Martyrdom of Saint Simon Zelotes and Saint Judas Thaddeus, Martin Johann Schmidt

Artwork Overview

Martin Johann Schmidt, Martyrdom of Saint Simon Zelotes and Saint Judas Thaddeus
Martin Johann Schmidt, Martyrdom of Saint Simon Zelotes and Saint Judas Thaddeus
Martin Johann Schmidt
Martyrdom of Saint Simon Zelotes and Saint Judas Thaddeus
circa 1796
Martin Johann Schmidt, artist
1718–1801
Martyrdom of Saint Simon Zelotes and Saint Judas Thaddeus, circa 1796
Where object was made: Austria
Material/technique: canvas; oil
Dimensions:
Canvas/Support (Height x Width x Depth): 68.6 x 43.2 cm
Canvas/Support (Height x Width x Depth): 27 x 17 in
Credit line: Museum purchase
Accession number: 1951.0070
Not on display
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Images

Label texts

Martin Johann Schmidt’s painting depicts the execution of two apostles as related in The Golden Legend, a 13th-century collection of lives of the saints by Jacobus de Voragine. In the legend, Simon Zelotes is sawed in half, and Judas Thaddeus is beaten to death with a club. The emaciated body of St. Simon lies in the center of the composition waiting for his imminent death while St. Judas stands in the background mere moments before his torturer attacks him. Painted in a dark color palette, the additional figures seem to swirl around the two saints and enhance the violent tone of the painting.

Exhibition Label:
"Corpus," Apr-2012, Kris Ercums
Martin Johann Schmidt’s painting depicts the execution of two apostles as related in The Golden Legend, a 13th-century collection of lives of the saints by Jacobus de Voragine. In the legend, Simon Zelotes is sawed in half, and Judas Thaddeus is beaten to death with a club. The emaciated body of St. Simon lies in the center of the composition waiting for his imminent death while St. Judas stands in the background mere moments before his torturer attacks him. Painted in a dark color palette, the additional figures seem to swirl around the two saints and enhance the violent tone of the painting.

Archive Label 2003:
This painting depicts the execution of two apostles as related in the Golden Legend, a thirteenth-century collection of lives of the saints by Jacobus de Voragine. In the Golden Legend, Simon Zelotes is sawed in half, and Judas Thaddeus is beaten to death with a club.

Kremser-Schmidt completed this “contract sketch” for a commission he received from the Benedictine Abbey at Göttweig, Austria. This sketch allowed his patrons to approve the composition before he painted the full altarpiece, which now hangs over the high altar in the parish church at Kilb in Lower Austria.

Archive Label 1999:
This painting depicts the executions of two apostles as related in the Golden Legend, a thirteenth-century collection of lives of the saints by Jacobus de Voragine. In the Golden Legend, Simon Zelotes is sawed in half, and Judas Thaddeus is beaten to death with a club.

This is the "contract sketch" Schmidt completed for a commission he received from the Benedictine Abbey at Göttweig, Austria. The sketch allowed the Abbey to see and approve the composition before the artist painted the full altarpiece, which now hangs over the high altar in the parish church at Kilb near Vienna.

Exhibitions

Corpus - Project Redefine: Phase 2
Kris Ercums, curator
2012–2015
German and Austrian Painting of the 18th Century
1978
From the Collection of the University of Kansas
1971
Central Europe: 1600-1800
1972
German and Austrian Painting of the Eighteenth Century
1956

Resources

Audio

Audio Tour – Bulldog Podcast
Audio Tour – Bulldog Podcast
I want you close your eyes and imagine artwork of the past. Starry Night depicts a beautiful town and a wonderful sky at night. The Mona Lisa showcases a pretty woman with a beautiful landscape. How about an old man getting brutally sawed in half and someone else bludgeoned to death? That’s basically the Martyrdom of St. Simon Zelotes and St. Judas Thaddeus in a nutshell. It depicts St. Simon getting sawed in half and St. Jude getting beaten to death with a club, how lovely. This was painted by Martin Johann Schmidt in 1796. He was an Austrian born on September 25, 1718 in Grafenworth, Austria and died in Stein, Austria on June 28, 1801. Other than his birth and death dates, this guy has been wiped off of the face of the Earth. He’s a complete mystery! The story behind this was that Simon was a descendant of David, so Vespasian, a Roman Emperor (along with Domitian, also a Roman Emperor), ordered the destruction of all who descended David. Simon, being one of them, ran away and lived happily ever after in a faraway land! Okay, not really, it’s much worse than that. Simon did escape the search, but was found and not only denounced that he was one of David’s descendants, but also being a Christian. So, he was brought forth to Atticus, the Roman governor, and was sentenced to torture followed by death while being crucified. He was reportedly 120 years old when he died. On a side note, Simon was known to have endured the torture and sufferings with some fortitude to the point where even Atticus had his admiration! For St. Jude, well, not a whole lot is known about him. He was one of the Apostles of Jesus and was the one who asked Jesus at the Last Supper why he wouldn’t manifest himself to the world after his resurrection. Supposedly, he was off to visit Beirut and Edessa and then possibly martyred with St. Simon in Persia. But, other than that, not much else is known about him or why he was even martyred in the first place, or with St. Simon! The lack of a solid story angers me. The biggest thing that grabbed my attention was that, well, just look at it! There is an old man getting sawed in half. That’s definitely something you don’t see every day. It kind of made me rather sad and mortified in a way that they’re sawing an old man in half! I’ve played plenty of violent video games where you would see plenty of people die, and even more gruesome and horrific, but I just can’t see an elder get killed, at least like that! Just why are all of the world’s problems blamed on video games!? A school shooting, video games; a series of murders in a city, video games; a bombing run of a heavily populated area, must be the video games. The truth is, there have been plenty of violent images that go centuries back, but people always blame video games, even when it has been proven that there is almost never a connection between them. When I mean images, I’m referring to paintings and books, but mostly paintings. There are a lot of violent paintings that people don’t blame because it’s supposed to be a form of “expression” and “educational”. Obviously they don’t feel the same towards games. Look at this, would you feel the urge to go out and saw an elder? Probably not! I seriously don’t understand why they don’t recognize things like this. They just point their fingers at something and hope everyone agrees with it. Nevertheless, other than seeing the execution towards an elder, I did like the realistic approach in terms of detail. To me, it seems to be inspired from Rembrandt’s style of painting. It also has a dark and moody atmosphere that lures you in and doesn’t want you to focus your attention on something else. It fits perfectly with what it’s about. I have conflicting thoughts towards this; I am mortified, yet also impressed by this great painting. While it clearly wouldn’t make the best room decoration, I think that this painting shows quite a bit of history embedded with it, along with it being beautifully painted, makes it an overall great portrait. I can really understand why this was bought by the Spencer and they should be proud to own this in their collection. This has been another Bulldog Podcast!