CCCA Fact Sheet |

Suffering, Death, and Consolation On Works of Memorial, Funerary, and Sepulchral Culture

in Franz Weiß’s Oeuvre Günther Jontes

The artist Franz Weiß expresses the images of his mindscape not only through his candid way of fashioning the world, and by putting them into the adorning service of cult and ritual; he is also one of but few contemporary artists who dedicate themselves to interpreting the ultimate events of, and the ministries performed during, the final stage of a human’s life. In creating unique grave markers and profound ornamentations for buildings and objects related to memorial and funerary culture, he consistently addresses a distinct artistic concern. His murals, panel paintings, mosaics and enamels bestow upon many a graveyard, war memorial, funeral chapel, and burial ground the vivid colourfulness so typical of Franz Weiß’s art, which has been a distinctive colourful examples of faith between the worlds of the living and the dead in the often melancholy air of 20th- and 21st-century cemeteries with their mainly prefabricated atmosphere determined by stone and metal, appearing only slightly more comforting due to colourful flower arrangements.

In that respect, Franz Weiß has chosen a path whose origins lie in the historical depths of funerary and sepulchral art. Man’s general attitude toward death and dying has always inevitably determined the artistic interpretation of all things connected to the end of a human life. This is why cemeteries, burial places, and graves have typically been indicative of intellectual movements and contemporary zeitgeist, and why, in a particular way, they constitute testimonials and sources of history, art history, and cultural history. In our day and in the Austrian context – particularly in his native region – Franz Weiß has become a formative artist in this vein. In a manner of speaking, his art is a-temporal. As a naïvely colourful vision it transcends the intellect and fully draws on the traditions of popular piety. Anachronistically foregoing all “modern” contemporary artistic styles, it continues a tradition of historicising Expressionism as shaped by the generation of Weiß’s teachers at Graz Art School, which he, however, strips of its wistfulness and musing as well as of its frenzy and ferocity. The serenity and harmony of his images emanate from Franz Weiß’s very own Christian piety, which has always remained deeply rooted within the naïve popular traditions of his Western Styrian homeland.

Providing an insight into the development of these tendencies should serve as a means of positioning the artist within the content-related, formal, and artistic practices of funerary art.

A longing to tend the dead even beyond their passing, to accompany them with symbolic and practical acts and to finally bury them – that is to say, to not just leave their remains to the dissolving powers of nature – is profoundly human and leads into the deepest depths of spiritual and material culture. The notion that man continues to exist beyond death in a transformed state of being is an essential belief in all religions; it is the origin and goal of deliberations concerning the dimensions of human existence; it is an agonising question and may at the same time serve as a redemptive answer, which provides a means of orientation as to how we as individuals ought to act and live our lives. In all religions and in all transcendence-oriented thinking, death is a transition stage which mankind has envisioned as a gate to eternal bliss or damnation, as a new beginning in terms of reincarnation, or, less hopefully, as eternal sleep.

Christianity regards our overcoming of earthly mortality as a transformed state of existence in God. It is through believing in Christ’s death and resurrection that this idea has been auspiciously incorporated into the divine plan of creation in an, as it were, historically comprehensible manner. Christ was resurrected in human form and the same will come true for all humankind. And they who are Christian profess in the Creed their faith in the “resurrection of the flesh” on the Day of Judgment, when Christ as Judge of the World will separate the good from the evil, as it is explicitly expressed in the Creed itself. Does that make the grave obsolete, temporary, or something undeserving of too much travail? The cultural history of Christianity and the forms expression we find in various eras of Christian art tell us otherwise, even though ideas related to the grave and to interment have always been strongly influenced by the respective zeitgeist.

Christianity as a religion has not departed from the basic truths dogmatically formulated in theology, according to which death, resurrection, judgement, and eternal life form inalienable basic positions. However, visions of the next world are strongly determined by elements inherent in culture, especially since the Bible – other than Mahayana-Buddhism, Taoism, or Islam –

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has little concrete to offer in terms of promises of the hereafter. “You will be with me in paradise today”, Christ promises to the Penitent Thief. St. Paul only addresses the ungraspable secret of an existence with God in the afterlife, without describing it in any definite way, only as removed from any earthly experience.

In the Christian sense, the grave is therefore only a temporary location, which receives the physical, material remains of the mortal human being until the trumpets of Judgement Day will sound. Judaism views this similarly and allows the dead an undisturbed grave, which should not be troubled by exhumation or the addition of another body. However, it is the arrival of the Messiah who will fashion an ideal kingdom on earth, which all dead will populate as newly animated.

People have been buried in many a way and form throughout the history of humanity, ranging from the burial in earth, quasi in the lap of Mother Nature, to cremation as a radical way of separating body and soul, to other forms which are necessitated by the environment, such as Tibetan “sky burials” and burial at sea. Religions, such as in Ancient Egypt and pre-Columbian America, where a material life in the afterlife was linked to the complete preservation of the mortal body, developed particular cultural forms of burials. These enable us today to draw conclusions about the lives of these people based on the testament of their death.

The Bible talks about man returning to dust and ash. Yet it also says that man will rise again in bodily form, from which Christian theology draws the notion that the body is to be buried unharmed, since it will regain its form in the flesh. In dark phases, destroying of the body through fire was therefore reserved for erring humanity as an additional punishment for those condemned to death as heretics and magicians or blasphemers and witches.

An additional ideological element must not be overlooked: In the early times of Christianity, in the heathen Roman Empire, the most common removal of human remains from the realms of the living was on the funeral pyre. Moreover, already the city of Rome’s oldest laws forbade interment within the city walls, so that cremations and funerals occurred outside of the settlement, mostly along outbound roads. Necropoli arose, whose sepulchral monuments gave families the opportunity to cast the right light onto their dead, and thus themselves, depending on the families’ social, economic, and cultural status. Subterranean columbaria, where the cinerary urns were placed in simple alcoves in the walls, were more modest.

Christians began to outwardly distance themselves

from these traditional ways of burning the bodies, and took to favouring inhumation, which incidentally also had a marginal existence in heathen Rome. The political development of the 19th and early 20th centuries shows that for a century this division was noticeable also in reverse in more recent European history. The culture struggle between the state, political forces, and the Catholic Church in Germany and Austria-Hungary, and between the Church and the Free Masons in Italy and France forced cremation as a distinguishing feature. Its emergence can be observed in the First Austrian Republic, where social democracy with its free thought movements regarded the conversion to Protestantism (not having a religious affiliation was no option under the law) as a political variant of protest against Christian-Social politics. Therefore, in their call to fight political Catholicism, cremation was promoted. Protestants of both creeds and the only marginally represented Old Catholics had never acted against cremation. For the Catholic Church this position was a challenge of faith, which led to excommunication and refusal of all burial ceremonies. After World War Two, an increasingly flexible and more relaxed atmosphere arose between the two blocks of social democrats and the Church; and consequently, from 1961 onwards, cremation was also tolerated by the Catholic Church, so that today both forms receive equal ritual blessings. It is clear that this vicissitude also resulted in changes of expression in funerary culture.

However, let us return to the early days of funerary and sepulchral culture. Rome, antique city of millions, had to struggle with mounting problems in the removal of human remains. As an alternative to the pressures of lack of space in the growing necropoli above ground, the building of subterranean cities of the dead was a possibility. The catacombs were built into the easily carved tuff surrounding the city. For a long time, the city’s predominantly Christian character and the according inhumation prompted the misinterpretation it were the burial place of the bodies of Christian blood witnesses, i.e. of martyrs. The Christian burial sites were already places of a death cult of remembrance within the subterranean labyrinths of graves forgotten during the times of Rome’s decline in late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages. Sepulchral inscriptions indicated the names, social position, and sometimes biographical details of the dead, and marked their religious affiliation with the cross, as well as showing the at the time common, while previously still cryptic, sign of salvation: the Monogram of Christ and the fish.

Burial grounds of heathen Roman Antiquity were epoch-wise and regionally differentiated monuments, which served as reminders of the dead, their position in the family and in society, their deeds and achievements, and their lives. Cultures, religions, and ideologies strongly bound to earthly concerns placed great importance on such monuments, which were

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supposed to paint a beautified picture of the dead for posterity. The size and expressiveness of these monuments was in direct correlation to the social and economic position of the deceased. Within the structure of a funerary monument, the Romans recounted in very formal diction the cursus honorum on the actual gravestone, the titulus; for military personnel it, e.g., listed the rank, affiliation with a military corpse, honours, and years of service. A civilian’s cursus honorum encompassed genealogical relationships, ranks in civil service, titles in cultural organisations, professions, and the age in relative chronology. Portrait representations drew direct links to the dead, and reliefs containing scenes of their professional and social life illustrated the statements made in the titulus. The religious sphere was protected from demonic influence via apotropaic symbols such as Medusa. The ornate monuments were enveloped by servant figures who accompany the offerings to the dead, and by superordinate mythological and divine figures that fell prey to the tolerant Roman mind-set in the non-Italian provinces of the Empire and were consequently re-interpreted according to the interpretatio romana and thus added to the classic pantheon. There were also representations of the seasons, as well as bucolic and Elysian elements. Depictions of dolphins, which can be understood as intermediaries between the above and the below, were also frequent. The eagle as a symbol of Jupiter signified Olympic heights, while lupa accompanied by Romulus and Remus pointed at the mythological depth of the origins of Rome’s glory.

This kind of funerary art declined during late Antiquity, which did not only find expression in a growing stylisation of the figural elements toward an expressive form and in a notable transformation of the typeface towards a cursive volatility; it was obviously also rooted in a new mind set which practiced the tradition of remembrance under Christian aspects. Funerary inscriptions point toward the faith of the dead and express the hope of resurrection. The misinterpretation of such inscriptions during the rather uncritical centuries of the catacombs’ early discovery – i.e., actually up until the early 19th century – led to the boom of “catacomb saints”, whose bones were universally regarded as the relicts of early Christian martyrs and consequently subject to veneration without reflection.

At least there are highest-ranking blood witnesses, such as St. Peter, Prince of Apostles; his grave was identified through authentic epigraphic traces, and its location could be verified with modern scientific methods.

In the Early Middle Ages, the predominant notion was one which assumed the idea that the soul of the

deceased rests with God, and that the interment ought to be as close as possible to holy ground, and thereby in proximity to the execution of the mass for the dead. It was thought that this was of crucial importance to the quality of the fate in the afterlife. For the most part, anonymity of the location of the burial sites of individuals became more common, and only the highest ranking individuals, such as monarchs and hierarchs of the church were given a marked grave. A number of factors contributed to this development: the newly emerging system of indulgence, the opinion that such sites providing a proximity to God were privileged, and further the fact that cemeteries and burial places were increasingly linked to the way in which the parishes identified with church law. This attitude caused even the burial sites of saints to be forgotten, which is impressively illustrated by the fates and stories of rediscovery of the graves containing the bodies and relics of individuals such as St Peter in Rome, St Mark in Venice, or St Virgil in Salzburg.

