Biographies

Ballrooms for Angels
Southern German Baroque Churches

Dominikus Zimmermann 1685-1766

Dominikus Zimmermann, born near Wessobrunn, Bavaria had a unique touch for the integration of ornamentation and tectonic design. His architecture is secondary to the total decorative effect he wished to express. He was the quintessential Bavarian master builder. His unerring intuitive sense for the religious mentality of the simple Bavarians poeple was so certain, that his churches have remained for three hundered years the cherished gems of Upper Bavaria. This is especially true of the Church on the Wies, a precious enclosure for a <i>trouvé</i> miraculous Gothic sculpture of a "Schmerzensmann", a blood-covered image of the suffering Christ.
No other architect, no Ottobeuren, no Neresheim are equally beloved and are visited by comparable streams of awstruck pilgrims. He achieved this by a joyful synthesis of space, sculpture, stucco, and frescoes. His are unique "Raumbilder", space-images - where the German expression "Raum" implies that the space is bounded by walls!
Non-Bavarian visitors to the Wies often see nothing with their inner eye and complain of the "fakeness" of Zimmermann's architectural elements: The wooden(!) columns are covered with colored stucco which looks like marble - but isn't marble. Marble of the desired color simply doesn't exist. The sculptures are likewise from stucco not wood - but they are sophisticated, often arrogant plaster figures in their own right. His interiors may be trompe l'oeil, but they are so raffiné that to call them "kitsch" – as one French friend did - would be sacrilegeous.
Wikipedia

The Asam Brothers: Cosmas Damian, 1686–1739, and Egid Quirin, 1692–1750

Cosmas Damian Asam (1686–1739) and his brother Egid Quirin (1692–1750) Asam were two of the nine children of Hans Georg Asam, the resident painter in Benediktbeuern Abbey. Both were apprentices under their father. After the death of his father in 1711, Cosmas Damian traveled to Rome, sponsored by the abbot of Tegernsee, in order to receive further education there. Presumably his brother accompanied him on this trip.
The works of Giovanni Lorenzo Bernini made a profound impression on Cosmas Damian, and in 1713 he received the first prize of the Accademia di San Luca in the presence of the Pope. In 1716 Egid Quirin finished his training under the Munich court sculptor Andreas Faistenberger. After their return from Italy, the brothers received many commissions, thanks to their close ties to the Order of St. Benedict.
Cosmas Damian worked as a painter and sculptor; Egid Quirin, as architect, stucco-worker, and sculptor. They worked together on nearly all their commissions.
While the frescoes and stucco-works executed by the brothers in Bamberg were still strongly characterized by a certain illusionism, they achieved in later works, such as those in Weingarten Abbey, a uniform interplay of individual elements that provided a stage-like setting for the Baroque church service. With the construction and organization of the influential church in Weltenburg Abbey, they assured their fame. They succeeded in bringing together painting, sculpture, light, space, and architecture into a unified total work of art.
While their architectural commissions ranged from Bohemia to the Tyrol and Switzerland, from around 1727 both brothers resided in Munich. Their best known building is the Church of St. John Nepomuk, popularly known as the Asamkirche, in Munich, next to which they lived. This late work, wedged into an exceedingly small space and built without commission, served as a private chapel for the Asam brothers.
Wikipedia.de

Johann Balthasar Neumann 1687-1753

Johann Balthasar Neumann, born 1687 in Eger, Bohemia (today Cheb), was the only professional architect in the modern sense among the master builders of the Bavarian Baroque. The prefession of an "architect" did not exist then. By training he was an engineer. Wikipedia calls him a "military engineer" because, like Michelangelo, he also built fortifications in the employ of Joh. Philip Franz von Schönborn, Fürstbischof (Princely Bishop) of Würzburg.
In the employ of the Schönborns he traveled widely: Austria-Hungary and Italy, where he became acquainted with the buildings of Johann Bernhard Fischer von Erlach and Johann Lucas von Hildebrandt; Milano, where he met Guarino Guarini, who stronly influenced his vision of architectural spaces; Paris where he befriended Robert de Cotte and Germain Boffrand, the royal architects at the French court. - These international impulses, which set him apart from the local Bavarian masters, echo and re-echo in his architecture.
His most ambitious building project is the "Residenz" in Wüzburg, the Palais of the Fürstbischof (1720–1744). An imitation of Versailles in the lovely Main Valley. It is ouside the scope of this review, I only show the interior of the palace chapel.
Wikipedia, Britannica

