# Interior with decoration [View the canonical artwork record]() ## Artwork - Artist: [CHRISTIAN, Johann Josef]() - Date: 1751-1800 - Technique: Photo ## Commentary The most grandiose of the monasteries rebuilt in Germany in the eighteenth century is the Benedictine Monastery of Ottobeuren near the frontier between Swabia and Bavaria; several architect \(Simpert Kraemer, Joseph Effner, Johann Michael Fischer\) worked on it and it was completed with all the buildings originally projected. The innumerable statues \(mainly by Johann Josef Christian\), ornamental motifs \(by Johann Michael Feuchtmayr\), and paintings \(ceiling frescoes by Johann Jakob Zeiller\) in the church join together rhythmically in that symphonic unity to which the Germans have given the name 'Gesamtkunstwerk.' The huge monastery, of which the church forms a part, is a kind of summing up of German Rococo. <p> <table align=left cellpadding=5 border=1 width=320 bgcolor="\#99cccc"> <tr valign=middle><td><img src="/support/gif/listen.gif" border=0 valign=middle> Suggested listening \(streaming mp3, 19 minutes\):<br><a href="\#" onClick="w=window.open \('/music1/19\_cent/tchaikovsky\_rococo.html', 'newWin', 'scrollbars=yes,status=no,dependent=yes,screenX=0,screenY=0,width=350,height=350'\);w.opener=this;w.focus\(\);return true"><b>Piotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky: Variations on a Rococo Theme</b></a> </td></tr></table> ## Related artworks - [Angel]() - [Bust of the Prophet Ezekiel]() - [Organ]() - [St Benedict Chanting Psalms \(detail of the organ\)]() - [The Prophet Ezekiel]() ## Attribution [Web Gallery of Art]()