Renaissance Gothic in the Netherlands

Renaissance Gothic in the Netherlands: The Uses of OrnamentAuthor(s): Ethan Matt KavalerSource: The Art Bulletin, Vol. 82, No. 2 (Jun., 2000), pp. 226-251Published by: College Art AssociationStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3051375 .

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Renaissance Gothic in the Netherlands:

The Uses of Ornament

Ethan Matt Kavaler

During the final years of the fifteenth century and the

beginning of the century that followed, there arose in the Netherlands a highly refined variant of Late Gothic architecture.1 Most familiar through the sophisticated baldachins, fountains, and thrones in paintings by Jan Gossaert, Bernaert van Orley, and Quentin Massys, it has been seen as a

historically self-conscious reference, a recovery of an ideal

past akin to the copying and emulation of the works ofJan van

Eyck.2 Certainly, Gossaert and his contemporaries were aware of their Burgundian heritage, yet their architectural designs were thoroughly up-to-date and contributed to the dramatic renewal of an authoritative artistic manner. Developing principally in the duchy of Brabant, though favored beyond its

borders, the style is exemplified by the Ghent Town Hall, the tower of the Onze-Lieve-Vrouwkerk at Antwerp, and the tombs of Margaret of Austria and her family at Brou (Fig. 1). Prominent patrons and artists continued to nurture this fertile Gothic idiom well into the 1530s, commissioning government buildings and guildhalls, churches and their

furnishings several decades after Italianate forms had entered the local repertory. In the 1560s the Ghent nobleman Marcus van Vaernewijck still had an eye for a Late Gothic jub6 "richly carved with openwork, consoles [for statues], hanging key- stones-all splendid and masterful."3

The new Netherlandish manner should be seen as one

chapter of a much broader revision of Gothic design taking place throughout northern Europe. Many comfortably canoni- cal monuments of Late Gothic architecture, in fact, were

planned in the years around 1500: the celebrated fan vaults of

Kings College Chapel, the transept facades of Beauvais

Cathedral, the south porch at Louviers in Normandy, and the

great hall church at Annaberg in Saxony.4 There is little point in grouping these disparate creations under some vague, homogenizing period style, a problematic notion in itself.5 In fact, the structures were somewhat anomalous and owed much of their initial impact to the contrast between their

richly decorated surfaces and their relatively unadorned

environment; the town hall of a powerful city would stand out in its square, much as the portal of a major church (or of an

important chapel within) would be distinguished from its

surroundings. But there is more to this art than profuse embellishment, than courtly or ecclesiastical magnyficence.

Such prominent decoration could be an effective instru- ment for articulating urban sites, for dressing public facades

and framing human action in ways that might signal function and status. The copious and elaborate carving, so evident on well-known monuments, should not blind us to subtler but

equally significant principles of order. Distinctive motifs or figures in tracery are fundamental elements. Catching the acculturated eye, they act as reference points or guides through the abundant visual information, appearing as nuclei or nodes within a network of filigreelike webbing. The

experienced viewer was adept at distinguishing variations on

principal figures; trefoils, for instance, might occur in various

guises-flattened, narrowed, ogival, or otherwise elaborated- thus comprising a series of forms. These variations might further suggest a hierarchy of motifs, a sequence from the most elaborate embodiment through ensuing simplifications or from the archetypal figure through successive distortions and transformations. Sophisticated designers could arrange ornamental forms in ways that helped emphasize important sites on a building or work of sculpture.

Viewers today may be overwhelmed by the complexity and extent of such decoration; even writers on Netherlandish art have been slow to grant legitimacy to this aesthetic. Jan Steppe, in his excellent study of rood screens, felt obliged to remark that his praise did "not so much concern the deeper artistic value of the Late Gothic works, but rather their technical virtuosity." For Steppe, "beauty and architectonic

unity" had been "replaced by splendor and richness," a curious antithesis that betrays an essentially modernist dis- trust of ornament.6 As Anne-Marie Sankovitch has recently discussed in these pages, the polemical distinction between structure and ornament is securely rooted in our tradition of architectural analysis and continues to guide our understand-

ing of earlier monuments.7 It is easy to forget how much we have lost of the original conditions of viewing-not only the

physical setting but also the conventions of ordering that relate to both pictorial and plastic representation.

The term used in the title of this essay, "Renaissance

Gothic," emphasizes the inevitable inconsistencies that result when we forget the specific values and perspectives enshrined in our construction of periods and our intuitive expectation of linear progression. The gilded wood altarpieces of the

Netherlands, for instance, are rarely considered in discussions of sixteenth-century art despite their significant prestige and

ample production.8 These works demand detailed inspection from several points of view and are notably inaccessible from a

single fixed location. Fitted with tiny ogees and ribbed vaults and divided into compartments with numerous statuettes,

they are unclassical in their material, their relationship between figure and frame, and their dependence on poly- chromy for much of their effect.

I will not be considering the various notions of Late Gothic or the gradual adoption of an architectural vocabulary grounded in antiquity, directly or through mediation. Rather, I want to introduce readers to a strain of Gothic design that was especially prominent in major social and artistic institutions of the Low Countries during the first third of the sixteenth century.gJan Gossaert's Malvagna triptych (Fig. 2) is our point of departure, a painted representation of architecture that is organized around distinctive ornamental motifs. Earlier practices are contrasted with conventions that came regularly into play only around 1500. We shall see that both



RENAISSANCE GOTHIC IN THE NETHERLANDS 227

1 Jan van Roome and Loys van Boghem, tomb of Margaret of Austria. Brou, St. Nicolas of Tolentino (photo: author)

music and literature of the time reveal a comparable dependence on discrete motifs as compositional building blocks, a shared professional strategy that suggests methods of orientation and communication securely embedded in the culture.1'0

The newer system of Gothic ornament had many potential uses: it could help indicate the relative importance of different areas on larger structures, highlight and affirm the sacred character of religious figural carving, or connote the distinc-

tive proprietorship or patronage of buildings and fturnishings. Notable ornamental forms, however, could convey nmore than elevated status. Through their history as frames for armorial

display, they themselves evolved into generalized badges of

corporate and individual identity. The ornament, itself, rarely

conmmunicates specific information. It can signal, rather, a

way of perceiving the structure it inhabits, a ifrlde of under-

standing. It inflects the idiom of its carriers-chlurch facades,



228 ART BULLETIN JUNE 2000 VOLUME LXXXII NUMBER 2

2 Jan Gossaert, Malvagna triptych. Palermo, Galleria Nazionale della Sicilia (photo: Art Resource)

tombs, choir screens, and so on-and might be considered in this sense a metalanguage, concerned with the primary language of architectural iconography.

We find growing prestige attached to the design itself apart from its service as blueprint for construction. The appreciation of two-dimensional notation for three-dimensional

projects signals a greater recognition of the role of the individual in contrast to the often communal enterprise of

large-scale building. Accomplished conceits were readily adapted to works of widely differing scale, from the monumental towers of churches to the carved tabernacles above statues or the miniature spires of gold reliquaries. A concomitant interest in private experience of artworks and in the subjec- tive nature of perception is likewise related to a taste for

ambiguous ornamental patterns, which the attentive viewer is

challenged to comprehend and resolve.

Typically, this Gothic manner developed across several media, as designers collaborated with technically trained craftsmen in adapting inventions to various arts. A nearly exclusive interest among historians of Netherlandish art in

painting of the period has partly obscured such interdepen- dence. It is worth recalling that Gossaert, van Orley, and Lancelot Blondeel designed stained glass, tombs, and other

architectural projects, whereas Quentin Massys is said to have drafted plans for the florid iron fountain honoring the

legendary folk hero Brabo set before the Onze-Lieve- Vrouwkerk in Antwerp."

Gossaert and the Malvagna Triptych Let us, nonetheless, begin with painting proper. Jan Gossaert, eminent artist to the high nobility and well-heeled common-

ers, is primarily known for his Neptune and Amphitrite of 1516, a

large picture of mythological figures standing unclothed in an archaeologically precise setting. The image reflects the

antiquarian interests of his patron, Philip of Burgundy, and the fruits of Gossaert's own trip to Rome. Indeed, Lodovico Guicciardini and Karel van Mander would hail the artist for

naturalizing the monumental nude in the Netherlands. Yet

contemporary with these humanist poesie are paintings by Gossaert that depict spectacular Late Gothic constructions, of which the Malvagna triptych (Fig. 2) is one of the most

exuberant.'2 Only twenty inches wide, the triptych opens to reveal a miraculous world in miniature. The Virgin and Child enthroned among angels appear on the central panel with Saints Catherine and Barbara on the wings, while above them hover massive canopies of intricate and finely crafted Gothic




3 Malvagna triptych, detail of baldachin (photo: Art Resource)

4 Malvagna triptych, tracery motifs from baldachin (photo: author) a b c d

tracery, a seeming forest of pendants and diminutive spires that are joined and supported by compound piers and flying arches (Fig. 3).

Gossaert's debt to Rome has perhaps been overemphasized in an attempt to present him as the prophet of a northern Renaissance. Only Larry Silver has paid serious attention to the artist's Gothic face, challenging the views of Max J. Friedlinder and Erwin Panofsky that have taken hold in the literature. Gossaert's skillful hommages to van Eyck, though, are best understood as a separate phenomenon, clearly retrospective, while the sophisticated and ornate system of ornament remained an area of active development through the first third of the sixteenth century.13 Gossaert accepted both modern and antiek as valid artistic modes, languages of form that were chosen according to local circumstance. He was not alone among painters, for Bernaert van Orley, Quentin Massys,Jean Bellegambe,Jan Provost, and the highly successful Jan van Roome of Brussels, principal author of the tombs at Brou, likewise devised ornament in both elaborate Late Gothic and Italianate modes.14 These Netherlanders

belonged to an international class of leading designers that included the architects Pierre Chambiges in northern France and Benedikt Ried in Prague.15

The central baldachin in Gossaert's Malvagna triptych contains a number of individual tracery figures that are essential to its design. It is a suspended labyrinth with

geometric themes that allows the eye to chart its passage through its multiple channeled elements: richly articulated

pendants indicate the bays and mark the regular subdivisions, like staves in present-day musical notation. At the center, above the Virgin's head, is a striking motif in openwork tracery that resembles a butterfly (Fig. 4a); it is unique in the

painting, but it may recall the simpler intersections of ogival arches found along the pinnacles and pendentives (Fig. 4b,c). The side piers carry a variation of this figure, a single ogival arch enclosed in a teardrop (Fig. 4d). The butterflylike shape at the center can be seen as the fullest elaboration of these

intersecting figures in tracery, figures that vary in their degree of intricacy and therefore establish a hierarchy of ornamental devices. The strategic placement of kindred forms helps lend a sense of unity to the marvelous structure; their relative

complexity corresponds to their height and nearness to the

center, a scheme that implies direction and, consequently, purpose. The subtle intimation of ascent in the order and

placement of tracery forms accords with comprehensive reading of the small triptych; the dense illusionistic carving




5 Attributed to Adriaen Isenbrant, variant of Malvagna triptych. Location unknown, from MaxJ. Friedlander, Die Althiederla "niederla" dische Malerei, vol. 11, Die Antwerpener Manieristen, Adriaen Ysenbrant (Leiden: A. W. Sijthoff, 1934), no. 134, pl. 58.

seems like some fantastic choir screen marking the threshold to a paradisial landscape beyond, much as ajube screens off

passage to the holier ground of the church choir.

Significantly, the three baldachins on the wings and the central panel are all distinct-a display of Gossaert's brilliant

faculty of invention. It was customary, however, to vary the baldachins within a single altarpiece, as these elements had

long attracted particular interest. Carved retables from Ant-

werp and Brussels generally reserved the most intricate of these skeletal canopies for the central compartment, as we

see, for instance, in the celebrated Lombeek Altarpiece (Fig. 24): the wooden tabernacle that hovers above the Nativity in the tall middle chamber is especially ingenious, even more elaborate than those in the lateral compartments. The value

placed on such variation is attested to by a contract of 1507 between the brewers' guild of Louvain and Jan Borman, the famous sculptor from Brussels. Borman and assistants were

required "to make the middle tabernacle entirely different

[from those in the side bays] though as expertly as indicated in the plan [patroen].'"16 The commission from the Louvain brewers reveals much about the appreciation for this branch of architectural ornament. When it came to carving the wooden tabernacles, Borman turned to a specialist in miniature wood masonry, Jan Petercels, who, in turn, was required to follow a drawing supplied by Matthijs Keldermans, a member of the prestigious family of architects and sculptors from Mechelen.'7 We should note that the brewers entrusted the design and execution of these tabernacles to acknowl-

edged experts of their own choosing. Gossaert's imaginative baldachins were greatly admired;

there are at least ten variants and adaptations of the Malvagna triptych that repeat or pay homage to his tracery forms, some of them altering the figural composition.'8 One of the most

faithful replicas, customarily attributed to Adriaen Isenbrant,

closely follows Gossaert's middle baldachin, while substituting images of the donor and Saint Andrew in the wings (Fig. 5).19 Even this image, however, eliminates certain intricacies and erases the distinction between the two lateral canopies. The

potential significance of the architecture has also been subtly modified; whereas Gossaert's outer frame conceals the termi- nation of the baldachins, the replica extends them to their

projected spires and highest vaults. In revealing them all but

fully to the viewer, the painting reduces their power to suggest a mysterious boundary to another realm.20 The other pictures that imitate Gossaert's elaborate Gothic invention are a diverse lot. An anonymous painting in Cleveland represents the Virgin standing with the Christ Child, who reads from a small book supported by an angel; the trio are situated within another accurate rendition of the central baldachin from the