Johann Michael Fischer 1692-1766

Johann Michael Fischer was the youngest, most modest but most prolific “Baumeister” amomng them. He was born 1692 in Burglengenfeld in the Upper Palatinate. He was not a Bavarian, but spent most of his active life in Bavaria.
Despite his modesty he became the most prolific master builder in Southern Germany. He studied in Bohemia and combined Bohemian elements with Bavarian Baroque traditions. He often cooperated with the most gifted Bavarian artists of his time, such as Cosmas Damian Asam and Egid Quirin Asam, Johann Joseph Christian, Johann Michael Feuchtmayer, Matthäus Günther, Ignaz Günther, Franz Joseph Spiegler, Johann Baptist Straub, and Johann Baptist Zimmermann. He died on 6 May 1766 in Munich and is buried there in the Frauenkirche.
His eptaph credits him with some 128 churches and monasteries only a fraction of which are known today or have survived.
Fischer systematically worked on two architectural problems:
1. How to lighten the inherited so-called "Vorarlberger Schema" (named after the area north and west of Insbruck): heavy rectangular masonry pilaster along the walls of the "Langhaus" (nave) which carry the roof structure.
2. How to architecturally integrate the Langhaus wiih a cross-nave.
He solved the first problem in Osterhofen-Altenmark by connecting the pillars with rounded mezzanine balconies. The second problem only found a pleasing solution in his last church at Rott-am-Inn: in an elegant sequence of cubic spaces surmounted by circular copulas instead of a barrel vault.
Wikipedia

Stuccateurs, Sculptors and Painters

The stuccateurs, sculptors, and painters of the Bavarian churches belonged to half a dozen of families from three or four villages. Among them Wessobrunn deserves special mention. It produced the Zimmermann brothers and a long line of stuccateurs who for a while all belonged to the Wessobrunner School. When during the late 18th century the building madness ran out and classicist ideal took over the profession died out.

I attach a list of the most notable masters and their major projects:

The Wessobrunner School:
The Schmuzers from Wessobrunn
Johann Schmuzer 1642 - 1701 and Franz Xaver Schmuzer 1713-1775 stuccateurs and painters
Joseph Schmuzer 1683 - 1752 , stuccateur and painter, Rottenbuch

The Zimmermanns from Wessobrunn
Johann Baptist Zimmermann 1680 - 1758, stuccateur and painter, Ottobeuren, Steinhausen, Berg am Laim, Andechs, Wies, St. Peter in München

The Feuchtmayers (aka Feichtmayer) from Wessobrunn:
Joseph Anton Feuchtmayer 1696–1770 stuccateur and painter, Meersburg, Weingarten
Johann Michael Feuchtmayer, 1709–1772, stuccateur and painter, Vierzehnheiligen, Diessen, Ottobeuren, Würzburg
Franz Joseph Feuchtmayer, stuccateur and painter
Franz Xavier Feuchtmayer b.1735, stuccateur, Ettal, Diessen - and the related
Johann Georg Übelher, 1703-1763, stuccateur sculptor, Maria Steinbach, Vierzehnheiligen, Ettal

The Straubs from Wiesensteig near Füssen
Johann Baptist Straub, 1704 - 1784, sculptor and stuccateur, Andechs, Ettal, St. Anna im Lehel, Diessen
Philipp Jakob Straub and brothers Johann George and Joseph were also stuccateurs.

Franz Joseph Spiegler, 1691-1757, Wangen/Algäu, painter, Zwiefalten
Johann Joseph Christian, 1706-1777, sculptor, woodcarver, choir stalls in Zwiefalten and Ottobeuren, Buchau
Matthäus Günther, !705-1788 from Peissenberg, painter, Rottenbuch, Rott am Inn, Würzburg
Ignaz Günther, 1725 -1775 from Altmannstein near Kehlheim/Donau, sculptor, Rott am Inn, Weyarn
Martin Knoller, 1725-1804 from Steinach/Brenner, Tyrol, painter, Neresheim
Joseph Schöpf, 1745-1822 from Telfs, Tyrol, painter, Neresheim