The Cracow Altar of Veit Stoss [antikvár]

THE ALTAR OF CRACOW By Arthur BurkhardIn 1933 Germany commemorated two native sons, both distin-guished artists: Richard Wagner and Veit Stoss. Richard Wagner has attained merited international fame since his death almost a hundred years ago. Veit Stoss, however, despite a long-established réputation among connoisseurs, can hardly be said to have attracted wide attention until the officiai exhibition of his works in the Germanie Museum in Nürnberg, in célébration of the four hundredth anniversary of his death, disclosed his artistic eminence to the general public. (1) Few of the many Americans who attended the festival performances in Bayreuth made use of the opportunity close at hand to acquaint themselves with the masterpieces of Veit Stoss. In him they would have discovered a versatile plastic artist who is not unworthy of a place beside his more famous contem-porary and fellow-townsman, Albrecht Dürer.The common conception of the art of Veit Stoss is derived, among non-Germans and even among the majority of Germans, from a single work, the large rosary of the Annunciation, usually called the ' Angelic Salutation,' which hangs above the choir in the Church of St Lawrence at Nürnberg. Of Peter Vischer, his most successful rivai, the same thing is true. But Vischer's 'Tomb of St Sebald,' in the Nürnberg church of that name, is his masterpiece as well as his best-known work. The 'Angelic Salutation,' on the other hand, is a popular choice much less fortunate fot the fame of Veit Stoss. For in this great wood-carving, constructed solely for effect from a distance and designed for a place far removed from the criticai eye of the observer, only the purely decorative aspect of the master's art can possibly make a lasting impression on the mind and imagination. The serious Student, who is not satisfied by familiarity with this most famous and popular work, and wishes to get a fairly