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The Asam brothers were particularly famous for their manipulation of illusionistic tricks in their architecture. The Munich church of St. John Nepomuk, known as the "Asam church" reflects the work of both the sculptor Egid Quirin Asam and the painter Cosmas Damian Asam, both also trained architects.
The two-storey bowed façade of the church opens the row of houses with its pillared doorway, high window, and curving pediment. The upward trust of the façade is repeated endlessly in the interior by Cosmas' illusionistic paintings of 1735. The upper storey is terminated by a curving gable, above which is a barrel vault lit by windows to the east and west. If you stand beside the altar and let your eye glide up the sinuous columns, the "heavenly architecture" suddenly opens up above you, with its columns, consoles, and cornices framing the scenes from the life of St John Nepomuk.
The picture shows the façade of the church.
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