One of the principal arts in the Low Countries during the 16th century, sculpture was an important vehicle for supporting the social, religious and political interests of the church, the court, the cities and the nobility. The period saw the transition from an exuberant Gothic to a classicizing Renaissance style, a transformation in which sculpture assumed a leading role. In addition, statues were central to the cult of saints and commonly triggered iconophobia, which flared so spectacularly in the
Beeldenstorm of 1566 and later riots. The essays in this volume cover a wide range of sculptural forms in the Low Countries, such as choir stalls, sacrament houses, carved altarpieces, funerary monuments, mantelpieces and small-scale cabinet sculptures. Issues of function, meaning, patronage and reception are central to these contributions, offering the most complete and accurate overview of the subject to date.
Ethan Matt Kavaler, Ph.D.. (Institute of Fine Arts, New York University), is Professor of Art History at the University of Toronto and Director of the Centre for Reformation and Renaissance Studies at Victoria University in the University of Toronto.
Frits Scholten, Ph.D. (University of Amsterdam) is Senior Curator of Sculpture at the Rijksmuseum and holds the Rijksmuseum Fund Chair of the History of European Sculpture at the University of Amsterdam.
Joanna Woodall, Ph.D. (University of Cambridge) is Professor of Art History at the Courtauld Institute of Art of the University of London.
Table of Contents
Ethan Matt Kavaler
Sixteenth-century Netherlandish sculpture. A recovery
Yao-Fen You
The ‘infinite variety’ of Netherlandish carved altarpieces
Aleksandra Lipińska
Between contestation and re-invention. The Netherlandish altarpiece in turbulent times (c. 1530-1600)
Ruben Suykerbuyk & Anne-Laure Van Bruaene
Towering piety. Sacrament houses, local patronage and an early Counter-Reformation spirit in the Low Countries (1520-1566)
Marissa Anne Bass
The
transi tomb and the
genius of sixteenth-century Netherlandish funerary sculpture
Angela D. Glover
Keeping body and soul together. Sixteenth-century choir stalls in the Low Countries
Ethan Matt Kavaler
Power and performance. The Bruges mantelpiece to Charles V
Ingmar Reesing
From ivory to pipeclay. The reproduction of late medieval sculpture in the Low Countries
Giancarlo Fiorenza
Paludanus, alabaster, and the erotic appeal of art in Antwerp
Kristoffer Neville
Cornelis Floris and the ‘Floris school’. Authorship and reception around the Baltic, 1550-1600
Cynthia Osiecki
Rethinking the ‘Floris-Style’. The sixteenth-century print album of Ulrich, Duke of Mecklenburg, and his inspirational source for sculptural commissions
Tianna Helena Uchacz
‘Touch will give your hand belief’. Adultery, idolatry, and touching statuary in Netherlandish culture
All interested in the arts of the Netherlands, particularly sculpture of the early-modern period.