It was only from the High Middle Ages onwards that individuality was once again emphasised specifically. Determining the location of the relicts and graves of saints gained new importance through the increased form of veneration of these material remains. Spiritual and secular hierarchs adopted this notion for themselves, which led to the rise of a new culture of gravestones, which oriented itself on the image of the living. This allowed a representation of the dead in the splendour of their pontificates or secular dignities. The artistic and formal representation developed from the ideal image to the portrait over merely a few centuries, from the Romanesque to the late Gothic period. The functional step from relief stones covering graves on the ground to wall epitaphs can be explained due to increasingly required space for dignitary graves inside sacral buildings. After the 13th century, when heraldry was already governed by strict rules, the pride of the nobility and the inclination toward representing positions within the estates of the realm also led to grave stones which only bore a coat of arms. During this time, little Christian symbolism other than the symbol of the cross and hardly any concrete relationship between rank and belief of the deceased were to be felt. An expression of religious affiliation was not yet necessary, since the confessional and cultural connection to the one Church was still unbroken.

This was to change completely from the 16th century (i.e., the century of Reformation) onwards, when grave markers gained a value of political and confessional expression. The compositions of gravestone reliefs became more schematic: the central image of Christ Crucified was usually flanked on either side by the members of the family, separated by gender, who were kneeling in worship. Most of the time, sepulchral stones were not created for individuals, but rather

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related to the entire family with parents and children, or at least a married couple. Grave stones were crafted during the advanced age of the father of the family, and also late wives and children were represented; even offspring who had passed away as infants were incorporated. In case of deaths, banderols bearing the inscription of names were marked with an engraved cross. Uplifting grave inscriptions, which had before run along the edge of the stone relieves, mutated to “captions”. Apart from the solitary image of Christ Crucified, other significant biblical scenes can be found on the gravestones and epitaphs of Protestants: the Resurrection of Christ, Jonah leaving the whale, the programmatic image of law and mercy, etc. Verbal quotations completed the signalled confession of a pro-reformation stance in the new times. Incidentally, Catholics also took to the new kind of sepulchral art, so that both faiths entered the counter-reformatory Baroque in the same manner. The titulus specified very precisely the markers of nobility, offices and honours, especially if they were connected to the reigning nobility. As in the Gothic period, coats of arms were meticulously reproduced and incorporated to great effect. This effect was significantly enhanced by the addition of colour, which meant that painted reliefs first introduced colour into the epitaphs’ world of stone, especially in the protective interior of sacral buildings. Prior to this, colour was only to be found in landscapes with a particular tendency towards stone in-lay in the vein of pietra dura, as we know it from the Cosmati tradition in Rome, or as we find them on the representative grave stones of the Knights of the Sovereign Order of Malta. The upper echelons of the middle classes also followed the example set by the nobility. Usurped coats of arms, emblems of houses, occupational titles, symbols of crafts and trades, honours in the political and administrative realm of the cities and markets all created the impression of societal significance.

If one considers how grave memorials were created in the Middle Ages and in the Early Modern period, one must not be misled by assuming that the remaining heritage of funerary culture of these epochs is representative for the phenomenon as a whole. In reality, the amount of memorials has been greatly reduced by both internal and external events. Only where the favour of conservation through constant care or through negligence and therefore preservation was present, where buildings and locality have remained, is where grave memorials endured, with some luck, until our exploratory and investigative times. This occurred most frequently in the context of sacral buildings, whereby a cemetery surrounding a parish church is often only recognisable as such due to the remaining wall of the church yard and the memorials and gravestones

incorporated in the church’s exterior walls. The area between those walls had originally been filled with a mass of grave markers, which consisted of wood for the lower and middle classes, or in the best cases, of wrought iron. Here, relatively few have been preserved in their original state. Iron crosses can be traced back roughly into the 17th century, and the metal is also used in cast iron memorials from the Neo-Classical period onward. Wooden grave crosses in their original state can only be traced back as far as the first half of the 20th century at the most. Occasionally, image sources tell us of the appearance of cemeteries in times before that. And yet, these grave markers did and still do determine the appearance of Christian cemeteries around the world, since crypts, crypt arcades, and mausoleums in cemeteries are always only exceptions.

Today, gravestones and grave crosses are the standard grave markers of well-organised cemeteries and thus represent the sphere of influence accompanying remnants of a funerary art which has been able to make its way into the minimalist and frugal time and society which is relatively far removed from uniformly applicable taste and which fosters representation differently in its social context. The repression of dying and death in our times has also left its trace.

Cemetery structures in the artist’s range of work

Cemeteries are the actual locations of Weiß’s work in the area of funerary culture. Entrances to and the walls of cemeteries as well as central cemetery crosses on the one hand, and, chapels of rest on the other hand, comprehensively and immediately mark the realms of death and its ritual as well as the spiritual processing of it. Grave crosses and other forms of sepulchral monuments, in contrast, are unique expressions of remembrance of families and individuals.

War memorials, on the other hand, are frequently not tied to cemeteries. They can often be found in the centre of villages and small towns, or appear adjoining or integrated into church buildings. Respectively, these can only ever be places of remembrance, since soldiers inherently meet their deaths far away from home and are also buried there.

Cemeteries in designated areas of cities show an almost uniform picture in our present area under consideration. The spaces in front of them offer corresponding car parks, due to comprehensive motorisation and cemeteries being located outside built-up areas. Often, cemeteries are also integrated into the public transport system. Over a long time, we have become used to finding stone mason businesses with their display areas of funerary memorials as well as flower shops and gardening centres in the proximity of cemeteries in urban areas. Within the cemetery walls, orderly paths dominate, or, corresponding to the

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cemetery’s age, avenues with an older population of trees, hedges, and areas of grass. Forest cemeteries are rare in our part of the world. Park benches designate the cemetery as a location of recreation and reflection. Waste disposal and water points serve relatives who care for the graves. Even the devices of the cult of light are available at all times through candle vending machines.

The first renewal phase of funeral and ceremony halls – which had been built at the same time the cemeteries were founded and had been fully sufficient in the 19th century – started in the late 1960s and early 1970s. As the practice of laying out the dead at home ceased, the frequency at the cemeteries increased to an unmanageable extent. This forced a building boom, which placed the resulting buildings architecturally in a pre-postmodern style, but created functional structures which allowed for administration, laying out and depositing the deceased within one building complex. Covered areas for ceremonies, which could be used in all weather, changed the image of the place of bidding farewell: no more berths or niches for the few hours before the funeral or wake, but rather friendly, wide open areas without gloomy grandeur, allowing for new opportunities of directing the light.

While before black velvet, silver decorations, plants with dark green foliage, and candles determined the setting (also emotionally), the turn in cemetery architecture may also mean that art represents a consoling element and a decoration of the rooms where we spend our last hours with the deceased. Long since, the cross, obligatory in Christian funerals, has no longer been the sole decoration. Abstract as well as figurative glass windows integrated into the architecture, murals functioning as paintings, mosaics of relief as well as sculptures can be part of the inventory of a funeral or ceremonial hall. Their artistic quality as well as that of the architecture which houses them depends on so many differing factors that they cannot be listed here. Our world of emotions is always inextricably linked with kitsch, which is offered to us and demanded by us unconsciously. The acoustic irradiation with all kinds of music, yet still adhering to a very narrow spectrum, appears to be an inescapable part of it.

The grave fields of a cemetery in our time and in our everyday culture are subject to constant change. This means that the original substance of grave markers and memorials from the time of their inceptions is continually diluted. Ethnographers and art historians require a predominantly pictorial documentation of the stock, since communal and church administrations can or want to deal with this only in exceptional circumstances. Cemetery monographs, which are published nowadays in increasing

numbers, understandably dedicate themselves often only to urban showpieces, and primarily to those of famous individuals or historically interesting works of sepulchral art. What is common and therefore determines the very essence is often neglected.

Generally, the graves of financially powerful families achieve a greater age. On the one hand, these families can care for and preserve graves over generations due to their economic power. On the other hand, interested parties often bought unchanged older funerary monuments, which had frequently been erected as burial crypts or mausoleums along the outer or partitioning cemetery walls, after the expiration of the circle of carers. These monuments were obtained because they had been built in times of figurative conciseness, high craftsmanship, or even artistic quality during the periods of Historicism, Symbolism, and Art Nouveau/Secession and enabled those who bought them to found their own familial tradition of tombs, which continues to have a sociological factor influencing representation of the present day parvenu.

Today the new and newest gravestones and crosses, which are undergoing a constant process of change, form the main type and greater number of grave markers. Here, the formal designs are rather conservative. Today, gravestones are, for the most part, ready made products of common ashlar from around the world. It is possible that the native Sölk marble or the unhewn alpine rock carries with it certain emotional associations because of its origin in the home land. Valuable labradorite or other exotics from overseas, right up to the famous marble from Carrara, can once again be a measure of the client’s need to impress.

While column and pyramid monuments are only present in the historic stock, the most prevailing form of gravestone since the Second World War is the ledger slab, which is positioned above ground, with an inscription and symbolic or figurative decorations. One observable common trend in terms of content is the sparse expression in the inscription. Once it was common for gravestones to display rhymes or aphorisms citing the classics, glorification in the titling, functions and achievements, mentions of a noteworthy cause of death, a portrait in relief or photograph, and, apart from the dates of birth and death, also other notable life events. A religious symbol was indispensable.

Today, name, title, and basic dates are standard on ready-made gravestones. Symbols of salvation are usually restricted to a reduced cross. In cremations, the brazier or tongues of flames no longer carry significance of ideological or political character. Due to the growing number of cremations, fields of urns and walls of remembrance are now a part of every large cemetery. One can also notice the multicultural foreign

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infiltration in the existence of Muslim graves, whose appearance and orientation has been fed by very different traditions.

In urban areas, a growing number of wrought iron crosses have been noticeable over the past few decades, which had previously only been associated with rural or village cemeteries in more recent cemetery culture up to the 20th century. Even those are now ready-made and have been commercialised to the point of being warehouse goods. The myth of the village smith appreciative of art is gone, and there are now only few craftsmen who are able to create either traditional forms appropriate to style or material, or new ones which are aesthetically pleasing and suitable for the purpose. Here lies one of the starting points for the work of Franz Weiß, who has replaced the folkloristic form of decoration with impermanent paint on metal with the durable enamel technique. He thus introduced a new, colourful element into a world dominated by stone and monotone colour gradation, which up to that point had only been enlivened by the decoration of graves with seasonal flowers.

Possibilities of applying artistic composition in the area of funerary culture

One glance at the types of objects of memorial culture now present in the artist’s sphere of work in Austria, and especially in his home region of Styria, where his studio is located, also indicates the possibilities and restrictions which the artist is subject to with regard to his work and other contributions to the decor of funerary and sepulchral art. Not everything here is pictorial design of graves.

In terms of intellectual and spiritual function, there are three large areas in which Weiß has pictorially expressed his mindscapes concerning the final things in life. These will be dealt with here in the respective order of reference.

In War Memorial (Kriegerdenkmal) in the War Memorial to Soldiers and Victims (Krieger und Kriegsopfergedenkstätte), Weiß puts emphasis on a sector of memorial culture which is not necessarily linked to specific sacral locations, but rather to the public milieu. Especially in rural areas and villages, such memorials form the epicentre of many celebrations in the course of the year, and of identity-establishing local associations and clubs. Since the dead soldier usually rests in foreign soil, such a memorial is also a replacement for an individual grave inaccessible for mourning. The lack of a grave is still a psychological problem today, which in Styria was, for instance, discussed after the Lassing mining disaster in 1998, where the bodies of ten miners could only have been recovered with enormous effort and under great danger. Therefore, a memorial

to the dead was erected at the site of the accident; the victims’ bodies resting somewhere below it. Victims of mining disasters, who died together, are – like soldiers – frequently also buried together.

