GOTHIC ALTAR PAINTING: GERMAN WAY TO THE EASEL PAINTING

The article is devoted to the analysis of pictorial principles in the picturesque complexes of altars in Germany in the late Gothic period. The transition from supra-altar statues to behind-the-altar structures, which would include, in addition to statues, pictorial narrative series of paintings, occurred in the 14th century. The author expands the chronological framework of the analysis, as he connects the flourishing of altar painting with the change in the nature of religiosity, starting from the 12th century, and the substantiation of this thesis is carried out in a theoretical digression. The progressive advancement of late medieval painting to secular easel painting is implicitly, but closely associated with the flourishing of altar painting and a close type of separate prayer image, Andachtsbild, which became widespread from the beginning of the 15th century. Samples selected from a large collection of monuments occupy a place among the key ones in the development of German painting of the 15th century, but the article emphasizes the germination of the new in the traditional in the process of convergence of the sacred and the secular. The article does not touch upon the altarpieces of the 16th century, most of which were collective works. A more important factor for the future, connected with the establishment of secular easel painting, seems to the author to be the separation, the branching off from the general flow of altar painting of an individual image for personal use, which occurred in the last quarter of the 15th century. In contact with engraving, the creative vision of artists increased the baggage for the transition to a multidimensional, individual perception of the world and man, which determined the direction of development of late medieval altar painting to post-medieval easel painting.