The Ages of German Art – Gothic (Online)

The Gothic style, developing in France already in the 12th-century, reaches Germany only with some delay. Then, however, magnificent ecclesiastical buildings rise between Cologne, Magdeburg, Naumburg and Regensburg. They boast splendid sculptural decorations displaying a liveliness and emotionality hitherto unknown. Furthermore, theological and liturgical modifications result in new iconographic schemes like the Pietà and iconographic changes of long known motifs like the Crucified Christ. A new artistic formula evolves during the late Middle Ages: the convertible winged altarpiece. Michael Pacher, Tilman Riemenschneider, Veit Stoß and others create masterpieces of late Gothic sculpture. The expressive forms of the so-called German “Sondergotik” (special Gothic) clearly demonstrate the emancipation of the national Gothic from the French and at the same time illuminate the unwavering creative power of German art at the “Waning of the Middle Ages”.