Svetovna zgodovina na »mrgoleči sliki«: Stephan Kessler in Rešitev Dunaja leta 1683

The representation of battle panoramas was a widespread genre in 17th-century painting when skilled artists became sought-after specialists working for many courts in Central Europe. Throughout the 17th century, continual Otto- man aggressions gave a new actuality to the battle genre. Stephan Kessler, a late 17th-century artist from the South Tyrolean town of Brixen, who lived far away from the great artistic centres, but was well informed of developments there, successfully made his way in this field, depicting the liberation of Vienna in 1683 on colourful, multi-figured canvasses in the tradition of 16th-century ‘Wimmelbilder’. As an artist of modest talents, Kessler regularly referred to Rubens, whose compositions came to new life through well-known reproductive prints. A representation of the Vienna battle from 1683 held at the Heeresgeschichtliches Museum, Vienna, was attributed to Kessler, as well as a stylistically closely related painting of the same motif at Schloss Friedenstein, Gotha. Recent research of the Viennese canvas confirmed this hypothesis when Kessler’s monogram came to light.Panoramske upodobitve bitk so bile v slikarstvu 17. stoletja zelo razširjen žanr; v njem izurjeni slikarji so postali iskani specialisti, delujoči za številne srednjeevropske dvore. Zaradi stalnih turških napadov so postale upodobitve bitk v 17. stoletju ponovno aktualne in dosegle visoko kakovostno raven. Kljub oddaljenosti od velikih umetnostnih središč, a dobro seznanjen z njihovimi dosežki, si je Stephan Kessler, slikar poznega 17. stoletja iz južnotirolskega Briksna, uspešno utrl pot na tem področju z upodobitvama osvoboditve Dunaja leta 1683 na barvitih mnogofigu- ralnih platnih v tradiciji »mrgolečih slik« (Wimmelbilder) 16. stoletja. Kot umetnik skromnih talentov se je Kessler redno opiral na Rubensa, čigar kompozicije so na novo zaživele s pomočjo dobro znanih prevodnih grafik. Kesslerju sta bili pripisani upodobitev bitke pred Dunajem leta 1683 v Vojnozgodovinskem muzeju na Dunaju in sli- ka istega motiva v gradu Friedenstein v Gothi, ki je dunajskemu platnu tudi slogovno zelo blizu. Atribucijo je potrdil Kesslerjev monogram, najden med nedavno raziskavo na dunajski sliki