–2002; Professor 1999 to present). His particular fields of interest are in the history of architecture, 18th-century cultural history and the methodology of art history. His long list of publications includes an edition on the architect Franz Anton Grimm and an essay “The alchemy of happiness: the Enlightenment in the Moravian context”. He was contributing editor for the volume Dans le miroir des ombres. Moravie a la age baroque. 1670–1790 (2002).

Translation by: Irma Charvátová
Translation copyedited by: Mandi GomezMandi Gomez

Amanda Gomez is a freelance copy-editor and proofreader working in London. She studied Art History and Literature at Essex University (1986–89) and received her MA (Area Studies Africa: Art, Literature, African Thought) from SOAS in 1990. She worked as an editorial assistant for the independent publisher Bellew Publishing (1991–94) and studied at Bookhouse and the London College of Printing on day release. She was publications officer at the Museum of London until 2000 and then took a role at Art Books International, where she worked on projects for independent publishers and arts institutions that included MWNF’s English-language editions of the books series Islamic Art in the Mediterranean. She was part of the editorial team for further MWNF iterations: Discover Islamic Art in the Mediterranean Virtual Museum and the illustrated volume Discover Islamic Art in the Mediterranean.

True to its ethos of connecting people through the arts, MWNF has provided Amanda with valuable opportunities for discovery and learning, increased her editorial experience, and connected her with publishers and institutions all over the world. More recently, the projects she has worked on include MWNF’s Sharing History Virtual Museum and Exhibition series, Vitra Design Museum’s Victor Papanek and Objects of Desire, and Haus der Kulturen der Welt’s online publication 2 or 3 Tigers and its volume Race, Nation, Class.

MWNF Working Number: CZ 15

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