Angelic Salutation (Stoss)

Angelic Salutation .
View from the rear.

Angelic Salutation (German: Engelsgruß) is an assemblage of life-sized limewood sculptures celebrating the Annunciation by the late-Gothic German artist Veit Stoss. It was commissioned in 1517 by Anton II Tucher and completed the following year. Tucher was a high-ranking official in Nuremberg in southern Germany, and donated the work to the medieval church of St. Lorenz (or St. Lawrence) in Nuremberg, where it is still freely suspended on a metal chain in the centre of the choir, facing the high altar.[1]

Description

The sculptures are dominated by the life-sized figures of Virgin Mary and Archangel Gabriel, from whom the work takes its name.[2] They are suspended within a circular frame resembling a wreath of roses, that represent the rosary of the Annunciation. Angelic Salutation' is widely regarded as Stoss' masterpiece.[3] Mary and Gabriel are surrounded by a series of small angels, many of whom are ringing bells or playing musical instruments.[4] The statues are suspended within the encircling frame of a wreath of roses embedded with eight medallions illustrating scenes from both the Life of the Virgin and Life of Christ.[4]

Stoss created a large gilded crown to hang over the frame, but this is now lost. Tucher commissioned craftsman Jakob Pulmann to design and install an iron candelabra holding a miniature statue of Mary in order to illuminate Stoss's work.[4]

Provenance

The ensemble was commissioned in 1517 by the German merchant, city councillor and treasurer Anton Tucher as a devotional centerpiece for those reciting the rosary or other Marian devotions.[5] Tucher employed Albrecht Dürer to review the quality of the piece before final payment was determined and made to Stoss.[4] It was completed on the eve of the German Reformation, when Lutheran reformers introduced ideas of iconoclasm as they began to question both the need for, and purpose of religious art.[6]

View

In 1525 Tucher and the city split from the Catholic church in favour of Lutheranism.[4] From 1519 a green fabric was placed over the work, and it was allowed to be uncovered only on holy days. It had long been thought that the covering was imposed by iconoclasts; however, the 20th-century discovery of a document drawn up by Tucher mentions payment for the cloth, indicating that the shroud was part of the original design. In 1529 it stopped being uncovered for Church holidays. A 1756 record reveals that because the Lutheran theologian Andreas Osiander "preached against this image and called the Mary a golden milk-maid a green coverage was made for it."[5]

In the late 1520s Angelic Salutation was seen as merely devotional with no liturgical purpose; it celebrated Mary rather than Jesus and was centred on the rosary, which fell out of favour with the Lutherans.[4] It was expensive to maintain, and it was argued that the money paid for its upkeep could be better spent providing for the poor.[6] Because the work was deemed the private property of the wealthy and influential Tucher family, it mostly escaped destruction. Generally, in post-Reformation Germany, religious art commissioned by nobility was spared if it was taken into private collection. Yet the Angelic Salutation was allowed to remain - albeit shrouded - in a public area,[7] an indication of the city of Nuremberg's pride in its heritage.[8] Only the crown was disassembled and demolished, and the centrepiece covered and largely decommissioned.[4][9]

The work was further threatened when it was described as "a disgrace to Nuremberg". At one point, a collection was made to replace the metal suspension with a hemp one to reduce costs. However, in 1817 this rope broke.[9] It was not until the end of the 19th century that the Angelic Salutation was permanently uncovered and opened to the public.[4]

References

  1. ↑ Burkhard (1935), p. 37
  2. ↑ Burkhard (1935), p. 35
  3. ↑ Burkhard (1935), p. 31
  4. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 Smith (2004), p. 353
  5. 1 2 Heal (2007), p. 74
  6. 1 2 Smith (2004), p. 354
  7. ↑ Heal (2007), p. 104
  8. ↑ Heal (2007), p. 109
  9. 1 2 Brockmann (2006), p. 36

Sources

Wikimedia Commons logo
Wikimedia Commons has media related to Engelsgruß (St. Lorenz, Nürnberg).
  • Brockmann, Stephen. Nuremberg: The Imaginary Capital. London: Camden House, 2006. ISBN 1-5711-3345-3
  • Burkhard, Arthur. "Veit Stoss, German Sculptor". Speculum, vol. 10, No. 1, 1935. JSTOR 2848233
  • Heal, Bridget. The Cult of the Virgin Mary in Early Modern Germany. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007. ISBN 0-5218-7103-4
  • Nash, Susie. Northern Renaissance art. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008. ISBN 978-0-19-284269-5
  • Smith, Jeffrey Chipps. The Northern Renaissance. London: Phaidon Press, 2004. ISBN 0-7148-3867-5
This page is issued from Wikipedia. The text is available under Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 unless otherwise noted. Additional terms may apply for the media files.