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Holzinger, Franz Josef Ignaz
(b Vocklabruck; bapt 7 Sept 1691; d St Florian, 14 March 1775). Austrian stuccoist. He came from a family of stuccoists and began his earliest documented work, the decoration (1718–22) of the pilgrimage church of the Holy Trinity at Stadl-Paura, near Lambach, with his father, Johann Georg Holzinger (d 1738), although he finished it alone. At the same time he was working at the abbeys of Lambach and St Florian (from 1719). The stuccowork (1719) in the abbot’s antechamber at St Florian is typical of Holzinger’s early work, in which the ribbon work usually flows out in C-shaped loops ending in scrolled acanthus leaves. The angular shape of the loops, producing squares, is also typical. From 1722 to 1724 he made the splendid atlantids in the library at Metten Abbey. The striding figures seem to carry the ceiling with ease: their fluttering garments typify south German Rococo art. Holzinger moved to St Florian in 1724 owing to an increasing number of commissions from the abbey (see ST FLORIAN ABBEY, §1). Other works included decoration (1730–42) of the library, imperial staircase and emperor’s room at Altenburg Abbey. In 1737 he did the stucco decoration in the vestry of Reichersberg Abbey, covering the ceiling with a delicate web of stuccowork. Holzinger was one of the most important late Baroque stuccoists in Austria. He was particularly imaginative in his use of ribbon work, lattice-work and draped shapes in white on a pastel background, or vice versa, as in the sala terrena at St Florian; his mature work is characterized by finer stucco reliefs and more figurative motifs. He remained faithful to his style; the stuccowork (1768) in the observatory at Kremsmünster resembles his masterpieces of 30 years earlier.
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