Wit Stwosz: The Cracow Altar

Fülszöveg

W I T S T W O S Z THE CRACOW ALTAR Cracow, the ancient capital of Poland, a centre of Polish learning and culture during the Míddle Ages and Renaissance, is still famous today for its historic buiidings and art treasures. One of the best known of these is the great Cracow Altar in the Church of our Lady, the masterpiece of the sculptor Wit Stwosz. The altarpicce portrays episodes from the Life of the Virgin and the Life and Passión of Christ and in its form and content reflects the eomplexity of the second half of the 15th century when. in northern Europe, the dying glow of the Middle Ages was slowly giving way to the Renaissance. The Cracow Altar, the artist's masterpiece, includes all the elements of his art. An analysis of its qualities, therefore, may be taken to apply to almost the whole of Stwosz's creative work. His sculpture breaks through the idealistic generalities of religious art and reveals a cognitive approach to the world and an attempt to represent nature, man and... Tovább

Fülszöveg

W I T S T W O S Z THE CRACOW ALTAR Cracow, the ancient capital of Poland, a centre of Polish learning and culture during the Míddle Ages and Renaissance, is still famous today for its historic buiidings and art treasures. One of the best known of these is the great Cracow Altar in the Church of our Lady, the masterpiece of the sculptor Wit Stwosz. The altarpicce portrays episodes from the Life of the Virgin and the Life and Passión of Christ and in its form and content reflects the eomplexity of the second half of the 15th century when. in northern Europe, the dying glow of the Middle Ages was slowly giving way to the Renaissance. The Cracow Altar, the artist's masterpiece, includes all the elements of his art. An analysis of its qualities, therefore, may be taken to apply to almost the whole of Stwosz's creative work. His sculpture breaks through the idealistic generalities of religious art and reveals a cognitive approach to the world and an attempt to represent nature, man and his handiwork in a new way. The Cracow Altar clearly reflects its historical time and place, but simultaneously it captures our attention by virtue of its specific qualities which often reveal great maturity, and equally often the delightful naivety characteristic of the medieval artist's vision of man and the nature of reality. The artist's cognitive passión encompasscs object after object with the unyielding obstinacy of the searcher after truth. and even compcnsates for lack of knowledge or the appropriate technical means by force of conviction and temperament. While attempting to trace the results of Stwosz's observations and many-sided deseription of reality, wc have tried to interpret his work as a great pictorial epic of the medieval world, a complex vision that makes use of a great varicty of not always organically connected details. This epic contains visual renderings whose force of expression and emolional charge move the cuntemporary observer deeply. In the altarpiece there are certain scenes and fragments. certain humán situations and psychological features of humán beings in various predicaments. which are portrayed with the precision of a great master. In order to show the work in its totality we have includcd repród uctions of the Altar and of the folding panels as a whole. as well as of individual scencs and details. Vissza