DOI Artikel:
Grodek-Patyra, Jowita: Zagadnienie czasu przedstawionego w dziełach Wita Stwosza ze szczególnym uwzględnieniem Ołtarza Mariackiego: Zastosowanie kryterium temporalnego w poszukiwaniu analogii stylistycznych sztuki 2. poł. XV wieku : Jowita Grodek-Patyra
DOI Seite / Zitierlink: https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.27403#0251
CZAS PRZEDSTAWIONY W DZIEŁACH STWOSZA
249
THE QUESTION OF THE PRESENTED TIME IN THE WORKS OF WIT STWOSZ
WITH PARTICULAR REGARD TO THE ALTAR
FROM OUR LADY'S CHURCH IN CRACOW
THE APPLICATION OF TEMPORAL CRITERIUM
IN SEARCH OF STYLISTIC ANALOGIES IN THE ART
OF THE 2nd HALF OF THE 15TH CENTURY
S u m m a r y
The question of the presented time is more and more often treated as a separate research
problem in the studies on art. The temporality of plastic works may also be a critérium for the
considérations on the style of a given period or concrète artists.
This is confirmed by the example of Our Lady’s church altar in Cracow. The temporal
analysis of the structure of the greatest work of Wit Stwosz has become the reason to resume
dialogue on the stylistic genesis of the sculptor’s artistic work and its kindship with the broader
circle of 15th-century art.
The internai time of the altar has a multilayer structure; its complex construction cor-
responds to the rich variety of plastic forms and contents. Among the formai means which
create the temporality of présentations, the most important are those which serve to show
movement, that is: arrangement of figures, their gestures, composition of figurai groups and
their location in space, manner of forming draperies of garment. Stwosz’s figures are naturally
vivid, so there is an illusion of an action taking place, whose course is determined by the lapse
of time. Occasionally, however, due to their ceremoniał character and pathos, the movement of
the figures evokes invariable duration.
The whole of reality presented in Our Lady’s church altar contains an analogical twofold
character. On the one hand Stwosz’s realism as to details, meticulously recreating any details
and the materiał structure of things, places the presented events in the changeable and earthly
world. On the other hand such factors as: représentative character of the scenes, conventional
and scenie space, abstract shapes of the drapery, and the like, point to idealistic presuppositions
of master Wit’s art, and characterize supernatural order, to which the artist’s vision is sub-
ordinated.
In terms of contents the time presented in Cracow retablo develops along two levels as well.
The first is the level of narration about the earthly history of Christ and Mary, subordinated
to the laws of historical time; the second being the dogmatic contents which reveal the nature
of sacred time. In Stwosz’s work the two temporal levels converge in the time contemporary
to the sculptor, a time introduced by the Gothic forms of the props and architecture.
The temporal construction of Stwosz’s polyptych from Our Lady’s church has its counterpart
in Rogier van der Weyden’s artistic work. The Netherlandian painter resembles closely Stwosz
in the way he combines realism and idealism, action and représentation, narration and symbolic
contents. Nicholas from Leyden output as well as South German art from the 15th century,
which remaind under the latter’s influence, were undoubtedly the source of Stwosz’s sculptures,
yet they show fewer analogies in this respect.
The followers of Wit Stwosz’s art did not take over his complex and ordained temporal
conception, as it was presented in the altar from Our Lady’s church in Cracow. They were,
above ail, inspired by the original formai solutions, as well as décorative effects of folded
garments. They adjusted these éléments to their own vision of the world in which sacrum and
profanum never reached such unity and balance as then did in Stwosz’s work.
Translatéel by J an Kłos
249
THE QUESTION OF THE PRESENTED TIME IN THE WORKS OF WIT STWOSZ
WITH PARTICULAR REGARD TO THE ALTAR
FROM OUR LADY'S CHURCH IN CRACOW
THE APPLICATION OF TEMPORAL CRITERIUM
IN SEARCH OF STYLISTIC ANALOGIES IN THE ART
OF THE 2nd HALF OF THE 15TH CENTURY
S u m m a r y
The question of the presented time is more and more often treated as a separate research
problem in the studies on art. The temporality of plastic works may also be a critérium for the
considérations on the style of a given period or concrète artists.
This is confirmed by the example of Our Lady’s church altar in Cracow. The temporal
analysis of the structure of the greatest work of Wit Stwosz has become the reason to resume
dialogue on the stylistic genesis of the sculptor’s artistic work and its kindship with the broader
circle of 15th-century art.
The internai time of the altar has a multilayer structure; its complex construction cor-
responds to the rich variety of plastic forms and contents. Among the formai means which
create the temporality of présentations, the most important are those which serve to show
movement, that is: arrangement of figures, their gestures, composition of figurai groups and
their location in space, manner of forming draperies of garment. Stwosz’s figures are naturally
vivid, so there is an illusion of an action taking place, whose course is determined by the lapse
of time. Occasionally, however, due to their ceremoniał character and pathos, the movement of
the figures evokes invariable duration.
The whole of reality presented in Our Lady’s church altar contains an analogical twofold
character. On the one hand Stwosz’s realism as to details, meticulously recreating any details
and the materiał structure of things, places the presented events in the changeable and earthly
world. On the other hand such factors as: représentative character of the scenes, conventional
and scenie space, abstract shapes of the drapery, and the like, point to idealistic presuppositions
of master Wit’s art, and characterize supernatural order, to which the artist’s vision is sub-
ordinated.
In terms of contents the time presented in Cracow retablo develops along two levels as well.
The first is the level of narration about the earthly history of Christ and Mary, subordinated
to the laws of historical time; the second being the dogmatic contents which reveal the nature
of sacred time. In Stwosz’s work the two temporal levels converge in the time contemporary
to the sculptor, a time introduced by the Gothic forms of the props and architecture.
The temporal construction of Stwosz’s polyptych from Our Lady’s church has its counterpart
in Rogier van der Weyden’s artistic work. The Netherlandian painter resembles closely Stwosz
in the way he combines realism and idealism, action and représentation, narration and symbolic
contents. Nicholas from Leyden output as well as South German art from the 15th century,
which remaind under the latter’s influence, were undoubtedly the source of Stwosz’s sculptures,
yet they show fewer analogies in this respect.
The followers of Wit Stwosz’s art did not take over his complex and ordained temporal
conception, as it was presented in the altar from Our Lady’s church in Cracow. They were,
above ail, inspired by the original formai solutions, as well as décorative effects of folded
garments. They adjusted these éléments to their own vision of the world in which sacrum and
profanum never reached such unity and balance as then did in Stwosz’s work.
Translatéel by J an Kłos