STOSS, Veit

This Angelic Salutation is one of the most beautiful examples of German Renaissance sculpture. The ensemble hangs fro the choir vault before the high altar in St Lorenz’s in Nuremberg. The large scale and life-like polychromy of this grand Annunciation assure its visibility throughout the church. Hovering effortlessly between heaven and earth, Gabriel and Mary are accompanied by a host of small angels, some joyfully ringing bells and playing instruments. A garland of roses, punctuated by seven medallions illustrating episodes from Mary’s and Christ’s lives, and a giant rosary frames them. Originally a huge golden crown hung above the entire group.

The work was commissioned in 1517 by Anton II Tucher, the highest official of Nuremberg. Germany’s shifting religious climate from the late 1510s determined the Angelic Salutation’s future. In 1519 Tucher placed a cloth over the sculptures since, like many reliquaries and altarpiece corpuses, it was exposed only on certain church holidays. Tucher and the city officially broke with the Catholic Church and embraced Lutheranism in 1525. Lutheranism had no need for most religious art; the Angelic Salutation, as a devotional object with no liturgical function, was in peril. In 1529 the city council decreed that its cover would always remain on. Because the sculptures was considered the private property of the Tucher family, they were shrouded and decommissioned, but other than the crown, not destroyed by the iconoclasts’ axe and fire that claimed art in communities in northern Europe.

The many characteristic features of the great altarpiece in the church of St Mary in Cracow (the powerful and craggy features of the Apostles, the full oval of the Virgin’s delicate face, the exuberant curls of the voluminous beards and hair) displayed as well in the works Stoss carried out after returning from Cracow to Nuremberg in 1496. There he worked in sandstone to produce the three scenes of the St Sebaldus Passion. But he carved mainly in limewood, which he coated either with an ultra-refined polychromy, as in the Annunciation hanging in the choir of the St Lorenzkirche, or, preferring to bring out the material itself, with faint coloured highlights.

The largest altar made at the end of the Gothic period (the principal figures measure 2,7 m, the whole structure 11,9 m high) is the masterpiece of Veit Stoss. Combining a primitive violence of emotion with technical mastery over the handling of forms, Stoss created an individual style that found imitations in Bohemia, Hungary, Poland and Transylvania.

The central section dominates the altarpiece. Its figures, far larger than life-size and arranged as if on stage, witness the death of the Virgin and her Assumption into heaven. Never before in a Late Gothic carved altarpiece had this subject been treated in so monumental a manner. Moreover, the treatment of the subject is unusual. Instead of being assembled at the deathbed, the Apostles stand, deeply moved, around the youthful Virgin as she kneels in prayer. Above them the gate of Heaven stands open with light pouring forth and the Virgin is led through by Christ. Above is the Coronation of the Virgin, where she is attended by two angels and the Polish national saints, Adalbert and Stanislaus. On the predella is a depiction of the Tree of Jesse. The outer wings, which are not movable, are decorated only on the inner sides. When the inner wings are closed a series of 12 reliefs depicting scenes from the life of the Virgin and life of Christ are visible. When the wings are open, the left-hand one shows the Annunciation with, below it, the Birth of Christ and the Adoration of the magi while on the right, the reliefs show the Resurrection, the Ascension, and the Descent of the Holy Ghost.

The sculptural forms used shows three main gradations. From the bas-reliefs on the outer sides of the wings it moves to high relief on the inner sides and culminates in the almost fully rounded figures of the death scene. This increase in three-dimensionality is accompanied by a corresponding heightening of the colouring: the colourfulness of the outer edges is steadily reduced toward the centre in favour of an increase in gilding. In the allegorical interpretation of colours in the Middle Ages, gold was accorded the highest place. As the most valuable and most incorruptible metal, gold symbolized the light of heaven, in whose rays the figures of the death scene are bathed. At the same time it represented eternity, the idea of which is present in the Virgin’s entry into Heaven. The blue of the background also had symbolic significance: it is the colour of the sky and therefore of Heaven, and so symbolizes divine truth. The sculptural treatment of the faces, on the other hand, reveals the carver’s outstanding ability to observe nature and his skill in translating what he has observed into an image. Each figure is given the character of an expressive individual portrait, an expressiveness heightened by the colouring.

Suggested listening (streaming mp3, 6 minutes):

Guillaume Dufay: Ave, maris stella, hymn for the feasts of the Blessed Virgin Mary

This is an Angel with Lute from the central part of the open High Altar of St Mary in the Church of St Mary in Cracow.

This is figure of Apostle John from the central part of the open High Altar of St Mary in the Church of St Mary in Cracow.

Factual information concerning the origins and schooling of this sculptor, painter and engraver is entirely lacking; some of his forms of expression suggest contact with Nikolaus Gerhaert. The path by which Sluter’s principles may have come to this German master are obscure, but Sluter’s figure of St John at least can be linked to the Franconian tradition of Nuremberg. Borrowing the powerful and vigorous plebeian types favoured by the Gothic style, Stoss so transfigures them in his generous idealism that the craftsmanlike concern for exactitude and tiny detail is quite submerged in the overall emotional and plastic intensity.

