A piece of work I found fascinating was the Altar of the Holy Blood by Tilman Riemenschneider. I found the combination of carvings both reliefs and in the round to be an effective choice in making the altar seem life-like. Additionally, the carpenter’s choice to carve out completely the area behind the apostles (of the altar) to be “see-through” was a smart decision because the church windows in the background are able to fit perfectly into the arches carved in the altarpiece. Thus Riemenschneider is able to cleverly use the overall church to create a mini-church in the scene.
Furthermore, I found the fact that many artists drew inspiration from prior art pieces also fascinating. Although it makes a lot of sense that artists created works inspired by earlier pieces, I’ve always been surprised because I wasn’t sure how accessible art was centuries ago. Unlike today where we can just google pieces of art, the process was definitely much laborious in the 16th century. This is why it peaked my interest when I discovered one of the relief carvings on the Altar of the Holy Blood, a Northern Renaissance work, was similar to Entry to Jerusalem by Duccio di Buonisegna, an Italian artist from two centuries earlier.