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A brief history of the sculpture

in the present-day Netherlands and Belgium

by Léon E. Lock

 (Please note that this is not a history of sculpture from the Low Countries,
as it does not include French Flanders, nor much of the Rhineland)

 This encyclopedia entry is shortly to be published in The Encyclopedia of Sculpture, Routledge/Taylor & Francis Books, New York, http://www.routledge-ny.com/sculpture. Reproduced with kind permission.

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 Early 14th-century sculpture in the Low Countries developed from many regional traditions, of which the two around the Scheldt and Meuse Rivers were the most prominent. Meuse Valley sculpture was then under the influence of the French courtly style, with graceful, elongated figures and flowing draperies. This style found its prime expression in freestanding Madonnas; the white marble Virgin and Child (ca. 1330-50) by the Master of the Marble Madonnas in Antwerp Cathedral is a characteristic example, with its somewhat artificial drapery and Mannerist pose. The decorative S shape of her body and the dreamy face she presents the Infant Christ, who meekly touches her cheek, stresses the figure’s motherly attitude. Sculptors also used white marble for important tomb monuments, such as the two in the cathedral of Cologne by Gilles de Liège to Walram von Jülich (d. 1349) and Wilhelm von Gennep (d. 1362). These tombs are stylistically comparable to the south portal (ca. 1330-40) of the church of Notre-Dame, Dinant, which reinterprets the exterior reliefs of the chevet chapels (ca. 1320) of the cathedral of Notre-Dame, Paris.

Jean Pépin de Huy (active 1311-29) sculpted the recumbent statue of Robert d’Artois (1317-20), now at Saint-Denis, near Paris. The figure was originally polychromed by Pierre de Bruxelles. and the highly refined carving of the marble enhances its composition. Robert’s mother, Mahaud d’Artois, commissioned the few other remaining works by this assumed Meuse-region artist, such as his 1329 Madonna at Gosnay, Pas-de-Calais.

In the Scheldt region, the Virgin and Child (ca. 1310-20) of the west facade of Tournai Cathedral opened the century with a statue much imitated throughout the region. Tournai became known for its remarkable sculpture in blue-gray limestone. The statues (1350-75) by Wouter Pans for the choir of the cathedral of Mechelen, showing the influence of the school of Reims, and the porch statue of the Madonna on the church ofOnze-Lieve-Vrouw-ten-Poel, Tienen, also belong within this French stylistic context. Jacques de Baerze from Dendermonde (active 1384-99) similarly favored this courtly style when he carved the figures for his impressive altarpieces of the Saints and the Passion for Philip the Bold (Dijon, Musée des Beaux-Arts).

From the middle of the 14th century, increased realism and a sense of movement began to challenge the previous stylistic interests. The monumental alabaster statue of St. Catherine (1372-73) in the church of Onze-Lieve-Vrouwe, Kortrijk, attributed to André Beauneveu (active c.1360-1400) and most likely commissioned by Louis de Male, is one of the most distinguished productions of its time, blending new conceptions of realistic expression and plasticity with the more traditional effect of verticality and slender proportions. His influence became widespread in the 14th century, from Bruges to the Meuse region. In the latter region, the Coronation of the Virgin (ca. 1380-90), in the church of St. Jacques, Liège, constitutes a remarkable example in this new style, combining ample and soft draperies with a greater naturalistic rendition of the human body. Although now essentially known as a sculptor of tomb monuments for French high society in Paris, Jean (Hennequin) de Liège (active ca. 1360-81), a talented artist, also produced alabaster statuettes and altars.

By the 14th century, the growing urban centers created much demand for large-scale secular sculptureand city authorities commissioned monumental secular sculpture for such buildings as city halls with belfries and aldermen’s halls. The former abbey church of Sint-Bavo, Ghent, preserves one of the four guards in armor that were placed in 1338 on the corners of the belfry. Jean de Valenciennes and collaborators provided the Bruges aldermen’s hall in 1376-79 with numerous statues, niches, and consoles (largely destroyed in 1792). In Brabant in particular, small architectural sculpture such as keystones, bosses, and gargoyles received much freer treatments in the new realistic mode.