Malvagna triptych, here rising alone in a landscape.21 A third

composition, known in several versions that are ascribed to Isenbrant and Ambrosius Benson, follows Gossaert's model as far as can be seen, for only the lower ranges of the canopy are visible below the edge of the panel.22

Gossaert's design was widely appreciated for its individual

motifs, which others might adopt separately. This attention to

seemingly isolated details is exemplified by the Grimani

Breviary, for its fictive metalwork borders include a number of decorative devices taken singly from the baldachin in the

Malvagna triptych. When we turn to the page that depicts Joseph as viceroy of Egypt, we find Gossaert's notable butter-

flylike tracery figure at the lower right corner, slightly trun-

cated, where it supports a marginal narrative scene in grisaille (Fig. 6).23 Another page representing David Anointed by Samuel reproduces one of the spires in Gossaert's painting, copied precisely, which serves in its new setting as a golden




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6 Joseph as viceroy of Egypt, Grimani Breviary. Venice, Biblioteca Marciana, fol. 192r

baldachin for a secondary miniature of David and Goliath. Elsewhere in the Grimani Breviary the ogival-tear shape and other figures appear in the embellished frames around the

principal subject, details excerpted from Gossaert's larger composition.24 The painters of the manuscript recognized Gossaert as a preeminent designer of architectural ornament. In fact, we find the name "Gosart" or "Cosart" actually inscribed in one of the images, appearing on the entablature of a vaguely Italianate building that stands adjacent to an

exceptional Gothic porch, fitted with a decorative gable, prominent openwork, pendentives, and a hanging keystone.25 As Gian Lorenzo Mellini suggests, the recording of Gossaert's name is most likely a tribute rather than a putative signature or acknowledgment of direct authorship.26 Comparable forms in fictive tracery, not copies of Gossaert's inventions but

independent conceits belonging to the same genre, are found in several Netherlandish manuscripts from the early sixteenth

century, either as baldachins within the central miniatures or as illusionistic metalwork borders that frame the figural scenes.27 The process of devising arresting ornamental figures is evident in an unfinished drawing in Rotterdam. The

anonymous draftsman took a specific circular tracery shape from the Malvagna triptych as a basis for improvisation, but he

departed from Gossaert's prototype in his subsequent development of the idea.28

It seems that a limited number of highly successful designers played a key role in creating much of this Netherlandish Late Gothic. They were recognized for their personal inflec- tions on communal manners and enjoyed the high level of

patronage necessary to translate their delicate designs into

expertly carved stone.29 It is less their invention of particular motifs that distinguishes them than their development of a more comprehensive manner of decoration. Domien de

Waghemakere of Antwerp, designer of the New Stock Ex-




7 Gabriel vanden Bruyne, tabernacle. Louvain, Jacobskerk (photo: author)

change, the tower of the Onze-Lieve-Vrouwkerk, and the Hotel van Liere, was one of those who established the manner.30 The Keldermans family of Mechelen was perhaps most closely associated with the type of decoration found on the Ghent Town Hall and the tower of St. Rombouts in Mechelen.31 Under Anthonis II (d. 1515) and his son Rom- bout II (d. 1531) the clan rose to unequaled prominence among architectural concerns of Brabant, contributing to almost every major building project in the duchy and several

beyond its borders. Rombout bore the titles of city architect to both Middelburg and Mechelen, as well as that of "werckman van de keyser" (director of works for the emperor). Despite the artisanal tone of this distinction, he died ennobled asJonker

Rombout van Mansdale.32 The Keldermans family regularly planned or produced works of microarchitecture-choir

screens, retables, tabernacles, and mantelpieces-and several of their designs were stipulated as prototypes for other

buildings.33 In 1526, for instance, authorities at Oudenaarde ordered a patroen of the Town Hall of Middelburg, recently completed by Anthonis and his sons, to serve as one of the models for their own town hall.34 The same is true for smaller works of furnishing; when we read that the choir stalls of the

Jacobskerk were to be constructed "according to the manner of Mechelen," we suspect that the Keldermans' system of articulation was understood.35

Nevertheless, the responsibility of these individuals should




8 Frans Mijnsheeren andJan Wisschavens, jube. Lier, Gummaruskerk (photo: author)

not be exaggerated.36 The circumstances of production restricted the personal expression of creativity, and a present- day desire for biographical narrative should not obscure the collaborative nature of many projects.37

A New Gothic, a New Syntax In its preference for elaborate geometric figures, ogival forms, and complex molding, the Netherlandish Gothic of the sixteenth century differs even from that of the mid- fifteenth century. The contrast is explicit in a contract of 1536 for a sacramenthuys, a large tabernacle to hold the consecrated Host, ordered by the Gummaruskerk at Lier. The document

stipulates that the artists were to follow the general plan ("ordinantie") of a famous prototype, Mathieu de Layens's tabernacle of 1450 in the Pieterskerk at Louvain. The decorative forms, however, were to be current and distinct, executed in "the new manner, that is to say, of masonry, as it is practiced these days [na den nyeweren aert, te wetene van metselrijen zoe men nu dagelijex useert]." Yet this "new manner" was not Italianate

or d l'antique, as we might first suppose. It was rather an

accomplished Gothic idiom, with projecting gables, delicately carved tabernacles, "... the pillars channelled, and bands and sides finely and richly crafted as appropriate."38 Al-

though Lier's tabernacle no longer exists, we gain an idea of its appearance from one that survives in the Jacobskerk at Louvain. This tabernacle, carved by Gabriel vanden Bruyne in 1538, was likewise to follow the plan ("patroon ") of de Layens's renowned precedent in the neighboring Pieterskerk-apart from the execution, which vanden Bruyne was to carry out "not worse, but rather in a better manner [nyet argher mair beter

vanfaitssoen]," an ambiguous injunction that tends to refer to cost-related detail of execution and technical proficiency, but here likely signals a more contemporary style as well. The local meaning is clearer when we turn to the sculpture itself, still in place in the Jacobskerk. Gabriel vanden Bruyne's work for Louvain's Jacobskerk contrasts with its model from the

previous century precisely in its elegant and up-to-date ogival

arches, richly articulated moldings and drop tracery that catch the light and appear to fragment surfaces (Fig. 7).39

Such focused attention to ornamental motifs is explicit in the documents surrounding the newjube for the Gommarus- kerk at Lier that was commissioned in 1535 (Fig. 8). The artists Frans Mijnsheeren and Jan Wisschavens were required essentially to copy an admired choir screen then in the church of Nekkerspoel near Mechelen.40 This earlier jube, like the Ghent Town Hall, had been designed by the Kelder- manses and seems to have borne their favored bell-shaped tracery figures; Steppe has noted that the architectonic and decorative aspects of the Lierjube are related to the Kelder- mans' canon. The Lier contract was worded in great detail to ensure an accurate replica for the Gommaruskerk, a practice followed by the inspectors who testified that all conditions had been satisfactorily met. This assessment notes "arches with a chambrant and with filler tracery behind the arches

[bogen metten chambrant metten vullingen achter die bogen]." An uncommon term, chambrant seems to refer to the particularly elaborate bell-shaped forms centered within the fields of filler

tracery that surmount the arches. An alternative reading of chambrant as "frame" is forced and improbable, since the usual word for frame, lyste, occurs elsewhere in the document.41 The existence of a name for an ornamental motif and its inclusion in terse notarial language attest to its presence as a concept for some time prior to this record.42

Patrons accordingly became more attentive to specific types of decoration and might specify existing compositions in blind tracery as models for current projects; we read, for instance, that three masters from Oudenaarde were sent to

inspect certain works of intricate masonry paneling and ironwork that were considered exemplary before starting on their commission.43 In 1529-30 Oudenaarde officials insisted on approving the design for the balustrade on their new town hall, whereby the craftsmen Willem de Ronde and Cornelis de Pe were required to deliver a work "in such a manner and of such adornment as [shown by] the [working] patterns,



234 ART BULLETIN JUNE 2000 VOLUME IXXXII NUMBER 2

9 Rombout II Keldermans and Domien de Waghemakere, Town Hall, Ghent (photo: author)

which it shall please the alderman to have made."44 Concern for such details paid off; Netherlandish balustrades drew

praise from no less an authority than Albrecht Dfirer. During his visit to Antwerp, Dilrer much admired the magnificent carving that fronted the galleries of the abbey of St. Michael at

Antwerp. "They have with their stone tracery the most

splendid galleries that I have ever seen [die haben von Steinmass- werk die k6stlichste Porkirchen, als ichje gesehen habe]," he notes in his laconic travel journal.45 The Nuremberger, well ac-

quainted with the inventive and varied openwork decorating the galleries of the Lorenzkirche in his native city, was attuned to significant uses of ornament and appreciated novel ap- proaches to established genres.

The newer Netherlandish Gothic is exemplified by the Ghent Town Hall, designed in 1518 by Rombout II Kelder- mans and Domien de Waghemakere (Fig. 9). In its emphasis on distinctive tracery forms, it differs significantly from the earlier Louvain Town Hall of Mathieu de Layens and Sulpitius van der Vorst (Fig. 10), one of the most spectacular civic structures from the second half of the fifteenth century.46 At

Louvain, the three ornate facades are sculptural in a conventional sense, completely encrusted with baldachins and stat-

ues, the surfaces richly worked like a monumental reliquary. The tracery, however, is relatively simple and repeated without variation in all bays: deep-set windows are capped by fleurons that are placed against blind arcading with five lancet arches per bay--arches so narrow that they suggest simple vertical tracery bars. There are only minor differences in

design between stories (Fig. 11).47 Not even the entrance merits particular distinction, for the same configuration appears above the door (in the eighteenth century a second door was added to the adjacent bay, regularizing the originally asymmetrical arrangement).48 The program of ornament at Louvain accords with the Town Hall's pronounced vertical

orientation, conveyed most clearly by the corner towers and six slender turrets, but also in the numerous statues with their tabernacles that seem to form continuous shafts ascending the facade. Indeed, these spirelike baldachins undergo the most noticeable variation, becoming increasingly monumental at each successive level. There is little in the individual decorative forms that invites sustained viewing; the building, rich with turrets, parapets, statues, and heavy baldachins, is

greater than the sum of its parts. The Ghent Town Hall, by contrast, displays an array of

striking ornamental motifs (Fig. 12). The surface above the

ground-floor windows carries an elaborate and self-contained

composition in blind tracery, repeated in each of the bays and

placed within easy view of passersby (Fig. 13). The central motif in this design is a bell arch, or cloche, as it is sometimes

called, a figure resembling the contour of a bell (though entirely concave) that was common in the duchy of Brabant and adopted as almost a signature device by the Keldermans-

es' workshop. At Ghent the bell is surrounded by recessed mouchettes and crowned by a fleuron that rises to the shallow

10 Mathieu de Layens and Sulpitius van der Vorst, Town Hall, Louvain (photo: author)



RENAISSANCE GOTHIC(

IN THIIE NETHIIERANDS 235

11 Town Hall, Louvain, detail (photo: author)

enframing arch, all of which is set within the rectangular field above each window.49 The first and second stories differ

markedly, inhibiting a sense of unbroken vertical passage. In the second story, the heads of the window openings themselves are shaped as trefoils, made unusually sculptural by the

multiple radiating moldings around their contour that are likewise encased in a field of blind tracery.

Throughout the facade, bells and trefoil arches occur in various sizes, alternately inverted, flattened, or set at an angle, thereby confirming differences between parts, but also help- ing to confer a sense of overall unity and complex order to the

12 Town Hall, Ghent, detail (photo: author)

~U w

13 Town Hall, Ghent, windows on ground story (photo: author)



236 \FART Bl'LLETIN JUNE 2000 O)()UME XXXII N'UMBER 2

14 Town Hall, Ghent, portal (photo: author)

structures they inhabit. The bell motif, for instance, is echoed in minor tracery within the windows on the second floor, much as diminutive trefoils appear on the lower story in the modest baldachins between windows-details that mitigate

the division between stories by exhibiting a shared vocabulary of forms.

The decorative system of the Ghent Town Hall relates the

portal to the rest of the building while communicating its

special status (Fig. 14). The main entrance, which disrupts the

rhythm of the bays on the ground story, is naturalized by the

appearance of familiar tracery motifs. These geometric figures, however, have been modified: the bell arch over the doors has doubled in size, while the basket arch now appears within the bell as a suppressed arch. We might notice, though, that principal intervals have been preserved, implying an

underlying order to the transformation: the two dtoors each have the width of a normal window, the large bell above the

portal is as large as the basket arch in a normal bay, and the inner flattened bell form has the same span as the full bells in other windows.

The horizontal banding of the Ghent Town Hall invites us to read the bays in succession, noting breaches in the

anticipated pattern much as we register modulations of a familiar melody." 50Whereas the trefoil fenestration abhiove runs

the length of the building unbroken, the articulation of the lower story is disrupted at the grand portal. This entrance, the

protruding apse of the chapel further along the facade, and the modest balcony, or roepstoel, on the first floor violate the

regularity that the beholder has come to expect, thereby attracting particular attention."l They can, therefore, signal important parts or functions of the larger variegated structture within a fiame that posits essential coherence.

