|
In his representation of the Nativity for the Németlipcse high altar the painter adopted a type of iconography widely executed in the fifteenth century. Like Master PN, he depicted the Virgin kneeling in worship before her Child. The lantern held by St. Joseph - a more realistic source of light than the candle mentioned in the revelations of St. Bridget - simbolizes the divine radiance of the Holy Child, supreme and eternal. Later the significance of the lantern in St. Joseph's hand was forgotten and it was regarded only as an indication that the scene took place at night. The Child is hailed by a chorus of angels, while the shepherds on the top of the hill realize the glad tidings when they see a star in the sky and an angel appears to them. The painter made no effort to arrange the figures to give a spatial effect, merely filling in the background with the archaic gilding. The large doll-like head of the Virgin is also a convention much employed in the first half of the fifteenth century. All this lends the scene a gentle, naive atmosphere. The sharp breaks in the folds of the drapery and the violence of the Passion scenes on the altar tell us at first glance that the Németlipcse high altar was created during the years of changing styles that marked the onset of a new age. The ensuing duality in art is manifest both in Polish and Hungarian painting in the mid-fifteenth century. Members of the workshop - presumably large - who painted the multi-panelled high altar and painters in the neighbouring area of Little Poland must have influenced each other, although the link was certainly not as close as that seen in the work of the Master of Mateóc, the most important artist of the mid-century.
|
