Dominican Cycle: Ascension of Christ

The Dominican Cycle: Ascension of Christ, painted around 1512 by the Master of the Dominican Cycle and now at the Germanisches Nationalmuseum in Nuremberg, is part of a series of panels depicting events from the life of Christ produced for Dominican use. The Ascension — Christ's departure from earth forty days after his Resurrection, witnessed by his disciples — concluded the period of post-Resurrection appearances and marked the transition to the era of the church. The Master of the Dominican Cycle is an anonymous German painter defined by this series, whose style shows the influence of both Nuremberg and the broader South German painting tradition. The Germanisches Nationalmuseum holds extensive holdings of German Renaissance art.

The Ascension composition shows Christ rising above his astonished disciples, with the apostles organized in a semicircular arrangement of upward-gazing figures below. German late Gothic figure types are carefully individualized in their varied expressions of wonder and grief at Christ's departure.