In the 15th century, Brussels gradually rose in status in political, economic, and artistic matters. It was the city of Claus Sluter (who originally came from Haarlem), one of the most prominent sculptors in the Low Countries. The duke of Burgundy recruited him for his numerous sculptural projects at and near Dijon, his main seat. There, Sluter introduced a new direction away from the international mannerist mode and toward a reinvigorating and original naturalism. He had widespread influence, although paradoxically rather little in the duchies of Flanders and Brabant. The eight figures of prophets together with five consoles, all that remain from the facade decoration of the Brussels Town Hall (ca. 1404-5), and strongly reminiscent of the Champmol sculptures by Sluter, have recently been attributed to the Master of Hakendover. This master is named after his wooden carved altarpiece at the church of the Goddelijke Zaligmaker, Hakendover, which displays his talent for narrative description, just as in the stone sacraments tabernacle and the apostle statues at the church of Sint-Martinus, Halle, usually attributed to the same hand. Much of the sculpture from this period in the northern Netherlands perished under the iconoclasts’ hands. The extant early 15th-century architectural sculpture worth mentioning includes the historiated bosses (ca. 1412-20), probably by Jorijs de Beeldsnijder, in the choir of the Pieters church, Leiden.

Collaboration between painters and sculptors was frequent during this period because most sculptures were polychromed. Even such a prominent sculptor as Jan van Eyck is documented as having painted statues for the Bruges town hall. Jean Delemer’s stout figures and deeply carved drapery in his Annunciation statues (1426-28), now in the cathedral of Tournai, accord to the style that Robert Campin used in his panel painting. This is not surprising considering that the former polychromy of the statues is the only documented work by Campin. Jan van Eyck and Rogier van der Weyden similarly impressed their different stylistic preferences on contemporary sculptors, although painters were not systematically at the forefront of stylistic developments; destruction and lack of study of the sculpture make it difficult for firm conclusions to be drawn. Links on a functional level also frequently existed between painted and sculpted devotional objects. Such close interaction between painting and sculpture accounts for this high point in artistic endeavors in the Low Countries.

Painters occasionally also provided sculptors with designs for sculpture. The history of the Leuven town hall, preserved in great detail, is explicit in this respect. Jacob Schelewaerts, doctor in theology, and Jan van den Phalisen, priest of the church of Sint-Pieter, devised the iconography of the façade decoration. The painter Hubrecht Steurbout provided the designs, which were translated into the third dimension by the master mason Mathijs de Layens in 1447-48.

In the second quarter of the 15th century, the International Gothic style largely made way for the Late Gothic realism that was favored particularly in Tournai funerary reliefs. These reliefs demonstrate a greater interest in a full rendition of space and plasticity of the figures. As the century drew to a close, they gradually became smaller in order to be included in the church’s wall masonry, with a low relief often inspired on contemporary painting, particularly that of Rogier van der Weyden. Such a case is the funerary relief in Tournai’s cathedral to Jean Lamelin (d. 1470), court chaplain to Philip the Good.

The center of production of freestanding tomb monuments gradually moved from Tournai to Ghent in the 15th century, although they were also produced elsewhere, as they were highly individualized projects. Avesne stone was more appropriate for the carving of the delicate figurative parts; Tournai blue stone was relegated to the structural parts. In more lavish monuments sculptors frequently imitated Sluter’s weeping figures for his tomb of Philip the Bold.

At the top end of sculptural production, brass monuments with spectacular decoration and profuse use of black marble, such as in the tomb of Mary of Burgundy (ca. 1490-1502), church of Onze-Lieve-Vrouwe, Bruges, were complex collaborative projects between specialists of metal production (in this case, Renier van Thienen) who cast the monument with the wooden model carved by Jan Borman (active ca. 1479-1520). This tomb represents the summit of Gothic courtly naturalism, particularly in the facial expression of the gisant.

Rood lofts became particularly prominent church commissions by the late 15th century and achieved remarkable heights in a form that combines architecture and sculpture in an ornate way, with many statuettes decorating the architectural niches. Few survived the iconoclastic period, particularly what concerns their figurative sculptural content. A parallel production was that of “sacraments towers” and wall tabernacles. Generally near an altar, but separate from it, they contained the ingredients of the Holy Sacrament to be used by the priest during mass. The earliest surviving one is in the church of Sint-Pieter, Leuven (ca. 1450), although most of the surviving ones date from the 16th century.