The comparison between the town halls of Ghent and

Louvain illustrates a fundamental change in ;Gothic design that took place over little more than fifty' years. Although the trefoil, bell, and other tracery figures had previously ap- peared in mural decoration, they acquired exceptional importance around 1500. They serve as the heart of larger geomet-

E 15 St. Nicolas of Tolentino, Brou, west facade (photo: author)




ric designs while undergoing transformations in shape and scale that create a family of geometrically related figures. The

eye focused on them as significant within a hierarchy of

forms, as objects of interest.

Perhaps the ultimate manifestation of this Netherlandish modern fashion and its systematic application is the church of St. Nicolas of Tolentino in Brou, which survives, remarkably enough, largely in its original state.52 The authors of the abstract and mathematically witty inventions in ornamental

sculpture were Jan van Roome, celebrated primarily as a

painter, and Loys van Boghem, an established architect.53

Specific tracery motifs-principally, the trefoil and the Braban- tine bell-are conspicuous in the church's exquisitely crafted

portals, the balustrades to its galleries, its jube, choir stalls, three tombs, alabaster altarpiece, and delicate paneling along the wall of the choir and the adjacent chapel. A visit to the church reveals how the repetition and variation of the tracery figures imply an affinity between these disparate works of

carving while relating them to the encompassing edifice. The west facade cleverly alludes to the trefoil through the arch

surrounding the portal with its projecting central lobe (Figs. 15, 16). Further, and more significantly, the main gable crowning the facade is slightly lobed around its three triangu- lar apertures, suggesting the dominant role of these ornamental figures, which leave their imprint even on the monumental forms of the building.

16 St. Nicolas of Tolentino, west portal (photo: author)

17 Jan van Roome and Loys van Boghem, tomb of Margaret of Bourbon. St. Nicolas of Tolentino (photo: author)

The tomb of Margaret of Bourbon exemplifies much of the

furnishing in the choir (Figs. 1, 17). The niche containing the

effigy is crowned by a variant of the trefoil-flattened (or suppressed) with an ogival central cusp. We meet here as well the second leading tracery motif, the Brabantine bell, embedded in the blind tracery that serves as the crest of the tomb, attached to the wall of the choir. The two primary tropes are

repeated and varied throughout the monument. The tabernacles framing the niche, for instance, are formed by bells whose contours define inverted ogival trefoils (Fig. 18). The

pair of baldachins may at first astonish the beholder with decorative carving so elaborate and delicate that it seems almost drawn, an index of its own creation, though attentive

viewing soon discloses the specific shapes that determine the

design. In the basement of the tomb (Fig. 19), alternating statuettes of mourners and putti are housed in niches that

display different arrangements of the familiar figures: bells and trefoils, along with generic round arches.54

Standing before the facades and passing through the choir, the attentive observer would likely have noted the extensive use of the two fundamental tracery forms and recalled them as new examples were encountered. In this way, the carved motifs provided a reference, a familiar landmark amid the otherwise bewildering surfaces of abundant carving. Like a




18 Tomb of Margaret of Bourbon, baldachin (photo: author)

recognizable melody or melodic passage, these recurring geometric figures attracted particular attention and conse-

quently bestowed added importance to areas where they occurred.

Motifs in Literature and Music: Professional Strategies As Paul Zumthor and Jonathan Beck have shown, we find a related emphasis on discrete motifs in the music and poetry of the period.55 The comparison made with melody is, thus, not simply a happy metaphor but also an allusion to practices shared by the different arts. Structural similarities between music and literature should not surprise us. Indeed, expres- sions of their close affinity belong to the topoi of the period;

rhetorique, in the words ofJean Lemaire de Belges, was nothing other than "une espece de musique richmique" (a sort of rhythmi- cal music).56

About 1500, composers adopted the practice of paired imitation and through imitation, the repetition of short melodic passages in two voices or in all parts. These truncated

melodies became almost independent elements; their repetition and variation within compositions were primary criteria of professional competence or "artfulness.''57 Ghiselin Danck- erts's riddle canon of 1549 is an extreme example, a matrix of

pairings of words and musical phrases that can be reconsti- tuted into twenty different four-part canons preserving rhythmic and harmonic relationships (Fig. 20).58 Melody, easily stored in memory and later recognized, offered an effective means of unifying longer pieces while calling attention to

particular moments.59 The poetry of the rhitoriqueurs like Lemaire and Jean

Molinet shows a reliance on patterns of repeated sounds or

phrases, establishing a perceptible structure, visual and aural, that often supersedes the representational function of their texts. In his Art of Rhetoric, published in 1555, Matthijs de

Castelein, poet from Oudenaarde, vividly illustrates this manner of composition in the puzzle poem at the end of his

literary treatise. Within the squares of a chessboard, he has inscribed diverse phrases that can be recombined to form

thirty-eight separate ballades (Fig. 21). Short strings of words,

prefabricated motifs, are here the building blocks to be

arranged with respect to rhythm and rhyme, linking verbal and nonverbal themes in a composite system.60Jonathan Beck has interpreted this manner of literary and musical composition as the implosion of a formal system through radical self-reference.61 Beck's judgment, however, that such "symp- tomatic ornamentalism and profligate syntax" indicate a

language in crisis that "ceases to mean" privileges conventional modes of representation and disregards the self- referential aspect of all writing.62

The relationship between Gothic ornament and literature can be quite striking. Elsewhere in the Art of Rhetoric, de Castelein stresses the importance of carefully crafted expres- sions, attractive phrases that he likens to the "beautiful arches and portals" of architecture:

Just as in houses or fine churches We like to find beautiful arches and portals, Therefore you should diligently strive to know many pleasing terms, and many pleasing situations [sneden], where you should

deploy them: ...

19 Tomb of Margaret of Bourbon, basement (photo: author)




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20 Ghiselin Danckerts, riddle canon, "Ave Maris stella," 1549

Ghelijck in huusen oft in tempelen excellent Gheerne zijn ontrent schoon boghen en portalen, Alzoo moet ghy vallen zeer diligent Dat u veel schoon termen werden bekent, ende veel schoon sneden waer ghyse soudt halen: ..6

De Castelein forcefully links attitudes toward ornamentation in both arts through use of the word snede (cut), which could

signify carved work, the manner of carving, or even the site of

carving;64 in the stanza cited above, snede appears to signify a

"well-crafted" passage or area of work. The author's choice of arches and portals as metaphors is telling, since these architectural features were among the most likely to carry or embody distinctive motifs and are normally repeated in a design. Also

striking is the similar function of these termen, which are to be

applied at appropriate sneden, or loci, within the poem. The suitable placement of independently formulated motifs be- comes an ever more prevalent and deliberate stage in produc- ing the text.

The occurrence of distinctive and repetitive motifs in

music, literature, and the visual arts suggests a profound understanding of a certain mode of ordering and an intuitive

response to the professional practices of design that we have

surveyed. This supposition is strengthened by associations that were made between the arts in the sixteenth century, particularly at a conceptual and notational level. Geometry and mathematical ratios, of course, continued to be invoked as guiding principles for all three disciplines. Comparable to the inversion of geometric patterns, a melodic line could be

Zou&,ende vindt hier,met fladen, Acht ende dertigh Baladen., P.

21 Matthijs de Castelein, ballade, from De Const van Rhetoriken, Ghent, 1549

played in reverse order (temporal thesis) or inverted and

presented as the mirror image of the original (temporal arsis). Typically, the word spacie (space) was used to indicate a

pause in a musical piece, as well as a more general period of time.65 Musical notation that governed temporal properties was also emphatically visual. Color signified relative duration; red, for instance, was greater than black by a ratio of 4:3. When appearing in a composition written in black ink, red and blue notes (both "full" and "void") indicated different values.66

Prominence of Design Much carved decorative work of the early sixteenth century registers the original pattern particularly faithfully, suggesting that design on paper enjoyed enhanced prestige in the

perception and understanding of these projects. The blind

tracery on the facades of certain residential and commercial

buildings in the Netherlands, for example, seems to have been translated directly from the drafting board. Figure 22 demonstrates the geometric derivation of this brickwork for houses in Bruges: the two examples of graphed arcs and circles (Fig. 22al, 22c') represent the initial plotting of the

adjacent tracery designs for the house at Genthof 2 (Fig. 22a2) and Pieter Pourbusstraat 7 (Fig. 22c2), which are clearly based on circles of proportionate radii. In his architectural

inventory of Bruges, Luc Devliegher charts the development of such patterns in this Flemish city.67 Whereas eminent

fifteenth-century houses might carry a single comprehensive figure spanning the gable or relatively simple compositions over each window, those after 1500 emphasize variety of

composition and ingenuity of invention. A selection of tracery forms above the windows on sixteenth-century buildings conveys the sense of drawing on architecture, of creative

inscription dependent on an established set of mathematical

operations and their permutations. The inclusion of several different tracery compositions on particular buildings makes this category of urban decoration especially effective; three

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a1. Genthof 2 a2. Genthof 2 b. Pieter Pourbusstraat 7 Geometric Derivation Sixteenth Century 1530

C1. Pieter Pourbusstraat 7 C2. Pieter Pourbusstraat 7 d. Pieter Pourbusstraat 7 Geometric Derivation 1530 1530

e. Jeruzalemstraat 56-60 f. Jeruzalemstraat 56-60 g. Jeruzalemstraat 56-60 Sixteenth Century Sixteenth Century Sixteenth Century

22 Tracery patterns on houses in Bruges (drawing by the author)

designs are shown for the facades at both Pieter Pourbusstraat 7 (Fig. 22b-d) andJeruzalemstraat 56-60 (Fig. 22e-g).

A good number of the more impressive designs were never

completely constructed, at least not within a single, continuous campaign. These include the plans by Keldermans and de

Waghemakere for the Ghent Town Hall, which exists as a

single wing rising only two of its anticipated three stories, a Gothic Town Hall for Antwerp never begun, and the Grand Council in Mechelen, left largely unfinished and erected

(according to the original drawing and changes during the

early aborted construction) only at the end of the last century. The same is true for Netherlandish tower designs, including the Keldermanses' plans for Mechelen and Zierkzee. Of all the projected Late Gothic spires, only those for Antwerp's Onze-Lieve-Vrouwkerk, Breda's Grotekerk, and Brussels's Town Hall were actually built.68 A revealing example is the

proposal for the triple-tower west facade of the Pieterskerk in Louvain byJoos Massys, brother of Quentin. On one level the

project is best understood as a showpiece of virtuoso design, since it must have been doubtful whether the colossal scheme would ever be constructed; Massys's drawing, which shows us the complete plan, is nearly three meters high. An enormous

undertaking, it aptly illustrates Massys's decorative flourishes, most conspicuously in the numerous tracery designs for the

parapets and the elaborate contours of the window openings. More easily readable is the unfinished stone maquette, which

is preserved in the Pieterskerk (Fig. 23). Between 1524 and 1530, Massys and the Louvain sculptor Jan Beyaert were able to fashion only the upper part of two towers, beginning at the fourth story. Even so, the highly detailed model rises more than twenty-five feet.69

If full-scale towers were rarely completed, their smaller

counterparts often appear in microarchitecture.70 Resem- blance between works of radically different scale is related to an increased emphasis on design in the workshop, on the

drafting of plans that could be adapted to projects of various size. Metalwork offered many of the essential forms; as

FranCois Bucher has noted, Anton Pilgram's organ loft in St. Stephen in Vienna resembles a monumental reworking of an inverted design for the base of a chalice.71 Tabernacles and church towers transformed into stone the delicate skeletal structures of reliquaries and monstrances with their ascending levels of wiry buttresses, intersecting arches, and vegetal incrustation. Gabriel vanden Bruyne's monumental tabernacle in Louvain's Jacobskerk (Fig. 7) seems even more miraculous than its famous prototype in the Pieterskerk while recalling the complex system of pseudoarchitectural members in monstrances.72

Playing with habits of perception came to be an important preoccupation of designers, one of their chief strategies for

engaging the observer. While individual motifs are formed through easily identifiable geometric operations, the logic of



RENAISSANCE GOTHIC IN THE NETIHERI.ANDS 241

their interrelationship is often obscure and lends itself to

perceptual riddles. Ambiguity is cultivated in the ingenious frame of the Lombeek Altarpiece, which was made by superior artists from Brussels about 1525. The central case

presents a confusing assembly of irregular compartments that, nonetheless, suggest a partly perceptible order (Fig. 24). The essential structure is given by the three large partitions representing the Marriage of the Virgin, the Nativity, and the Adoration of the Magi. Of different dimensions are the fields at the upper left and right that represent the Annunciation and Visitation. Their borders separate them from narrow fields within the central third that contain Moses before the

Burning Bush and Gideon. The clearly tripartite lower order conflicts with the rhythm of the upper zone, where the smaller square compartments seem off axis, as do the paired projections at the top of the case. More confusing still, familiar ornamental motifs are transformed at points where

repetition is expected. The trefoil within the upper squares finds no counterpart above Gideon and the Burning Bush,

though the tracery here falsely suggests an answering trefoil. The structure seems irregular and unpredictable, despite the use of simple proportions to impart an underlying sense of

plan and control: the height of the case is three-quarters its

width; the upper squares are one-third the height and one-fourth the width; the narrow fields are one-third the width of the upper squares, or one-fourth the width of the three large partitions-as are the two projections above the frame.73

These formal jeux develop as puzzles the ambiguities inherent in geometric construction. In the music of the time there seem to be associated developments, for John Tucke lists in his contemporary musical treatise the term ambigua, which is defined as the substitution of a longer tone for a shorter one or vice versa with consequent rhythmic ambiguity.74 Although the technique is observable in a number of

compositions, the word is not known in other music treatises,

suggesting its recent coinage and an incipient self-conscious attention to its principles.

