Throughout Europe, the humanizing of religious themes and
religious images accelerated steadily from the 12th century. By the
14th century, art addressed the private person (often in a private
place) in a direct appeal to the emotions. The expression of feeling
accompanied the representation of the human body in motion. As
the figures of the church portals began to twist on their columns,
then move within their niches, and then stand independently, their
details became more outwardly related to the human audience as ex-
pressions of recognizable human emotions.NICHOLAS OF VERDUNAs part of his plan to make his
new church at Saint-Denis an earthly introduction to the splendors
of Paradise (see “Abbot Suger,” page 463), Suger selected artists from
the Meuse River valley to fashion a magnificent crucifix for the choir.
This region long had been famous for the quality of its metalworkers
and enamelers (FIGS. 17-23and 17-24). Suger described the Saint-
Denis cross as standing on a sumptuous base decorated with 68enamel scenes pairing Old and New Testament episodes. The enamel
work of the leading Meuse valley artist of the late 12th and early 13th
centuries,Nicholas of Verdun,suggests the appearance of the bib-
lical enamels on Suger’s lost crucifix.
In 1181, Nicholas completed work on a gilded-copper and
enamel ambo (a pulpit for biblical readings) for the Benedictine
abbey church at Klosterneuburg, near Vienna in Austria. After a fire
damaged the pulpit in 1330, the church hired artists to convert the
pulpit into an altarpiece(a decorative panel above and behind the
altar). The pulpit’s sides became the wings of a triptych (three-part
altarpiece). The 14th-century artists also added six scenes to Nicho-
las’s original 45. The Klosterneuburg Altar in its final form has a cen-
tral row of enamels depicting New Testament episodes, beginning
with the Annunciation, and bearing the label sub gracia,or the world
“under grace,” that is, after the coming of Christ. The upper and
lower registers contain Old Testament scenes labeled, respectively,
ante legem,“before the law” Moses received on Mount Sinai, and sub
lege,“under the law” of the Ten Commandments. In this scheme,
prophetic Old Testament events appear above and below the New
Testament episodes they prefigure. For example, framing the An-
nunciation to Mary of the coming birth of Jesus are enamels of an-
gels announcing the births of Isaac and Samson. In the central sec-
tion of the triptych, the Old Testament counterpart of Christ’s
Crucifixion is Abraham’s sacrifice of Isaac (FIG. 18-52), a parallel
already established in Early Christian times in both art (FIG. 11-7)Gothic Outside of France 49318-51Virgin with the Dead Christ (Röttgen Pietà), from the Rhine-
land, Germany, ca. 1300–1325. Painted wood, 2 10 –^12 high. Rheinisches
Landemuseum, Bonn.
This statuette of the Virgin grieving over the distorted dead body of
Christ in her lap reflects the widespread troubles of the 14th century
and the German interest in emotional imagery.18-52Nicholas of Verdun,sacrifice of Isaac, detail of the Kloster-
neuburg Altar,from the abbey church at Klosterneuburg, Austria, 1181.
Gilded copper and enamel, 5^1 – 2 high. Stiftsmuseum, Klosterneuburg.
Nicholas of Verdun was the leading artist of the Meuse valley region,
renowned for its metal- and enamelwork. His emotionally charged gold
figures stand out vividly from the blue enamel background.1 ft.
1 in.18-52A
Klosterneuburg
Altar,refash-
ioned after 1330.