A Window by Peter Hemmel

Abstract

Toward the end of the fifteenth century Peter Hemmel, of Andlau in Alsace, was the busiest painter on glass in Germany and perhaps the most important of his time. His works, which were executed from about 1470 to 1500, are still, in part, in their original positions in St. Guillaume at Strasbourg, the Ulm minster, the “Stadtkirche” of Ravensburg, the “Lorenzkirche” in Nuremberg, the Nonnberg church in Salzburg and elsewhere. Fragments, whose original sites are unknown, have found their way into the Strasbourg, Darmstadt and other museums. Peter Hemmel's historical significance rests on the fact that he introduced into the frames of his compositions the dynamic wealth of late Gothic architectural forms, which he adopted from the copper-engravers, particularly Schongauer, the method of line-hatch modelling for his figures, their draperies and detail and that, with resolute realism, he raised the art of stained glass from its bondage to the plane surface to the status which painting on wood had attained more...