The řeboňTřeboň Altarpiece, also known as Wittingau altarpiece, is one of the most important works of European Gothic panel painting. Of the original large altarpiece retable created in about 1380 by an anonymous Gothic painter called the Master of the Třeboň Altarpiece, three wings, painted on both sides, have survived. The altarpiece is one of the works that helped towards the emergence of the International Gothic style (called the Beautiful Style in the Bohemian lands) and which influenced the development of art in a broad European context.
It was created for the Augustinian Church of St Giles in Třeboň and is now part of the permanent collection of medieval art of the National Gallery in Prague.
Altarpiece
Reconstruction
The three surviving wings could have formed part of a large altarpiece with the Crucifixion as its central part. On the missing fourth wing there would most probably have been a scene following on from the Resurrection of Christ, for example Noli Me Tangere (the altarpiece was consecrated to St Mary Magdalene). A number of researchers have focused on reconstructing the arrangement of the panels; variations have been proposed with the central painting of the Crucifixion, similar to smaller works from the Master of the Třeboň Altarpiece workshop and followers (the Crucifixion from St Barbara’s Church, the Crucifixion from Vyšší Brod), with sculptural decoration or a variation with two paintings similar to the later Rajhrad Altarpiece (the Crucifixion and Christ Carrying the Cross) and the Graudenz Altarpiece. The original winged altarpiece could have been more than 3 metres high, with a pair of wings above each other. The open altarpiece, with Passion scenes unified by a red background, invited worshippers to meditate as individuals. The rear side of the wings with paintings of male and female saints, visible when the altar was closed, is most probably connected with the consecration of the church and its chapels, as well as with the patron saints of the order and the holy relics kept in the church.
Material and technique
The quality of the Třeboň Altarpiece's painting is without parallel and represents the technological pinnacle of European painting in the late 14th century. The material, painting technique and panel size (height 132 cm, width 92 cm) are the same in all the surviving panels. The panels are composed of spruce boards joined by pegs and covered on both sides with canvas. The ground is formed by a basic layer of coarser-grained silicate clay and another layer of fine chalk. The preparatory drawing is executed in brush with iron-red pigment; the engraved lines only mark the architectural elements. The gilding is executed without poliment, using an oily bonding agent. All the gilded areas have the same type of punched decoration. In contrast to earlier panel painting, the painter used lead white underpainting only in specific places, instead modelling the portraits and drapery by gradually building up translucent layers of egg tempera. Linseed oil was used to bond the pigments.
Front side
The composition is dominated by the striking diagonal of the rock faces that divide the central figure of Christ from the two accompanying scenes: the sleeping apostles in the foreground and Judas bringing the soldiers in the background. The praying Christ has drops of bloody sweat (the Gospel of St Luke) and the angel presents him with the Cup of Bitterness. The scale of Christ's body stands out from the pictorial space and is not subject to the same order as the others. It is dressed in the brownish robe of a penitent and the modelling in light and chiaroscuro painting suppresses its physical substance. Depicted in a hieratical perspective with the central figure of Christ, the landscape is merely an accompanying part of the composition. In comparison with earlier simplistically depicted crystalline rock faces (the Vyšší Brod (Hohenfurth) cycle) however, this landscape comes closer to reality. Great attention is devoted to the modelling of the terrain and to small details.