TYROL AND AUSTRIA

The echo of Strasbourg art reverberated in different ways in the Alpine regions in the late fifteenth ceotury:
distinctly in Austria and around Constance, Zurich and Fribourg in Switzerland; more discreetly in the Tyrol. The personality of Michael Pacher, who is first mentioned at Bruncck in South Tyrol in 1467 and died at Salzburg in 1498, was indeed original. From his workshop came several carved and painted altarpieces intended for Tyro— lean churches like that of Gries (1471—1475) or for more distant places: such arc the famous altarpiece of St Wolfgang (1471-1481) in the  Salzkammergut and that of Salzburg (1484-1498), destroyed in 1709. Stylistic divergences between the painted panels and the sculptured sections led to the mistaken belief that Pacher was not both the painter and sculptor, as he is now generally regarded to have been. While the scenes viewed in perspective on the St Wolfgang wing panels reveal specific contacts with Italian painting, in particular the works of Jacopo Bellini and Andrea Mantegna, showing a conception of space already inspired by the Renaissance, the luxuriant Coronation of the Virgin which occupies the central panel is one of the great masterpieces of late Gothic. Its style derives mainly from the art of the Swabian sculptor Hans Mnltscher, represented, precisely in the South Tyrol, by the Sterzing altarpiece (1456—1458), without overlooking some Stras— hourg innovations of the 146os. The scene forms a complex whole of a profuse bnt skilfully ordered richness centred around God the Father and the kncehng Virgin. The monumental figures are enveloped in ample garments with breaks and tubular folds running through them which form broad, well-defined transversal lines between the smooth areas. The broad fleshy faces, typical ofPacher, resemble those of the painted figures which also display the same plastic density as the sculptures.
The influence of this so personal art was felt by the Tyrolean sculptors of the following generations, like Hans Klocker, mentioned atBrixen from 1478 to ioo, who ran a very active workshop in which many altarpieces were crafted. However, Klocker can be clearly distinguished from Pacher, in particular by his more incisive manner and the more angular forms of his sculptures.
Pacher was also known to the woodcarver who, between about 1491 and 1498, made the Kefermarkt altar- piece in Upper Austria: he is identified tentatively with Martin Kriechbaum, recorded as working in Passau from ‘473 to i5o8. His style bears in addition the imprint of Strasbonrg formulas transmitted either by the intermediary of Austrian followers of Nicholas of Leyden or directly, since the master probably came to Passau in 1469. But the nervous mobility of the figures in the central panel of the Kefermarkt altarpiece, their tormented faces, the almost metallic crumpling of the draperies hollowed by violent shadows and deployed in space, and the sharp chiselling of the accessories and decorative elements, have no equivalents. Everything points to a highly singular talent which unfortunately is no longer represented today except by this altarpiece and the Deacon statuette in the Louvre.