German and Netherlandish Sculpture, 1280-1800; The Harvard Collectionsby Charles L. Kuhn

German and Netherlandish Sculpture, 1280-1800; The Harvard Collections by Charles L. KuhnReview by: Donald L. EhresmannThe Art Bulletin, Vol. 52, No. 4 (Dec., 1970), pp. 449-452Published by: College Art AssociationStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3048780 .

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BOOK REVIEWS 449

silversmith's repertory. An adjectival style, dependent upon introduction of Renaissance structure upon which were superimposed ornamental accents derived from either the "obra bArbara," or Late Gothic, or from Renaissance decoration, the Plateresque was possible in silverwork only when, as by the 1530's, diverse styles were permitted coexistence. Juan de Arfe rightly saw the work of his father, Antonio, as consequential to the introduction of Greco- Roman (i.e., Renaissance) architectural principles into Spain and realized what would later be described as its Plateresque character, stating that Spain's interpretation of Renaissance forms was never without some admixture of the never completely forgotten "obra moderna" (or bdirbara), and that Antonio's use of the Greco- Roman-based style did not lack balustered, monstrous columns in accordance with Antonio's willful precepts.

Like the styles preceding and following, Mannerism exerted an effect on the arts in Spain to an extent, though its acceptance in metalwork was limited essentially to ornament, available to Spanish artisans in prints from abroad. Several pieces in the Victoria and Albert collection demonstrate this aspect (figs. 124-126, 129-132); and the work of Juan Franci, active in Toledo during the 1540's, is of unusual interest in gracefully incorporating elements of a Man- nerist vocabulary within such established forms as processional crosses (figs. 124-128, 130). If the circular silver plaque in the Vic- toria and Albert collection associated by Oman with Franci (fig. 129) is indeed by him or from his school, it exhibits an exception- ally energetic and imaginative secular decorative scheme that is not, however, unquestionably related to a cross ornament, a considera- tion which apparently prompted Oman's conservatism in denying an unqualified attribution.

Assimilation of Renaissance architectural formulae, together with application of sculptural decorative accents upon almost all elements, was accepted practice in 1585 when Cristobal Becerril, mem- ber of a Cuenca family of silversmiths, completed his custodia for Alarc6n (New York, The Hispanic Society of America; figs. 172- 176). Within the decade, however, a new direction in architecture came to bear upon metalwork design: the austere Herreran Escorial style praised by Juan de Arfe in 1585 as surpassing the revered antique. A processional cross of 1580 by Francisco Merino (fig. 229), or Merino's casket-shrine of St. Leocadia completed in 1592 (Toledo, Cathedral; fig. 230) best demonstrate in metalwork this conservative style with surfaces left plain or simply defined in rec- tangular or oval forms, use of figures in the round or compositions in extremely curtailed relief. It was a style which in metalwork as in architecture continued to endorse a respect for simplicity into the seventeenth century, though Baroque silversmiths would soon modify its austerity with bands of ornament, delicately curving linear tracings, enameled ovals and embossed surface pat- terns. But a restraint in the use of decorative forms was imposed upon architect and silversmith alike and invention and ingenuity, praised qualities during Mannerist-influenced years, were to subside in the decorative arts of Spain. This may have been in response to such condemnations of Mannerist decoration as that expressed by Juan de Arfe-he saw the Escorial's architecture as finally throwing off the burlerias of Flemish and French prints made use of in Spain by unthinking and insolent artisans who thought them invention and adorned or "better said" destroyed their works with

them-or, as Oman appears to see it, a reflection of the stringencies of a declining economy.

Portugal, while ruled by Spain from 1580 until 1640, did not relinquish an individual character in the major arts, or in metalwork. And in Portugal too, the links between architecture and its sculptural ornament, and metalwork are evident. Thus one can relate to Manueline sculptural ornament the relief-worked decoration of silver and silver-gilt dishes and basins dated ca. 1540 from Lisbon and Oporto that incorporate religious subjects and busy scenes of battle and the hunt, mythological, fantastic or exotic (figs. 156-162, 167-169, 171). Embossed concentric bands profusely in- habited with figure, foliage or pearl-bossed ornament, they are almost without parallel in Spanish metalwork (two dishes bearing Barcelona and Mallorca marks providing exceptions), and reflect rather the decorative elements and chiaroscuro surface activity of Portugal's Manueline style.

