Stoss, Veit

Stoss, Veit (fīt shtôs), c.1445–1533, German sculptor. He worked in Kraków (1477–86, 1488–96) and Nuremberg, his birthplace. The great carved wooden high altar in St. Mary's, Kraków, is a significant early work. His stone tomb of King Casimir IV is also in Kraków. The Annunciation carved in wood (1517–19), his most famous work, is in the Church of St. Lawrence, Nuremberg. His art is characterized by an expressive realism, angular poses and drapery, precise technique, and tightly packed composition, typical of late German Gothic work. His later style shows greater breadth in the treatment of drapery and poses.

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Stoss, Veit

The Archangel Raphael, wood sculpture by Veit Stoss, 1516–18; …

(credit: Courtesy of the Germanisches Nationalmuseum, Nurnberg)

(born 1438/47, Swabia—died 1533, Nürnberg) German sculptor and wood carver. He worked mainly in Poland from 1477 to 1496; among his principal works is the majestic high altar in the Church of the Virgin Mary in Kraków (1477–89). After his return to Germany, he settled in Nürnberg and produced important wood and stone sculptures in churches there and in Bamberg. His nervous, angular forms, realistic detail, and virtuoso wood carving synthesized the sculptural styles of Flemish and Danubian art, and he exercised great influence on German late Gothic sculpture.

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Stoss, Veit 

(also Wit Stosz, Wit Stwosz). Born circa 1455 in Horb, Württemberg; died 1533 in Nuremberg. German sculptor, painter, and engraver; marked the transition from the Middle Ages to the Renaissance in German and Polish sculpture.

From 1477 to 1496, Stoss worked primarily in Kraków. His works executed in Poland include the tombstone of Peter of Bnin (stone, c. 1494) in the cathedral in Wfoctawek and his most important Polish work, the high altar of the Church of St. Mary in Kraków (wood, 1477–89). The altar has a round wooden sculpture in the central portion and relief work, with painted landscape backgrounds, on the side panels. The festive polychromy of the Kraków altar, its wealth of human types, and its dramatic emotional force, which is emphasized by the tense rhythm of the folds of the clothing, place this work by Stoss among the finest examples of European sculpture.

In 1496, Stoss returned to Nuremberg, where he was to remain for virtually the rest of his life. His works from the 1490’s to the 1520’s include the Madonna From Stoss’ House (wood, c. 1499, German National Museum, Nuremberg), the Annunciation (wood, 1517–18, Church of St. Lorenz, Nuremberg), and the altar of the cathedral in Bamberg (wood, 1520–23). These works attest to a deepening of Stoss’ Renaissance tendencies. The faces are softer and smoother; the play of the folds of the clothing and the gestures and poses of the figures reveal more harmoniously the plasticity of the forms. Stoss, moreover, made less use of polychromy in these later works.

REFERENCES

Dettloff. S. Wit Stosz, vols. 1–2. Wroclaw, 1961.
Lutze. E. Veit Stoes, 4th ed. Munich, 1968.