Despite all iconoclastic tendencies at the end of the 20th and the beginning of the 21st century, the societal value of war memorials has remained and can therefore still be linked to more or less artistic activities in village environments. War and the experiences of war, to cause and suffer death as a soldier – all of this the artist Franz Weiß had experienced himself during World War Two. It is well known that his most personal work – the chapel Maria Knotenlöserin (“Mary Untier of Knots”) in the Tregist Valley near Voitsberg, not far from his home and studio – arose out of this personal drama and trauma.

Veterans’ organisations such as the Austrian Fellowship of Comrades (Kameradschaftsbund) play an important role in the village life, even if their significance is diminishing due to the gradual erosion of the division between rural and urban areas, as well as the war generation slowly dying out. They are also of the utmost importance in ordering or initiating war memorials and their restorations.

However, not everything should be interpreted as a war memorial. Thus, a borderless relief engraving by Franz Weiß, created in 1993 in Stiwoll, Western Styria, was commissioned out of a different motivation, namely to address the soldier’s responsibility for peace. It commemorates the 110 year anniversary of the Austrian Fellowship of Comrades and refers to Swiss peacemaker Saint Nicholas of Flüe (1417–1487).

In the decoration of funeral halls and their environments, Weiß enters the ritually and societally relevant realm of ceremony surrounding those who lie in repose, of spiritual accompaniment, ceremonies of farewell, of remembrance, consecration, and of the spiritual and human consolation surrounding the loss of a human life. As a Christian artist, he does not lose himself in nature symbolism, which can so often be found in more strongly secularised urban areas. Instead, he follows the religiously pre-determined path of the prophecy of resurrection within Christ’s overcoming of death.

From 1986 onward, Franz Weiß also created two types of work which had thus far not been found in his oeuvre. Both can be decidedly assigned to the imagery of funerary culture. These are monumental decorations of cemetery entrances, which lead from the world of the living to that of the dead.

Also grave crosses belong to the furnishing of cemeteries. With their central position and monumentality, they form a connection between Christ and the death of man, and at the same time they announce the fundamental religious truth of the resurrection of the dead.

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Through grave markers, the artist finally approaches the individual whose grave decor is supposed to create a relationship between the death and eternal life of a very specific human being, laid down by name and biography. The person’s Christian name in particular offers Weiß an important starting point for the Christian characterisation of the grave and of the individual sheltered within it, through the traditional form of the respective namesake saint.

Coffin painting (Sargbemalung) represents a special case within Franz Weiß’s oeuvre; he developed it after the death of the cultural anthropologist and local politician Hanns Koren († 1985), who had been his friend and benefactor. Nothing in his body of work had been as impermanent as this truly unique creation. One would have to go back as far as the late Baroque or Neo-Classic periods in order to find local models for this.

On funeral halls as monumental forms

Weiß’s architecture-related decorative art for funeral halls and war memorials draws closest to his works of church art, both formally and in terms of size.

A funeral hall is not a sacral building in the Christian sense; it is neither a church nor a chapel. In terms of its function, it has not been rooted in European funerary culture for very long. In Christian tradition, taking farewell of a deceased has always been characterised by a period of time restricted by specific factors. The course of activities and ceremonial acts following the death of a human being consisted of shorter and longer events. These took approximately three days in total, which corresponds to the hygienic requirements determined by the beginning decomposition of the human body. Leading up to the actual funeral were the following events: washing and dressing the body; ordering and delivery of the coffin by the nearest responsible craftsman; putting the body into the coffin; laying out the corpse; death vigil; prayers; visits of condolence and the invitation to the funeral. This was followed by the final blessing at the grave site, the death mass, and the funeral meal.

The time of preparation and laying out the corpse were, naturally, linked to the house in which the person had died, and where everyday life with its basic forms of work and rest had to continue. This three-day-pattern applied to both rural and urban areas, and was only disrupted for those who had occupied a high social rank; etiquette, political weight and dynastic representation allowed persons of the ruling classes a higher level of flexibility. Often weeks passed between the death and the funeral, due to building and erecting the castrum doloris, the process of embalming, and the creation of an artificial body for viewing during the deceased’s lying in state on a

catafalque, the printing of ceremonial scripts, decorations for mourning, etc. Of course, in such cases the localities available for the mourning pageantry were the representative buildings of the rulers, such as their castles and the royal chapel. The funeral itself was no longer a journey into the womb of the earth, but rather ended in the subterranean princely crypt. Here, the free-standing sarcophagi allowed a representation of political and religious symbols, as well as aesthetic categories, beyond the death of the deceased and towards earthly eternity.

In contrast to this, victims of epidemics were regarded as a source of danger to the health of the living, and were thus disposed of unconventionally and as swiftly as possible. Often, these “exceptional dead” were transported to mass graves within hours of their death; evidence of plague pits and similar can be found in historical facts and legends. However, the rationalism of the Enlightenment and the 19th century led to the creation and development of a new type of cemetery building within the standards of funerary culture: the funeral hall or funeral parlour. In contrast to Western Europe (Paris, London), big Austrian cities did not establish city morgues, which – located away from the cemeteries – abetted the macabre curiosity of the citizens on the one hand, and served to concentrate potential carriers of epidemics in the form of the bodies.

In the 18th century, when human anatomy, physiology, and pathology increasingly developed into areas of research in serious science, the social phenomenon of fearing a state of apparent death arose. Far into the 19th century, it caused mass psychoses, which people sought to alleviate with rational, and in some cases rather bizarre, methods and practices. Already during the time of Josephinism it was believed that true death was best determined by closely observing the body during the time it was laid out until the first signs of decomposition could be observed. For this purpose, the installation of so-called packing chambers in the cemeteries was ordered. In principle, these constituted the first funeral halls. However, they were used with little appreciation, since the social prestige associated with a viewing at home was not conferred onto them. The communal and multi-confessional cemeteries in the fast growing cities of the 19th century already contained buildings for this purpose. To this day, these accommodate the majority of the deceased until the funeral, and serve an administrative, hygienic, and even artistic and aesthetic purpose, as well as functioning as depository.

In rural areas, for a while nothing really changed, i.e., the viewing of the body took place at home, followed by the funeral procession from the home to the church and the cemetery. Placing the body in a morgue was seen as a sign of wretchedness and lack of reverence.

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Taking farewell of the dead in their last residence allowed all opportunities to follow moral and customary duties: the social status of the deceased and their family could be documented; hospitality as well as communal remembrance and prayer could be cultivated. This only changed when the cultural and social convergence of town and country led to the building of funeral halls in rural communities; these were sometimes euphemistically called ceremonial halls. As mentioned already, the wish to cope with funerary tasks in a rational manner, along with emotionally brighter ceremonial rooms, led to new solutions in architecture, which offered a wider scope for artistic embellishment. This is why Franz Weiß contributed numerous works to this type of funerary architecture.

Franz Weiß’s war memorials and monuments to the victims of war

1951 – War memorial at the parish church St. Oswald in Graden Franz Weiß created his first war memorial on the south side of this Western Styrian parish church under the immediate influence of the events in World War Two. The artist had returned from the war externally unharmed and whole, however his experiences began to preoccupy him increasingly. The post-war era was one, in which rural communities, which up until the War had been relatively closed and tight in their family and social structures, tried to come to terms with the shock of having lost many men in their prime. An even greater number had been killed than in World War One.

In order to carry out his commission and put his thoughts concerning the theme of “Dying as a Soldier” into concrete terms, the artist had a niche available to him. This was overlooking the cemetery which surrounds the church. Weiß decorated this room entirely in frescoes. The wide, yet not very deep, niche is occupied by the altar mensa, which approaches the front wall and along with the wall painting presents an image of a fallen soldier buried under timber and soil. The artist’s style of painting in this representation does not yet offer much of the planar manner which later comes to be so characteristic of him. Tint and perspective lend plasticity and great natural depth to the figure fixed in rigor mortis. However, the strip of the images above the mensa is governed by different laws. Again, we see those killed in action, rigid and pale. They are placed next to each other on the ground, and their contours run, strongly foreshortened, into the depth of the painting. Their corporeality established by their clothing contrasts an ashen grey-yellow with the faded blue of the uniforms, which are rendered in such detail that it is even possible to

differentiate those of the First and the Second World War. The perspective and colouring of the representation are strongly reminiscent of the Symbolist painter Ferdinand Hodler.

An unusual Virgin of Mercy rises above this image; she can now use her protective cloak only to cover the dead. Lamenting angels are floating in front of her, and form a heavenly scene with the shoulder seam of the cloak. Two further angels are flying towards the viewer from below; one of them is pointing a mournful finger towards the fallen, while the other is lowering a laurel wreath onto their heads. A band of cloud divides the mortal world of war from the celestial world of heaven.

The cross vault also offered itself for pictorial decoration. The four segments are populated by four crying and lamenting angels with large wings. One of them is pointing at the fifth commandment of Moses’s Tables of the Laws: “Thou shalt not kill!” The memorial on the left is assigned to World War One with its naming of the fallen, and depicts a trench with soldiers. Above it, clouds of detonations and sinking flares reach into a sky, where there is aerial combat going on. A mural, which refers to the Second World War, is particularly touching; here, soldiers are trudging into a desolate landscape ravaged by war, supporting a wounded comrade.

This earliest of Franz Weiß’s war memorials illustrates that the artist succeeded in processing the war only a few years after it had ended; this was due to his personal experiences and went beyond any glorification of the war. Thus he creates an objective point of view of the subject, which many other monuments of this time are still lacking.

The close spiritual connection to his own experiences of the war is also expressed in another piece, even if this cannot be categorised as memorial culture or as a war monument. It is the parish chapel in Franz Weiß’s home town of Tregist near Voitsberg, which was designed and carried out as a Gesamtkunstwerk. It arose from the artist’s gratitude at having returned home from the war, happy and unscathed. However, the redemption and artistic execution only came to fruition more than four decades after the war had ended.

1956 – Parish church of St. Martin in St. Martin am Wöllmißberg The remembrance of the war is here reduced to a large exterior mosaic of the parish church. The planar painting, which is rendered in powerful bright colours, is a paraphrase of the well-known representation of St. Martin cutting his cloak in two to give half to a poor man. Martin is also the local patron saint as well as patron to the parish. In the painting, the beggar is represented as a wounded soldier, who receives this donation of Christian charity and solace in a vast field filled with graves.

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1958 – Parish church of St. Barbara in Bärnbach While two years earlier in St. Martin am Wöllmißberg the character of the pictorial representation is reminiscent of a tapestry, we can note a change toward an impressive severity in Bärnbach, similar to Romanesque book illustrations, which in many ways served as a model for Weiß. The surroundings of this war memorial appear utterly changed today, following the problematic formal and content-related re-composition of the church exterior as well as its surroundings at the hands of Viennese artist Friedensreich Hundertwasser. Weiß’s work of 1958 now has the effect of a foreign body in this epigonically deformed world of a garden scene thrown back into Art Nouveau. The gates of tribal and world religions qualify Christianity in a theologically problematic way; in their outlines, which lack clarity, they do not lend themselves to establishing an aesthetic contrast which could potentially be experienced as harmonious.