The importance of Hispanic metalwork during what Oman terms its Golden Age thus lies in its reflecting contemporary efforts in the major arts in small scale but in no minor manner. Executed by artist-craftsmen who considered themselves more than mere silversmiths, it offers a rewarding subject for investigation.

PRISCILLA E. MULLER

The Hispanic Society of America

CHARLES L. KUHN, German and Netherlandish Sculpture, 1280-1800; The Harvard Collections, Cambridge, Harvard University Press, 1965. Pp. xiv + 146; 85 pls. $15.00

Charles Kuhn's German and Netherlandish Sculpture, 1280-1800; The Harvard Collections is a most admirable document of that university's museums, serving as it does both museological and peda- gogical purposes. It consists of a scholarly catalog of all ninety- three appropriate works of sculpture in the Busch-Reisinger and Fogg Museums and a succinct yet very readable essay on the history of German and Netherlandish sculpture from High Gothic through Neoclassicism. The value of the catalog is immediately evident after scanning the remarkable yet little-known collection of German sculpture-there are only a few Netherlandish works- which includes several high quality pieces, the circular steatite model in relief by Peter Floetner (cat. no. 33) and the garden figures attributed to Johann Joachim Giinther (cat. nos. 88-91), as examples. The greatest merit of the collection is its catholicity and balance, and for this Harvard University can thank Professor Kuhn. Nearly all the objects and indeed almost the entire holdings of the Busch-Reisinger Museum were assembled by him during his thirty years as curator of what is a unique collection of German art out- side Europe. He accomplished this with modest resources and always with the commendable goal of holding a balance in the collection which would provide both student and general public with opportunities for insights into one of the most varied and prolific national traditions of Western sculpture. The book's introductory essay, "The Harvard Collections in Their Art-Historical Context," was written both to help fill a gap in the English literature and to make the collection and catalog more intelligible. Before the recent



450 The Art Bulletin

publication of Theodor Miiller's volume on German and Nether- landish sculpture in the Pelican series, very little was available in English, and nowhere except in Professor Kuhn's essay could the interested student find a balanced introduction to the subject.

The survey begins with the Gothic-there are no works in the Harvard Collection which antedate 1280. Although this starting point is justifiable in a discussion which aims at elucidating a specific collection, the survey would be more effective if something were said about German sculpture of preceding periods. It is im- possible to understand German Gothic art without appreciating that a vigorous late Romanesque style in Germany resisted and transformed the impulses from the new French Gothic style until the High Gothic phase in France was well past, with the result that German medieval sculpture moved directly from late Romanesque to Late Gothic-the German style par excellence-in very much the same way that it tended to by-pass the Renaissance in the course of the sixteenth century while anticipating the Baroque of the next century. This characteristic of German development is obscured by Professor Kuhn's stylistic subdivisions: "Transitional Gothic (1180-1230)," "High Gothic Style: First Phase (1230-1280)," and "High Gothic: Final Phase (1270-1350." These subdivisions reflect those used by A. Feulner and T. Miiller in their Geschichte der deutschen Plastik, which seems to have been the single most influential source for Professor Kuhn's ideas. Since he avoided the pseudo-sociological headings employed by Feulner and Miiller (Staufische Renaissance, Ritterliche Klassik, and Ritterliche Spiit- zeit), Professor Kuhn must have had second thoughts about their validity, and he recognized their unintelligibility to the typical American art historian. However, the opportunity was missed to do away altogether with artificial terminologies and to introduce a more accurate organization. For example, it is not really apposite to speak of a High Gothic phase-still less a "Final Phase"-in German sculpture between 1270 and 1350. Certainly by the first decades of the fourteenth century, as evidenced by the appearance of Vesperbilder and the winged altarpiece, German sculpture had embarked on a Late Gothic trend which clearly anticipated similar trends elsewhere in Northern European sculpture. The other subdivisions used by Professor Kuhn, although they tend to mix stylistic and social concepts, are more useful.