In the second quarter of the 15th century, Utrecht developed into an important center for sculpture production, exemplified by the limestone figures of saints (ca. 1455) attributed to Jan Nude in Utrecht’s Centraal Museum, originally in the cathedral. Other rare survivals from this period include figurative epitaphs and chimney pieces. Utrecht’s leading position was intimately linked to the presence within its walls of Adriaen van Wesel (ca.1417-ca.1490). Although aware of developments in other centers such as Brussels, he elaborated a personal style full of courtly elegance and restrained pathos, well suited to small oak groups, such as the remaining fragments of the altarpiece from the cathedral, ’s-Hertogenbosch (1475-77, now in the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam and the Staatliche Museen, Berlin).

Master Arnt van Swol (i.e.Zwolle) (active 1460-92) worked in the manner of Adriaen van Wesel, at first at Kalkar, where his major works remain in the church of St. Nikolai, then from 1484 at Zwolle. His inspiration was often drawn from Rogier van der Weyden’s style and he was to form a prolific school. Also worth mentioning is the anonymous sculptoractive in northern Brabant named after the altarpiece group of the Meeting of Sts. Joachim and Anne (ca. 1460-70) in the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam.

The 15th century as a whole in the Low Countries was characterized by a boom in sculptural production, not just in stone and bronze, but particularly in elaborately carved wooden altarpieces. These wooden altarpieces were produced in mass and sold throughout Europe. To achieve this level of production, workshops used a strategy of consistency, following virtually unchanged formulas for design and iconography, regardless of the place (e.g. Antwerp or Brussels) or time of production (in the 15th or early 16th century). Only small expansions and adaptations of the formulas, that did not change the basic concept, concerned the increasing narrative and anecdotal aspect of early 16th-century work, the increasing architectural complexity of the altarpieces and the adaptation from a late Gothic to a mannerist to a Renaissance stylistic idiom.

Built up from numerous individually fashioned compartments that are usually closed by painted shutters (during non-festive days), the altarpieces usually present a complex iconography narrating a logical series of biblical stories. On feast days, such as those of the patron saint of the church (for the high altar) or that of the relevant guild altar, the retable would be opened to display the sculptural parts. In these compartments, high-relief figures and some figures in the round, frequently polychromed, are positioned in perspectival space so as to suggest a realistic scene. A remarkable example is the Passion Altar from the church of Sint-Genoveva, Oplinter (now in the Royal Museums of Art and History, Brussels). The workshop of Pieter Coecke van Aelst painted its wings; its nine sculptural compartments show the main stations of the road to Calvary. The St. Leonard altarpiece by Arnold de Maeler, in the church of Sint-Leonard, Zoutleeuw, is also a fine example.

Jan Borman was the consummate wood-carver of the period. His St. George altar (1493, Royal Museums of Art and History, Brussels) displays his masterly rendition of space and action. Other important masters from the early 16th century included the Master of Elsloo, active probably at Roermond (ca. 1500-1545), and Jan van Steffeswert (active in the early 16th century), who largely worked at Maastricht in an idiom that started to incorporate Renaissance details.

The Antwerp production of carved retables increased until the early 16th century, while that in Brussels--although not yet waning, as they both would later in the century--often concentrated on commissioned pieces, rather than works made for the open market. Besides altarpieces, Mechelen also specialized in Virgin and Child statuettes (so-called poupées de Malines)  and enclosed-garden ensembles (besloten hofjes), echoing in their more folkloristic aestheticism the earlier Utrecht production of pipeclay (white terracotta) figurines. The bread and butter production of alabaster reliefs, set in presmass (a mixture of plaster, animal glue, and oil) frames, also provided an important source of income.

Church furniture gradually became increasingly sculptural in its decoration. Sculptors covered choir stalls with reliefs representing daily life and illustrating proverbs, although they continued to decorate the most prominent parts with proper religious iconography. The stalls in the cathedral of ’s-Hertogenbosch (ca. 1430-60), rely directly on south Netherlandish stylistic precedent, although they also incorporate local interests, notably in the monumentality of bench-end reliefs. The sculptor Nicolaas de Bruyn and the joiner Geert Gorys produced the choir stalls at the church of Sint-Sulpitius, Diest, in the 1490s. Another example, the Late Gothic choir stalls at the church of Onze-Lieve-Vrouw, Aarschot, date from the early 16th century.

Arnt van Tricht (active 1530s-70), possibly of Utrecht origin, spent most of his active life at Kalkar (near Kleve). At first a prolific wood-carver whose work frequently displayed innovative adaptations of late Gothic models, he switched to stone relief carving with the advent of the Reformation, specializing in memorial tablets and chimneypieces. His Holy Trinity altarpiece in the church St. Nikolai, Kalkar, is one of his most spectacular works.

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