Multscher, Hans

MULTSCHER, HANS. - Sculptor and painter, b. shortly before 1400 at Reichenhofen in the Allgäu, d. in the first months of 1467 at Ulm. Having moved to the latter city, he took part in the building of the Cathedral and of the Town Hall.

His most remarkable work is the high altar of the parish church of Vipiteno, finished and inaugurated in 1458-59, unfortunately dismantled and partly destroyed in the Baroque age. Its reconstruction was attempted by Bossert, and there survive from it four angels holding curtains, two angels holding a crown, the statue of the Virgin, four saints, besides St. George and St. Florian, and four large painted panels. Other important sculptures are the altar or the Ecce Homo of the western portal (monastery of Ulm [ca. 1430-35]), the relief with the Emperor Charlemagne and his retinue (Rathaus of the same city); the model for the tomb of Louis the Bearded (National Museum of Munich); numerous wooden statues, such as the Christ on the Cross (cloister of Wiblingen), the Virgin enthroned (Klosterwald), the Mary Magdalene (Germanic Museum of Berlin), the altar of Wurzbach, with statues and paintings.

A man of profound artistic culture, M., although living in the late Gothic period, fully renews its ideals, establishing himself as the founder of Swabian monumental realism and presenting himself as the foremost representative of local art. His personal contribution consists in the harmony between the geometrization of masses and a naturalism carried even to extremes, especially in the search for anatomical structures.

Eugenio Battisti