Returning to the first section of the survey entitled "Transitional Gothic (1180-1230)," we are told that Cologne-as witnessed by its goldsmithery-was a gateway for some of the first influences of the Gothic style. The art of Nicolas of Verdun is seen as avant- garde in the Gothic style of Germany. The situation is more complex than that. Nicolas's and the Mosan style is not a manifestation of Gothic style, nor is it something new to Rhenish art of the twelfth or early thirteenth centuries. Instead it is a style which appears to have grown out of German Ottonian traditions, indebted especially to the strong Byzantine influences therein. This Mosan style, as Grodecki and Sauerlirnder have shown, influenced French High Gothic art, not the other way round. In responding to Mosan style, Colognese art was merely continuing a long-time pattern of association, and the results, which are seen in monumental sculpture like the tympanum from Sankt Clicilien in the Schniitgen Mu- seum and the tympanum sculpture in Andernach, are clearly un- Gothic. They continue and climax earlier, essentially Romanesque

Rhenish traditions. A word somewhere in this section about the dominance of Ottonian-Byzantine sources for German sculpture of about 1200 would have been apropos, especially with the mention of the earliest Bamberg sculptures and Saxon wood crucifixes.

Thus in the section devoted to the first phase of the "High Gothic Style" it is confusing to read that Mosan goldsmiths prepared the way for an understanding of French High Gothic. Quite the con-

trary, those areas which were most influenced by Mosan style were the last to adopt anything resembling French Gothic portal sculpture. Not until the fourth decade of the fourteenth century, after French influences had been dispersed through layers of Ger- man intermediaries, did Colognese art contemplate an ensemble of portal sculpture in the French mode.

The dichotomy between retrospective and progressive trends in German sculpture between 1270 and 1350 is probably somewhat overstated in this essay. It is possible to argue that the new mysticism is but another manifestation of the so-called chivalric ideal in those years. The evidence of southwest German Vesperbilder, like the famous St. John and Christ groups, demonstrates that the chivalric style, far from being stereotyped (although in certain narrow stylistic features the term may be appropriate), actually assisted at the birth of the new mysticism. Even in works of tomb sculpture like the deeply mystical Tomb Monument of Kuno von Falkenstein and His Wife (d. 1333) in Lich, the two qualities clearly coexist. A similar observation can be made about the appearance of the first winged altarpieces in the early decades of the fourteenth century. None of the extant examples reflects what is called the "new urban culture." All are products of aristocratic religious orders-collegiate churches and monasteries (particularly the Cistercian order which was almost anti-urban.) And, most revealing, these early altarpieces emphatically embrace the so-called chivalric style. The assimilation of bourgeois ideals in the altarpiece and the Vesperbild did not be- gin until the early fifteenth century.

A few inaccuracies occur in the discussion of the early altarpiece. The earliest ones-it is difficult to decide whether Professor Kuhn is speaking of thirteenth- or fourteenth-century examples-do not normally consist of a series of stone arcade-form compartments at the back of the altar to contain relics. Perhaps he was thinking of the unusual group of Rhenish altar retables, such as the one preserved in Sankt Ursula in Cologne which has a low stone retable decorated with an arcade. However, here the relics are not contained in the arcade, but instead in special metal reliquaries supported above and behind the altar retable. Even in the thirteenth century, stone altarpieces were by no means usual. Painted wood retables were used in the Rhineland and southern Germany in the early thirteenth century, and recent studies of the Hofgeismar Altarpiece show that painted wood altarpieces with wings probably were in use by the end of the century. Rarely if ever were wooden wings added to stone retables. The importance of relics to the early development of the altarpiece is still a matter of debate. The need to house and display the important collections of relics played an important role in the first half of the fourteenth century. The winged altarpieces at Cismar, Doberan, and Marienstatt all have elaborate provisions for their housing. Yet thirteenth-century painted altarpieces did not contain them, and in the course of the second half of the fourteenth century, relics rapidly disappeared from altarpieces. The



BOOK REVIEWS 451

ascendancy of the image over the relic, which is complete by the fifteenth century, has clearly begun in the early fourteenth century. In the Oberwesel Altarpiece (ca. 1330) the relics have already been relegated to a small predella-like section.

