Notname

Kefermarkt is a town between Linz and Freistadt in Upper Austria whose church has a spectacular +500 year old wooden altarpiece [St Christopher pictured R with his trad burdens] carved in the 1490s. More pics: there's A Lot of detail. Like the survival of only fragments [7/120ths] of the works of Σοφοκλῆς = Sophocles - whose output rivalled that of Wm Shagsper born 2,060 years later - most of the religious artwork of Central Europe from Late Medieval times has gone to smoke and rubble. 

At about the same time:

• notSaint Christopher Columbus was initiating the sack and pillage of the civilizations of the New World
• Perkin Warbeck was sailing from Cork to France as part of making his end run for the English throne.  
• Leonardo da Vinci was painting La Belle Ferronnière in Milan. 
• In the North, Sweden successfully defended >!BOOM!< the fortress of Vyborg / Выборг / Viipuri against an army of besieging Russians.

This wood-carving is pretty and pretty amazing. It is clearly part of the inspiration for Hermann Hesse's Narziss and Goldmund [whc prev]. Goldmund, the scape-grace white-headed boy of his teacher Narziss, as well as a serial shagger across medieval Europe, becomes an accomplished carver of wood. In those days, magnates secular and clerical would commission 3-D art pieces as well as paintings and other bling. In the case of Kefermarkt, of which we treat, (despite the derails) we know that the sponsor was local laird Christoph von Zelking, advisor and confidant of The Emperor, who died in 1491. The will contained a clause to make the altarpiece to grace the church which C v. Z had ordered built 20 years prior. Of the artist who won the commission we know nothing. In the patchy nature of medieval evidence [whc prev], you need a notname to attribute similar works to a single source. Even if that source is a team from the same atelier. The journeymen roughed things out and carved the boilerplate; the apprentices made tea and were sent in search of a glass hammer; the Master finished the work in his own inimitable style. So here, we acknowledge the hand of The Master of the Kefermarkt Altarpiece or indeed Meister des Kefermarkter Altars.

This obvs reminds us of the classic tale of bamboozlement by anonymity in which Odysseus introduces himself to the one-eyed giant Πολύφημος = Polyphemus as Οὖτις = Noman, Nobody. When wily Odysseus blinds his host and escapes with those of his crew who haven't been eaten, Polyphemus calls out to his monster neighbours that he has been assaulted and dispossessed (of his dinner), they roar back "who has thus injured you?" Polyphemus has to reply ὦ φίλοι, Οὖτίς με κτείνει δόλῳ οὐδὲ βίηφιν = Noman has injured me and the neighbours huff a bit about the noise and then go about their own business. A right shit-heel, that Odysseus.