Studia Waweliana (11/12.2002-2003)

It is not elear to what extent the workshop of the Holy Trinity triptych
participated in the execution of the retable.

The extant documents provide very few indications as to the
organization of the workshop.We should repeat after Dobrowolski
and Gadomski that there are no grounds for attributing the Holy
Trinity triptych to Jakub of Sącz. It seems that the author of the
design of the best preserved piece executed by the workshop - the
Holy Trinity retable - was a woodcarver. This is indicated by a close
relation between the case and the sculptures, especially the main
scene, so characteristic of the retable. It is not elear whether the
workshop which designed the Holy Trinity retable and carved its
sculptural elements was identical with the painteris atelier responsible
for the wings. This cannot not be resolved by a comparative analysis
of the sculptures and painted panels. The majority of surviving works
are small-scale pieces. The constant maintenance of an extensive
workshop that would employ representatives of the two professions
seems very unlikely. This was rather a collaboration between
workshops, perhaps becoming closer because of an inflow of
commissions.

The essential feature of the workshop's style is its focusing on the
elaborate decoration of the surface, with a simultaneous lack of morę
interest in the ąuestion of volume. The figures are a kind of sum of
smali details which are not controlled by the primary idea of spatial
composition. With such a modę of creating a sculpture, a particularly
important role was played by a rich, extremely meticulously
elaborated texture and by polychromy, both well preserved in the
Holy Trinity triptych. The workshop’s sense of form, that “realism
of detail”, which can be traced back to late 14* century art, was
common then. The Cracow workshop was one of many in Central
Europę in the 1460s which transformed the achievements linked with
the individualities of Hans Multscher and Jakob Kaschauer. The

assimilated motifs and Solutions were arranged with a freedom
responsible for the development of a characteristic manner that stood
out from the contemporary Little Poland produets. That the workshop
was to some degree ready to apply morę innovatory Solutions is
evidenced by the composition of the Holy Trinity triptych. The
generał disposition of the case links it with a tradition developed in
Silesia in the 14lh century and known in Little Poland. However,
some new features can also be seen here - for the first time in Little
Poland there is an attempt to integrate the composition of the corpus
with that of the wings and to arrange the central niche spatially.

The local artistic circle did not play an essential role in shaping the
workshop’s stylistic form; it was rather a contact with the Viennese
circle of the mad-15* century that was of vital significance here. One
can point to the sculptured decoration of St Stephen's Cathedral as
well as to pictorial creations (e.g. of the illuminator Martinus ’opifex’).
One should also emphasize a connection with Jakob Kaschauer,
consisting in the adoption of the motifs most characteristic of his style
and - in some measure - of a physiognomic type. Lurthermore, the
creations of the Holy Trinity workshop bear a stamp of the influence
of the Salzburg circle with its “long linę” style of the 1450s.

Both in the group of sculptures of the Holy Trinity triptych and in
other woodcarvings of the workshop two modes of shaping figures
are distinguishable. Beside rather ngid and little varied forms there
appears another convention characterized by, among other features,
loose draperies of the garments and the introduction of decorative
motifs, such as an auricular fold. The sculptures carved in the latter
manner reveal a stronger influence of Kaschauer and Salzburg
sculpture. This is perhaps a tracę of the workshop being joined by
a woodcarver after his customary travels, to whom it owes the
introduction of auricular folds and, above all, elements of the Salzburg
“long linę” style.