Pentecost

The relief with the Pentecost scene completes the cycle of 11 carved images that once filled the cabinet of the altar retable from the Church in Wkryujście. The representation supplements the iconographic programme of the altar devoted to the Passion with ecclesiological themes. The biblical event that took place in the Cenacle is interpreted as a symbolic beginning of the Church. The Holy Spirit was sent down from heaven after Jesus' Ascension, as promised to his disciples (Lk 24:49), as inspiration and power to make the idea of universal evangelisation a reality. The Holy Spirit is a fundamental motif in paintings dedicated to this theme because of the gifts he brings. He is sometimes represented as fire, rays or a dove. A woodcut inspires the composition of the representation in the Wkryujście relief by Hans Schäufelein created as part of a series of illustrations for the book Liber Passionis by Ulrich Pinder. The German master's woodcut suggests that the missing fragment of the relief in the upper part of the panel may have been filled with the representation of a dove with outstretched wings, hovering above the disciples of Jesus gathered around Mary. The book by Ulrich Pinder, personal physician to Elector Frederick III von Sachsen, richly illustrated with woodcuts by eminent masters, was published in his own publishing house in Nuremberg in 1507. Spreading the printing technique linked with printmaking contributed to popularising and disseminating pictorial motifs in art in 15th-century Europe. Thanks to the mastery of the method of die-cutting or engraving by the late medieval masters, such as Martin Schongauer, Hans Schäufelein or Monagramista AG, who was the model for the master of the reliefs of the Wkryujście altarpiece, printmaking rose above craftsmanship to become one of the art branches.

Kinga Krasnodębska