A History of Art for Beginners and Students: Painting, Sculpture, Architecture

by Clara Erskine Clement Waters

We have not space to speak of the Swabian sculptures in detail. Fine works exist in Tiefenbronn, Rothenburg, Blaubeuren, Herrenberg, Gmünd, Ravensburg, and many other places.

The influence of the Swabian school was very wide; it can be traced in many parts of Germany, in Hungary and Transylvania, and even in Switzerland, Austria, and Bavaria. Swabian artists were often summoned to adjacent provinces, and thus did much work away from their homes. The reliefs upon the door of the Cathedral of Constance were executed by Simon Hayder, a Swabian, in 1470. The altar of the cathedral at Chur was the work of Jacob Rösch, another Swabian master, who thus labored on the very boundary of Italy. The school at Augsburg was the second Swabian school in importance, and much influence went out from that centre, though its sculptures were not as fine as those of Ulm.

In some cases fine old sculptures still exist in the churches and other places for which they were intended. Again we find them either whole, or in parts, in museums to which they have been removed when they were no longer required for the uses for which they were made, or when they were replaced by more modern works. So few facts are known concerning them that it is almost impossible to do more than repeat descriptions of the subjects they represent; and this is neither profitable nor entertaining in a book of this kind; therefore I shall now speak only of such artists as have left some record behind them, and of works whose authorship can be given.

Veit Stoss, who flourished about the middle of the fifteenth century, was an eminent wood-carver. Very little is known about him. His name is sometimes said to be Wit Stwosz, and Cracow and Nuremberg both claim to have been his birthplace. But it is now believed that he was born in Nuremberg, as it is known that in 1477 he gave up his citizenship there and went to Cracow, and in 1496 he paid a small sum to be again made a citizen of Nuremberg.

We also know that his reputation as a man was not good. In a Nuremberg decree he is called a "reckless and graceless citizen, who has caused much uneasiness to the honorable council and the whole town." He was convicted of crimes for which he should have suffered death, but the sentence was changed, and he was branded: both cheeks were pierced with a hot iron. After this he broke the oath he had taken to the city, and joined her enemies in plotting against her; he was subsequently imprisoned, and at his death, in 1533, he was very old and perfectly blind.

It seems almost like a contradiction to say that this master was one of the most tender in feeling of all the wood-carvers of his time. He was especially successful in representing the purity of the Madonna and of youthful saints. His principal works are in the churches of Cracow and Nuremberg. In the Frauenkirche at Cracow the high-altar, a part of the stalls in the choir, and some other sculptures are his. In Nuremberg his best works are a bas-relief of the Crowning of the Virgin, which is preserved in the Burgkapelle; the great Madonna statue, which was placed in the Frauenkirche in 1504; and the colossal Angel's Salutation, which is suspended in the choir of the Church of St. Laurence. This last is an unusual and important work. The angel appears as if flying, and the drapery is much inflated; the Virgin is queenly and majestic, yet graceful; all around are medallions in which are represented the Seven Sorrows of the Virgin. The style of these reliefs is charming if we except the drapery; that has the faults of the time, and is bad in style; but the female heads are all that we could ask; the whole design is distinct, and few reliefs could surpass these in simple beauty and genuine artistic feeling.

Another remarkable work of his is a panel of roses, now in the Burgkapelle. The panel is seven feet high by five wide; more than half of this is covered by a wreath of roses; there are besides four rows of small half-length figures arranged round a cross of St. Anthony, a representation of the Last Judgment, scenes in the history of man from the creation to the death of the Virgin, and many other saints and like subjects in bits of reliefs, which fill up all spare spaces. The style is very distinct, and the draperies better in this work than in others from his hand.

There are other works in Nuremberg and elsewhere which are attributed to Veit Stoss, but these that are known to be his are quite enough to establish his fame as a gifted artist and a remarkable sculptor for his time.

Though Stoss is among the early masters of Nuremberg, it is yet true that others had been at work while he was in Cracow, and the way had been prepared for him and his work when he returned to his native city in 1496. Among the most active artists in Nuremberg was Michael Wohlgemuth (1434-1519), who is generally considered as a painter only; but we know that he made contracts for entire works in which sculpture and painting are combined, and must have had the oversight of the whole; and in this view it is proper to mention this master's name. The altars at Haller Cross Chapel, Nuremberg, one at Zwickau, another at Schwabach, and that of the Heilsbronn Monastery, near Nuremberg, are all ascribed to Wohlgemuth.

Albrecht Dürer (1471-1528), who was one of the great masters of the world, was an architect, painter, and sculptor. He was a pupil of Michael Wohlgemuth, and sculpture was less practised by him than other arts; yet the few works of his which remain are much valued.