The amazingly abrupt change of style in German, and to some extent in Franco-Flemish, sculpture around the middle of the fourteenth century is difficult to explain. Social forces, namely the rise of the cities and consequently of bourgeois taste, are usually named in an effort to explain the appearance of the so-called Parler Style. It is difficult to reconcile this explanation with the basically un- bourgeois character of the Parler Style. Professor Kuhn tries to explain the puzzling change by describing the parallel situation in painting. But the use of the term "naturalism" to designate the painting style of the second half of the fourteenth century is in- consistent with his analysis of the style of the two chief sculptors of the time, Beauneveu and Parler. It can be said that simplification of drapery and increased emphasis on plasticity characterize the art of these masters and by extension much related sculpture of the 1370's and 1380's. But the costume in German examples, in con- trast to the drapery, did not become simplified. In fact, the introduction of carefully rendered contemporary costume is very characteristic of Parler sculpture. And the comparison of Beauneveu and Parler is strained in the absence of any mention of the vast dif- ferences between their ideas of portraiture. It is also odd to find nothing said about the strong commitment of Parler Style sculpture to lively narration. A reference to a few of the major examples in

Schwibisch-Gmiind, Prague or Nuremberg would have led the student to see this himself.

In the succeeding section devoted to the years 1380-1430, it is encouraging to see the term "Soft Style" instead of International Style, although Professor Kuhn implies the latter term is, or should be, reserved for painting of the period. The designation Soft Style (Weicher Stil) is apt, especially because the "angular style" follows in time and a predilection for soft sculptural materials-terra cotta, alabaster and artifical stone-is indeed typical of sculpture in the Soft Style. But the etymology of the term is elsewhere. Hans Birger coined it in 1907 in reference to the drapery style of Middle Rhen- ish tomb monuments of the early fifteenth century. Further on, one is surprised to find reference to "the" Master of the Beautiful Madonnas, for during the past fifteen years the idea of a single master for the Sch6ne Madonnen has been consistently challenged and rejected, most recently by D. Grossmann who convincingly presents Salzburg as the center for the development and export of this important type of German Soft Style sculpture. Documents prove the existence of specific Schane Madonnen in Salzburg as far back as the 1380's; careful technical studies by K. Rossacher show that such statues in artificial stone were being fabricated in Salzburg around 1400. Increasingly, the local, specialized literature is recognizing the widely scattered examples of Schine Madonnen and the closely related Pietis as examples of export sculpture from Salzburg.

The last phase of German and Netherlandish medieval sculpture is well described. The importance of city culture to the final climax of the Schnitzaltar as a dominant art form is succinctly expressed, and the Busch-Reisinger Museum has some fine teaching examples. One wishes for greater emphasis on the role played by Nikolaus

Gerhaert von Leyden in German sculpture of the 1460's. Much work is still needed before a clearer idea of Gerhaert's career can be formulated. The main question seems to be how much of this extremely innovative artist's style was formed in his Dutch home- land and how much is an individualistic response to the strong local traditions alive in the areas of Germany in which he spent his entire creative career. Miiller, in his Pelican volume, has made a most thorough attempt to unearth antecedents of Gerhaert's art in remnants of sculpture in the Netherlands. Possibly because of the scarcity of examples available for comparison, Miiller's efforts are not fully convincing, especially when he would maintain that Netherlandish sculpture of the mid-fifteenth century was as innovative and as influential as the painting of the same time. In any case, it is somewhat revealing that Gerhaert, the greatest "Nether- landish" sculptor of his time, should unfold his genius as he wandered through Germany and that his most consequential fol- lowers should develop in that country.

