Gothic sculpture

[1][2] When the classical values started to be appreciated again in the Renaissance, the sculpture from the previous centuries was seen as shapeless and rough and was given the name of Gothic, since it was believed to come from the culture of the Goths, people considered barbaric and supposedly responsible for the disappearance of the Roman Empire.

Gothic sculpture in its late stages continued to be widely used in architectural decoration, but by this time, the sculptors had already experimented with the most diverse materials and explored the most varied uses for reliefs and statues, forming a collection of extraordinary richness and variety.

At various times in history, there was mass destruction of medieval monuments and works of art (for example, in the iconoclastic issue throughout the Reformation and during the French Revolution) and so the determination of the chronology, genealogy and geographical distribution of the style presents many gaps impossible to be filled.

"On the other hand, the ancient classical pagan tradition, which provided essential elements for the formulation of the new faith, was fully in favor of the representation of gods, and both currents remained in constant friction throughout the Middle Ages.

The Gregorian statement, coming from a pope considered wise—later elevated to the rank of Doctor of the Church, like Basil—together with the contribution of John of Damascus, were powerful arguments in the iconoclastic question that agitated Christians from the beginning and raged strongly in the Byzantine Empire.

The most obvious innovations of Early Gothic were the application of sculptures to the archivolts and lateral columns of the portals and a growing tendency toward a less compact, more open and rational organization of scenes, and a lengthening in the proportions of figures, accompanying the greater verticalism of the buildings.

In this more liberal academic environment, relatively independent of the Church, a humanistic philosophy gained ground, and the doctrine of Purgatory was structured, offering an escape route from Hell through a purifying stage prior to the ascent to Heaven.

In the process, the old tendency of the Christian faith to correct the sinner through fear and the threat of eternal damnation was tempered by visions that emphasized mercy rather than divine wrath and that took more account of the inherent fallibility of human nature.

The very pronounced verticality of Gothic cathedrals, and their abundance of large windows that allowed great penetration of light into the interior—in contrast to the much heavier "square" forms and dark surroundings of Romanesque architecture—have been interpreted as a formal feature that mirrored this new, optimistic spiritual impulse.

[10][2] Early Gothic remained essentially a French phenomenon, concentrated in the Paris region, and the first important monument to include sculpture was the Basilica of Saint-Denis, whose abbot, Suger, had a pre-existing Romanesque building remodeled between years 1137 and 1144 and adorned it with great riches.

[11][12] For Suger, who had been influenced by the writings of Pseudo-Dionysius, the church's ornamentation with gold objects and precious gems, stained glass windows, paintings, and sculptures was a valuable educational tool, being a way to visually present the doctrine to the people and make it more easily understandable.

[11][12] The novelties proposed by Suger for the architecture and decoration of the facades, supported by the great prestige of Paris as a cultural, artistic, and university center, immediately began to radiate, appearing next in Chartres Cathedral, begun in 1145, whose west portal constitutes the most important sculptural ensemble in good condition of the first phase of Gothic.

[11][8] Both the sculptures of Saint-Denis and those on the other facades of Chartres were largely destroyed, mutilated, replaced, or poorly restored in later times, preventing a comprehensive understanding of their iconographic programs, but the Laon Cathedral, which has survived without much damage, provides a complete overview of the Early Gothic.

[13] The artists from the Meuse valley were important in this transition, notably Nicholas of Verdun and Renier of Huy, the first great masters to leave their mark in the history of Gothic sculpture, dedicating themselves to works in goldsmithery and bronze.

[11] The statues are already independent of the columns and, possibly for the first time in the Middle Ages, the contrapposto is used to give the images more grace and movement, complemented with more dynamic attitudes in the limbs and a treatment of anatomical volumes that in many cases are no longer hidden by clothing.

[14] If throughout the 13th century the general trend of sculpture, in technical terms, was to break free from architecture and gain autonomy, it still maintained an intimate relationship with its context, so that the ensembles tended to preserve a remarkable sense of unity and harmony.

[18]But it would be misleading to assume that by this time naturalism represented a liberation from the dictates of the Church and a radical abolition of interest in the spirit, and sculpture, like the other arts, manifested a constant dualism, seeking a compromise formula between both extremes.

[20][21] Secondly, the old spiritual unilateralism, which rejected the imitation of reality in art and sought in it only the confirmation of religious doctrine, was broken, giving way to a vision that demanded the validation of abstract principles through sensitive experience, with faith entering into dialogue with reason.

If International Gothic sculpture carried this trend forward on the one hand, on the other it gave it a new approach, which served the distinctive atmosphere of devotio moderna, a movement of religious revivalism that began among the mendicant orders and soon spread among the laity.

It is not surprising, in the face of this more emotionally inclined faith, the multiplication of works with dramatic themes such as the scenes of the Passion of Jesus and the Pietà—which had a more immediate affective appeal and a confessional and penitential character that had not been explored until then, and which were linked to the popularization of the doctrines about indulgences and Purgatory, and to the understanding of Salvation as an essentially individual and subjective problem, in contrast to the ideas about a collective eschatology that had predominated before.

As already mentioned, in the great devotional wave that occurred during the International Gothic period, the production of reliquaries and cult statuary was enormously intensified, and many of the sacred images produced then were derivations or direct copies of a famous prototype whose veneration was ancient.

This made their relationship to the original image obvious and lent the new one an archaic character, and, more importantly, gave it a more authentic sacredness, even more so when reinforced by some suggestive popular legend, such as those that ran at the time saying that certain famous statues and icons had miraculously multiplied and worked wonders also through their copies.

[29] In politics, the invasions of Italy by France, Germany, and Spain led to a radical change in the balance of power on the continent, culminating in the Sack of Rome in 1527, which caused many Italian artists and intellectuals to flee to other places.

[30] Like the portals, these large structures had a clearly organized iconographic program, illustrating the divine hierarchies that had a reflection on Earth in the form of the established Church, with the Vicar of Christ as its leader, plus his body of ministers and his flock of faithful.

After the Duke's death the prestige of the Burgundian school began to decline, but at the end of the 15th century it is worth remembering Antoine le Moiturier, traditionally regarded as the author of the famous Tomb of Philippe Pot.

But unlike France, which was beginning to abandon monumental sculpture, this genre continued to be widely practised and there are many churches in various cities that have good examples: Xanten, Cologne, Erfurt, Worms, Ulm, Augsburg, Vurtzburg, and Nuremberg.

[32] In the Late Gothic, the Italian Classical-Mannerist and Flemish influences became more prominent, but the typically Germanic tendencies asserted themselves powerfully, formulating an often brutal and dramatic realism which relies not on exact anatomical description but on the extravagant movement of bodies, of the accumulation of characters that are often compressed into a tiny space, of the convoluted folding of garments that acquire value by themselves without taking into account the underlying bodily volumes, and of the superabundant accessory decoration, which at times becomes exhaustive in its detail.

[32] By the transition to the 16th century, Italian classical elements were already widespread, giving birth to an eclectic Mannerist school called plateresque, which developed a style of facade decoration with statuary framed by an enormous complexity of geometric and vegetal motifs.

[38][15] On the other hand, the existence of a growing number of autonomous artists required their organization in class associations, the guilds, which exercised considerable power in the distribution of contracts, in the methods of teaching apprentices, and sometimes even in the definition of aesthetic parameters.

Historiography began to consolidate itself as a modern science, making use of a methodology based on documentation and more objective approaches, and a milestone in this process was the influential study Handbuch der Kunstgeschichte (1842), by Franz Kluger, where for the first time entire sections were devoted to sculpture—although he recognized that the ground was still to be covered.