Signatures and Signs of Identity The distinctive ornamental motifs of Netherlandish design could signify an individual or office. We have seen that certain

tracery shapes became a sort of trademark of eminent masters

like Jan Gossaert and Rombout Keldermans. These geometric forms, however, could betoken the patron rather than the

designer, especially for an audience less familiar with the arts and their leading representatives. On buildings like the Ghent Town Hall, ornamental motifs could function as

generalized badges of identity, markers of the inhabiting individual or institution.

Significantly, the more elaborate figures of Netherlandish

design often occupy sites on buildings, tombs, and other structures that traditionally held individual or corporate insignia. Indeed, they frequently serve as frames or cartouches for coats of arms, personal devices, or statues of

patron saints venerated by religious institutions. When notable tracery motifs appear alone in these privileged locations, however, they can usurp the role of conventional markers, serving in their place as a distinguishing sign, an indicator of the singular nature of the structure.

23 Joos Massys andJan Beyaert, Pieterskerk, Louvain, maquette of prospective west facade, detail (photo: author)

The quality of ornamental invention in this Late Gothic manner was an accepted gauge of an artist's proficiency and thus closely linked to his professional image. It is no accident that when Bernaert van Orley painted his altarpiece of the

Apostles Thomas and Matthias, he signed his name on the fictive Gothic frame that divides two of the scenes (Fig. 25). Set within stone borders is a field of finely imitative gold work in geometric and floral patterns. Van Orley placed at the center a jewellike escutcheon that carries three smaller

shields, all blank, while directly above he situated an unusual and complex tracery figure, which resembles an inverted heart. At the bottom, around the outer edge of what appears to be a finely worked metal boss, the painter recorded his

authorship in a more customary manner: "BERNART VAN ORLEI. "

The placement of the signature is remarkable since the two narrative scenes are set in conspicuously Italianate structures- fantastic and indicative of the relatively recent vogue for

design a l'antique. The friezes, capitals, pediments, and

pedestals suggest a synthesis of Lombard forms, French




24 Brussels atelier, Lombeek Altarpiece, central panel. Onze-Lieve- Vrouw van Lombeek (photo: author)

adaptations, and architectural ephemera from the recent

Joyous Entries of King Charles, later Charles V-all of which

helps date the painting to the years 1516-18. Despite the obvious interest in these inventions, they take a back seat to the carefully crafted Gothic frame.75

There were comparable developments in other parts of

Europe. In southern Germany at this time, Burkhardt Engel- berg devised inventive tracery patterns of intersecting arcs that he employed in a series of close variations on several of his creations, such as the porch and Simpertus arch for SS. Ulrich and Afra at Augsburg and the stair to the pulpit in Ulm Minster.76 In their geometric derivation, these idiosyncratic signatures betray a certain kinship with older masons' marks, the simpler figures cut in quarried blocks that ensured credit and accountability for less prestigious labor.77

Attractive tracery motifs based on arch forms were com-

monly chosen to frame other peoples' signs of identity. Quentin Massys's Rem triptych in Munich illustrates this custom (Fig. 26). The colorful central panel depicts the

Virgin and Child on the right, standing on a simulated corbel like some polychromed sculpture come to life. On the left we see the Holy Trinity, with God the Father supporting a diminutive image of his Son on the cross. This figural group stands not on a corbel but rather on an image of the world rendered somewhat oblate by the weight it must bear. Fictive architectural molding, now incomplete but presumably once

framing the image, rises between the two groups at the bottom to form an elongated trefoil with an ogival cusp. Inside this figure Massys placed the joint crests of the patron, Lukas Rem, and his new wife, Anna Ochainen.78

But it is chiefly on sculpture and architecture that ornamental devices act as cartouches for heraldic display. In the Netherlands and adjoining regions, isolated bell and trefoil arches appear above portals and windows, or centered on

mantelpieces and canopies of tombs, locations where personal devices were normally placed.79 At Brou, for instance, the arms of both Margaret of Austria and Margaret of Bourbon rest within the ogival trefoils that span the canopies of their tombs.

Tracery figures form spectacular frames for coats of arms on the choir screen in the church of St. Bavo in Haarlem. The

splendid partition was designed around 1509 by the local artist "Steven die beeldsnyder" (Steven the sculptor), who carved the elaborate oak frame and prepared wooden patterns for the uprights, which were cast in bronze by the

eminentJan Fierens of Mechelen; the assembly was standing in place by 1517.80 The oak base of the screen (Fig. 27), about four feet high, houses twenty large rectangular fields display- ing the arms of the leading towns in the county of Holland.81 The escutcheons are presented by a variety of actors and animals-wild men and women, dancers, lions, and so forth. These extraordinary heralds, in turn, are set within eight different ornamental figures, formed by two layers of overlap- ping tracery that are carved in wood and gilded for emphasis. The compositions, highly imaginative variations on the general shape of the trefoil, are understood as framing elements, carriers that bestow a certain prominence and prestige through their brilliant geometric invention.

When occupying appropriate sites, ornamental motifs might hold almost any type of information relating to the function




or authority of a structure, including statues of saints, busts of rulers, narrative reliefs, and written citations. On the Town Hall of Oudenaarde, for example, a statue of the Virgin and Child rests inside the giant trefoil above the portal.82 Thejube in the church of St-Madeleine at Troyes illustrates the variety of material that these ornamental frames might set forth as

significant (Figs. 28, 29). Designed by Jean Gahilde, apparently a native of Champagne, the screen of three bays is

suspended between the heavy piers of the crossing without the aid of intermediate support; a dramatic hanging keystone is carefully situated beneath in accordance with northern French traditions of sophisticated construction. The decoration, however, is markedly Brabantine; each bay carries a carved design centered about a concave bell arch, much like those on the Ghent Town Hall. On the facade of thejube that faces the choir (Fig. 28), these tracery figures hold coats of arms, signs of patronage and secular power. On the side

25 Bernaert van Orley, altarpiece of Apostles Thomas and Matthias, detail. Vienna, Kunsthistorisches Museum (photo: author)

26 Quentin Massys, Rem Triptych, central panel. Munich, Alte Pinakothek (photo: author)

facing the nave (Fig. 29), they contain carved reliefs of Christ and his followers, likely a reference to the Sermon on the Mount. In the middle of the three fields Christ is shown

preaching, a reference to the ultimate authority of the priest who would deliver an occasional sermon from thejub&.83

The use of decorative motifs to glorify quite varied material and present it as representative of the larger structure is related to a general proliferation of signs of identity in

European society. This development is closely linked to the

gradual deheraldization under Burgundian and Hapsburg rulers that Emmanuel Bourassin and others have noted; traditional coats of arms depended on prohibitively complex rules and were inconveniently inflexible. Although heraldry remained a critical language of honor and territorial alliance for royalty and the high nobility, it slowly ceded place to more fluid imprese, mottoes, and other emblematic devices, signs more readily adaptable to the changing role of the elite

during this dynamic period and more easily tailored to individual needs.84 Often these supplementary insignia accom-

panied coats of arms; at other times they replaced them.85 On the tomb of Margaret of Bourbon at Brou, for example, an

angel supports a shield that carries not the expected charge but rather the initials of Margaret and her late husband

joined by a love knot (Fig. 30). We see that these increasingly diverse symbols often occupy sites traditionally reserved for

family arms. In the sacristy to the abbey of Fecamp, bell




27 Master Steven andJan Fierens, choir screen, detail of base. Haarlem, church of St. Bavo (photo: author)

28 Jean Gahilde,jube, choir side. Troyes, church of St. Madeleine (photo: author)

29 Gahilde, jube, nave side (photo: author)




figures in blind tracery, placed over the entrance, hold the initials of the grand prieur Robert Chardon; here the letters R.C. are accompanied by carvings of thistles (chardons), a

punning pictorial reference to the influential patron.86 Tracery forms, though, can appear alone on facades where

conventional markers of identity were expected. It is a short

step in this development to portals such as that of the Town Hall in Ghent, where we find a memorable composition in

tracery without any familiar token of municipal authority (Fig. 14). The same is true for the Meat Hall at Middelburg, part of the complex that includes the Town Hall and likewise

designed by the Keldermans. The entrance to this building bears an elaborate tracery motif, a distinctive emblem but one without specific reference to the guild. And again on the facades and arcades of the palace of the Grand Council at

Mechelen, the chief organ of the Hapsburg government in the Netherlands, we find Rombout Keldermans's inventive assemblies of bells and trefoils without heraldic display.87

Similarly, on religious structures, tracery motifs could stand alone as tag or indicator, holding no traditional reference to the building's affiliation. The Martinuskerk at Aalst, for

instance, exhibits an interesting variation on Rombout's

signature design above the south portal, where we might otherwise expect to find a statue of the patron saint, an image of the Virgin and Child, or perhaps a device referring to the town of Aalst (Fig. 31).88 And on the Onze-Lieve-Vrouw over de Dijlekerk in Mechelen, another remarkable tracery figure, a graceful continuous bell arch, crowns the north portal and rises through the openwork balustrade without framing other

signs (Fig. 32). This ornamental display registers from a considerable distance and effectively dominates the portal, though statues may have been planned for the trumeau and lateral niches beneath.

With the atrophy of a stable heraldic language, other

systems grew more prominent and improvisation became more accepted. In this fluid context, tracery figures might connote function, office, possession, or status and could serve as the principal distinguishing mark of a building or monument. They became associated with a category of information rather than a particular message. In other words, distinctive

30 Tomb of Margaret of Bourbon, detail (photo: author)

ornamental motifs could assert that their carrier belonged to a respected class with an identity worthy of note; it was left to social context or information carried in less exalted locations to provide the specifics.

The Importance of Ornament

Shortly before 1500, artists in the Netherlands developed a new system of Gothic design that emphasized distinctive

tracery motifs set within encompassing fields of finely crafted ornamental carving. By devising and transforming specific geometric figures, by locating them strategically across larger composite structures, the designer might impart a unity to the whole while acknowledging a hierarchy of parts. This system

31 Rombout II Keldermans, Martinuskerk, Aalst, south transept portal (photo: author)




32 Onze-Lieve-Vrouw over de Dijlekerk, Mechelen, north transept portal (photo: author)

of decoration based on dominant motifs and their modulations distinguishes many elite structures of the sixteenth

century from a celebrated Netherlandish Gothic even slightly earlier, which favored relatively simple and constant ornamental forms. We have seen that a comparable practice arose in music and literature at this time: the use of short melodic

passages and verbal phrases as significant recurring elements. This shared practice implies habits of perception and orientation deeply rooted in the culture.

Certain aspects of the new manner arose as professional strategies in the professional institutions of the arts. An

emphasis on spectacular design contributed to the planning of monumental projects that remained unfinished, though superior talents were also called to plan and construct more modest works, such as jubes, choir stalls, pulpits, and portals. If church towers were rarely completed, spirelike tabernacles and the smaller baldachins for statues of saints were produced in great number and might employ similar forms, evidence that ideas conceived on the drafting board were realized in works differing greatly in scale.

Ultimately, distinctive tracery motifs might become associated with people, not only celebrated artists like Jan Gossaert or Rombout Keldermans but also eminent patrons or organi- zations that commissioned such works. These inventive ornamental forms were frequently located over portals and at other sites reserved for coats of arms and the like. At first the

tracery figures were used to frame traditional markers, but

they came to occupy the site alone, implicitly self-sufficient as emblems of office and authority. The development of such

generic indicators should be understood in conjunction with

profound transformations in notions of public identity and its

representation then taking place in Europe.

Ethan Matt Kavaler is associate professor in the Graduate Depart- ment of the History of Art at the University of Toronto. His

publications include Pieter Bruegel: Parables of Order and

Enterprise (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999) and articles on Pieter Aertsen and market painting, Rubens, and Netherlandish sculpture and architecture [Graduate Department of the History of Art, University of Toronto, 100 St. George Street, Toronto, Ontario, Canada M5S 3G3].

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Bucher, FranCois, "Micro-Architecture as the 'Idea' of Gothic Theory and

Style," Gesta 15 (1976): 71-83. Crab, Jan, Het Brabants Beeldsnijcentrum Leuven (Louvain: Vrienden van Het

Museum Leuven, 1977). Friedldnder, MaxJ., Early Netherlandish Painting, 14 vols. (Leiden: Sijthoff; New

York: Praeger, 1967-76). Meischke, R., De gotische bouwtraditie: Studies over opdrachtgevers en bouwmeesters in

de Nederlanden (Amersfoort: Uitgeverij Bekking, 1988). Philipp,Jan Klaus, " 'Eyn huys in manieren van eynre kirchen': Werkmeister,

Parliere, Steinlieferanten, Zimmermeister und die Bauorganisation in den Niederlanden vom 14. bis zum 16. Jahrhundert," Wallraf-RichartzJahrbuch 50 (1989): 69-113.

Silver, Larry, "The 'Gothic' Gossaert: Native and Traditional Elements in a Mabuse Madonna," Pantheon 44 (1987): 58-69.

Steppe,Jan, Het Koordoksaal in de Nederlandenr (Brussels: Paleis der Academien, 1952).

Van Mosselveld, J. H., ed., Keldermans: Een architectonisch netwerk in de Nederlan- den (The Hague: Staatsuitgeverij, 1987).

