The Way of Salvation
c. 1490
Medium
Woodcut in black hand colored with brush and watercolor on cream laid paper, laid down on cream laid paper
Dimensions
Image/sheet: 26.3 × 18 cm (10 3/8 × 7 1/8 in.); Backing: 26.7 × 18.4 cm (10 9/16 × 7 1/4 in.)
Classification
woodcut
Department
Prints and Drawings
Museum
Art Institute of Chicago
Accession Number
60750
Rights
Public Domain
About this artwork
A pair of prints from opposite sides of the Alps demonstrates the didactic capabilities of devotional printmaking. Both depict a sacred mountain that the soul must climb toward heaven. In Baccio Baldini’s extremely early engraved book illustration of an Italianate ladder of virtues, a monk successfully ascends, while a fashionable young man is dragged away by a demon representing worldly pleasures. Its thistle-laden German counterpart consists of banderole rungs filled with xylographic text and ...