This is a detail of the Capture of Christ, one of the 12 scenes of the closed High Altar of St Mary in the Church of St Mary in Cracow.

This is the Crucifixion, one of the 12 scenes of the closed High Altar of St Mary in the Church of St Mary in Cracow.

Suggested listening (streaming mp3, 22 minutes):

Heinrich Sch�tz: Die sieben Worte am Kreuz SWV 478

They are the figures of two Doctors from the Christ among the Doctors, one of the 12 scenes of the closed High Altar of St Mary in the Church of St Mary in Cracow.

In the central panel of the high altar in the church of St Mary in Cracow, the Virgin’s death and her reunion with her Son, are conceived as so closely related that Stoss has depicted Mary upright, tenderly supported by a gigantic apostle, as she falls asleep. Some of the other apostles bend their glance on her with grave concern, while yet others lift their eyes to the scene of her glorious Assumption above.

In the central panel of the high altar in the church of St Mary in Cracow, the Virgin’s death and her reunion with her Son, are conceived as so closely related that Stoss has depicted Mary upright, tenderly supported by a gigantic apostle, as she falls asleep. Some of the other apostles bend their glance on her with grave concern, while yet others lift their eyes to the scene of her glorious Assumption above.

This is the figure of Jerome from the upper left corner of the open High Altar of St Mary in the Church of St Mary in Cracow.

This is a detail of the Birth of Mary, one of the 12 scenes of the closed High Altar of St Mary in the Church of St Mary in Cracow.

This is the Resurrection, the upper right scene of the open High Altar of St Mary in the Church of St Mary in Cracow.

This is the figure of St Anne from the Presentation of Christ in the Temple, one of the 12 scenes of the closed High Altar of St Mary in the Church of St Mary in Cracow.

This is a detail of the Adoration of the Kings, the lower left scene of the open High Altar of St Mary in the Church of St Mary in Cracow.

This soldier is a detail of the Capture of Christ, one of the 12 scenes of the closed High Altar of St Mary in the Church of St Mary in Cracow.

This is a detail of the Lamentation, one of the 12 scenes of the closed High Altar of St Mary in the Church of St Mary in Cracow.

This is a detail of the Lamentation, one of the 12 scenes of the closed High Altar of St Mary in the Church of St Mary in Cracow. The picture shows the fortified castle in the background.

The detail shows part of the vegetation.

The central section with the Dormition of the Virgin dominates the altarpiece.Its figures, far larger than life-size and arranged as if on stage, witness the death of the Virgin and her Assumption into Heaven. The treatment of the subject is unusual. instead of being assembled at the deathbed, the Apostles stand , deeply moved, around the youthful Virgin as she kneels in prayer.

The detail shows one of the huge Apostles holding the Virgin.

This is a detail of the the Birth of Christ, the middle scene on the left wing of the open High Altar of St Mary in the Church of St Mary in Cracow.

This is a detail of the Christ in Limbo, one of the 12 scenes of the closed High Altar of St Mary in the Church of St Mary in Cracow.

This is a figure on the frame of the central part of the open High Altar of St Mary in the Church of St Mary in Cracow.

This is a detail of the Adoration of Magi, lower left scene of the open High Altar of St Mary in the Church of St Mary in Cracow.

This is a detail of Joachim and Anne, the upper left scene of the 12 scenes of the closed High Altar of St Mary in the Church of St Mary in Cracow.

This small object of worship proves that the workshop of Stoss produced not only big monumental altarpieces but smaller sculptures, too.

Beginning in Nuremberg, the artistic activity of Stoss, a citizen of that city, reached its peak in the gigantic Cracow altarpiece, then ended in the bitterness of legal disputes and professional misfortunes, again in Nuremberg, where he eventually came to be a quite isolated figure. His modernity appears in his creation of a new transparency in carving and in renunciation of polychromy, which he did not use in his later sculpture; but his outlook remained medieval, his impetuous temperament and his conception of gesture, entirely Gothic. The Tobias and the Angel was commissioned by an Italian patron.

The red marble tomb of King Casimir IV is inside the funerary chapel of Casimir IV and his wife. It is a masterpiece by Veit Stoss, who followed the example of four earlier royal tombs in the nave of the cathedral and placed the recumbent effigy of the King on the sarcophagus, beneath an intricately carved canopy.

Casimir IV, byname Casimir Jagiellonian (Kazimierz Jagiellonczyk, 1427-1492), was grand duke of Lithuania (1440-92) and king of Poland (1447-92). He, by patient but tenacious policy, sought to preserve the political union between Poland and Lithuania and to recover the lost lands of old Poland. The great triumph of his reign was the final subjugation of the Teutonic Knights (1466). He is known in history as one of the most successful and politically active Polish rulers.

The altarpiece of the Carmelites waas Stoss’s Last work. It affirms once again his mastery and the force of his personal genius, which had a temendous impact on many sculptors, whether pupils or followers, such as Master Paul active at L�cse (Levoca in Slovakia).