Notes I am grateful to Henri Zerner, Stephen Murray, Richard Brilliant, and Barbara Arciszewska for their thoughtful comments on earlier versions of this article. Unless otherwise indicated, translations are mine.

1. The term "Renaissance Gothic" in my title should call attention to discontinuities in conventional designation of periods; I do not wish to invoke earlier interpretations of Late Gothic architecture as a Renaissance style, a view expressed by art historians such as Cornelius Gurlitt and August Schmarsow at the end of the last century. On the notion of period style, see n. 5 below; on Late Gothic as a concept, see nn. 4 and 9 below. The most recent discussion of Brabantine Late Gothic is that of Markus H6rsch: Architektur unter

Margarethe von Osterreich, Regentin der Niederlande (1507-1530): Eine bau- und architekturgeschichtliche Studie zum Grabkloster St.-Nicolas-de-Tolentin in Brou bei Bourg-en-Bresse, Verhandelingen van de Koninklijke Academie voor Wetenschap- pen, Letteren en Schone Kunsten van Belgie, Klasse der Schone Kunsten 56, No. 58 (Brussels: Paleis der Academien, 1994), 160-78. For other important contributions on the subject, see Van Mosselveld; Jan Klaus Philipp, "Sainte- Waudru in Mons (Bergen, Hennegau): Die Planungsgeschichte einer Stiftskir- che 1449-1450," Zeitschrift ffir Kunstgeschichte 51 (1988): 372-413; Philipp, 1989;Joanna E. Ziegler, "The Genesis of Gothic Architecture in the Duchy of Brabant," Ph.D. diss., Brown University, 1984; Stan Leurs, "De Bouwkunst der

hoog- en laatgothiek: A. de Brabantsche Gothiek-de kerkelijke bouwkunst," in Geschiedenis van de Vlaamsche Kunst (Antwerp: De Sikkel, 1938), vol. 2, 285-373; Meischke; Marjan Buyle et al., Architecture gothique en Belgique (Brussels: Racine, 1997); and D. Roggen and J. Withof, "Grondleggers en

grootmeesters der Brabantse gotiek," G(ntse Bijdragen 10 (1944): 83-209. Although Netherlandish Late Gothic developed in conjunction with the

architecture of neighboring lands, French, German, and English paradigms are of limited use in addressing Netherlandish works, since the fields of endeavor were frequently quite different. Churches in the Low Countries

usually employ simple quadrapartite vaults. When more complex vaulting occurs-as in the Lady Chapel at 's Hertogenbosch or the Nassau Chapel at Breda-it is an emphatic sign of elevated status. On late 15th- and 16th- century design at 's Hertogenbosch, see Barbara Arciszewska, "The Church of SintJan in 's-Hertogenbosch: Defining the Boundaries of Patronage in Late




Medieval Netherlandish Architecture," in The Search for a Patron in the Middle

Ages and the Renaissance, Medieval and Renaissance Studies, ed. David G. Wilkins and Rebecca L. Wilkins, vol. 12 (Lewiston, N.Y.: Edwin Mellen Press, 1996), 79-99.

2. Silver, esp. 58-62, 66. 3. Marcus van Vaernewijck, Van die beroerlicke tijden in die nederlanden en

voornamelijk in Ghendt 1566-1568, ed. Ferdinand Vanderhaeghen, vol. 1 (Ghent: C. Annoot-Braeckman, 1872), 162. The jub6 is described as "rijcklyc gesneden, duerluchtich, reprijsen, hangende sleutels, zeer costelijck ende

constelijck." 4. Henri Zerner, L'art de la Renaissance en France: L'invention du classicisme

(Paris: Flammarion, 1996), 23-35; R. Sanfa;on, L'architecture flamboyante en France (Quebec: Presses de l'Universit6 Laval, 1971); Stephen Murray, Beauvais Cathedral: Architecture of Transcendence (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1989), 131-42; Paul Frankl, Gothic Architecture (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1963), 200, 208-10; FranCois Cali, L'ordreflamboyant et son temps: Essai sur le style gothique du xvie au xvie sicle (Paris: Arthaud, 1967); Gfinter Brucher, Gotische Baukunst in Osterreich (Salzburg: Residenz, 1990), 121-24; Viktor Kotrba, "Baukunst und Baumeister der Spitgotik am Prager Hof," Zeitschrift fiir Kunstgeschichte 31 (1968): 181-215; G6tz Fehr, Benedikt Ried: Ein deutscher Baumeister zwischen Gotik und Renaissance in Bohmen (Munich: Callwey, 1961); Walter Paatz, Verflechtungen in der Kunst der Spdtgotik zwischen 1360 und 1530

(Heidelberg: Carl Winter, 1967); and Ernst-Dietrich Haberland, Madern Gerthener "der Stadt Franckenfurd Werkmeister": Baumeister und Bildhauer der

Spdtgotik (Frankfurt:J. Knecht, 1992). 5. On the issue of period style, see Karl-Georg Faber, "Epoche und

Epochengrenzen in der Geschichtsschreibung," Zeitschrift fiir Kunstgeschichte 44 (1981): 105-13; Martin Gosebruch, "Epochenstile-historische Tatsdchlich- keit und Wandel des wissenschaftlichen Begriffs," Zeitschriftfiir Kunstgeschichte 44 (1981): 9-14; F. Schalk, "Uber Epoche und Historie," in Studien zur

Periodisierung und zum Epochen Begriff, ed. H. Diller and F Schalk, Akademie der Wissenschaft und deutschen Literatur in Mainz, Abhandlung der Geistes- und Sozialwissenschaften, no. 4 (Mainz: Klostermann, 1972), 12-38; Friedrich M6bius and Helga Sciurie, eds., Stil und Epoche: Periodisierungsfragen (Dresden: Verlag der Kunst, 1989); Robert Suckale, "Die Unbrauchbarkeit der gingigen Stilbegriffe und Entwicklungsvorstellungen: Am Beispiel der franz6sischen

gotischen Architektur des 12. und 13. Jahrhunderts," in M6bius and Sciurie, 231-50; and G6tz Pochat, "Der Epochenbegriff und die Kunstgeschichte," in

Kategorien und Methoden der deutschen Kunstgeschichte 1900-1930, ed. Lorenz Dittmann (Wiesbaden: F Steiner, 1985), 129-67. For examples of profuse ornamentation in Netherlandish 16th-century Gothic set in opposition to an unadorned environment, see the lantern of the church of Our Lady at

Antwerp and the exterior of the sacrarium of the prominent Zavelkerk (Notre-Dame du Sablon) in Brussels. The small chapel of the sacrarium, appended to the chevet, was intended to hold the sacrament.

6. Steppe, 79. One of the more notable indications of renewed interest in ornament is the English translation of Alois Riegl's fundamental study Problems

of Style: Foundations for a History of Ornament, trans. Evelyn Kain, annot. David Castriota (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1992). For discussion of this issue, see Paul Crowther, "More than Ornament: The Significance of Riegl," Art History 17 (1994): 482-94; Oleg Grabar, The Mediation of Ornament (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1992); Lambert Schneider, "Les signes du Pouvoir: Structure du langage iconique des ThrAces," Revue Archiologique 2 (1989): 227-51; Barbara Grunbaum, "Interlace Patterns in Islamic and Moorish Art," Leonardo 25 (1992): 331-39; Jean-Charles Depaule, "Im-

probables detachements: L'architecture et les arts dans la culture islamique," Cahiers du Musie National d'Art Moderne 39 (Spring 1992): 26-41; and Joseph Nevadomsky, "The Clothing of Political Identity: Costume and the Scarifica- tion in the Benin Kingdom," African Arts 28 (Winter 1995): 62-73.

7. Anne-Marie Sankovitch, "Structure/Ornament and the Modern Figura- tion of Architecture," Art Bulletin 80 (1998): 687-717.

8. The recent study by LynnJacobs is one of the few lengthy publications to deal with Netherlandish carved altarpieces. Jacobs discusses the architectural elements primarily for their role in simulating chapel settings for the figural scenes. The church itself is evoked by what Jacobs calls the "inverted 'T' " format of the corpus, which resembles the cross section of a basilica. SeeJacobs, Early Netherlandish Altarpieces 1380-1550: Medieval Tastes and Mass Marketing (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998), 115-45.

9. For a critical and historiographic consideration of Late Gothic, I refer the reader toJan Bialostocki's review article, now three decades old but still useful when supplemented by more recent studies. SeeJan Bialostocki, "Late Gothic: Disagreements about the Concept," Journal of the British Archaeological Associa- tion, 3d ser., 29 (1966): 76-105; Norbert Nussbaum, "Stilabfolge und Stilplura- lismus in der sfiddeutschen Sakralarchitektur des 15.Jahrhunderts," Archivfiir Kulturgeschichte 65 (1983): 43-98; Franz-Josef Sladeczek, "Was ist spit an der Spitgotik? Von der Problematik der kunstgeschichtlichen Stilbegriffe," Unsere Kunstdenkmdler 42 (1991): 3-23; Marvin Trachtenberg, "Gothic/Italian 'Gothic': Toward a Redefinition," Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians 50 (1991): 22-37; Linda Neagley, "Elegant Simplicity: The Late Gothic Plan Design of St.-Maclou in Rouen," Art Bulletin 74 (1992): 345-422; Ute Germund, Konstruktion und Dekoration als Gestaltungsprinzipien im spiitgotischen Kirchenbau: Untersuchungen zur mittelrheinischen Sakralbaukunst, Manuskripte zur Kunstwissenschaft in der Wernerschen Verlagsgesellschaft, 53 (Worms: Wer- nersche Verlagsgesellschaft, 1997); and Ulrich Coenen, Die spiitgotischen

Werkmeisterbiicher in Deutschland als Beitrag zur mittelilterlichen Architekturtheorie (Aachen: G. Mainz, 1989). For the earlier discussion of the construction of Late Gothic as Renaissance, see Cornelius Gurlitt, Kunst und Kiinstler am Voraben der Reformation (Halle: Verein ffir Reformationsgeschichte, 1890); August Schmarsow, "Reformvorschlrge zur Geschichte der deutschen Renais- sance," Berichte der Philologisch-historischen Classe der K6niglichen Siichsischen Gesellschaft der Wissenschaften zu Leipzig (1899): 41-76; Erich Haenel, Spiitgotik und Renaissance (Stuttgart, 1899); and Frankl (as in n. 4), 212-14.

10. In my discussion of a general cultural value placed on discrete motifs and refined technique, I am in part responding to the study by Beck. For fuller treatment, see below.

11. Luc Devliegher, De Keizer Karel-schouw van het Brugse Vrije, Kunst Patrimo- nium van West-Vlaanderen, 10 (Tielt: Lannoo, 1987), 25-26, 46-58; J. Duverger and E. Roobaert, "Lanceloot Blondeel (1498-1561): Zijn rol en betekenis," Gentse Bijdragen tot de Kunstgeschiedenis en de Oudheidkunde 18 (1959-60): 103-4; Jan Gossaert genaamd Mabuse, exh. cat., Museum Boymans- van Beuningen, Rotterdam, and Groningemuseum, Bruges, 1965, 267, 329- 30; Leon Voet, Antwerp, the Golden Age (Antwerp: Mercator Press, 1973), 119-20; Wilma Keesman, "The Creation of a Past," in Antwerp: Story of a

Metropolis, ed. Jan Van der Stock, exh. cat., Hessenhuis, Antwerp, 1993, 176; Larry Silver, The Paintings of Quentin Massys (Montclair, N.J.: Allanheld and Schram, 1984), 26 n. 10; F. J. van den Branden, Geschiedenis der Antwerpsche schilderschool (Antwerp, 1883), 42. Van den Branden credits Massys with the Brabo well, which was placed in front of the Antwerp Council House until 1557. Massys, who is supposed to have trained first as a smith, is also held

responsible for the baptismal font and the grille surrounding the tabernacle in the church of St. Peter in Louvain.

12. See Silver. The Madonna and Child in the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., that displays an intricate metalwork throne of Gothic

design was likely executed about 1526, while the Gothic wings to the Salamanca Altarpiece are dated to 1521 (on the inner sides). Gossaert visited Rome in 1508.

13. Ibid. 14. E. Dhanens, "Jan van Roome, alias van Brussel, schilder," Gentse

Bijdragen tot de Kunstgeschiedenis 11 (1945-48): 78-85. Like Gossaert, van Roome regularly designed paintings, sculpture, tapestries, and stained glass using ornamental devices derived from the two manners. His cartoon for a window in St. Rombouts at Mechelen, for example, includes an architectural

fantasy comprising both Late Gothic and Italianate elements. Jan Bialostocki ("Das Modusproblem in den bildenden Kiinsten," Stil und Ikonographie: Studie zur Kunstwissenschaft [Dresden: Verlag der Kunst, 1966], 9-35) discusses the historical use of the word mode and the loosening of its meaning, referring no

longer specifically to musical class but also to historicizing manner, deliber- ately selected.