Due to its simplicity, the sober church of St. Barbara designed by Graz architect Karl Lebwohl (built 1948–1952), was an excellent reminder of the material austerity found in post-1945 buildings. Later, its beautification also incorporated figurative glass windows based on designs by Franz Weiß, with Friedensreich Hundertwasser himself having initiated this commission. Graz architect Anton Walter, who had been working in park and cemetery planning for decades, had specified the position and build of the wall as image carrier. There, Weiß was able to compose his mosaic, which assigns centre stage to the fallen soldiers, stacked like felled tree trunks, i.e. dead material, as the inscription states succinctly SIE WERDEN AUFERSTEHEN (‘THEY WILL RISE’). Their rigidity, which is further emphasised by their identical uniforms, forms a contrast to the lamenting, kneeling woman, the sweeping folds of whose dress along with the curve of Christ’s aura add a dynamic element to the composition. The gesture of God’s Son is suggestive, in that it picks up and emphasises the words of the inscription with their promise. The influence of the Romanesque period’s creative drive in art becomes particularly apparent in this figure. Yet also the technique of mosaic plays a part; a technique applied during the era of the developing Byzantine style to create within an architectural context the great depictions of Christ as the Judge of the World, especially in the Mediterranean region.

In the course of transforming the church square, the weight-bearing wall was also slightly changed. Its function was, incidentally, determined by the fact that rural communities – even those as industrially incllined as Bärnbach – held the funerals of veterans in a ceremony of the Austrian Fellowship of Comrades in front of such memorials, which either

served as a starting point, or a fixed point during the proceedings. Since the orators speak in front of the pictorially ornate wall, the latter also functions as an acoustic aid. The suggestive gesture of Christ also emphasises the rhetorical background of these farewell ceremonies, which are conducted in such locations of remembrance.

1959 – War memorial at the parish church in Piber It is well known that Franz Weiß also created numerous works as sculptor. His favoured material here was wood. He created a non-coloured relief on a mighty pear wood panel, showing the three Marys on their way to Christ’s tomb, and puts a victoriously blessing Christ Resurrected in relation to a central inscription, which promises consolation to the bereaved through their faith. Only the depiction of the Iron Cross as a symbol for the commissioning Fellowship of Comrades hints at the character of the work as a war memorial.

1959 – Memorial chapel in Aibl near Eibiswald The war memorial of this small Western Styrian village is a historic street chapel with small turrets, which has been re-designed. Both side walls flanking the main gate show images created al fresco, which can be programmatically attributed to both World Wars.

Colouration in muted tones with a strong dominance of blue pervades the murals, which depict the care of the dead or injured. The image relating to World War One shows the Mother of God as Mary in a Pietà; and it is interesting to note that she is holding Christ’s body while standing in front of graves in a sombre landscape. This, actually, paraphrases the type of the Madonna with Infant Jesus, and indicates that a mother always perceives her child to be above their respective age.

In the painting which relates to the Second World War, a soldier is carrying a wounded comrade out of the inferno of a battle which is raging in and above a burning city in the background. The group of figures is optically separated from the viewer through a construction of wooden planks and barbed wire.

In a monochrome painting situated at the vertex of the vault, an Iron Cross functioning as war decoration is surrounded by a Crown of Thorns and laurel; it is covered with coffins, reflecting the symbolism of numerous victims, so typical of Weiß.

1960 – War memorial Frieze on the cemetery chapel in Neumarkt The plain chapel of the Neumarkt cemetery, which is not identical with the newer funeral hall, has on its windowless north-eastern exterior wall and on one side of the small square apsis an undisrupted frieze of secco paintings, sheltered by the heavily protruding roof. In the scenes, which blend into one another, the succession of images shows large, only lightly animated

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figures. Due to the secco technique, the painting has suffered some atmospheric damage by water and fading, particularly in its lower parts, due to its location on the weather side of the building. This, however, does not disrupt the flow of the scenes. The thinning of the colours heightens the impression that one is observing a medieval Dance of Death, especially when the scene is viewed from a distance. The comparison to the famous Gothic ossuary of Metnitz in the nearby Metznitztal in Carinthia is obvious.

However, on closer inspection, it becomes apparent that this is yet again a war memorial. The wrought iron grave crosses of the five soldier graves that were situated along the wall of the building at the foot of the painting originally also provided the respective context. A recent investigation of the situation, however, uncovered that these grave markers no longer exist.

The succession of paintings is to be “read” from left to right, i.e. it starts at the apsis of the chapel. A new element of tackling the themes of command, war, and death is the impressive combination of the soldiers’ suffering and death with the Passion of Christ. The departure for the front and the laments of the women and mothers saying farewell is connected to Jesus’s parting from Mary. The death of the soldier is captured and rendered visible in almost medieval categories: even though the warrior carries a gun as a weapon, Death himself – represented as a ghostly skeleton dressed in rags of the same field-grey and green uniform cloth as the soldier – pierces the warrior’s heart with an arrow of death. The modern carbine and the ancient arrow thus describe the timelessness of dying in battle. The arrow appears in old songs as the weapon of death (“The grim reaper would aim his arrow at life …”). The scenes following to the right depict the Flagellation, Crucifixion, and Resurrection of Christ, projected onto a background of bomb craters and open graves in a churned landscape at the front. Part of Weiß’s inventory of war panoramas are also bright flares rising high and war planes darting across the sky.

The memorial in Neumark counts among the most impressive war-themed works of Franz Weiß. This may be because the viewer can grasp the series of images at one glance, rather than having to process a complex fabric of individual scenes. The succession of images is coherent also because it progresses as a narrative, rather than being centred toward one image – a means of expression painters already used to great effect in the late Gothic period, e.g., in depicting the Dance of Death or the Procession of the Three Magi.

1966 – Memorial for the victims of war at Hochwechsel At the north-western border of Styria and Lower Austria, the war raged particularly fiercely in 1945, and saw the final battles between the German Wehrmacht and the Red Army. Here, entire villages were literally burnt to the ground in the back and forth of the front, and a disproportionate amount of civilians violently lost their lives, alongside the fighting soldiers of both armies. Here, the “law” of the victors reigned – with murder, manslaughter, rape, robbery, looting, and arson – before as well as after the war had ended. Yet here, too, the World War eventually came to a standstill. Inevitably, all this had to be taken into thematic consideration during the time when the war memorials were erected. The artist was no longer able to solely represent the values of remembrance in general; he had to become more concrete.

Two decades after the end of the war, the deep-rooted memory of this time therefore led to the erection of a memorial on the Hochwechsel; it is not purely a warrior memorial, but generally a memorial to commemorate all victims of the war. Once again, the designs and architectural plans lay in the hands of Graz architect Anton Walter. The site was renovated in 1979, and in the course of these renovations, Franz Weiß’s Stations of the Cross, which had originally been incorporated into the walls, were painted over by a third party.

In creating the memorial, an area of the Hochwechsel’s summit plateau, which also served as a war cemetery, was chosen as its location. During the battles in Eastern Styria, most of the fallen soldiers had been buried where they had been killed. It took many years to re-bury them in the local village cemeteries, where smaller and bigger sections of war graves were created. These are characterised by the uniformity of the grave markers and the symbols of the respective armies. On the Hochwechsel, 47 German soldiers were killed in battle, only seven of whom could be identified by name; their names are inscribed within the chapel building. The fallen soldiers are buried in front of the memorial. Wooden crosses with little roofs mark their graves, which are enclosed by a low wall.

The chapel building can be seen from afar in the treeless landscape. It is reminiscent of a medieval late Gothic ossuary with its octagonal outline, the steep shingled roof with a roof lantern that provides light for the interior, and an additional peaked roof. A slightly stylised Iron Cross at the top already creates the association with war memorials.

The panels of the eight-part dome made from non-painted larch wood provided the interior space of the circular building which could be decorated with paintings by the artist. The white walls below the panels, only the front one of which is adorned with a wooden crucifix carved by Paul Kassecker, also bear the texts composed by P. Donatus Leicher and written by

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Fritz Neumann. They are linked to the frieze of images in the lower part of the dome.

Inside the dome, four large angle figures structure the eight panels, whose impressive height of 3.5 metres creates the impression of the composition’s monumentality. In between them, a wreath of coats of arms expands, which comprise those of Austria, Styria, and Lower Austria, but also local coats of arms of those communities on either side of the Wechsel which had been hit especially hard by the war. These heraldic insignia are linked by an ornamental band which obviously contains adornment of rural folklore in a creative order. One of the angles is sounding the trumpet of Judgement Day, while the one to his left is pointing at a scroll containing the dates of the war. The third is lamenting the death of a soldier, and the last one is weeping as he is carrying a panel decorated with coffins, which indicates the number of victims, as is common in Weiß’s pictorial symbolism. Above the heads of these figures, the area of the tambour’s inner rim is densely covered in a meditative text by astronomer Johannes Kepler1. In the tambour’s vertex, illuminated by the entering daylight, we can see Christ as the Judge of the World. Above the portal, the Iron Cross as the emblem of the Austrian Fellowship of Comrades has been affixed.

The zone of the painting situated below, yet still above eye level, covers all eight panels of the dome, each of which displays a unified theme. The two sides are linked by a monumental Virgin of Mercy who rises somewhat above all other panels. The Mother of God is holding the protective blue cloak, which is lined with gold, herself. It serves as a protective shield for standing and kneeling civilians, most of who appear to be farmers. Mary is holding her cloak in such a manner that the upper seam blends smoothly into the series of paintings.

The series starts with historical reminiscences going back as far as the times of the Turks. The viewpoint is predominantly without perspective, much like a tapestry. Osman horsemen are killing people, setting villages on fire, a church is going up in flames, and enchained people are being dragged off. The panels “Attacks of the Turks” and “Women in the Border Country” were painted by Franz Dampfhofer, a pupil of Szszkowsky’s, after designs by Franz Weiß, but Dampfhofer applys his own colour schemes. The time

1 “Creator of the worlds, almighty God, may Thy glory resound! Even though man may disobey the commandment of Thy love, heaven and earth proclaim Thy glory. Earthly desire contravenes statute and law. For man is free in his choice between sin and light. You, oh Lord, have calculated the orbits of the sun and the moon. For the stars You have laid out the valid magnitude of their circuit. Only man is sinful, born in sin. World, with the stars do praise the Lord’s wisdom. Should our mouth fall quiet in hatred, to You, oh Lord, the nightly storm sings praise.”

of the French and their hostile invasion, which also affected North-Eastern Styria, is commemorated as well. Three men in non-historical uniforms, firing their guns in rank and file, are supposed to suggest the mass of hostile soldiers who also ravaged the area of the Wechsel.

The following four scenes lead into the 20th century. A battlefield with tanks, grenade fire, airplanes, and plumes from explosions in the sky symbolise local events during the war. Death as a skeleton is raising his scythe, and civilians are lying in coffins in front of open graves. Next to them, soldiers are dragging a wounded comrade through a burning cityscape on a stretcher. A kneeling woman is mourning one of the fallen soldiers, while another one is standing in front of a destroyed house in silent accusation.

The impression which the paintings of the Hochwechsel memorial elicit in terms of colour is also determined by the intensive and rather dark Weißian palette, which is heightened by the way the light enters through the tambour, and by the dome’s light uncoloured coniferous wood lining, which functions as the carrier for the paintings.

The internal cohesion of the images is not as powerful in this work as in previous paintings for war memorials. It is more decorative. One reason for this may be the relatively large size and the architecturally strongly segmented structure of the painted areas. The great extent of all that is commemorated in the memorial will also have played a part. As is often the case, it is also probable that the artist will have been influenced by the tastes and wishes of others.

