The Beuronese Art in the Church of the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus in Opava : The Marianum Convent of the Congregation of the Daughters of Divine Love
Abstract
The Marianum Convent of the Congregation of the Daughters of Divine Love in Opava (Troppau) is one of the most important Moravian-Silesian religious monuments since the beginning of the 20th century. The convent church of the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus, which was consecrated in 1910, was built in the style of a High Romanesque basilica by the construction company of Alois Geldner according to the design by the architect Adalbert Bartel.
It represents the most artistically valuable part of the convent building. In the 1920s it was considerably enhanced by uniformly designed wall paintings in the late style of the so-called second generation of the Beuron art school (after the Benedictine monastery of Beuron in the upper Danube valley, near the Black Forest/Schwarzwald and Lake Constance/Bodensee).
The paintings were done in the years 1923-1930 mainly by an artist of the Prague Emmaus monastery, P. Antonín Vrbík OSB, and dedicated to the memory of the founder of Beuronese art, P.
Desiderius Lenz OSB. This Opava church worthily closes an interesting chapter in the history of Beuronese art in the Bohemian-Moravian-Silesian region, which began after 1880 with a comprehensive reconstruction and decoration of the Emmaus monastery in Prague's New Town.