15.Jan Bialostocki, The Art of the Renaissance in Eastern Europe (Oxford: Phaidon, 1976), 15-17; Murray (as in n. 4), 141-42; Jean-Pierre Babelon, Chdteaux de France au siicle de la Renaissance (Paris: Picard and Flammarion, 1989), 196, 212, 313-14, 318-19; Andre Chastel, French Art: The Renaissance 1430-1620 (Paris: Flammarion, 1995), 150-51; and Fehr (as in n. 4). There is little reason to believe that Gossaert was trained as an architectural draftsman, yet he may well have developed a taste for the design of Late Gothic ornament, for the demanding and pleasurable enterprise of geometric composition. His inventions seem to have become popular precisely because they were too elaborate and impractical for realization in stone: they signaled otherworldly structures, designed in what was recognizably a fashionable style but too

perfect and intricate ever to be executed. 16. Crab, 323-24, no. 21 (1507): "endo alsoe opgaene met zynen taberna-

culen ende metselrien ende welfsel belyc den patroen dat uutwyst ende gelyck Mathys Keldermans deser stadt meester metsere den gront vanden selven

patroen getrocken heeft... de drie tabernaculen sal hy beteren te wetenne den middelsten geheel veranderen endo noch alsoe goet maken dan hy int patroen staen."

17. Ibid. Crab (nos. 21, 22, 24) cites three contracts for altarpieces in which Jan Petercels appears as a specialist in the fabrication of wooden tabernacles. A passage from the brewers' guild contract, which refers to "Mathys Keldermans deser stadt meester metsere," is given in n. 18 below.

18. Several of these are documented in the Rotterdam catalogue Van Eyck to Bruegel 1400-1550: Dutch and Flemish Painting in the Collection of the Museum of Boymans-van Beuningen (Rotterdam: Museum Boymans-van Beuningen, 1994), 187-88, 284-87; page numbers and figures in parentheses are from this publication. As we shall see, the closest of these to Gossaert is the triptych ascribed to Adriaen Isenbrant, formerly in the collection of Walter von Pannwitz in Haarlem (285, fig. d). M. R. de Vrij mentions a looser copy of the central panel also attributed to Isenbrant. The painting in Rotterdam shows the Virgin and Child seated on a throne, which is fashioned according to Gossaert's design for the central tabernacle. Other versions of the painting in Rotterdam (284) are in the San Diego Museum of Art (285, fig. a), the Galleria Nazionale della Sicilia in Palermo (285, fig. b), and the Prado in Madrid (285, fig. c). A similar composition attributed to Ambrosius Benson is also in the Prado (287). A related painting with a full tabernacle enclosing the figures is in the Cleveland Museum of Art. A painting attributed to Bernaert van Orley, with a tabernacle recalling Gossaert's design, though considerably less complex, is in the Mus&e de Brou in Bourg-en-Bresse (188, fig. b). See also M. R. de Vrij, "Adriaen Ysembrant: De ontwikkeling binnen een serie



248 ART BULLETIN JUNE 2000 VOLUME LXXXII NUMBER. 2

tronende Madonna's en de authenticiteit van de Tronende Madonna te Rotterdam," Kunstlicht 13 (1992): 20-24; George Marlier, Ambrosius Benson

(Damme: Mus&e van Maerlant, 1957), no. la, fig. 23; Friedlinder, vol. 8, pl. 7, nos. 2a, 2b, vol. 11, pl. 112, no. 134, pl. 131, no. 172, pl. 200, supp. 306; andJan Gossaert genaamd Mabuse (as in n. 11), 345, no. 70. An architectural setting surprisingly similar to that of the Malvagna triptych, though fashioned with Renaissance elements, is found in the altarpiece of Christ at the House of Simon

by the Master of 1518, now commonly identified with Jan Mertens, Gossaert's

pupil. For this painting, see Friedlinder, vol. 11, pl. 75, no. 72. A few of these

examples are discussed below. James Howard's suggestion that the Malvagna triptych is related to the Lombeek Altarpiece correctly points to general principles of design in vogue but is too specific. Gossaert's fictive architecture includes miniature tracery details and double-curved ribs, a vocabulary distinct from that shown in the Lombeek Altarpiece. See Howard, "The Architectural Elements of the Malvagna Triptych by Jan Gossaert called

Mabuse," M.A. thesis, Institute of Fine Arts, New York University, 1964;Jacobs (as in n. 8), 127.

19. Friedlander, vol. 11, pl. 58 (given as in the Von Pannwitz Collection). For a discussion of problems inherent in attributions to Isenbrant, see Jean C. Wilson, "Adriaen Isenbrant and the Problem of His Oeuvre," Oud Holland 109

(1995): 1-17. 20. Bucher; L. Jacobs, "Aspects of Netherlandish Carved Altarpieces:

1380-1530," Ph.D. diss., Institute of Fine Arts, New York University, 1986, 175-77; Jacobs (as in n. 8), 126, 142-45; Ethan Matt Kavaler, "The Jube of Mons and the Renaissance in the Netherlands," Nederlands Kunsthistorisch

Jaarboek 45 (1994): 359. The differences may also owe something to the years that separate the two works, to a subsequent period in which Gothic construction was less insistently a metaphor for celestial architecture.

21. European Paintings of the 16th, 17th, and 18th Centuries: Catalogue of the

Paintings, vol. 3 (Cleveland: Cleveland Museum of Art, 1982), 48-49. Gossaert himself revised the stone baldachin in a second picture; it resembles the central panel of the Malvagna triptych but displays a different range of ornamental conceits. A canopy only slightly less elaborate houses seated

figures of the Madonna and Child with angels; within this edifice a smaller but nonetheless highly refined tabernacle is suspended directly above the Virgin's head. See Friedlinder, vol. 8, 90, no. 2b, pl. 7; Old Master Paintings and

Drawings, sale cat., Bob P. Habold, NewYork, 1989, 30-33, no. 3. 22. Van Eyck to Bruegel (as in n. 18), 284-87, figs. a-c. Versions ascribed to

Isenbrant are in Rotterdam, Palermo, and Madrid. A version attributed to Benson is also in Madrid. See also Friedlander, vol. 11, pl. 163, no. 239.

23. The Grimani Breviary, Venice, Biblioteca Marciana ms lat. XI 67 (7531). References below are to The Grimaldi Breviary, ed. Mario Salmi and Gian Lorenzo Mellini, facsimile ed. (Woodstock, N.Y.: Overlook, 1974), pl. 39, fol. 192r. The tracery figure, unmistakable, is cut by the border on its right side. A

simplified version of Gossaert's butterfly figure sits in one of the miniature wooden tabernacles in Pasquier Bormans's Herenthals Altarpiece, but Gos- saert's comprehensive structure seems to have been too complex for even miniature architecture and finds its reflections predominantly in painting and

drawing. For Pasquier Bormans, see Gh. Cerveaux-Van Ussel, Het retabel met de

"Maagschap van Sint-Anna" uit de Sint-Annakapel van Oudergem, Artes Belgicae, 6 (Brussels: Koninklijk Musea voor Kunst en Geschiedenis, 1977), 61, fig. 64.

24. Salmi and Mellini, pl. 47, fol. 289r (David Anointed by Samuel). See also

pls. 70, 72. Maurits Smeyers recognized the impact of Gossaert's art on these later manuscripts, though it is not clear whether the author was thinking of

figural compositions or ornamental framing devices. See Smeyers, "Late Gothic Miniature Art in Flanders (1475-1550)," in Flemish Illuminated Manu-

scripts, 1475-1550, ed. Maurits Smeyers and Jan Van der Stock (New York:

Harry N. Abrams, 1996), 40. 25. Salmi and Mellini, pl. 106, fol. 824v. The central miniature depicts Saint

Catherine of Alexandria disputing with the philosophers. I read the Italianate dome as belonging to the complex behind the porch.

26. Ibid.; Smeyers (as in n. 24), 40; Silver, 67, 68 n. 2; Joseph Duverger, "Nieuwe gegevens betreffende het Breviarum Grimani," Annuaire des Musies Royaux des Beaux-Arts de Belgique 1 (1938): 19-38. Cardinal Grimani purchased the manuscript that now bears his name from Antonio Siciliano, who had earlier asked Gossaert to portray him and his patron saint in a panel that was paired with Gossaert's copy of van Eyck's Madonna in a Church. The diptych is now in the Doria Pamphilij Gallery in Rome. Gossaert, popular among the nobility around the court of Margaret of Austria, was a familiar name not only to Siciliano but to anyone likely to commission such a manuscript; the reference to this painter in the breviary was thus likely directed beyond the immediate company of professional artists to a broader circle of interested cognoscenti who, like Gossaert, appreciated both Gothic and Italianate forms. Such catholic taste was characteristic of enlightened patronage at that moment and appropriately recognized in the Grimani Breviary. In the marginal Gothic tracery around the miniature of Samson Carrying off the Gates of Gaza (fol. 163r), we find a Roman portrait profile, a veritable emblem of the fashion for antiquity inserted within what at first seems an incongruous setting. I thank Hans van Miegroet for reminding me of the importance of Antonio Siciliano and an established circle of patrons in understanding the reference to Gossaert in the manuscript.

27. For example, the Prayer Book of Charles V (Vienna, Osterreichische Nationalbibliothek cod. 1859), the Prayer Book of the Family de Croy (ibid., cod. 1858); the Rothschild Prayer Book (ibid., cod. ser. n. 2844); the Da Costa

Hours (New York, Pierpont Morgan Library ms 399); the Croy-Arenberg Book of Hours (Collection of the dukes of Arenberg); and the Book of Hours in the British Library (Add. ms 35313).

28. Jan Gossaert genaamd Mabuse (as in n. 11), 345. The tracery form comes from the baldachin on the right wing of the Malvagna triptych.

29. FranCois Bucher, "Fifteenth-Century German Architecture, Architects in Transition," in Artistes, artisans et production artistique au moyen fge, Colloque international: Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, Universit6 de Rennes II, May 2-6, 1983 (Paris: Picard, 1987), vol. 2, 409-16. Though architects had earlier enjoyed social distinctions, their status rose considerably during the 15th and early 16th centuries.

30. P. Genard, "Notices sur les architectes Herman (le vieux) et Dominique de Waghemakere," Bulletin des Commissions Royales d'Art et d'Archiologie 9

(1870): 249-94; Philipp, 1989, 73. 31. See Van Mosselveld; J. Squilbeck, "Notices sur les artistes de la familie

van Mansdale dite Keldermans," pt. 1, Handelingen van de Koninklijke Kring voor

Oudheidkunde, Letteren en Kunsten van Mechelen 56 (1952): 90-137; pt. 2, 57

(1953): 99-140. See also R. de Roo, "De Keldermansen naar de dokumentie uit het Mechelse stadsarchief," Handelingen van de Koninklijke Kring voor Oudheidkunde, Letteren en Kunsten van Mechelen 56 (1952): 68-69; Jan Steppe, "Het doxaal in de Sint-Janskerk te Tervuren, een werk van de Keldermans," Handelingen van de Koninklijke Kring voor Oudheidkunde, Letteren en Schone Kunsten van Mechelen 51 (1947): 83. Criticism of the term "Keldermans Gothic" rightly stresses the existent traditions of Netherlandish architecture that this Mechelen family drew on. The forms of gables and tracery designs that decorate many of the Keldermanses' structures are especially distinctive and easier to locate within this dynasty of architects and their lodge. Anthonis I

(d. 1512) and Rombout II (d. 1531) seem to have been most responsible for the creation of this ornamental vocabulary.

32. E. Neefs, Histoire de la peinture et de la sculpture d Malines, vol. 2 (Ghent 1876), 51; Philipp, 1989, 74; J. van Brabant, Onze-Lieve-Vrouwkathedraal van

Antwerpen: Grootste gotische kerk der Nederlanden (Antwerp: Vlaamse Toeristen- bond, 1972), 20-24; Meischke, 122-26; Hertha Leemans, De Sint-Gummarus-

kerk te Lier (Antwerp: Nederlandsche Boekhandel, 1972), 34-37; Van Mos- selveld, 16-22 and ff. Rombout II Keldermans worked on many of the major projects of his day, if in various capacities, traveling to Antwerp, Brussels, Lier, 's Hertogenbosch, Hoogstraten, Middelburg, Zierkzee, Bergen op Zoom, Hulst, Zoutleeuw, Culemborgh, Tongerloo, Delft, and Mons, while collaborat-

ing with Domien de Waghemakere on the Ghent Town Hall, the Broodhuis at Brussels, and several other projects. The list is incomplete, though many of the

projects were continuations of those begun by his father. Often several members of the Keldermans participated at a single site, and it is wise to remember that Rombout inherited much from his ancestors in the trade. Nor was he the only prominent representative of the later generations; Laureys Keldermans, who directed construction on the new choir for the Onze-Lieve- Vrouwkerk, soon abandoned, carved an important altarpiece for the wealthy abbey of Averbode.

33. Rombout II designed the mantelpiece in the Markiezenhof at Bergen op Zoom, for instance, though few of the Keldermanses' more modest projects survive. Thejube for Nekkerspoel is mentioned below.

34. Audenaerdsche Mengelingen 3 (1848): 315; Philipp, 1989, 69; Meischke, 142-43. Officials at Mons long considered a tower for the church of St. Waudru. At midcentury, artists from Mons were paid to copy as a model the Keldermanses' older plan for the tower to St. Rombouts at Mechelen with all its decorative detail.

35. Roggen and Withof (as in n. 1), 161; Philipp, 1989, 70: "na die maniere van Mechelen." For thejube once at Nekkerspoel, see below.

