12

winter – hibernus

Tracery

The tracery

In the wall surfaces of the Wintringer Chapel, which consists of the choir and the apse of the former late Gothic church, sit high lancet windows, which were originally divided by stone, geometrically measured building ornaments. This ornamental window decoration is called tracery and is an invention of the Reims cathedral building works shortly after 1211. Remains of these tracery elements were recovered during the archaeological excavations at the Wintringen chapel.

The tracery, the "measured work", a stone work geometrically constructed exclusively from exact circular arcs, served to divide and at the same time grate Gothic windows.

The tracery forms a unit with the profiled window jamb. It consists of vertical bars (stave work). In simpler church buildings, such as the former late Gothic Wintringer church, this is usually only a centrally dividing main bar. Above the impost line is the actual tracery, which is composed of circular forms (pass) and later of geometric figures (leaf and snow foot). The butts of the passes, which form a point, can end in thickened, often trifoliate noses.

After the destruction in the Thirty Years' War and demolition, only parts of the complex, choir and eastern nave aisle of the nave were preserved as a "chapel". During this baroqueizing reconstruction probably the tracery of the church windows was removed. At the same time, the windows were also extended downward and received a hand-forged muntin construction, which was glazed.

The found remains of the tracery suggest that the design of the tracery of the Wintringen church was very similar to the Gothic churches in the area. This is also obvious, since the stonemasons moved from building site to building site and often transferred the models of the stone work. Comparable tracery windows can be seen at the castle church in Saarbrücken, at the church in Zettingen or the church in Fénétrange.

Choreographer and dancer Ilka von Häfen and photographer, draftsman and performer Thomas Rößler have known each other for a long time. Especially for the cultural site Wintringer Chapel, they arranged for the final event to develop a first joint project for the place. The point of reference was the lost late Gothic tracery of the "chapel". Inspired by the geometry and dynamics of the Gothic tracery, they developed a choreography for a pas de deux in intensive preliminary work. Radial symmetry and movement were their main themes, transformed by the interaction of dance as movement in space and drawing as movement of the hand and the tool.

A transitive and at the same time a permanent work of art was created on the shared work surface during the performance, which could be viewed up close after the end of the performance.

Dancing and drawing are among the oldest forms of artistic expression of mankind. In their interplay - with reference to the destroyed building ornament of the Gothic period - it became clear that these arts perform archaic rites, as it were, which can open up those mysterious spaces where we fail with our language.

As part of the overall documentation of the Book of Hours, this final event was also recorded in cooperation with the AV Media Center.

In the course of rehearsals, choreographic sketches were created in the chapel. Charcoal or mixed media on paper, edition of 50 copies and 2 E. A., numbered and signed. The sketches are available as building blocks for the preservation of the Wintringer Chapel for 10,- €. Info: peter.lupp@rvsbr.de