DRAMATIST IN WOOD

ON Aug. 9 in the year 1384, a farmer came upon a Holy Host while plowing in his field in the Bavarian town of Creglingen. On that spot, the Lords of Hohenlohe-Brauneck decided to build a chapel, and it is said that so many pilgrims flocked to see the Host that the town was eventually able to afford the finest altarpiece money could buy. Then came the Reformation, and the pilgrimages ceased. For centuries the great carving was all but forgotten; only a trickle of travelers took the trouble to visit it until after World War II. Last week the Creglingen tourist office proudly predicted that this year's visitors will reach at least 168,000.

It was not until 1880 that the sculptor of the altarpiece was even known. Many scholars doubted that it was originally intended for the out-of-the-way chapel at all. Yet the altarpiece did exactly fit the altar table, and at certain times the afternoon sun would stream through the western rose window to light up the face of the Virgin Mary. It was to Mary that the linden triptych was dedicated.

From the Annunciation to her Assumption and her final crowning, Mary's life, both on earth and in heaven, is re-enacted in a series of shell-like stages that were one of the hallmarks of the Renaissance sculptor, Tilman Riemenschneider. He had come to Wuerzburg in 1483 as a painter's apprentice, rose to be city councilor and finally mayor. Then, during the Peasants' War, he flatly refused the bishop's order to take a stand against the rebels. He was stripped of his honors, "harshly judged and tortured," and legend has it that all his fingers were smashed.

Riemenschneider's altarpieces are the work of a man who was dramatist as well as sculptor. His figures, like actors in a play, take life from each other. When a climax comes, as in the Assumption (see color) the scene bursts with sudden passion. The wooden eyes fill with wonder, and the apostles' faces soundlessly proclaim their unforgettable experience of agony and awe.

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