1975 – War memorial in Staudach near Hartberg In the 1945 turmoil of war, the population of the village, which did not have a church of its own, promised to build a village chapel, which was consecrated in 1955. On the occasion of its full restauration in 1975, Franz Weiß was commissioned to create a memorial to commemorate both military and civilian victims of both World Wars. The location available for this was a wall within the covered vestibule of the chapel. Since a stone table of names was also to be incorporated, the artist did not have much space, but managed to utilise it skilfully for his mural.

The entire composition is surrounded by an edging which shows simple linear ornaments as well as oak leaves and the Iron Cross as symbols of the Austrian Fellowship of Comrades. The crosses are entwined in bands showing the colours of the Austrian and Styrian flags. The area above the commemorative plaque displays a Pietà against a typically Weißian backdrop of a war cemetery stretching to the horizon. The artist offers a new insight into human suffering: relics from Christ’s Passion, the Crown of Thorns, and nails from

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the cross, are lying on the ground, along with the steel helmets of the soldiers. At the foot of the composition, coffins indicating the victims are, once again, piled up atop each other. A laurel branch is bent above them.

1975 – War memorial at the parish church in Dechantskirchen

A vestibule contains the village’s pre-existing war memorial, whose simple architectonic premises Weiß was able to improve upon in terms of composition and by applying his artistic means. Thus, the stone name plaque was given a painted frame and the wall recess’s domed ceiling was decorated with a band bearing the inscription “They died for us, our love is their reward”. A carved Baroque crucifix was endowed with a new cross, whose surface is covered in simple ornaments and Iron Crosses as symbols for the soldiers in enamel.

1981 – Wayside Shrine with War Memorial in Zelting A large wayside shrine, which – judging by its built – stems from the 19th century, and which contains a small bell room in its upper section, was redecorated by Franz Weiß as a small war memorial for the fallen soldiers of the village. While both sides are reserved for the list of names of the dead from both World Wars, the main niche is occupied by a Virgin of Mercy, towered over by the Holy Trinity.

1982 – Memorial at the wayside shrine “Pfarrerkreuz” in Lebring near St. Margarethen The locally restricted cultural landscape of Styria contains numerous wayside shrines which are often called “crosses”. These are memorials in open fields and can be seen in conjunction with private acts of faith or donations. Often they relate legends, and in small villages which do not have their own church or chapel, they function as places of devotion and prayer. Since they are made of brick, and their roofing was rarely sufficient to protect their interiors from the elements, the original figurative paintings in their niches have been destroyed in most cases. Towards the end of the 20th century, these memorials attracted renewed attention. Cultural anthropology and art history took an interest in them, and restorations were being planned. In this respect, the public and land owners achieved a lot, even if an artistic restoration satisfying high expectations both in terms of form and content was rarely undertaken. Franz Weiß contributed numerous works to this artistic subject throughout the country. One of them is the “Pfarrerkreuz” (“Preacher’s Cross”) in Lebring near St. Margarethen, in Southern Styria. In its decoration it is also to be considered a memorial for the victims of war in a wider sense.

Here, the niche is governed by a Pietà. Below,

separated by a banner bearing an inscription, a war cemetery is depicted. Its existence coincides with reality, since Lebring was the location of a large military camp during the First World War; the war had necessitated the relocation of the supplementary commands of the Bosnia-Herzegovinian military district to Lebring in order to take in new recruits. Also, the camp housed Russian prisoners of war. Near the camp, which no longer exists today, a cemetery was constructed, since epidemics with high mortality rates occurred toward the end of the war. This cemetery also contains a Muslim and a Russian-Orthodox section. Weiß uses the imperial and royal colours in his schematic representation of the historic classification of the camp, which is marked by rows of barracks. The connection to the war cemetery is made through a large cross in local style. While the work appears only marginal, it offers an interesting insight into local historic events. In this case, the artist also secured the collaboration of painter Sepp Steurer.

1982 – War memorial in Eibiswald The border village of Eibiswald and its surrounding communities not only mourned the fallen soldiers from the battles of the First and the Second World War. At the end of the war in 1945, the area was occupied by Tito-Partisans until they were driven back by the British occupying force. Until them, the Partisans kidnapped many locals and murdered them in still unknown locations beyond the present-day border between Austria and Slovenia. The location of these bodies is unknown to this day. This is why the chapel-like memorial in Eibiswald’s main square serves as a memorial for dead soldiers as well as murdered civilians.

The plain building with its roof of Eternit shingles has the appearance of a wayside shrine. The larger part of the undivided niche’s interior is taken up by name plaques, which are in an order according to wars and communities, soldiers and civilians.

This memorial, once again, establishes a strong connection to Christ as a figure of comfort and redemption. A fallen soldier in full uniform, resting in a painted grave-like hollow or coffin, forms the base of the paintings on all three walls – a similar setup to Weiß’s oldest war memorial in Graden. Above the fallen soldiers, are name plates which were not the artist’s responsibility, as well as further murals by Franz Weiß. Above the central name plate, a painting covers the entire width of the niche: Mary is sitting in the foreground with the dead body of Jesus in her lap – in Pietà style – before a field of graves with crosses and open pits. The muted complementary colours are particularly effective: the pale yellow of the dead body contrasts the blue dress of the Mother of God. To the left, a young woman depicted in back view and wearing

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a local folk costume, is mourning her husband or brother, while to the right of the Pietà an old woman in similar dress and with flowers in her hands is weeping for her son. Female suffering is thus shown as both holy and human.

Here, the memorial is linked to both World Wars, which are thematically presented in highly symbolic paintings to the left and right of the Pietà. On the left, Jesus is carrying the cross, which is additionally weighed down by field guns that appear to have taken position upon him. Written down are the names of battles locations in Galicia and at the Western German front against France; they span the time from 1914 until 1918. Col di Lana and the Isonzo and Piave rivers denote the focus of the front in the Dolomites and the material battles in East-Northern Italy. There is a link to these war locations, since most Styrian infantry during World War One was allocated to the Imperial and Royal Infantry Regiments No. 27 (Graz) and No. 47 (Marburg on the Drau), and was deployed on the above specified sections of the front.

The painting on the right also relates to European fronts, this time in World War Two. The names Narvik and Tobruk are linked to the Styrian Mountain Troops in Norway and the African Corps; Sevastopol and Leningrad to the Eastern Front. In this painting, the bent figure of Christ is standing amidst blazing flames, as a prisoner chained to six large rings. The rings are accorded the names of cities one can presume are places where men of Eibiswald were killed: Montecassino, Cherbourg, Dresden, Nettuno, Stalingrad, and Berlin.

With this war memorial by Franz Weiß, on the one hand, we already enter a time, when a certain degree of saturation had been reached regarding newly to be designed memorials of this subject; on the other hand, however, the zeitgeist with its radically pacifist and pseudo-pacifist tendencies led to increasing discussions surrounding the purpose of such remembrance.

1987 – War memorial in St. Johann ob Hohenburg In the local parlance of this Western Styrian community this final work of Weiß’s on the subject is called “Chapel of Remembrance of Heroes and War”. As already mentioned, the zeitgeist had turned against a commemoration of soldiers in a largely un-reflected manner. The name already encompasses the terminology, which later led firstly to a polarisation of the terms and then to a primarily ethical taboo of the term ‘hero’ through political correctness. It is well known that the various peace movements handled the terminology of peace in a militant manner.

In undertaking this project, Franz Weiß was also

restricted in further ways. For one, the architectural basis for the memorial was the so-called “Mesner-keusche” (‘sacristan’s hovel’) in the church yard, which had been designed by architect Heinz Klampfl. It is to be considered the remains of the old parish church, which had been torn down to allow the building of a new church in 1848. On the other hand, another local artist, sculptor Alfred Schlosser, was involved in the project. In his idiosyncrasies, he was a difficult-to-handle artistic counterpart in the medium of sculpture, since his objective personal style with its tendency toward formal reduction was on a different level from Franz Weiß’s art of paintings.

The programme of the paintings is conceptualised as a journey from life to death, which war forced man to undertake. Saying farewell to mother, wife, and child is placed entirely in the rural world, which places the native and local elements into the foreground via the characteristic rendering of farm house architecture. The vaulted room’s gable end is occupied by a glass window designed by Franz Weiß, which depicts St. George in medieval harness as patron saint of soldiers and as Dragon Slayer. The form of the Gothic helmet is a quote from modern times, since a small adjustment in proportions causes it to appear similar to the steel helmet of the World Wars.

Throughout his entire life, Franz Weiß tried to come to terms with the trauma of his own war experiences, also in his works. Thus, the pieces in Hohenburg show the 1942 battle of Synjawina – which the artist had experienced and survived – with burning villages, ruins, and squadrons of airplanes. Marching German soldiers in front of Old Russian architecture at night also represent a memory. Weiß spoke about this directly: A small regiment proceeds through the trench; they are going to the front, they have to go to the front. A young lieutenant is at the helm. The brownish-red earth symbolises a trench. A depressed state of the soldiers. One knows exactly that they are not heading into the unknown. What remains is an internal connection, our humanity, the feeling that one is not alone. That is the only glimmer of hope in this painting.

The opposite wall is structured the same way. Here, Christ’s suffering is interpreted as human suffering and it is projected into the present day as Jesus is carrying the cross. Once again, this scene takes place in a Russian winter landscape of war. A field gun appears to be pressing the cross even further down onto the Saviour’s shoulders. The glass window on this side shows a Pietà. Additionally, Mary is carrying the Seven Swords in her heart. In the mural above, an angel is mourning above a desolate winter landscape with many crosses of a war cemetery near the front.

Placing the events in the Russian milieu does not only reflect the artist’s personal experience. It is well known that the Eastern Front saw the largest number of

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casualties, and events there were most strongly engraved upon the memory of the returning survivors. This is especially true since the vast majority of the Styrian Armed Forces belonged to the infantry or mountain troops, who were deployed in Russia, and suffered and died there.

Even if Christ Resurrected occupies a prominent place in this series of paintings, he is still placed within a war landscape with rising flares above a field of open graves. Despite the promise, desolation dominates the painting, as in other vault panels fallen soldiers, lamented by wives and comrades, are subjugated by the majesty of Death in Battle, wearing a steel helmet and rags of a uniform. With the coffins Death is holding in his hands he reflects the numbers of war victims this community suffered in both the First and the Second World War.

Funeral and ceremonial halls

Franz Weiß’s work is strongly centred on rural areas and village structures. Here, having the viewing of the deceased at home was a tradition that continued for much longer than in the cities. The differing situations of habitation in cities and in the country side formed part of this motivation, and must be taken into consideration. In any case, it took a relatively long time until buildings were introduced in cemeteries for viewings and for saying farewell. A number of objections had to be overcome, not only in the areas of hygiene and the undertaker business, but also others which were hidden much deeper in a sense of custom and tradition. Prayer and death vigil, as well as the reception and hospitality for the mourners, were linked to the social prestige of the deceased’s family. The funeral procession from the private house to the cemetery was a further social indicator for the position of the deceased as well as their family.

The artistic design of a building used for funeral ceremonies is very limited in terms of theme, iconography, and space. In essence, it is restricted to the promise of resurrection and overcoming death through Jesus Christ, perhaps also including Judgement Day and the Redeemer as the Judge of the World. Paintings can, in fact, only be affixed above the bier, so that the viewer’s gaze on the coffin and the symbols are reflected in the art, and feelings of grief are ameliorated or transfigured.

1964 – Funeral hall in Wies The frescoes of this building no longer exist, since the building itself had to make way for a newly built funeral hall. However, they were captured in images. The murals were located on the hall’s exterior wall, and near the door they show mourners and people who were being comforted; an angel carrying

symbols of salvation down from heaven; women with the angel next to Christ’s empty tomb; and Christ Resurrected guiding Adam and Eve out of sin. Due to the incomplete documentation of the images, further connections cannot be addressed.

