A sense of reality

Ursula Hoff

Long ago I began my university studies by attending lectures on mediaeval architecture. Eager to see some of these buildings in reality after all the slides, I spent the following term at Cologne where, until the last war, a matchless series of majestic Romanesque churches gave a distinctive mediaeval touch to the skyline. I also gazed at the marvellous Gothic choir of Cologne Cathedral with its stained glass windows and famous row of carved statues on the piers surrounding the altar, as well as brooding over the painted retables, reliquaries, chalices and embroideries preserved in the museums — many of which came there after the dissolution of Cologne churches in the early nineteenth century.

It was therefore with a sense of of 'Remembrance of Things Past' that I entered the other day the National Gallery's Late Gothic Art from Cologne, a project undertaken jointly with the Wallraf Richartz Museum to which were added loans from the Schniitgen Museum.

In semi-darkness in the new Extension, the individually spot-lit altar-pieces glow with the brilliant colours which are one of the chief aesthetic joys of late mediaeval panel painting. Some polychrome wood carved figures, illuminated manuscripts and embroideries support the display; one room has three stained glass windows at the far wall, successfully conjuring up a chapel interior.

Cologne painting distinguishes itself from that of other German cities by its close relation to France and to the Netherlands. The most important of the early panels, the Small Calvary by the Master of St Veronica of about 1400 (cat. no. 7), narrates the Gospel story in a profusion of detail which reminds us of the well known illuminations of the Tres Riches Heures du Duc de Berry by the Brothers Limburg. The multicoloured but gentle radiance of the panel in tints reminiscent of apricots, downy plums, roses and violets set off against a brown ground transcends the merely illustrative: meaning and design support each other. Despite a superficially natural appearance, a subtle order of precedence is maintained. Christ is the largest of all the figures and together with the thieves is raised above the multitude into a celestial sphere of pure gold. Dignified and ceremonious poses are reserved for the figures under the Cross who, in the guise of extravagantly garbed mediaeval knights On horseback, are cast in telling silhouettes. In front, elongated, largely frontal, sorrowing Marys supporting the fainting Virgin are set in deliberate contrast to puny soldiers who, in almost grotesque poses, toss dice for

Christ's clothes. Aristocratic values, artistic delicacy of touch and spirituality merge into one.

By the middle of the century aristocratic standards are rivalled by middle-class values: the slim elegance of the figures in the Small Calvary has given way to the image of stocky, solid Cologne burghers, acting the part of St Mark and St Luke in Stefan Lochner's wings to an altarpiece of about 1445 (cat. no. 12). Their simple patrician clothes distinguish them from the ideally draped St Barbara standing between them. Haloes and emblems alone convpy their sainthood. The foreshortened floor, darkened by shadows thrown by the three figures, creates a sense of reality quite different from the fairy tale make-believe of the Small Calvary — a sense of reality which deepens the impact of devotional stillness so enchantingly conveyed by the sensitive brush of this incomparable painter.

. Subsequently, when the drier, more literally illustrative style of late Flemish art comes to Cologne, gold grounds — still used by Stefan Lochner — are abandoned for the open air; and scenes from the banks of the Rhine, winding among hills and castles, carrying picturesque sailing ships, become charming adjuncts to the colourful opulence of brocade and velvet worn by the holy figures.

The Romanesque towers and apses of Great St Martin and St Gereon as well as the Gothic choir of the then unfinished Cologne Cathedral are used to authenticate the actual place where the theme of the canvas, the Martyrdom of St Ursula and the 11,000 Virgins, is said to have occured (cat. no. 21). In the wings of the Holy Kindred (cat. no. 19) Romanesque buildings, winding up the gentle slopes of the Rhine mountains, evoke the homeland of the donor who kneels in the foreground.

Such local patriotism tends to narrow to provincialism, but Cologne painting is once more connected with broader trends by the unknown painter named after his masterpiece, the Bartholomew Altar formerly in the church of St Columba in Cologne. He is the painter most fully represented in the exhibition with works which include the important Holy Cross Altar of 1501 (cat. no. 37). A popular form of fifteenthcentury retable had a shrine of carved and gilded figures in the centre, flanked by painted wings. The Bartholomew Master, almost obsessively preoccupied with three-dimensional forms, makes us believe that the Crucifixion in the centre of the Holy Cross Altar is a carved high relief. Polychrome statues, very close to life, seem to stand inside a wooden shrine

Spectator 30 April 1977 against the stony eminence of Golgotha. Despite curious inconsistencies ill perspective the Cross carrying the figure of Christ appears to be suspended from the frame of the shrine — and throws a shadow on the background, now again of gold. The sharp angularity of the complicated fold motifs underlines the convulsive sorrow of the figures. The wings are treated as paintings: the figures stand in Me open all against a tenderly'luminous sky. In the left wing, fashionably attired in pale pink, St Cecilia. smiles coquettishly at an exaggeratedly dishevelled and emaciated St John the Baptist. The enamel-like colours are held in a design as intricately linear as, -that of the copperplate engravers and goldsmiths of the time. This conveys a tension and restlessness which makes itself felt also in the style of the young Darer, and his master Wolgemuth in Nuremberg, as well as in the sculptures 0' Riemenschneider and Veit Stoss. The Bartholomew Master is as naturalistic as, but more exuberant and more mannered than, any of these. In view of the immense differences between the early and late paintings in this exhibition it would be difficult to maintain too close a notion of a 'School' of Cologne' Hence the organisers' careful choice of the title Late Gothic Art from Cologne. Like all great art centres, Cologne attracted talent from outside. Stefan Lochner came front the Upper Rhine, the Master of the Saint Bartholomew Altarpiece from the North em Netherlands. Both arrived in Cologne fully trained. Owing to lack of document°, tion — Cologne had no Vasari — it has 110` been possible to give names to the other masters who are now called after their Most important work, and we cannot tell howt many of them were trained in the city. V`illa, unites them is the consistently high standar') of craftsmanship. My delight at seeing the Cologne paintings again, after so many years, is quite free of nostalgia and comes from spontaneous pleasure at the beauty of their colour,: the inventiveness and expressiveness whieli they bring to the traditional themes. Both felt unhappy about one limitation whic must have caused acute disappointmentte the organisers: the most memorable of ti't Cologne painters, Stefan Lochner, is II° revealed in his true importance. The two small wings from a dismembered altarpieeei (cat. nos. 11, 12) do not reflect the re° stature of the master who combined thr sweetness and introspection of the eado Cologne manner with much that touches o the crucial problems of fifteenth-centunr,e painting. True, his figures do not displaY physical self-confidence, the dance-lre postures we find in Italian art, nor does Ills use architecture like the Southern painthi to create a sense of extended spaceBut ay pyramidal compositions, the quiet dign'I'f of his figures, the calculated use v

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a symmetry, the resonance of colour so

new note of authority. He belongs to the cession of Jan van Eyck and in the coinPall/ of Fra Angelico, foreshadowing Giovanni

and Albrecht Duren Lochner rises above the Cologne painters as Darer later rose above those of Nuremberg. A photoigrhaPh of his chief d'oeuvre, the Adoration of , e Magi (which Dther specially arranged ° see on his journey to the Netherlands in '520, and which is housed in Cologne Cathedral) is on display in the National Gallery's Orange Street entrance hall. The excellence of the presentation of this exhibition deserves high praise, and so does C catalogue which so admirably combines sIMplicity with essential explanations and in

Which two of the National Gallery's own Work s (cat. nos. 6, 30) have recovered their rightful status.