In "The Beginnings of Humanism (1500-1550)," much is said of the role played by the Emperor Maximilian in introducing Ren- aissance ideas into Germany. The choice of Maximilian to embody the times is excellent, for he was energetic about art and literature as well as statecraft. But the emphasis is wrongly placed. To imply that Maximilian was motivated by a desire to reform outmoded aspects of the Empire in calling the Diet of Worms, or any of the other diets he summoned, is to ignore the overwhelming personal vaingloriousness of the man. He appealed to the reform-minded princes only when he needed their support for his numerous foreign military adventures. Ranke aptly called Maximilian the "last of the knights," for to the end the Emperor vigorously pursued the idea of universal monarchy in his vague schemes to revive the glitter of a medieval empire. It is true that Maximilian was impressed by humanism, but not deeply. As the hero of the Romance of Sir Teuerdank and as the author of Weisskunig, he reveals a flamboy- ant personality deeply and seemingly unquenchably immersed in the chivalric past. Maximilian's relationships with artists reveal no consistent patronage of humanism or Renaissance style. He pat- ronized Veit Stoss as avidly as Diirer. Similarly, it is an oversim- plification to imply that cities remained Late Gothic while court circles went Renaissance. How then are we to explain the flowering of classicism in Nuremberg-the Vischers and Peter Floetner-or the Augsburg Renaissance?

The contribution of Late Gothic style to German Baroque sculpture is well expressed in the section "The Early Baroque Style (1620-1680)." Many readers have undoubtedly been fascinated by learning of the revival of old German style in the early seventeenth century. This revival was not restricted to the style of the Diirer period but extended to fifteenth-century art. German art patrons of the time not only desired imitations of earlier styles but some, like the Rieter family of Franconia, diligently collected late medieval sculpture for display in early Baroque altars in their family churches. As Professor Kuhn points out, the revival of the Alt- deutsch was not merely an antiquarian's fad, but reflected a basic continuity with the past. The eclecticism of the intervening man- neristic phase-called Late Renaissance by Professor Kuhn-did nothing to break the continuity with Late Gothic, but in fact en- couraged the exotic pastiche of styles chracacteristic of German



452 The Art Bulletin

early Baroque sculpture. In this context, it would have been instruc- tive to compare the two extremes of German early baroque style represented by Georg Petel, student of Bernini and friend of Rubens, whose style closely followed the Italian Baroque, and the Swabian Ziirn brothers who formed their Baroque style out of Late Gothic elements. Although Petel's classicism had some reper- cussions in later sculpture, especially in Vienna, the style represented by the Ziirns established the basis for the great flowering of German sculpture of the Rococo.

Those who think of Ignaz Giinther and Ferdinand Dietz when they think of German Rococo sculpture may be perplexed by the lengthy discussion of the Viennese proto-Neoclassicist Georg Raphael Donner in the section devoted to the Rococo. Donner might better have been treated with the high Baroque works. He never employed rocaille ornament nor does his highly individualistic style have much in common with the Rococo, although through Peter Wagner of Wiirzburg he did exercise considerable influence in the heartland of German Rococo sculpture. The emphasis on Donner is fully justified, however, by the exquisite Donner lead Nymph (cat. no. 78) in the Busch-Reisinger Museum.

In the catalog entries, it is refreshing to see the basic information arranged in clearly recognizable categories and to find most thorough citations of the literature. The frustrating arrangement of the plates, out of chronological sequence, is somewhat rectified by the inclusion of the catalog numbers in the captions. All of the attribu- tions are the result of careful examination of comparative material. Only a few are open to questions.

The mid-fourteenth century Altar Cross (cat no. 4) appears to be closer to Upper Rhenish examples than to the Franco-Flemish examples emphasized by Professor Kuhn. Two crucifixes in Bero- miinster and Reichenau are especially close to the Busch-Reisinger example. Even the small enamel medallions bear close similarity with the medallions surrounding the crucifix on the Johannes- Paulusschrein in Reichenau. The similarities with north French and Netherlandish miniatures noted in the catalog are explained by the close relationship that existed in the first half of the fourteenth century between the Lake Constance region and France. A similar phenomenon is certainly behind the style of the recently purchased Apocalypse manuscript in The Metropolitan Museum which F. Deuchler recognizes as an Upper Rhenish work dependent on north French and English sources.

