Rocznik Muzeum Narodowego w Warszawie (2(38).2013)

Antoni Ziemba, Zofia Herman The New Gallery of Medieval Art...

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Virgin by Jakob Beinhart; votive panels and epitaphs, which were extremely popular among
the patriciate and affluent townspeople, who Rinded them for the city churches; relic-like im-
ages of the head of Saint John the Baptist (patron of Wroclaw and Silesia) on a platter; grand
crucifixes from walls and rood beams (like the one from the workshop of Michael Pacher,
which used to hang in the Wroclaw Cathedral) or groups of figures forming the Way of the
Cross, arranged as if in a staged performance (Carrying of the Cross from the Krappe chapel
at Saint Elisabeth’s Church in Wroclaw, c. 1492).
Albeit modest, the display of Krakow and Lesser Poland as well as Kuyavia and Greater
Poland art of the 1440-1520 period is a good example of the shift from the inter-regional
Beautiful Style (Pietà on painted panel - fig. 9) to the German and Netherlandish realism
(Triptych of Saint Stanislaus the Bishop known as the Triptych from Pławno, The Virgin and Child
with Saints Felicity and Perpetua - fig. 10). Like in other units of the gallery, here too we can see
the main functional types of late medieval art: a winged altarpiece, either combining painting
and sculpture (Triptychfrom Pławno) or solely painted (The Virgin and Child with Saints, known
as the Triptychfrom Wołowiec), a monumental painted panel from a reredos, used for worship
(The Virgin and Child with Saints Felicity and Perpetua), a devotional panel for private prayer
or prayer and confraternity church services celebrated in a church chapel (Pietà), epitaphs
and votive and commemorative panels with images of donors adoring saintly figures (The
Virgin and Child with Bishop Jan Lubrański). Although the current condition of several works
is not perfect, this allows us to see the stages of creating a medieval painting, which are not
noticeable in well-preserved paintings. One may see with the naked eye the subsequent layers
usually hidden underneath the paint: from the surface of the wooden panel, which serves as
the basis of the painting, through the chalk-and-glue primer, the underpainting of the com-
position, to the final layer of tempera or oil paints (see the Dormition of the Virgin - a quarter
of the Triptychfrom Sienno).
The last segment of the gallery is a display of art created in Gdańsk, Pomerania, Prussia
and the northern Hanseatic area between 1430 and 1520. From the very beginning of its de-
velopment, the painting of this region is clearly associated with Netherlandish centres (The
Holy Trinity (Pietas Patris) from Saint Mary’s Church in Gdańsk dated c. 1430-40, fig. 11).
This is demonstrated by the magnificent altarpieces from Gdańsk and the surrounding area
and from Hamburg. The Jerusalem Triptych (c. 1497-1500) was executed in a Netherlandish
or Netherlands-influenced workshop from northern Germany (North Rhine-Westphalia?).
Wings of the Altarpiece from the Hamburg Cathedral (1499), also based on Netherlandish
models, were created in the workshop of Ahsolon Stumme in Hamburg. Direct imports from
southern Netherlands are represented by the monumental Polyptychfrom Pruszcz Gdański
(c. 1515), executed in a woodcarving and sculpture workshop front Brussels and the painting
workshop of Colijn de Coter, and Saint Reinhold’s Polyptych (figs 12-13) from Saint Mary’s
Church in Gdańsk (1515-16) sculpted in the workshop of Jan de Molder and painted in the
workshop of Joos van Cleve in Antwerp. These are examples of export products of Brabant
centres, which provided entire Europe with altarpieces - including Gdańsk and Pomerania,
which experienced an influx of such imports between 1500 and 1530.