1965 – Funeral hall in Weißkirchen an der Traun The artist presents the majority of décor in funeral halls as murals or panel paintings. In contrast with church interiors, glass windows are of lesser importance. Where they do occur, they are kept in the technique of cathedral glass, i.e. the coloured parts of the paintings are connected through lead cames. In Weißkirchen an der Traun, we find the only glass window which Franz Weiß has created as a slab glass window set in concrete. Here, the composition is not determined by thin glass components held together by the aforementioned cames; instead comparatively rough slabs of glass are embedded into concrete. Their structure allows for a much more intense colouration. The artist only used this technique here. He confessed that it did not serve his design ideas well enough.

Nonetheless, Weiß created a very powerful work here. The composition is dominated by Christ Resurrected, who shows the conventions of this oft-repeated image idea and emanates the illuminating powers of Weiß’s painting through the light skin tones and the ruby red of his aura. However, the remarkable thing is that the usual icon-like linear scheme is disrupted by the representation of the forebears Adam and Eve. They embody all of humanity and appear to be walking towards the viewer half turned. The Garden of Eden is hinted at with plants and flowers. In this, the artist moves toward his earlier mosaic art which he handles very skilfully.

1973 – Funeral hall in Unzmarkt In the funeral hall on the East cemetery of Unzmarkt, we have a case of not wall-mounted object-related artistic decoration; it was applied later in form of panel paintings. These were affixed to the head of the bier and furnished with a textile nimbus. The proportions of this part of the room lend themselves to a round form being used, which Franz Weiß has chosen to depict Christ Resurrected. The gesture of blessing and promise is further intensified here by the outer curvature of a banderole which also underlines the reference to eternal life in the Christian faith.

The pastoral staff in the Saviour’s left hand contains a folkloristic element: a bunch of flowers loosely tied around it, which evokes the Easter Resurrection and reminds us of a “Hochzeitslader” (in German a person involved in the process of inviting to, and carrying out the festivities at, a wedding) with his flower-decorated staff, who announces a time of happiness. Light colours additionally emphasise the idea of a “joyful resurrection”,

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a wish that had been expressed on gravestones in the past.

1973 – Funeral hall in St. Veit am Vogau The temporal proximity to the paintings in Unzmarkt (carried out the same year) is very noticeable in this work. Once again, the artist has decorated the wall behind the bier, and once again he has eschewed murals. This time, he chose wood panels as carrier for his paintings, as it heightens the illuminating powers of his chosen paints.

The composition is arranged in three horizontally layered parts. The large central round form presents an inner circle with Christ Resurrected rising victoriously, holding a pastoral staff and displaying the gesture of blessing. A beam divided by the tondo shows miniatures of the three Marys at the empty tomb, from where the angel is addressing the women. Colourful tulips as flowers of spring fill the remaining spandrel of the round. Above it, Christ becomes visible, sitting on the rainbow in a mandorla, where the architecture adds additional spatial depth. Below, separated by a scroll, an older crucifix hangs on the same axis of reflection. For this crucifix, Weiß has created a painted cross, which is decorated with a darkened sun and moon.

1975 – Funeral hall in Birkfeld The pictorial decoration of the funeral hall in Birkfeld is distinct from all others in that it was painted onto the outside of the doors leading into this new cemetery building. The five doors with a dark varnish, which allows the variations in the wood’s surface with its joints and grain structure to be clearly visible, show a complete cycle of paintings which are clearly distinguished from the dark background through the luminous colours radiating from within.

Content-wise the representations, once again, deal with the Death and Resurrection of Christ; however, they are not to be “read” in a narrative order. On the outer left side, the artist has dared to show a unique interpretation of Christ resting in his tomb: the body is shown in rigor mortis, and strong ears of grain are growing out of the stigmata; the ears evoke the parable of the body of Christ as bread. Weiß also quoted this symbolism in the murals of the Tregist Chapel. This is followed by the Raising of Lazarus, who is leaving the entrance to a grave wrapped in bandages. The stone in front of the entrance has just been removed, and the painting on the next door shows Christ, who is ordering this miracle with an extensive gesture of his hand, as well as two disciples. The following image leads to the Resurrection of Christ himself, as he rises victoriously radiant from his tomb on Easter morning. The Easter events are clearly set in spring time, as the tomb is

surrounded by blossoming spring snowflakes. Towards the right, the cycle ends with the three Marys next to the empty tomb, and with a Pietà, which has Jesus resting in his mother’s lap, as had been the common form of depiction in Gothic sculptures.

1978 – Funeral hall in Schlierbach Franz Weiß had a particular connection to Schlierbach in Upper Austria, since the designs for his glass paintings in cathedral or cement technique were rendered in the monastery’s own glass workshop. Also the painting in the Schliebach funeral hall bears reference to the Cistercian monastery. The image was created as a panel painting and has been incorporated into a large cross at the front wall, which thus functions as the painting’s frame. At the very bottom edge of the image, we can see the characteristic building of the monastery with its turrets and window axes. Above it, there appears a large round form, with Christ Resurrected standing in its upper section, a Christian vexillum in his hand, displaying the gesture of blessing, while the lower section shows Christ on the cross; the cross beam simultaneously serves to divide the image area of the tondo. The tondo’s rim forms a band, and the part of the band facing Christ Crucified represents the sphere of human suffering through a stylised Crown of Thorns. From it, however, springs a garland of roses, which accompanies the Easter world of Christ Resurrected.

1980 – Funeral hall in Fischbach In this ceremonial hall, Franz Weiß created the artistic decoration of the walls as well as two glass windows. It is well known that glass paintings form a fundamental part of the artist’s decorative oeuvre. Similar to St. Veit am Vogau, the Weiß used an already existing, wood-carved vernacular baroque crucifix as the basis for the composition in the new, architecturally not particularly well-proportioned room. He painted the assisting figures of Mary and John in the manner of traditional cast-iron grave crosses of the 19th century and juxtaposed them with the sturdy plasticity of Christ’s body on a spar affixed to the painted planar cross, which had the same width as the cross-beam of the cross. It simultaneously functions as the linking element to the panel painting’s top part, which is affixed to the un-painted wood of the diagonal ceiling panelling, and once again shows Christ Resurrected.

The two figurative glass paintings are embedded into the slanting wood-clad jambs of the window openings. They show Christ Raising Lazarus and the three Marys with the angel at the empty tomb of Christ Resurrected. The outlines of the very statuesque composition are strong and partially enforced with lead cames, while the hatching and stippling in schwarzlot are restrained and more roughly sketched. In terms of colouration, only the red in Christ’s and the women’s robes stands out.

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1982 – Funeral hall in Wildon The individual parts of the panel paintings which adorn the front wall of the Wildon funeral hall are more organically linked to one another. The open tomb, viewed slightly in perspective, with Christ Resurrected standing triumphantly in gleaming light above it, rises out of the unwieldy outlines of the darkened Crucifixion scene at the foot of the composition. This time, Christ is accompanied by the symbols of the Eye of God and the Dove of the Holy Spirit, which simultaneously presents the theological credo of the Holy Trinity. What is unusual about the crucifixion is that Mary Magdalen, the third of the assisting figures, is holding a tin of balm at the feet of Christ Crucified. The image of the Wildon parish church creates a real topographic connection to its location in Southern Styria. The stars scattered across the upper part are an element which sums up nobly the composition of Christ’s body. They symbolise the darkening of heaven in the hour of Jesus’s death, which Weiß usually hints at with the sun and the moon.

1983 – Funeral hall in Bad Radkersburg The funeral hall in Radkersburg is a large seated hall, whose front wall is architecturally accented via a large round window. This is adorned with a glass painting by Franz Weiß; it depicts, as it must in this context, a classic image of prophecy: Christ is shown in a gesture of blessing, appearing as a mild Judge of the World of classical aspiration. As it is common for depictions of Judgement Day, Christ with the Book of Law is sitting on the rainbow reminiscent of a judgement seat. However, at the same time his pastoral staff, the sun and moon of the hour of death on the cross, and his stigmata express that his death will be followed by the redemption and not the judgement of humankind.

The hall’s broad gable end under the window which allows the light to flow in is as succinct as can be expected. However, it is effectively decorated with a cycle of panel paintings, whose plain wooden frames remind us of the panels on a Gothic winged altar. A centrally depicted Christ Resurrected, displaying the familiar Weißian gesture, towers above the other four panels. From left to right, the four other paintings depict the raising of a dead man, Christ’s death, his resurrection and his apparition in a transfigured body at the Raising of Lazarus; Jesus on the Cross, the Three Marys at the Empty Tomb, and Doubting Thomas. The composition for the Raising of Lazarus is identical to the painted window which had been created in Fischbach three years earlier.

1983/84 Funeral hall in Sinabelkirchen The spatial disposition of this funeral hall allowed the artist to create a monumental wall decoration in four parts, as the room’s open roof truss opens up a generous attic-like area along the outer line of the gable, but also because its size made it possible to execute a fresco.

Once again, Christ as the central figure occupying almost the entire area appears as Judge of the World in a star-covered mandorla. His feet with the stigmata rest on the globe which is covered by a cross. The very statue-like posture and blessing gesture are emphasised by the architecture of the columns, gables, and arches, among which the figure surrounded by light has been placed. Incidentally, the artist has kept the entire composition in a colour scheme which exclusively uses earthen tones, from light ochre to grey-blue to ochre-red and raddle.

The dominating image of Christ as Judge is unusually tempered both theologically as well as in terms of content: to Christ’s left, the Virgin Mary – depicted at a smaller scale on grounds of hierarchy – is shown at the moment of the Annunciation; to his right, the Archangel Michael is weighing the souls on Judgement Day. Mary, with a bunch of lilies and the Dove of the Holy Spirit as attributes, signifies the start of the road to redemption. Her hands are folded in prayer and she is holding an – anachronistic! – rosary. On the one hand, Michael with his curved sword and warrior’s helmet can be understood as a soldier against evil; but on the other hand, his scales are tipping in favour of the sinner who is being judged, and whose good deeds outweigh the bad ones. The iconographic and symbolic structure of this painting, once again, makes palpable the artist Franz Weiß’s strong creative powers.

The entire width of the room’s gable end is occupied by a narrative strip of a painting populated by many figures, which yet intensifies the colour scheme of the painting above. Christ is standing before Pontius Pilate in a Second World War uniform; depictions of Christ carrying the cross and of the crucifixion with the Roman centurion and John the Evangelist as bystanders lead from the right side toward Christ Resurrected, inter-cepted by a meditative text at the centre of the wall. Adam and Eve, the forebears, are kneeling at the side of Christ Resurrected – probably representing all of humanity. The nimbi surrounding their heads hint at the salvation of even these first sinners. Adjacent to Adam and Eve, a mysterious door locked with bolts and latches is shown. It is mysterious because, according to Christian understanding, Christ broke all the locks and bolts at the entrance to limbo (“… descended into hell”). This locked gate, at the same time, forms the backdrop to the last scene, which is populated with the most figures and shows the disciples with Doubting Thomas at the apparition of Christ in his transfigured body.

