Around 1460-1531

The works of Tilman Riemenschneider like no other sculptor represents the transition from the Middle Ages to Renaissance. With outstanding craftsmanship genius, he breathed new life into the old traditions. As the first artist he often renounced on a painting of his works and discovered the play of light and shadow as a design element. He created magnificent compositions full of emotional tension, in which he raised his characters to life with expressive faces, weighted gestures and a dramatic draping.

The sculptor Tilman Riemenschneider was born around 1460 in the Harz region, and died in 1531 at Wurzburg. Peregrinations led him to Swabia and the upper Rhine. He finally settled in Wurzburg, where he arrived at such standing and he was elected as mayor.

Riemenschneider's works tie in the Swabian and Upper Rhine art in the tradition Gerhaerts van Leyden. The figures also show that the graphics of the contemporary Martin Schongauer and Albrecht Durer must have been known. A two-dimensional shapes entwine Riemenschneider to larger premises, his multiple-figure compositions are always clearer in the building. His preferred materials were Basswood, Franconian sandstone, marble and alabaster. He became famous through his altars, of which is the most famous preserved the Creglinger Marienaltar. Especially in the carved altars, Riemenschneider was an innovator: one of the first sculptors he renounced a colour paint. His characters differ from the contemporary Gothic lyrical delicacy and introspection.

An art work that is cut in from a stone or wooden surface, not modeled in the round.

According to the degree of projection one can distinguish between low-relief or bas-relief and high relief. The sunk relief is a common form of reliefs in Ancient Egypt, where the depicted scenes were cut into the stone or wood surface.

Among the most famous reliefs are the works of the Florentine master Lorenzo Ghiberti. He created, among others, the bronze doors of the Florence Baptistery, called by Michelangelo the "Gates of Paradise".