St. Margaret (for the Parish Church in Morzg), 1923

Despite financial difficulties and the skepticism of the parish administration, the parish priest of Morzg, Franz Vatterodt (1875–1961), and the architect Martin Knoll (1888–1937) were able to commission the Expressionist artist Anton Faistauer (1887–1930) to create the ceiling frescoes for the church in the Interwar Years. Between 1922 and 1923, Faistauer created a cycle of lively secco paintings depicting the life of Mary in intense colors for the parish church in Morzg, which had been built in the 12th century. In his study for the secco painting of St. Margaret, the young woman with her placid gaze is almost reaching into the jaws of the snarling dragon, which is lying on its back at her feet, its claws in the air, exposing its stomach. She seems calmly resigned to her fate. In the background, the Salzach river is flowing through the picture in vivid, aquatic colors, past the parish church of Maria Plein. Faistauer’s fresco and secco paintings, especially his large-scale paintings in the Salzburg Festival Hall, are today considered his most important works.

RR, 2023