GERHAERT VAN LEYDEN, Nicolaus

The humanization of the holy was one of the persistent characteristics of fifteenth- and early sixteenth-century art. The exquisite statue by Gerhaert is an example. The playful child is nude to demonstrate Christ’s humanity, and the naturalistic pose and delicate polychromy heighten the statue’s verisimilitude.

On the epitaph, an elderly man, one of the Cathedral’s canons, pleads, ‘Pray for us with pious invocation, O Virgin Mary.’ His petition is inscribed on the banderole that playfully wraps around the Gothic tracery above. Mary, crowned as Queen of Heaven, appears by his side. The pairs presence is stressed as their bodies extend well beyond the edges of the architectural frame. Gerhaert’s naturalism, rooted in Van der Weyden’s art, transforms cold stone into a believable encounter of great immediacy.

Outstanding among the strong personalities directing the numerous sculpture workshops in the Germanic countries is an artist of Dutch origin: Nicolaus Gerhaert van Leyden. His activity is well-authenticated at Trier, Vienna and Strasbourg between 1463 and 1473. His art owes a great deal to Sluter, but has a more marked expressive note. In this etched face and tensed hands the artist has succeeded in rendering the most intense inner emotion. The spirituality emanating from this physically stricken being demonstrates the wide scope of its author’s talent.

The present bust of a man is a striking study in stone of an intricately posed figure in half-length with interlocking arms winding about the torso and supporting the sensitively poised head of a weary man. Should this engaging figure be a self-portrait, as many have suggested, then the originality and freshness of Nicolaus’s sculpture are all the more evident.

The statuette expresses a combined sense of drama, monumentality, and elegance through the extraordinarily accomplished carving of the fine-grained wood. Among the naturalistic details that subtly enhance the forms is the delicate manner in which the Virgin’s fingertips press into the chubby flesh of the Child.

Intended as an object of private devotion, and part of a long tradition in the use of boxwood for this purpose, it may well have been commissioned by a member of the imperial court in Vienna. Both arms of the Child and the section of drapery held in his left hand are replacements.

German sculptures in the late 15th century reflect uncompromisingly rugged, almost brutal qualities in the cutting of the folds and the choice of the model. This is a Germanic art of wars and dungeons and tortures rather than of ideals or love. At the same time, alongside with violence some lyricism still persists. The group of Gerhaert is as lyrical as a Della Robbia or a Rossellino.

The tomb of Archbishop Jakob von Sierck, signed and dated 1462, is a work of the artist’s maturity. The plastic density of the recumbent figure is well served by the sweep of the draperies, hollowed or distended with sharp and broken folds conferring live movement upon this tomb effigy of an all too often static type, formerly accompanied by a withered corps effigy.

The doorway of the Strasbourg Chancellery, erected in 1463-64, was ornamented by Nicholas of Leyden with a Virgin and Child, the armorial bearings of the town, and two busts; an old man and a young woman probably representing the Emperor Augustus and the Sibyl of Tibur, who were known from earlier casts. Only the two heads in red sandstone are preserved in Strasbourg and Frankfurt. (The reproduction shows the latter.)