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1986 – Funeral hall in Bad Gams ob Frauental The pictorial decoration of the front wall follows Weiß’s common scheme practised so frequently in funerary buildings, which is to enlarge Christ Resurrected so that he towers over the Crucifixion. The colouring is more muted and deeper, though. The people present are shown in a different light; for instance, Mary herself is gathering the heart’s blood in a chalice. The shape of the cross is as we would usually find it in the Orthodox Church, i.e. with a slanted foot beam. On the cross, the names of the forebears, Adam and Eve, suggest the male and female element in the assisting figures. This is a reference to the pair’s legendary grave in Golgotha, which in Christian art is typically depicted with a skull and bones at the foot of the cross.

1990/91 – Funeral chapel in Stiwoll (“Rosary Chapel”) Franz Weiß planned this chapel with his frequent collaborator, the Graz architect Anton Walter, who specialised in memorial and funerary culture. It was to be used for laying out the dead in this village community, and quotes elements of traditional folklorist and rural architecture of the region. Weiß was restricted here to a gable painting and a cycle of panel paintings in the interior. On the façade of the chapel, under a small hipped ridge of the tiled roof, he repeats his oft-practised presentation of Christ Resurrected, whom he has placed among the group of three women standing at Christ’s empty tomb along with the angel who is sending them away.

Both sides of the funeral room display two five-part series of panel paintings in Baroque-style frames. The first one shows the Annunciation, the Visitation, Christ’s birth, his presentation at the temple, and Jesus as a child teaching in the temple; it thus segues from the life of Mary on this side to the Passion of the Lord on the opposite side. There, depictions of the scene on the Mount of Olives, the Flagellation, Christ receiving the Crown of Thorns, and him carrying the cross lead up to the Crucifixion.

1995 – Funeral room in St. Martin am Wöllmiβberg The parish church of St. Martin already possesses a 1956 war memorial mosaic by Weiβ. On its gable wall, the town’s funeral hall shows a strictly symmetrical panel painting which, once again, addresses the Christian view of death and resurrection. Fitted into a central image plane, a crucifixion group appears in strictly linear composition above the body of Christ in his tomb, viewed diagonally from above. This echoes a thought Franz Weiβ had formulated a few years earlier on the Tregist village chapel, and which brings into play the worship of Christ’s stigmata. From the wound in his chest as well as from the cross stigmata, cornstalks

are growing with hosts floating above them. Thus, the suffering of the Saviour is linked to the symbolism of flesh and blood as bread and wine. Christ Resurrected victoriously rises above this conspectus of his passion and death.

Painted decorations of cemetery entrances

1986/1993 – Entrance to the cemetery in Groβ St. Florian In earlier phases of Franz Weiβ’s façade paintings, only parts of the walls were used as painting surfaces. However, starting around the time of his work in the Tregist village chapel, he began to incorporate the entire area of the given architecture, reminiscent, for instance, of the Orthodox painting tradition, especially of Orthodox monastery churches. The monumental brick-built portal building of the Groβ St. Florian cemetery presents itself in this same manner. Its architectural specifications with an artistic cast iron barred gate and gable cross links back to the historicising styles of the 19th century.

The images, which are separated from one another only by small rims, start at eye level. The area below is reserved for explanatory texts. In terms of the narrative, the cycle begins on the left hand side, where an angel is standing at the empty tomb of Christ Resurrected, while the background shows a recognisable image of the local parish church, thus creating a real link to the present. In terms of content, it is interesting to note that the series of paintings only address the resurrected Saviour, while the Passion, which would be evidence of the mortal man who suffered on earth, remains unmentioned.

Other contents of the painting sections are the guards sleeping at the tomb, Christ Resurrected, the Three Marys at the Tomb, Jesus appearing to Mary Magdalen, Jesus displaying his wounds to Doubting Thomas and the Apostles.

1996/97 – Cemetery entrances and cemetery wall in Bärnbach Thus far, there are only relatively few village and town cemeteries that have architecturally representative entrance areas. Following the increasing number of newly built functional structures for funeral and ceremonial purposes, now also portals and cemetery walls are starting to be included in contemporary designs. On the one hand, the wall and gate separate two contrasting worlds, that of the living and that of the dead. The function of the wall is to form a protective barrier; the German word for cemetery, “Friedhof”, derives from umfrieden (‘to enclose’). Thus, the wall has a practical as well as an aesthetic function; and it facilitates the positioning of crypts with high structures as well as the installation of local works of

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art on its large empty spaces. The cemetery in Bärnbach shows the largest and last example of Franz Weiβ’s painterly decoration of entrance architecture. The structure, which consists of two entrances and several connecting wall pieces, was, once again, carried out by Graz architect Anton Walter. The larger one of the gateways, which is crowned with a cross, can also be understood as a bell tower.

The façade painting above the latter’s gate arch emits a naïve and friendly atmosphere: in a cloth, angels carry small human figures – the souls – into the eternal light of Heaven. A corresponding inscription accompanies the painting as an explanation. The arch of the entrance is clad in raw softwood and indicates with this painting that the entrance into eternal bliss for the mortal is preceded by their personal judgment as well as the Last Judgement. Therefore, Jesus Christ is sitting on a throne as Judge of the World at the centre of the painting. He is seated on the rainbow in the middle of an almond-shaped halo and is holding the Book of the Seven Seals in his hand. In the artist’s interpretation, he is turning to the town of Bärnbach in particular, whose name is also inscribed on the globe upon which Christ’s feet are resting. Six angel figures in small panels symbolise the trumpets of Judgement Day. In creating this painting, Weiβ has also eternalised the most current position in terms of belief, namely Mother Teresa.

The pictorial composition linking both gate complexes is closed within itself, and displays subdued glowing colours. Here, Franz Weiβ has created a daring arc of Christ’s Redemption, both in terms of content and iconography. Reaching from a cross shrouded in darkness, the Saviour is opening the gates to hell with a key; he then, as is said in the Creed, descends into hell. Already the medieval world of symbols surrounding the Living Cross was a pictorial interpretation of this descent into limbo. At the centre of this wall fresco, Christ Resurrected is standing above his empty tomb, bathed in light. He does not stop at blessing humanity with the well-known gesture; in reconciliation, he also offers his hand to Adam and Eve, our very ancestors and representatives of all humankind, who received forgiveness through his death. On the right hand side of the composition, St. Dismas, the Penitent Thief, appears; he serves as an example for a repentant sinner amidst a vernally blossoming world which is further enriched by St. Mary of Magdalene, who similarly represents the idea of repenting one’s sins. Three diagonal shapes divide the painting: the cross of Christ Crucified, the pastoral staff of Christ Resurrected, and St. Dismas’s cross. Also the figure of Eve is leaning gently in the same direction.

Cemetery crosses and Absetzkreuze

Large crosses form a meditative centre in Christian cemeteries. The earliest of these solitary crucifixes were high crosses in Early Medieval Ireland, where they were the centre point of monasteries. Their stone plasticity allows them to function as carrier for entire programmes of images in relief form. This potential was also exploited by Franz Weiβ in his only monument-scale crucifix. Following local tradition, he also re-visited the idea of the Absetzkreuz – a cross which signifies the place where a coffin is set down for the last time before interment – and created correlating images.

2000 – Cemetery cross at the Bärnbach cemetery When Franz Weiβ’s functional works are exposed to the elements, the artist often employed the technique of enamel, which combines durability with intense colour. This is also how the cemetery cross in Bärnbach was created, which was consecrated in the course of the All Saint’s Day celebrations at the turn of the millennium. Relative to its size, the outline of the cross is very delicate and structured in a fashion which is art historically reminiscent of Byzantine, Orthodox, and medieval Italian traditions. This is to say that both the shaft and the arms of the cross feature areas which can function as carriers for images. Thus, at the centre of the cross we behold a unique image of Christ Crucified, whose gesture turns being nailed to the cross into an embrace of the world. Both sides and the upper end of the cross display angels with the trumpets of Judgement Day, while the shaft shows a rather unusual conspectus of assisting figures in the form of annexes on both sides: the familiar Holy Mary is not accompanied by St. John, but by St. Barbara, the important patron saint of the mining town of Bärnbach, with the chalice, sword, and tower as her attributes. With an inscription of names and dates, the part of the shaft in between those figures commemorates two personalities who were most significant for new creations in Bärnbach’s sacral world, and were therefore closely connected to Franz Weiβ: Franz Derler (1914–1961), founding pastor of the church, and Friedensreich Hundertwasser (1930–2000), who designed the parish church’s radical redecoration.

The back of the cross is not decorated with figures, but with inscriptions. In the centre, they read, DER HERR IST MEIN HIRT UND MEIN HEIL (The Lord is my Shepherd and my Salvation) and below a quote from an old choral, JESUS MEINE FREUDE (Jesus my Joy).

1998 – Mosaics of St. Mary and St. John on the cemetery cross next to the parish church in Anger In rural areas, leave-taking from the deceased usually happens in the parish church. In Anger near Weiz, we find a large old cemetery cross with a Baroque corpus

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near the inside of the former cemetery wall, which had surrounded the church in the past. This is where the coffin is set down one final time, before the funeral procession moves on to the new cemetery. Franz Weiβ created a mosaic for each of the two recessing chapels to the left and the right of the cross, which show the Mother of God and St. John, respectively, as assisting figures. Both are standing in rays of light, which seem to emanate from Christ Crucified. Mary is praying and mourning quietly in front of a gloomy background. The figure of John, on the other hand, appears light-flooded within itself as a result of skilfully placed golden stones. Unusual in this context, this accentuates the visionary character of the young man, who is already represented as the creator of the Secret Revelation, holding in his hands the Book of the Seven Seals. The notion of listening in on heavenly spheres is emphasised by his hand lifted to his ear.

Painted coffins

In formal terms, the wooden coffin in Christian burials has its origins in the tree coffin of prehistoric times, and in the death plank which was characteristic for the southern German area east of the Lech. The latter was used to lay out the dead, and after the body had been put in a coffin and buried, the plank was painted with sayings and symbols and placed outside to rot away. There is only scant evidence that coffins crafted by carpenters had been decorated with paintings in central Austria; their existence can be supported for the end of the 18th century. The funeral cloth, which was decorated with embroidery and applique, was used for ornamental purposes during the final rites.

It was assumed far into the 20th century, that coffins had to be fitting for their dark, functional purpose, and they were kept in black or other dark colours. A lighter choice of colours emerged only gradually. The obligatory cross served as decoration on the coffin lid. Later, simple relief carvings were added. The fact that Franz Weiβ painted an entire series of coffins for the Koren family can be regarded as an absolute novelty in our times.

1985 – Paintings on the coffin of Landtagspräsident (President of the Styrian State Parliament), Prof. Dr. Hanns Koren Already years before his death, the Styrian cultural anthropologist Hanns Koren asked Franz Weiβ to paint a coffin for his late wife. When Prof. Koren was himself dying, the family asked the artist to start work on another wooden coffin completely decorated with symbols and images of saints, so that it would be available for the funeral.