36. Van Brabant (as in n. 32), 20-24; Leemans (as in n. 32), 34-37; Van Mosselveld. Herman de Waghemakere was brought to Lier to examine the construction of the Gummaruskerk. The practice continued well into the 16th

century, though it is not always clear whether changes resulted from such visitations. Most major churches employed several of the most prominent architects during the course of their construction. Between 1500 and 1520, the Onze-Lieve-Vrouwkerk in Antwerp called on Herman and Domien de Waghe- makere, five members of the Keldermans clan, Alart Duhamel, and Loys van Boghem. At Lier, a slightly older assembly of Keldermans, Loys van Boghem, and Herman and Domien de Waghemakere worked on the Gummaruskerk during the years 1480 to 1510. Even such a well-documented case as the church at Brou has occasioned considerable debate concerning individual contributions to various monuments, particularly the tombs of Margaret of Austria, her late husband Philibert of Savoy, and his mother Margaret of Bourbon. After years of disagreement concerning the design and the artists entrusted with realizing it, Jan van Roome was paid in 1516 for full-scale working drawings of the three tombs. Ten years later, however, Loys van Boghem, Margaret's architect, was granted authority for the entire enterprise and was further charged with designing a choir screen, which displays certain related ornamental features. As director, van Boghem carefully maintained stylistic unity within the church, making it all the more difficult to determine the source and degree of invention, revision, and adaptation. Much later, Jean Mone traveled to Bruges to ratify--and perhaps edit-Lancelot Blondeel's designs for the mantelpiece in the Vrij. For Brou and Blondeel, see Max Bruchet, Marguerite d'Autriche, duchesse de Savoie (Lille: L. Danel, 1927), 247-51; Marie-FranCoise Poiret, Le monastre de Brou: Le chef d'oeuvre d'une fille d'un empereur (Paris: Caisse Nationale des Monuments Historiques et des Cites,




1994); Josef Duverger, "Vlaamsche beeldhouwers te Brou," Oud Holland 47

(1930): 15-21; D. Roggen and Elisabeth Dhanens, "De Ontwerpers van de

praalgraven van Brou," Gentse bijdragen tot de Kunstgeschiedenis 9 (1943): 127-32; Elisabeth Dhanens, "Jan van Roome alias van Brussel, Schilder," Gentse bijdragen tot de Kunstgeschiedenis 11 (1945-48): 64, 105. For Blondeel and Mone, see Devliegher (as in n. 11), 45-47, 91-92; Meischke, 167-72; and D.

Roggen, "Jehan Mone, artiste de l'empereur," Gentse Bijdragen tot de Kunst-

geschiedenis 14 (1953): 224-25. 37. Of course, the question of an artist's personal responsibility implies a

historically constant understanding of the individual. In the 16th century a

person was defined in terms of several encompassing social bodies. Kinship groups, trade guilds, legal categories, religious communities, and systems of belief all determined the value and limits of individual action. Given the hierarchical nature of these institutions, it follows that idea of the self, the sense of its boundaries and possibilities, was directly connected with social

position and empowerment. The higher the status, the greater the acceptance of nonconformity, the expectation of independent action, and the recognition of personal expression. On this question, see the articles by Natalie Zemon Davis and Nicolas Luhman in Reconstructing Individualism: Autonomy, Individu-

ality, and the Self in Western Thought, ed. Thomas C. Heller, Morton Sosna, and David E. Wellbery (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1986), 53-63, 313-25; and KarlJ. Weintraub, "Autobiography and Historical Consciousness," Critical

Inquiry 1 (1975): 821-48. 38. R. Maere, "De sacramentstorens van Leuven," Studia Eucharistica (Ant-

werp: Nederlandsche Boekhandel, 1946), 343-48; Steppe, 80. 39. Steppe, 80; Maere (as in n. 38); Edward van Even, Louvain dans lepassi et

dans le prisent (Louvain: Frankie, 1895), 390-91. For an explicitly financial

usage of the phrase, see the contract for the altarpiece for the brewers' guild at Louvain: Jan Petercels was required to make the tabernacles "elc twee

philipen gulden beter maken dan zy op tpatroen staen. .. ." (each two gulders better than they appear in the contract). See Crab, 324, no. 21.

40. Steppe, 100-104. Architects and sculptors were characteristically sent to

study celebrated monuments before drafting plans, a practice that reinforced a preference for traditional forms and for synthesis. In 1450 the architects

planning the collegiate church of St. Waudru at Mons were given funds to visit Mechelen, Tournai, Louvain, Lille, and other cities with major churches. The actual preference of the authorities, though, was less broad than such an eclectic set of monuments suggests. Plans strongly Brabantine in character were approved, and the famous architect Mathieu de Layens of Louvain was soon asked to take over construction. See Philipp, 1988.

41. Steppe, 406-7. The inspection document is dated 1541. This reading is also closer to the common Spanish usage of chambrana, referring to the

geometrical figures above windows, doors, mantelpieces, and other architectural elements. On the choir side of the Lier jub6, smaller, suppressed bells

appear above the arches, accompanied in the spandrels by roundels that bear coats of arms. See Leemans (as in n. 32), 149-51, ill. 142.

42. Distinctive tracery motifs frequently provided the visual focus for the bays of choir screens and other sorts of furnishing. Bell arches are found in the structures at Walcourt, Diksmuide, and St.-Madeleine at Troyes, designed to a considerable extent in imitation of Netherlandish models, as well as in the

jub~s represented in paintings attributed to Isenbrant, Jan de Beer, Gerard Horenbout, and Goswijn van der Weyden (at Lier). The screens at Aerschot and Tessenderlo, on the other hand, display giant trefoils as the dominant form in each bay--different figures that serve the same function.

43. Steppe (as in n. 31), 83; AudenaerdscheMengelingen (as in n. 34), 425. The masters were sent "int huus van Sotteghem omme te ziene tfautsoen van den lambroisist scrynwerke, veynsteren beslach van yserwercke, ende anderseins daer wesende

... "

44. Philipp, 1989, 93; Audenaerdsche Mengelingen (as in n. 34), 408. Willem de Ronde and Cornelis de Pe (van Pede) were required to deliver a balustrade for the Oudenaarde Town Hall "van alsulcken fanchoene ende sulke chierlicheyt also Schepenen de berderen believen sal te doen makene.. .

45. Albrecht Diirer, Tagebuch derReise in die Niederlande, ed. Fritz Bergemann (Leipzig: Insel, n.d.), 20: "Auch bin ich gewesen in der reichen Abtei zu St. Michael; die haben von Steinmaf3werk die k6stlichste Porkirchen, als ich je gesehen habe, auch ein k6stlich Gestfihl in ihrem Chor. Und zu Antorff sparen sie kein Rostung zu solchen Dingen, dann do ist Gelds genug" (I was also in the wealthy abbey of St. Michael; they have with their stone tracery the most splendid galleries I have ever seen, and also superb stalls in their choir. And at Antwerp they do not skimp on the furnishings for such things, for there is money enough). By "Porkirchen" Dfirer must mean Empore, or, roughly, gallery, and thus the rich openwork balustrades that typically decorate the galleries in churches by the Keldermanses. The Netherlandish towers im- pressed him especially. Dfirer was struck by the "k6stlich gezierten Turn" (superbly decorated tower) of the house belonging to the burgomaster of Antwerp (16), and, as we might expect, by the "sonderlich... hiibschen Turn" (unusually lovely tower) of the church of Our Lady (20). Yet he also had an eye for the older Town Hall of Brussels, "ein fast kistlich Rathaus, grop3 und von schoner Map3werk gehauen, mit einem herrlichen durchsichtigen Turn" (a superb town hall, large and with beautiful stone carving, with a wonderful openwork tower), 25. If the abbey of St. Michael, a project of the Keldermanses, no longer survives, some idea of the effect of its balustrades can be gleaned from the interior of the church at Aalst, for which Rombout Keldermans designed balustrades of different patterns for the individual bays of the triforium. This

varied and intriguing band adds a distinctive character to the interior.

Running along the walls, it contributes to the sense of unified space in the

unusually broad and low church. The striking openwork balustrades, placed within easy eyesight of the public, were a primary means of enhancing the visual interest-and status-of a project. After seeing its effect we understand somewhat better why the painter of the Morrison triptych, that anonymous picture now in Toledo, composed an appealing balustrade in the manner of Keldermans or Waghemakere to glorify the architectural setting for his human

figures and to link the three panels. 46. A. Maesschalck and J. Viaene, Het stadhuis van Leuven: Mensen en

bouwkunst in boergondisch Brabant, Arca Lovaniensis 6 (1977): esp. 71-89; Meischke, 140. Sulpitius van der Vorst, who drafted the original plans for the

complex including the town hall, died in 1439. His successor was Mathieu de

Layens, called to Louvain in 1545. Three years later, his revised designs were

officially approved. 47. On the ground floor there are, indeed, vertical tracery bars in place of

arcading; those on the second floor are capped by arches below and above the

string course. The parapets around the towers also show some variation in their tracery pattern. The comparison between Louvain and Ghent is clearer when we take into account the Mons Town Hall, also built by Mathieu de

Layens, which displays a nearly identical ornamental pattern without the statues that were carved for Louvain. The Mons Town Hall was erected between 1458 and 1467. Mathieu de Layens was called to Mons once more in 1479 to repair damage that had befallen the structure two years earlier. The work, however, was interrupted, and the third floor with its towers was never

completed. The present tower was added in 1719 and has nothing to do with the original plan. The facade of the Mons Town Hall on the Grand-Place, as it now stands, is considerably less ornate than that of Louvain. On the other hand, its tracery is somewhat more varied, repeating an identical pattern on the second story while eliminating the arcade on the ground level. See Le

patrimoine monumental de la Belgique, vol. 4, Province de Hainaut, Arrondissement de Mons (Liige: Soledi, 1975), 330-35.

48. Maesschalck and Viaene (as in n. 46), 82. A modest door occupied only one of the bays of the long decorated facade, for the primary portal was to have been housed in the belfry, which was never built. Nonetheless, this

arrangement was preserved in the final plans and served the needs of the city for more than two centuries. The building was largely completed by 1469. In 1709 a second door was added to the adjacent bay, establishing symmetry, and a grand stair replaced the simple existing flight.

49. This bell arch is not a standard bell shape, drawn with a continuous curve, but rather a concave figure constituted by four segmental arcs-the accolade d quatre courbes brisis. Steppe mentions "klokvormige framing motifs" and arches in the form of hanging garlands (102-3, 125); at Ghent the bell arch is formed by linked festoons. Linda van Langendonck refers to the Keldermanses' decorative figures as "accoladebogen" and "klokvormige bogen" (accolade arches and bell-shaped arches). F van Tyghem terms the central figure on the ground floor of the Ghent Town Hall a "centraal geplaatste gordijnboogin" (central curtain arch). See van Langendonck, "De Sint-Romboutstoren te Mechelen en zijn plaats in de Laatgotische architec- tuur," 35, and van Tyghem, "Bestuurgebouwen in Brabant en Vlaandere," 113, in Van Mosselveld. Similarly, R. C. de Lasteyrie du Saillant calls attention to Late Gothic tracery figures in French architecture: "accolades en forme de cloches... des amortissement en plain cintre en anse de paniers ou en festons surbaisss remplaa s pont les tiers-points et les accolades si communes au XVe siocle" (accolades in the form of a bell.., curving down like an ordinary arch, like a basket handle, or like hanging festoons, linked at the springing points and apex of the accolades they replace, so common in the fifteenth century). De Lasteyrie du Saillant, L'architecture gothique en France (Paris: Picard, 1926), vol. 1, 334. The examples cited by de Lasteyrie du Saillant are likely influenced by Flemish prototypes. It is probably for this reason thatJean Squilbeck, 1953

(as in n. 31), 107-8, can cite the passage by de Lasteyrie quoted above as a description of the tracery forms characteristic of the Keldermanses' shop. The concave bell may rise from a pair of reversed curves, a sort of corbel extension. This saddleback arch is an important variant, since its contour defines one side of an inverted trefoil arch.

50. The tendency toward horizontal banding was present even in the original plans of the Ghent Town Hall, which projected a third story that was never built. The windows of the top row were to receive yet a third distinct treatment, while both the protruding apse of the chapel and the polygonal corner tower would have remained at their present two stories. Nor did the

dramatic pinnacles and gables compensate for the rloss of the prominent towers and turrets such as Louvain displayed. Moreover, the Ghent Town Hall is a good deal longer than its counterpart in Louvain, fifteen bays to ten, even

if it never achieved the twenty-one bays envisioned. The change of ornamental pattern at the portal is unconventional, by the way, and is not found at Bruges, Louvain, Tournai, Middelburg, Gouda, Oudenaarde, or on the Old Town Hall

of Antwerp. At Brussels the doors to the building occupy single bays. The prominent tower houses an entrance to the central courtyard that spans two

bays, yet this vertical structure projects from the facade and is perceived as distinct.

51. These irregular features suspend the "rule of good continuation," as Leonard Meyer characterized a listener's expectations of musical progression according to established properties. See Meyer, Emotion and Meaning in Music




(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1956), 83-127. I discuss potential narrative readings of nonrepresentational ornament in another article.

52. Relatively minor changes were made to the facade. Along the exterior of the nave, the side chapels were lowered, altering the perception of the transition to the roof. The central tower was also reconstructed after the

original collapsed in the mid-16th century. 53. The putti stand under baldachins formed by flattened bells resting on

basket arches, all beneath a normal round arch. The mourners are sheltered

by shallow trefoils, superimposed over round arches that carry garlandlike sprays of drop tracery.

