The Pietà

The present monumental woodcut, like others produced at the infancy of printing, invites but ultimately defeats any attempt to precisely locate it in terms of date or origin, and any investigation must ultimately be satisfied with general conclusions. However, several factors, particularly previous and subsequent stylistic developments, serve to place the present woodcut squarely in the middle of the fifteenth century. It shares the broad outlines and flowing drapery of the earliest 'first phase' woodcuts of the 1420's and 1430's, but post-dates this period in using a finer line, and presenting the figures against a background. However, we can place it before the second half of the century for two reasons, the first being that the lines of the drapery do not display the characteristic 'square' or 'hook' ends, and it does not use shading, both developments associated with the 1460's. That the colouring is applied by hand provides a useful terminus ad quem. The use of stencils to apply colouring, and even printing in colour, is a feature of the second half of the century.
The bright colours in particular, namely red lake, green, brown, rose and yellow (and, incidentally, the double nimbus), point to Swabia as the most likely origin. Of the two principal Swabian centres, Augsburg and Ulm, the use of brown suggests the former. However, any use of colouring to provide a location must be treated with caution. Since there is evidence that blocks changed hands in the 15th Century, blocks cut in one region could have been printed and coloured in another.
Be that as it may, what we can say is that the present magnificent work is the product of a crucial period in history. The 15th Century was a time when the development of a European paper-making industry, combined with the exisiting technology of printing with wooden blocks, caused an explosion in the number of images in circulation, with an incalculable impact on European and world culture.