Chris Pye: Woodcarving
Recommended Books

The Limewood Sculptors of Renaissance Germany
By Michael Baxandall

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We know about the astonishing woodcarving and woodcarvers of this period, the 'Gothic Renaissance' of Northern Germany (1475-1525), but it lasted only 3 generations. How did it come about? How did it develop out of the culture of the time and why did it die out, leaving faint traces of its passing in the tourist woodcarving schools of Austria and Switzerland? What were the lives of carvers in those time really like?

Michael Baxandall is THE authority writing in English on this period. He leads us through the historical context: the culture with it's guilds and their impact on the lives of individual carvers; the art of the time; the patronage and rising capitalism. By an understanding of the character of Limewood, the use of the tools and the integrity of the master's workshop, what might have been a dry book becomes absorbing and illuminating.
Baxandall writes clearly, scholarly, and logically. The book is excellently illustrated with sculpture and drawings. Reading - and browsing in - such a fine book is a real pleasure.

By bringing the carvers: Tilman Riemenschneider, Veit Stoss, Michael Ehrhart and Hans Leinberger into focus - into life - like this, was for me an education. I saw their work more clearly, with deeper understanding, than before. Woodcarving don't arise spontaneously, but in the context of the carvers and culture. The same is true for you and me. I hadn't really appreciated this before.

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