Welcome to the brand new Arthive! Discover a full list of new features here.

Michael
Paher

Germany • 1435−1498

Biography and information

Michael Pacher was one of the greatest masters of Central Europe of the XV century He was born in Brunete (Brunico), located in South Tyrol, through which passed the road connecting the Czech and Austrian Lands with Lombardy and Veneto. Master twice visited Italy, where he became acquainted with the works of Mantegna, Antonello da Messina, who influenced the development of his work. The artist traveled on the Rhine and the Netherlands. In 1467 he became a burgher Brunico and the master of a large workshop in which he created his works for Tyrol and Salzburg. The master died in Salzburg, where he worked on the installation of an altar for a local Church.

He was born CA. 1435. In 1462, is mentioned as a citizen of Bruneck (Brunico) in Tyrol. Of course, not just visited Italy, having experienced a clear influence of quattrocentesco, primarily A. Mantegna. Probably traveled North on the Rhine and the Netherlands. From 1467 he worked in Brunete, where he had a large workshop, and after 1496 — in Salzburg.

His name is associated, first of all, two large pictorial and sculptural altar (St. Wolfgang, 1471-1481, the pilgrimage Church in St. Wolfgang, Upper Austria; and the Fathers of the Church, completed in 1483, Alte Pinakothek, Munich), where the local Gothic traditions along with renderengine Italian and Dutch influences are melted in a manly style, which impresses with its energetic and promising perspectives, the illusory-volume plasticity of the forms and emotional expression of colour. Also acted as a Woodcarver; his painted sculpture (the Coronation of the virgin in the Central box of the altar of St. Wolfgang) stylistically more archaic than painting.

He also performed altar of St. Lawrence (fragments of it are stored in the Museum of medieval Austrian art in Vienna). Actively worked as a master of murals, however, these compositions (sakristei monastery Church in Neustift, 1467-1468, and the monastery Church in Innichen, 1477; both in Tyrol) came to us in a very unimportant sound.

Died, Pacher, most likely, in Salzburg in August 1498.