Behalt

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Behalt is a 10′ x 265′ cyclorama by .[1] The name is derived from the German word ''behalten'', which means to hold onto or to remember.[2] It illustrates the heritage of the Amish and Mennonite people, starting from the beginnings of Christianity. It is located in the Amish & Mennonite Heritage Center in Berlin, Holmes County, Ohio.[3][4] According to the Columbus Dispatch it has been called the “Sistine Chapel of the Amish and Mennonites”.[1] It is one of four existing cycloramas in the US and one of only 16 in the world; Behalt is the only existing cyclorama painted by a single artist.[5][4]

Anabaptist scholar Susan Biesecker-Mast calls it "an effort to exceed the tourist economy of Holmes County by offering a transformative rhetoric for its visitors".[2] She relates the story of the mural's creation as an attempt by area religious leaders to hold onto control of the telling of their own story.[2]

Creation[]

The painting was created over 14 years and completed in 1992.[5][6] In 1978, tourism of the heavily-Amish eastern Holmes County had become more and more disruptive to the daily lives of residents, and an Amish blacksmith remarked to Gaugel that he wished there were some place tourists go could to learn why the Plain sects lived the way they do.[2] Gaugel decided to create the cyclorama as an educational instrument.[2] In June 1979 a local Mennonite woman, Helen F. Smucker, offered funding for a studio, materials, and a display facility for the finished work.[2] His first studio was in Old Dunkard Church in , Ohio.[2] Smucker died later that year, and a group of investors bought out her share of ownership and decided to build a display facility on the Amish Farm, one of the earliest tourist-oriented businesses in the area.[2] Area ministers were concerned that, after Smucker's death, there was no longer anyone Mennonite involved in the project and how that would affect the result.[2] According to Biesecker-Mast, the idea that their story would be told by those not members of the community and put on display for profit was "more than some religious leaders in the community could stand." They formed a committee to develop a Mennonite Information Center; the main agenda item at their first meeting was concern about the painting being purchased by someone who wanted to use it in a business venture.[2]

Gaugel told the investors he would need five more years to complete the painting, the investors sued him for breach of contract, and in 1980, the unfinished painting was seized by the Holmes County Sheriff "for safekeeping".[2] In early summer1981 the space in which Gaugel's studio had been located was opened to the public as the Mennonite Information Center.[2] The painting was returned to Gaugel later that year, but the lawsuit required him to move it out of state and changes its name.[2] In 1984 the group of investors offered their share of the mural to the Center.[2] In 1986 a lien against the painting was discovered and it was again seized, this time in Pennsylvania.[2] In 1988 the Mennonite Information Center finally signed a purchase agreement, but the board struggled to purchase land and build a facility.[2] In 1990 the facility opened with the mural on display while Gaugel continued to work on it.[2]

Description[]

The cyclorama follows the development of the early Christian church, the acceptance of the Christian church by the Roman Empire under Constantine, and the early development of the Roman Catholic Church.[7] It then moves to the Reformation and narrows its focus to the Radical Reformation and the Anabaptists. The balance of the painting is about how the Amish, Mennonite, and Hutterite movements grew, moved and developed from the Anabaptist beginning in Zurich, Switzerland, in 1525 to the present day. The mural portrays over 1200 people. In 2019 an estimated 18,000 to 20,000 people from multiple countries viewed it.[5]

Critical commentary[]

Biesecker-Mast analyzes the mural as "a Christian rhetoric that, as a remembering and a giving, transcends the economy of exchange and possession that surrounds it."[2] She notes as a primary theme of the mural that "the story" is not one story but many interwoven threads, "complicated and messy", and that it was unlikely viewers would come away "with a sense of a neat chronology."

According to Biesecker-Mast, Behalt is not simply a painting but three separate media: a painting, a space, and a story. She adds as a fourth rhetorical concept the mural's own creation history as a struggle of a people to hold onto the ability to tell their own story. Because it is not possible to view the painting from a single place, one is forced to move through the space and experience it both as "a temporary (in the sense that once cannot stay here for long) and a temporal (in the sense that this is history) boundary between the viewer and the rolling hills and crowded highways of Holmes County." Because of the size of it, it is impossible to capture in one gaze; she likens this to the entire story -- because it is too many stories -- being impossible to fully grasp or hold onto.[2] This in turn she likens to the attempts at easy commodification of the Amish by local entrepreneurs: "Just as one cannot hold the painting in one's hands or one's gaze, the mural suggests that this history and these people are not, in fact, reducible to a singular narrative."

Artist[]

Heinz Gaugel was born in Germany and moved to Canada in 1951.[8] He travelled to Ohio in 1962 and became interested in Amish culture and history.[8] He moved to the Holmes County area in 1972, and in 1978, as a response to growing Amish tourism in the area, decided to create the cyclorama to explain Anabaptist history to visitors.[8] After the Amish & Mennonite Heritage Center purchased the unfinished painting in 1988, he continued his work on it in their space, often while visitors watched.[8] He completed the painting in 1992, but continued to work in his studio at the center until shortly before his death in 2000.[8]

External links[]

Coordinates: 40°34′05″N 81°46′50″W / 40.568018°N 81.780475°W / 40.568018; -81.780475

References[]

  1. ^ a b Brown, Gary (18 October 2013). "Postcard from ... Berlin: Behalt Cyclorama tells the story of the Anabaptists". The Columbus Dispatch. Archived from the original on 2021-08-19. Retrieved 2021-08-19.
  2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s Biesecker-Mast, Susan (1999-07-01). "Behalt: a rhetoric of remembrance and transformation". Mennonite Quarterly Review. 73 (3): 601–615.
  3. ^ "Behalt Cyclorama". Amish & Mennonite Heritage Center. Archived from the original on 2020-02-01. Retrieved 2021-08-19.
  4. ^ a b Brownlee, Amy Knueven (2011-07-01). "The Simple Life". Cincinnati Magazine. Archived from the original on 2015-09-05. Retrieved 2021-08-19.
  5. ^ a b c Lueptow, Diana (2019-04-25). "Memory Center". . Retrieved 2021-08-19.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
  6. ^ Minnich, Kate (1 April 2016). "Behalt". . Archived from the original on 2021-08-19. Retrieved 2021-08-19.
  7. ^ Glaser, Susan (2011-12-25). "Explore the vast variety of Ohio's religious cultures". The Plain Dealer. Archived from the original on 2021-08-19. Retrieved 2021-08-19.
  8. ^ a b c d e Harrison, Nancy (7 August 2011). "Everything Just So: Cycloramas, The North American Tour". The Chattanoogan. Archived from the original on 2021-08-19. Retrieved 2021-08-19.


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