sacred event. In the Kraków altarpiece, the disciples of Christ con-
gregate around the Virgin, who sinks down in death. One of them
supports her, while another, just above her, wrings his hands in grief.
Stoss posed others in attitudes of woe and psychic shock, striving for
realism in every minute detail. Moreover, he engulfed the figures in
restless, twisting, and curving swaths of drapery whose broken and
writhing lines unite the whole tableau in a vision of agitated emo-
tion. The artist’s massing of sharp, broken, and pierced forms that
dart flamelike through the composition—at once unifying and ani-
mating it—recalls the design principles of Late Gothic architecture
(FIG. 18-27). Indeed, in the Kraków altarpiece, Stoss merged sculp-
ture and architecture, enhancing their union with paint and gilding.
TILMAN RIEMENSCHNEIDER The Virgin’s Assumption
also appears in the center panel (FIG. 20-19) of the Creglingen
Altarpiece,created by Tilman Riemenschneider(ca. 1460–1531)
of Würzburg for a parish church in Creglingen, Germany. He also
incorporated intricate Gothic forms, especially in the altarpiece’s
elaborate canopy, but unlike Stoss, he did not paint the figures or the
background. By employing an endless and restless line that runs
through the garments of the figures, Riemenschneider succeeded in
setting the whole design into fluid motion, and no individual ele-
ment functions without the rest. The draperies float and flow
around bodies lost within them, serving not as descriptions but as
design elements that tie the figures to one another and to the frame-
work. A look of psychic strain, a facial expression common in
Riemenschneider’s work, heightens the spirituality of the figures,
immaterial and weightless as they appear.
Holy Roman Empire 53520-18Veit Stoss,
Death and Assumption of
the Virgin (wings open),
altar of the Virgin Mary,
church of Saint Mary,
Kraków, Poland,
1477–1489. Painted and
gilded wood, central panel
23 9 high.
In this huge sculptured
and painted altarpiece,
Veit Stoss used every
figural and ornamental
element from the vocab-
ulary of Gothic art to
heighten the emotion
and to glorify the
sacred event.20-19Tilman Riemenschneider,The Assumption of the Virgin,
center panel of the Creglingen Altarpiece,Herrgottskirche, Creglingen,
Germany, ca. 1495–1499. Lindenwood, 6 1 wide.
Tilman Riemenschneider specialized in carving large wooden retables.
His works feature intricate Gothic tracery and religious figures whose
bodies are almost lost within their swirling garments.
10 ft.1 ft.