St Bartholomew

This single apostle is one leaf of a large folding altarpiece that Konrad Witz painted around 1435 for the church of Saint Leonard in Basel, the earliest of his works to survive on this scale. The altar was later taken apart, and its panels are now scattered, most of them held here in Basel. The saint is Bartholomew, one of the twelve apostles, remembered in legend for being flayed alive, which is why painters of the time put a knife in his hand. What catches the eye is less the story than the body. Witz gives him real weight, a heavy sculptural figure standing in a bare, shallow room with his shadow thrown on the wall behind him. Painters of his generation still favoured slender, flowing Gothic saints; this one is built from solid blocks of light and shade.