Asam, Egid Quirin

Egid Quirin Asam, (born Sept. 1, 1692, Tegernsee, Bavaria [now in Germany]—died April 29, 1750, Mannheim, Palatinate [now in Germany]), late Baroque architect whose work, often produced in collaboration with his brother Cosmas Damian Asam, utilized illusionist decoration and exhibited great religious sentiment.

Asam, a son of the influential Bavarian painter Hans Georg Asam, was both an architect and a sculptor of stucco. He and his brother Cosmas, a fresco painter, often combined their work so fluidly and intricately that ascertaining their individual contributions is difficult. Early religious commissions done by the brothers exhibit the influence of Gian Lorenzo Bernini and the theatrum sacrum (“sacred theatre”), a style that involves the spectator in a rich religious drama through the weaving of various decorative elements.

Egid Quirin Asam: detail of Baroque stuccowork

The Asam brothers’ masterwork is the Church of St. John of Nepomuk in Munich (1733–46), known in honour of the brothers as Asamkirche. It is an important early contribution to the Bavarian Rococo style. The building’s relatively uncomplicated yet dramatic facade testifies to Egid Quirin’s ability to generate a sense of movement in stone. His other major works include the gilded sculpture St. George and the Dragon (1721), which dominates the high altar of the cloister church in the Benedictine abbey of Weltenburg (1716–21), and the decoration of the Premonstratensian abbey church in Osterhofen (originally built by Johann Michael Fischer [1726–28; decoration c. 1730]). Asam contributed the architectural plan to the Ursuline church at Straubing (1738–41), which was to be the final collaboration with his brother, who died during its creation.