(noun) - A German word that literally means "jagged style," Zackenstil is used to describe a zig-zag style of art created in the 13th-century. It was used in sculpture, painting, stained glass and manuscript illumination, and is reputedly an offshoot of the angularly-draped clothing one sees on human figures in Byzantine art. In Zackenstil, however, angular drapery has been taken to the extreme. Robes containing sharp folds with pointy ends (and lots of other Euclidean geometry) are characteristic.
Excellent examples of Zackenstil are visible in the frescoes in the Bishop's Chapel of Gurk Cathedral, Gurk, Austria.
Zackenstil was a regional, Germanic phenomenon, having gotten its start in Saxony and Thuringia and never spreading further than parts of (modern) Switzerland, Austria, the Czech Republic and Slovenia. As the 13th-century progressed it came to be employed less and less frequently, until the 14th-century rolled around and it died a natural death.
