The Ulrich Creutz Myth : Visual Culture in Kadaň in the Times of Jan Hasištejnský of Lobkowicz (1469-1517)
Abstract
The exhibition entitled The Ulrich Creutz Myth presents one of the peaks of visual culture of north-west Bohemia in the Late Middle Ages. The sculptor Ulrich Creutz is the author of the superb tombstone of the royal diplomat and Lord of the pledged town of Kadaň, Jan Hasištejnský of Lobkowicz (+ 1517), installed in the Church of the Fourteen Holy Helpers in the monastery of the Franciscan Friars (Observants) in Kadaň.
That same sculptor also produced a monumental panel featuring a knight in armour, possibly representing Jan's son Jaroslav II, who - together with his father - formulated the concept of the Lobkowicz family's burial site in the church of the Kadaň monastery. The art historian Josef Opitz recorded in Kadaň and its environs an unusually large and interesting group of about thirty wood sculptures dating from 1516-1530, which - based on a comparison of their sculptural forms - he attributed to Creutz.
This myth has been challenged by new research work proving that Creutz soon left Kadaň. The Kadaň wood-carving workshops that employed Creutz's earlier collaborators, produced after his departure to Saxony altarpieces with highly captivating statues of male and female saints, and above all monumental, expressive sculptures of the Crucified Christ.
The statues, faithfully depicting the human body at the moment of the last breath, with naturalistic polychromy, "real" hair and a crown of thorns, enabled beholders to feel the immediate presence of Christ, who brought them salvation through His death. The high number of extant sculptures of the Crucified Christ, together with the unusual placement of relics in the chests of some of them, suggests their connection with a special form of piety.
This type of devotion appears to have been encouraged specifically by Jan Hasištejnský, who was deeply affected by his visit the Holy Land and its sacred places in 1493, where all the events related to the end of Jesus Christ's life had taken place.