Martin Šugár: Hviezda, na ktorú sa zabudlo could be correct, I think it is important to point out the vagueness of the actual head on the flag, as it reveals the artist’s symptomatic inconsistency in using visual symbols. He was clearly aware only of general meanings, and is possibly one of the main reasons why it has been impossible to find and example of a unified, consistent symbolic scheme using the star, sickle moon, and a ram’s or bull’s head. In conclusion, it could be said that the painter’s aim was innovation or the linking of several symbols seen as being ‘anti-Christian’, and which was conceived primarily in theology, possibly coloured by the intensifying anti-Turkish feeling. In the end, however, this is insufficient to explain the subsequent correction of the devices on the flag. I propose that so far the only reason, even if only partly convincing, could be an unwelcome comparison with the similarly conceived Balassa coat-of-arms (in this context it is necessary to assume that the panel-painter was not aware of the coat-of-arms and that its similarity to the flag was pointed out to him later). As an end-note, we should once again compare the MS Master Crucifixion with the Schongauer etching (b. 22) and show a decisive element in our unknown painter’s work – the immediacy of the panel to the spectator, the artist’s conviction that the viewer is taking part in the scenes of the Passion. This aspect of the work falls into the historical context of Banská Štiavnica, which from the thirteenth century witnessed the preaching of the Dominican Order, and from the cusp of the sixteenth century, that of the Cracow University magister Johannes Galer de Glogovia. Galer was serious competition for the Dominicans. He preached mostly in the church of St Catherine, and it was primarily through his efforts that the church was built several years before the parish church of the Virgin Mary (then also known as the obere pfarrkirche). We know that in the year of the church’s consecration, (1500), Galer managed to secure, along with Andreas Hillenbrandt, the necessary indulgences to contribute to the high altar. Thus there should be no doubt about Galer’s influence on the altar’s conception, especially when we know that as a German preacher there, Galer took part in establishing the high altar in the church of the Virgin Mary in Cracow. We can only speculate about the contents of his preaching, but he probably knew the works of the Paris Professor Jean Gerson (1363–1429), who wanted to combine mysticism with a clerical theology and who used this alternative to educate future priests. It seems that the effect on a hypothetical spectator of the MS Master panel corresponds to Gerson’s union of the parish sermon and mysticism. His ars praedicandi focused on a moral message which, in order to achieve the desired effect, had to be easily remembered. It seems that this is the reason why the panel painting follows a didactic structure, as it partly served as a memory aid. It is not surprising, therefore, that Galer’s name was known to the residents of Banská Štiavnica as late as the eighteenth century, when part of the high alter of the church of St Catherine was replaced by a baroque construction (around 1727). After this, it was forgotten completely. English by Miroslav Pomichal
288