Paint Palette

Ohio History 

Paint Palette from Behalt

Can you imagine using a mess like this to create the beautiful pictures in my last post? That's what the Behalt artist, Heinz Gaugel, did. Well, he'd already had a lot of practice. Born in the German Alps in 1927, he moved to Canada in 1951 to begin his self-taught artistic career. Mr. Gaugel created ceramic, stained glass, fresco, and painted art for both public and private buildings and churches.

That all changed in 1962 with his first visit to Holmes County, Ohio. After hearing an Amish blacksmith's wish for a place where tourists could find out why the Amish live the way they do, Heinz Gaugel began detailed research into Anabaptist history. Painting commenced in 1978 in his private workshop, until 1989 when the partly finished mural was moved to the Amish & Mennonite Heritage Center. Visitors could watched Behalt's progress until 1992 when Mr. Gaugel completed the massive canvas cyclorama, a complete circle measuring 265 feet in diameter.

Sgraffito - German Immigrants

The outside of the museum had another larger-than-life depiction, though much smaller than the mural. Immigrants' Arrival in the New World was also created by Heinz Gaugel using a technique of reverse art called sgraffito. First layers of contrasting colors of plaster are applied to the surface, and then carefully scratched off to create the picture. I'd never seen anything like it!

Behalt Murals

Ohio History

Behalt Scenes

Here are a few close-ups from just a small area of the mural. The number of figures and scenes packed into the painting was simply amazing! The pictorial story began in Zurich, Switzerland in 1525 where the Anabaptist movement originated, in the context the Roman Catholic Church and the developing Reformation. Important leaders and events in Anabaptist history were then depicted, leading to the emergence of the Mennonites, Amish, and Hutterites. Can you pick out all three in the scene pictured above?

Era of Conflict

The pictures simply flowed into each other as though geometric shapes of color had been laid overlapping across the scenes. In fact, the colors actually symbolized different eras of history--red during times of persecution, blue to show peace, yellow for excitement. We learned that the artist made initial charcoal sketches of the scenes before using brilliant oil paints on these enormous canvases. More on the artist in my next post!

Behalt Museum

Ohio History

The Mural

Our next stop will be on the other side of town, a few miles north of Berlin: the Amish and Mennonite Heritage Museum. Contrary to its somewhat boring name, this museum showcases an amazing piece of artwork. The Behalt Cyclorama, measuring a full 265 feet long, preserves the heritage of the Amish and Mennonite peoples from the Reformation to today. This 10-foot-high circular mural derives its name from the German word behalt which means to keep or to remember. The door sign pictured above did not prepare us for what we saw as we entered the museum.