It is difficult to see any Tyrolese connections for the charming standing Madonna and Child of ca. 1430 (cat. no. 9). The piece is more likely of Swabian origin, as great similarities exist between it and the Madonna in the Dornstaidter Altar in Stuttgart and an Upper Swabian Female Saint formerly in the Kaiser-Friedrich Mu- seum in Berlin (Pinder, Handbuch . . . , No. 173). All three share limited plasticity with great emphasis on complexity of outline and rich interplay of complex drapery folds. The sweet plumpness of the Busch-Reisinger Madonna is unmistakably Swabian.

The lindenwood Education of the Virgin (cat. no. 25) cannot be called Franconian on Kuhn's basis of compared works in Spalt, Eich- stidt and Munich. These works and also the Busch-Reisinger piece are oriented stylistically to the south, i.e., to Bavarian sculpture around Leinberger. Nothing in Nuremberg or Wiirzburg, the chief centers of Franconian art around 1520, at all resembles the Busch-

Reisinger Education of the Virgin. Elsewhere the general provenance Middle Rhenish is correct for the Madonna and Child (cat. no. 31), but the work has very little to do with Hans Backhoffen, certainly not with his last "Baroque" phase. Similarly, the figure of St. Cath- erine, although probably Franconian, has very little to do with Veit Stoss. Finally, the small wood statue of an Allegorical Female Figure (cat. no. 87) must be attributed to Ferdinand Dietz with caution. The Dietz bozzetti have not been systematically studied and therefore the question of how extensively he employed assistants is open. However, the quality of the Busch-Reisinger piece, especially the weakness of the drapery treatment, would seem to indicate a work- shop assistant of Dietz.

DONALD L. EHRESMANN

State University of New York at Brockport

ENNIO POLEGGI, Strada Nuova, Genoa, SAGEP, 1969. Pp. 498; 236 ills.

Genoese architecture has always had a strong international following. Its palaces and villas were admirably recorded by Rubens in 1622, and later by Gauthier in his Les plus beaux edifices de la ville de Genes of 1845, and the buildings themselves were analysed in a series of articles by Mario Lab6 in the twenties and thirties. Its architects and artists had their own Vasari in Soprani's Le Vite de'Pittori ... of 1674 and two of its major architects have recently had monographs devoted to them-de Negri's Galeazzo Alessi of 1957, and Miiller's Bartolomeo Bianco of 1968. A full-scale study of the street that brought Genoese architecture and architects fame -the Strada Nuova-has been lacking until the appearance of this volume.

The Strada Nuova, the via aurea of the historian Recco and the Via Garibaldi of today, occupies the first four chapters of this book. It is shown convincingly that the development of this area as a regal thoroughfare was a deliberate act on the part of the oligarchic families that ruled the city state. The area marked out in the plan of 1551 was to be developed according to the spirit of the council's decree of the year before which ruled that streets and buildings were to be laid out for the "bellezza alla citta." To this end, houses and gardens were compulsorily purchased in the part immediately below the Church of San Francesco and the city then auctioned off the various plots to the noble speculators of whom Luca Grillo and Luca Grimaldi were the most notable. They in turn sold the land to the palace builders at a handsome profit. This pattern is fascinat- ingly set out by the author in his Tabella C: the Palazzo Doria was built on land acquired by the Spinola in 1563 for twenty-six thousand lire from Leonardo Gentile who, twelve years before, had bought the site for thirteen thousand lire. It is such social and eco- nomic history that occupies the first fifty-six pages of the book; possibly, this is the most original section. Chapter 4 deals with the authorship of the plan for the Strada, and then follows a series of essays on each of the palaces which constitute the street. Such an arrangement gives a majestic and authoritative history, buttressed with some thirty-seven pages of transcribed documents, in addition to the most complete chapter notes. But perhaps the book suffers

