GLESKER, Justus
Justus Glesker (also Klesecker), German sculptor and ivory carver. He was the son of the sculptor Jost Klesecker. He was trained by his father, then he traveled to the Netherlands and to Italy.
He received the first important large-scale commission in Franconia in 1648, the year of the peace treaty, for refurbishing the Bamberg Cathedral in the Baroque style. Here he created his main work, the Crucifixion group. Glesker lived at this time in Frankfurt, where he became a city captain. In 1669⁄71 he was also involved in the decoration of the Barfüsserkirche in Frankfurt.
Glesker was regarded as one of the best sculptors in Southern Germany. His work is difficult to categorize on the basis of conventional stylistic criteria. His knowledge of Roman art is translated by the mannerism of the 1630s and 1640s. In the naturalistic, anatomically detailed representations of the naked body, he reveals his exceptional artistic talents as well as his thorough training in the sculptural art of antiquity and the Italian Renaissance. These aspects of his work also made Glesker an isolated phenomenon in the stylistic development of contemporary sculpture.
