22 The special aura of glass as an artistic medium has not faded. Since antiquity, humans have known how to paint on the reverse side of glass. Back then, the main purpose was to decorate cult objects. Behind a shiny surface, the golden ornaments looked even more precious than if they were merely applied to a frontal painting surface. It was only in the Middle Ages that figurative elements were added to the ornamental patterns, for example on small slabs of glass that were treated like intarsiae and, through refraction, seemed to radiate from within. From today’s perspective, we can understand such pieces as humble satellites that were orbiting around the Augustinian concept of divine illumination. When manifested in overwhelming cathedrals, such metaphysical notions of light helped transform daylight and weather into evidence of God’s existence. Even though the visual sensation of huge stained glass windows had to be assembled from small elements, they evoked a massive psychophysical impact, very different from the effects of the manageably sized glass objects that helped to observe domestic, intimate rules of piety. In the face of such historical derivations from representational modes of faith, it becomes indeed difficult to operate with common “modern” definitions of what is “high” or “low” art, what can be classified as folk art or, rather, Stilkunst (style art, i.e., art that follows and conforms to a certain stylistic canon) – especially as limiting categories (and theories) of this kind have become increasingly controversial. At this point, the collector and expert Udo Dammert (b. 1904, d. 2003) suggested a rather metaphysical reading: “From the onset, the technique of fusing painting, respectively colour with glass, enabled for stepping into the realm of the visionary, invited to play with reality and irreality … Colour itself is charged with brilliance and radiance, light generates refractions and reflections. The anti-naturalism that comes with pure folk art turns into a symbol of the supernatural.”1 From the 15th century onward, technological developments in glass manufacturing allowed for larger formats, glass sheets were easier to obtain than before, and the demand soon exceeded the limits of ecclesiastical and hegemonic representation.2 Countless glass workshops sprang up in Silesia, Northern Bohemia, and the Ore Mountains, along with trades that worked the material into mirrors and jewelry. Now even rural artisans could afford to use glass plates as painting ground and thus introduce their own particular, autochthonous visuality – aforesaid transcendental “anti-naturalism.” Beate Hornig is deeply rooted in local traditions. Coming from Upper Lusatia and thus almost from the heartland of Silesian-Bohemian glass manufacturing, she knows a thing or two about the material. She first came into contact with the artistic aspects of glass and the secrets of the region’s customary “backside” painting3 through the artist Dieter Zimmermann. It seems Backstage with Beate Hornig accompanied by Giotto, Barbara Abesch, Paul Klee and Sarah Kirsch Susanne Altmann
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