Riemenschneider, Tilman

Riemenschneider, Tilman (tĭl`män rē`mənshnī'dər), c.1460–1531, German Renaissance sculptor, who worked in stone and wood. He was in Würzburg by 1483. In 1520 he was made burgomaster, but he was imprisoned in 1525 because of participation in the peasant insurrection, and little is known about his work in later years. He created slender figures with delicately carved, expressive faces, all arranged in clearly ordered, though not static, compositions. His stone tombs of Bishop Rudolf von Scherenberg in the cathedral at Würzburg and of Emperor Henry II and his wife in the cathedral at Bamberg are well known, as are his stone Adam and Eve (Würzburg Mus.) and his wooden altar in Rothenburg ob der Tauber. Examples of his work are in the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., and in the Metropolitan and Cleveland museums.

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Riemenschneider, Tilman

(born c. 1460, Heilgenstadt or Osterode, Domain of the Teutonic Order—died July 7, 1531, Würzburg) German sculptor. Son of a mint master, he settled in Würzburg in 1483 and opened a highly successful workshop. He was a city councillor (1504–20) and burgomaster (1520–25), but his sympathies with the revolutionaries in the Peasants' War led to a brief imprisonment. His wood and stone sculpture, characterized by sharply folded, flowing drapery, included monumental tombs and altarpieces as well as independent statues and reliefs, and made him one of the major masters of late Gothic art in Germany.

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Riemenschneider, Tilman 

Born circa 1460 in Heiligenstadt, Thuringia; died July 7, 1531, in Würzburg. German Renaissance sculptor.

From 1483, Riemenschneider worked in Würzburg. Because of his ties with insurgent Franconian peasants, he was cast into prison in 1525 and tortured. Late Gothic dynamic form and jagged line characterize Riemenschneider’s early works, such as his statues of Adam and Eve (1491–93, stone, Main-Franconia Museum, Würzburg), the tomb of Rudolf von Scherenberg (1496–99, stone, Cathedral of St. Killian, Würzburg), and the Altar of the Holy Blood (1501–04, wood, Church of St. Jakob, Rothenburg).

Riemenschneider was among the first sculptors to abandon the practice of painting and gilding statues. Through his virtuoso treatment of texture he endowed his distinctly individualized sculptures with intense spirituality. He was particularly concerned with a lifelike rendering of gesture and facial expression.

Riemenschneider’s later works demonstrate the artist’s aspiration toward greater generalization and clarity of images and toward harmoniously balanced composition. Such works include the Altar of the Virgin (1505–10, wood, Church of the Lord, Creglingen), the tomb of Lorenz von Bibra (c. 1519, stone, Cathedral of St. Killian, Würzburg), and the relief The Mourning of Christ on the altar of the parish church in Maidbronn (1519–23, limestone).

REFERENCES

Flesche, H. Tilman Riesenschneider (album). Dresden, 1957.
Gerstenberg, K. Tilman Riesenschneider [5th ed.]. Munich [1962].

V. D. SINIUKOV