1725 -1804 · Tyrol, Vienna, Rome, Munich and Milan

Aerial frescoes, Roman drawing and transition to classicism make Martin Knoller a great Austro-Italian decorator of the 18th century.

Martin Knoller was born in 1725 in Steinach am Brenner, Tyrol, and died in Milan in 1804. Noticed at a very young age by Paul Troger, he followed this master to Vienna and learned from him the spectacular art of baroque frescoes. He then continued his training in Rome, where he encountered the classicism of Anton Raphael Mengs and the portrait of Pompeo Batoni. This dual culture, Austrian and Italian, defined his entire career. Installed mainly in Milan but active on both sides of the Alps, Knoller worked for churches, abbeys, palaces and aristocratic sponsors. His ceilings organize vast ascents where figures rise in architecture open to the sky. Little to little, the clarity of the drawing, the simplicity of the groups and the classical measure temper the Baroque movement. The Assumption of the Virgin preserved at the Louvre is the preparatory modello for a ceiling commissioned for the Bürgersaal in Munich and frescoed in 1774. The original decor was destroyed during the bombings of 1944. The original decor was destroyed during the bombings of 1944. The canvas gave exceptional documentary value. The Virgin climbs into the center of a column of light, surrounded by angels and clouds arranged to be seen from the ground. Knoller also practices portraiture and altar painting. His work thus links Tyrol, Vienna, Rome, Munich and Milan in a European synthesis of late Baroque and neoclassicism. The selection "Martin Knoller" notably compares The Assumption of the Virgin. Its reading favors details.

Knoller opens the ceiling like a sky: painting abolishes real architecture and organizes the ascent through light, cloud and gaze.