The descent of the Holy Spirit

Hans Multscher's The Descent of the Holy Spirit (Pentecost), dated 1437 and now in the Gemäldegalerie Berlin, is a panel from the Wurzach Altarpiece, Multscher's most ambitious surviving work. Multscher was the dominant sculptor and painter in Swabia in the second quarter of the fifteenth century, and his work represents a crucial turning point in German art: the move from the elegant courtly idealism of the International Gothic toward a new realism of physical presence, emotional intensity, and individualized character that anticipates the Flemish influence of the following decades. The Pentecost panel shows the descent of the Holy Spirit as tongues of fire upon the assembled apostles and the Virgin.

Multscher's figures have a characteristic solidity and physical presence quite distinct from the elegant elongation of the International Gothic. Faces are individualized and expressive, the apostles' reactions to the divine fire varied and psychologically acute. The composition is dense and tightly organized. Colors are warm and deeply saturated.