The photographs from 1985 show a central crucifix

on the coffin lid, with Christ Resurrected above it as a sign of salvation. Below, the “Madonna of Ears” (in a dress decorated with golden ears of wheat) of the Straβengel type is depicted; this is a frequent iconographic type in Styria, and had been researched by local cultural anthropology. To the side, we can also see the Maria Lankowitzer Gnadenbild; it serves as a parable for the close connection Koren had to his immediate home country, as had Franz Weiß, who had also grown up under the spell of this miraculous image of Mary’s. A third Styrian Gnadenbild was added: the “Zellermutter” (‘Holy Mother of Mariazell’). Texts about Christ and Mary signify the inner religious link of the academic and politician to his life of faith. The sarcophagus also displays representations of saints, inscribed into painted arcades; they remind us that Hanns Koren had also written a traditional book on the rural world of peasant faith, ‘Peasant Heaven’ (“Bauernhimmel”). Mary Magdalen, patron saint of the parish of Köpflach, is recognisable, as is St. Barbara, patron saint of the Western Styrian miners; likewise, we find St. Joseph, patron saint of Styria, as well as the apostle St. Bartholomew. The latter is the namesake saint of Koren’s community of residence. Lastly, St. Martin appears, who is especially linked to the organisation of the Volksbildungsheim and its founder, Monsignore Steinberger. The Styrian coat of arms, as well as that of the town of Köpflach, further signify Koren’s home in a larger as well as narrower sense.

Grave crosses and other individual grave memorials in cemeteries

Grave markers indicate the final resting place of a human being. As time passes, further deceased family members are interred, and the grave becomes a family grave, which can receive one generation after another. This necessitates increasing additions and thus changes to the memorial; the decorations are determined by current taste, as well as by the economic situation or the need for representation of those affiliated with the grave. The further back one goes in the chronology of burials in a graveyard, the rarer gravestones and crosses from more distant times become. Gravestones from a long time ago are always only to be found in the interior of churches or incorporated into church yard and cemetery walls. Thus immured they also survive because they are made from durable material, and the value of their remembrance went unchallenged, even if the family’s name had long died out. Cultural heritage preservation only started to address funerary culture and art in the late 20th century, even though the protection of heritage is particularly difficult in this context.

A field of graves between the church and cemetery walls was almost mandatory until the 18th century, since burials were only permitted to take place near the

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parish church. These fields provided space for individual graves, which were originally only decorated with a perishable wooden cross. When the art forging spread in the 16th and 17th centuries, an increasing number of iron grave crosses of high artistic value emerged in our landscapes. Only few of these remain in their original locations, but some have found their ways into museum collections. Neo-Classicism added a new type of grave memorial carried out in cast iron. In the late 19th century, cast iron crosses were already to be considered mass-produced; and especially in rural areas a substantial number of them has survived. This was also the onset of the serial production of grave markers. Especially solitary stones began to displace the crosses.

The symbolic imagery in relief and sculpture, as well as the materials used, were standardised, which led to church and communal cemeteries adopting the increasingly depressing look of a stone desert, which, in fact, still continues today. As the recent zeitgeist has triggered “nostalgic” feelings, the past few decades have seen an increase in (mostly machine-made) iron crosses. This has changed the appearance of cemeteries, in some areas more than in others.

Despite all this, new and appealing works of art can be found. Much credit must go to Franz Weiβ, for it was him who introduced a friendly colourfulness with his enamel works on grave markers into our grey-on-grey cemeteries, whose appearance had previously only been lifted by the presence of flowers. Weiß combines material durability with the colourfulness appropriate for the message conveyed by his symbols of salvation and the figures of saints. The same prominence of colour also characterises his murals, glass and reverse glass paintings.

However, his enamel works on graves only appear in a later phase of his oeuvre, most likely because of the advanced development of technical possibilities. Before – but also later – Franz Weiβ decorated his grave memorials in other materials and applied different techniques. We see wood as well as stone reliefs, but also mosaics, murals, and works in metal.

One of the difficulties intrinsically connected with works of art on graves is the fact that the artist is frequently confronted with already existing gravestones, areas of wall, and grave crosses, which are then to be decorated. It is only rarely possible for an artist to determine the overall appearance of the entire work. The date of the first funeral as indicated on the grave marker does not necessarily coincide with the time the work was actually created. Often, new works replace existing markers a long time after those had originally been created, but the dates and names of the deceased remain incorporated in the text on the new piece.

Selected examples of funerary art – techniques and themes

Using wood as a material for grave reliefs enables the artist to work in generous lines, which can be achieved by a carving knife. A wooden surface allows the artist to create the notion of liveliness. Simultaneously, however, it also suggests evanescence – like the mortal shell of a human being. Despite this, it can last for centuries.

The grave which Franz Weiβ created in the Voitsberg cemetery (first funeral 1961) for his parents and siblings shows such a relief, which depicts Christ Resurrected. The back of the grave marker carries an enamel image on copper of the angel at Christ’s empty tomb, repeating the format of the image on the front.

The grave memorial of Hanns Koren’s family in St. Bartholomä follows the design of Anton Walter; it is fashioned like a wayside shrine and contains a large carved panel. The inscriptions are separated from each other by a relief showing the Throne of Mercy – which is a specific interpretation of the Holy Trinity – and by the Gnadenbild of Maria Lankowitz. An enamel panel commemorates Koren’s son Wolfang, who died at a young age; it shows St. Wolfgang, the late son’s namesake saint.

Franz Weiβ already pre-empts the colourfulness of his enamel works in his mosaics on gravestones, e.g. on the undated gravestone Grinschgl in Ligist. Christ’s hand raised in a gesture of blessing, his crown, and the dove with the olive branch signify the reconciliation of God with humanity in both the Old and the New Testament. Also in the Pack cemetery a gravestone speaks to the viewer using the same technique. The mosaic of Christ as Judge of the World decorating a wall grave in Kaindorf is more monumental.

Older stone monuments also received new enamel panels by Franz Weiβ, e.g. the grave of Father Dreisibner in Wildon, which shows an empty grave and Christ on Judgement Day; or the neo-classical stone in Wies, which depicts an angel sending the women away from the empty tomb.

The church wall in St. Helen near Mühlen forms the backdrop for the Kreinbucher grave marker (first burial 1968). Here an enamel piece depicting Christ as the Judge of the World is vibrantly set off from the iron cross.

In Wildon, we find a grave monument from 1983, crowned by the patron saint of miners, St. Barbara, in enamel; it is additionally characterised by a miner’s hammer and an iron coat of arms. In St. Veit am Vogau, St. Francis of Assisi with his stigmata, clearly a namesake saint, appears next to Christ Crucified. An enamel of St. Mary in the form of the Mariazell Gnadenbild is presented on the back of the bronze grave cross in Wies, which on the front shows Christ Resurrected.

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On the cemetery in Ligist, we discover the grave of Austria’s most highly decorated academic, the five-time doctor and two-time master Franz Meissel (1919–1995). He was a friend of Franz Weiβ’s, and his grave shows a complex design. The artist incorporated a monumental enamel panel with the Holy Trinity depicted as a Throne of Mercy, but also the academic curriculum vitae of the deceased through the various faculty symbols of the university.

Wrought iron grave crosses gain a much stronger suggestive power in connection with a luminous, colourful enamel plaque. Franz Weiß designed and carried out the most artistic of these grave markers for the teacher and local historian Imma Waid († 1981) of Mariazell. Her grave in the Mariazell cemetery is adorned with a monumental wrought iron cross in the classic shape of a monstrance which plays on the outline of the actual cross in a lively way. Weiβ has placed panels of enamel on the cross’s roof, as well as on its foot and cross beam; these panels depict various saints and angels alongside the Passion of Christ.

The grave cross for the head master Gustav Schöffmann († 1965) in Friedberg is more plain and formally reduced. Among others, St. Cecilia, patron saint of church music, flanks Christ’s centrally located empty cross. At the same location, we can also find a wall recess containing a cross in the most simple, modern forged form; it shows St. Augustine as a namesake saint.

Namesake saints also adorn other grave crosses: the Archangel Michael that of Prof. Michael Pfliegler in Gutenbrunn, and St. Anthony of Padua as well as St. Mary in the form of the Lankowitzer Gnadebnild that of the Knilli family in Groβ St. Florian.

The 1968 copper grave cross for Pastor Alois Puntigam in the cemetery of Bad Radkersburg gains relief-like plasticity through a strong application of enamel. On one side, it shows Christ blessing down from the cross with an audacious gesture, and on the block-like back side, it display symbols such as chalice and book as a sign of priesthood, as well as the Monogram of the Virgin Mary.

Beyond the borders of Austria, we find five grave decorations in Augsburg. There the large enamel panel for wax artist Helmschrott (1987) shows various forms of decorated candles surrounding the cross. The grave markers of the family of Dr Franz Spengler lead us into the artist’s circle of friends. In Innichen, South Tyrol, Franz Weiβ decorated the grave of the conservationist Josef Kasebacher († 1979) with and enamel of Christ Resurrected and the deceased’s namesake saint St. Joseph as a carpenter.

The serial piece of the martyr memorial for Pastor Heinrich Dalla Rosa

In the artist’s oeuvre, we find numerous examples of works which address historical events and persons that seemed of importance in the context of programmes for the decoration of churches, chapels, schools, memorials, etc. Here, the artistic interpretation of the life and martyrdom of a 20th century blood witness, who worked as pastor in St. Georgen near Obdach in Upper Styria, is particular interest. Pastor Heinrich Dalla Rosa was caught in the frays of the Third Reich’s blood and revenge vengeance and died on the 24th of January 1945 on the guillotine in Vienna. Franz Weiβ crafted the first grave marker, the interior of a memorial chapel, and a cycle of work encompassing the Stations of the Cross for Dalla Rosa in the priest’s South Tyrolean birth place. Weiß thus contributed to the glorification of this martyr in an artistic way.2

The remains of the executed priest could only be found and identified after the end of the war; he was laid to rest in his parish of St. Georgen in 1946. In 1965, Franz Weiβ created two enamel appliques for a traditionally shaped wrought iron grave cross, which had originated at the Pelzmann workshop. The appliques show Christ Resurrected and below the symbols of priesthood: the chalice, host, and stole. Since the unassuming grave was located in front of the bare northern exterior wall of the parish church, it was decided to extend it into a memorial, and in 1992, Franz Weiβ was commissioned with its design. The artist decided to incorporate the church wall and used it as carrier and surface for a painted architectural arc, in the arcades of which we find depictions of Christ at the Column and as Good Shepherd. The central arch is crowned by a halo, as the original cross is situated in front of it.

Since as a child Pastor Dalla Rosa had grown up in the Eastern Styrian village of Burgau from age of six onward, his adopted home, too, erected a chapel in his memory, especially since he had celebrated his first mass as a newly ordained priest there in 1935. Franz Weiβ designed and carried out the murals, which he completed in 1989. In an impressive manner, the pictorial programme densely populates a large wall area. It contains actual things and events, such as a representation of the Primiz Church, the priest celebrating mass beneath a crucifix, a Gothic statue of the Madonna in Burgau, and Dalla Rosa’s namesake saint, St. Henry. There are also symbolic images, such as the coat of arms of the priest’s birth place, Brixen, the flooding light of God’s grace, and the Holy Spirit’s flaming tongues. A precise text appreciating Dalla Rosa’s biography, carried out in Weiβ’s typical writing, book, chalice, and host form the lower part of the painting.

2 For Dalla Rosa’s biographs see: Treu bis in den Tod: Heinrich Dalla Rosa (1909–1945), Bozen 1986.

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Lana, Dalla Rosa’s South Tyrol birth community, also commemorated the deceased. As early as in 1986, an enamel memorial plaque was fashioned by Weiβ, which compares Christ as the Good Shepherd with the priest Dalla Rosa shepherding his flock. In 2000, the Stations of the Cross, designed by Franz Weiß in

1990/91, were created in the priest’s memory. Thus, the artist brought forth an artistically and formally connected complex in three different locations, which is dedicated to the life and suffering of a historically relevant personality.

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