商品簡介
This illustrated survey features twenty-two of the most outstanding carved altarpieces from churches in southern Germany, Austria, South Tirol, the Czech Republic and Krakow. An extensive introduction provides the necessary background to an understanding of the origin and evolution of altarpieces and also maps the chronological and geographical distribution of those that have survived. Each chapter focuses on an individual altarpiece, presenting the relevant historical documentation, analysing the work's architecture and pictorial programme, and placing the altarpiece's sculptures and paintings in their art-historical context. In addition to addressing questions of style and attribution, the author also discusses the changes in religious thinking and iconography that must be considered if one is fully to appreciate the work as a whole.
The colour photographs, specially commissioned for this project, are an essential feature of the book. Each altarpiece is illustrated in its entirety, with its wings both opened and closed, and in close-up views of its most important carvings and paintings - details that are not available to the average visitor to these sites. The book presents the full range of form and expression achieved by artists of the Late Gothic period, before the Reformation and the radical stylistic changes introduced by the emerging Renaissance brought an end to the art of the Gothic retable.
作者簡介
Rainer Kahsnitz is Director of the German Association of Art History in Berlin.