54. Conrad Meit, the most illustrious of the international team employed at Brou, was entrusted with carving the effigies after drawings by van Roome but was given relatively little role in the design of the tombs. In surveys Meit is

generally credited as artist and creator, yet we see that his activity was far more restricted.

55. Paul Zumthor, Le masque et la lumiere: La poitique des grands rhitoriqueurs (Paris: Seuil, 1978), 204; Beck, 645-67. Zumthor had detected among the

rhitoriqueurs an "analogy in perception and kinship in design that conformed to those of painters, engravers, illuminators and even the makers of tapestry." Similarly, Beck cites counterparts in the visual arts, though his primary example, the arrangements of decorated floor tiles in a chateau, is not the most promising choice.

56. Carol MacClintock, "Molinet, Music, and Medieval Rhetoric," Musica

Disciplina 13 (1959): 112. See also Mary L. Serafine et al., "On the Nature of

Melody-Text Integration in Memory for Songs," Journal of Memory and

Language 25 (1986): 123-35. 57. Willem Elders, Composers of the Low Countries, trans. Graham Dixon

(Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1991), 28-32, 44-48. 58. Ibid., 74-77; H. Westgeest, "Ghiselin Danckerts' 'Ave Maris stella': The

Riddle Canon Solved," Tijdschrift van de Vereiniging voor Nederlandse Muziekge- schiedenis 36 (1986): 66-79.

59. J. C. Longuet-Higgens, "The Perception of Melodies," Nature 23 (1976): 646-53; L. L. Cuddy, A. J. Cohen, and J. Miller, "Melody Recognition: The

Experimental Application of Musical Rules," Canadian Journal of Psychology 33 (1979): 148-57; Mary L. Serafine, Music as Cognition: The Development of Thought in Sound (NewYork: Columbia University Press, 1988); M. R.Jones, "Dynamics of Musical Patterns: How Do Melody and Rhythm Fit Together?" in Psychology and Music: The Understanding ofMelody, and Rhythm, ed. ThomasJ. Tighe and W.

Jay Dowling (Hillsdale, N.J.: Erlbaum, 1993), 67-92; W. T. Wallace, "Memory for Music: Effect of Melody on Recall of Text," Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition 20 (1994): 1471-85.

60. Beck, 649, reproduces a French version of such a poem, a sixty-four- syllable huitain dedicated to Saint Catherine. To term such an unusual poem a "Renaissance verbal version of Rubik's Cube" (656) is to ignore the spiritual associations with a composition that might be repeatedly reordered yet preserve its sacred message. Matthijs de Castelein's rederijkermatrix was offered

ostensibly as a pedagogical presentation, though both he and his French

counterpart had definite motives for publishing their skillful creations. Writers were generally aware of the transformative role of specific compositional techniques. Compulsive rhyming, for example, had been criticized by Gerard Leeu for its potential distortion of factual content in histories and chronicles. In the introduction to his History of Troy (1479), Leeu takes exception even to the great Homer, "who was compelled by attractive rhyming schemes to invent

many things that simply were not true or occurred differently than he tells." See Herman Pleij, Het Litteraire leven in de middeleeuwen (Leiden: Nijhoff, 1984), 42.

61. Beck, 644-45, states in his introduction that "when, on a cultural level, a

language ceases to mean, ceases to convey the vital idlesforces which formerly provided the spiritual scaffolding undergirding the community's values, then the languages of the arts show signs (now abundantly catalogued) of self-conscious inwardness and self-reflexive probing as they recapitulate in their syntax and morphology the crisis they re-create."

62. Ibid. 63. Matthijs de Castelein, De Const van Rhetoriken (Ghent: Jan Cauweel,

1555), 20, lx. 64. Crab, 131, 323-34. Jan Petercels's contract of 1507 specifies "met

gecreusden snede"; a document of 1510 concerningJan Borman's collabora- tion with schrijnwerkers mentions ". .. alrehande gesneden ende metselriewerk van houte als beelden, pyleren, tabernaculen ende andersints .. " Although in a poetic context snede can mean caesura, de Castelein probably had something like "ornamental phrase" in mind.

65. See Ronald Woodley, John Tucke: A Case Study in Early Tudor Music Theory (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1993), 81-82. The notational terminology was often strikingly similar: crotchets (quarter notes), for example, relate to crockets, the foliated spurs regularly placed along the contour of a pinnacle or gable. Crotchets are given as crochete in Tucke's notebook.

66. Ibid., 69-70. 67. Luc Devliegher, Les maisons a Bruges: Inventaire descriptif (Tielt: Lannoo,

1975), xliv-lii. 68. This situation was hardly limited to the Netherlands, as the famous

19th-century campaigns at Cologne, Ulm, Bern, Rouen, Milan, and elsewhere demonstrate.

69. Meischke, 133-35, 142, ill. 37; Crab, 173-74, ill. 92. In 1530Jan Beyaert, Jan Troch, and others were paid for having carried to the Louvain Town Hall

"zekere stucken van den steynen patroene dat meesterJoos Metsijs gemaect hadde ... " The parapets that divide the towers into horizontal ranges weave around projecting buttresses, which mark a change in the pattern of

openwork carving; fourteen different geometric schemes appear over the first three stories of the maquette. The windows of the maquette are similarly varied, with intricate profiles and florid blind tracery surrounding their contours. On the second story of the outer towers, the molding around the windows forms gracefully continuous bell arches. On the central tower, one

story above, the windows present a further evolution of this motif: a series of concentric moldings gradually transforms the contour of the opening from a Brabantine bell into a more complex figure of playfully alternating concave and convex curves. The central spire proclaims Joos Massys's consummate

ability at geometric composition. A tapering octagonal pyramid, skeletal and hollow, its trellislike tracery soon changes to a complex pattern of interlinking mouchettes as it ascends, a cadenza in carved stone near the tower's apex. The

principles of order are familiar; shapes and patterns are generally more elaborate on the middle tower than on the lateral ones, with increasing complexity the higher one climbs. I am grateful to Robert Bork for discussing with me his work on spires and his observations on Massys's invention. Massys's spire resembles the openwork spires of Strasbourg, Freiburg, and Esslingen more than it does traditional Netherlandish designs with freestanding pinnacles and flying buttresses. Massys presents additional compositions in blind

tracery above the windows and in vertical fields along the buttresses. 70. Bucher, 71-83. Choir screens, funerary monuments, retables, pulpits,

choir stalls, parapets, and porches were of a scale that allowed timely construction according to plan and could be viewed in their entirety.

71. Ibid.; Arciszewska (as in n. 1), 97-98. 72. Leurs (as in n. 1), 354-55; Bucher, 72; Maere (as in n. 38), 338-41; van

Even (as in n. 39), 391. Famous among the monumental embodiments of these forms is the north tower of Antwerp's Onze-Lieve-Vrouwkerk.

73. An alternative example would be the elaborate baldachins sheltering pairs of statuettes at the sides of the tomb of Margaret of Bourbon (Figs. 17, 18). When the line of vision is perpendicular to the wall, these double

canopies are seen joined by a shared inverted trefoil with its center bent inward. From this perspective, the pairs of bells become the ordering shape. The situation changes when the tomb is viewed from an angle: the inverted trefoils, now pointing outward, become the dominating form. Passing by or around the tomb, we continually revise our understanding of the essential structure, as the central spire of the tabernacle aligns successively with trefoil, bells, and trefoil. The viewer's perspective changes over the duration of movement around the monument, which exploits the lack of a single, unifying scheme. Also typical in this regard is the baldachin complex above the statuettes in the niches around the base of the tomb of Philibert of Savoy. With the line of vision perpendicular to the side of the tomb, the canopy is

apparently defined by a single arch enclosed in a rectilinear frame that rises to the bottom of the slab. This arch is pierced at a forty-five-degree angle by two round arches that meet in the center. At the corners, however, the diagonally receding round arches crown contiguous niches, forming an arcade of two

bays. When the tomb is seen at an angle perpendicular to this arcade (and consequently at forty-five degrees to both exposed sides), it is this pair of round arches that seems to dominate the structure of the baldachin. The most

complicated tabernacles are those at the corners of the tomb of Margaret of Austria.

74. Woodley (as in n. 65), 98-99. Ambigua would seem to derive from the vernacular word for ambiguity, or ambigue. Woodley observes that the term is not otherwise known in treatises, though he finds evidence in other contexts for the widespread knowledge of the technique.

75. Klaus Demus, Friderike Klauner, and Karl Schfitz, eds., Fliimische Malerie von Jan van Eyck bis Pieter Bruegel d. A.: Katalog der Gemiildegalerie (Vienna: Kunsthistorisches Museum, 1981), 261-62. In a devotional context, the delicate forms of gold work might be likened to celestial architecture; van Orley seems to be playing on this association, as had many artists before him. This frame with its stone base is situated outside the world of the figure, which it supports and contains, separating in space and time the events from the lives of Saints Thomas and Matthias.

76. On Engelberg, see Franz Bischoff, Burkhard Engelberg: "Der vilkunstreiche Architector und der Statt Augspurg Wercke Meistes " Schwibische Geschichtsquellen und Forschungen, vol. 18 (Augsburg: Wissner, 1999). Michael Baxandall has discussed the idea of the personal style in connection with German Late Gothic sculpture. He examines documents related to the Meistersinger as well as sculptors for evidence of appreciation of originality and register of the individual. See Baxandall, The Limewood Sculptors of Renaissance Germany (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1980), 123-35. For a discussion of the historical situation and reception of self-portraiture and self-representation in the arts, seeJoseph Leo Koerner, The Moment ofSelf-Portraiture in German Renaissance Art (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1993), esp. 3-59.

77. Cali (as in n. 4), 85. 78. Silver (as in n. 11), 64-67, 216-17, no. 24; and Peter Eikemeier, in Alte

Pinakothek Munich: Explanatory Notes on the Works Exhibited, trans. Kevin Perryman (Munich: Alte Pinakothek, 1986), 314-17. The central panel was originally curved at the top and only later made rectangular. It is suggested that the painted tracery on the central panel may have been covered by the molding of the frame itself. More likely, it provided a fictive link with the molding on the actual frame, much like the paintings of the Justice of




Emperor Otto by Dirck Bouts, now in the Royal Museum of Fine Arts in Brussels, but once in the Louvain Town Hall, where real tracery on the surface is imitated by painted tracery within the fictive space of the image. The pairing of these two cult images in Munich makes it likely that they were originally set off from the surrounding space by just such a frame. See, for comparison, the painting The Mourning Virgin and the Man of Sorrows attributed to Isenbrant, in Harry B. Wehle and Margaretta Salinger, A Catalogue ofEarly Flemish, Dutch and German Paintings (New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1947), 101-2, inv. no. 04.32. The degree of Massys's own participation in the execution of the triptych is debated, though he seems to have been responsible for the painting of the central panel.

Lukas Rem, related to the Welsers, worked for their house in Lyons, Lisbon, and Antwerp. In 1517, he founded his own company with his brother in

Antwerp and Cologne. The globe, on which God stands, shows eastern Africa and part of India, the area of the world in which Rem's corporation traded. The painting seems clearly associated with Rem's marriage, since it depicts his and his wife's patron saints on the exterior of the wings. Further, Rem invokes both the Holy Trinity and the Virgin Mary when writing of his marriage in his diary.

79. At Bruges, on the Gothic facade screening the stairs to the chapel of the Holy Blood, arms appear above the portal and the arches of the gallery, enclosed by shallow accolades. They are similarly placed on the Criminal Court

Building immediately to the right. Both edifices were designed by the sculptor Willem Aerts and the mason Dixus van de Kerckhove in 1528-29. See Devliegher (as in n. 11), 26, ills. 9, 10. The same convention holds for works of furnishing; at the chiteau of Ecausinnes, for example, a string course across one of the mantelpieces rises to form a bell, holding within it the arms of the de Croy family. This practice was not limited to the Netherlands. On his tomb in the cathedral of Rouen, the arms of Pierre de Br6z6 appear within the elongated concave bell around which the canopy is constructed. The tympana above the upper windows on the H6tel de Bourgtheroulde, also at Rouen, display pairs of angels steadying the arms of Guillaume le Roux, Lord Bourgtheroulde. Bells in gables of the cathedral of Troyes and the 16th- century church at Rumilly-les-Vaudes likewise support heraldic devices. The custom is exceedingly common in Spain; like many Castilian palaces of this

period, the Casa de los Conchos and the Casa Abarca in Salamanca display heraldic devices within the closed geometric figures above both entrances and windows.

80. F. Allan et al., Geschiedenis en beschrijving van Haarlem van de vroegste tijden tot op onze dagen, vol. 3 (Haarlem, 1883), 141-47; Bierens de Haan, Het

Houtsnijwerk in Nederland (1921; reprint, The Hague: Nijhoff, 1977), 64-66, pls. 60, 61; and Jeremy Dupertuis Bangs, Church Art and Architecture in the Low Countries before 1566, Sixteenth Century Essays and Studies, vol. 16 (Kirksville, Mo.: Sixteenth Century Journal Publishers, 1996), 45-46. Changes were carried out by the Reformed consistory in the later 16th century and, again, in 1877 during the restoration under P.J.H. Cuypers. Absent now are the three large carved figures of Christ on the Cross with the Virgin and SaintJohn that formerly stood atop the upper beam. Also gone are the statues of the Evangelists and of Saint Bavo that decorated the central portal. The candlehold- ers are later additions, but these replace others that belonged to the original plan.

81. Allan et al. (as in n. 80), 146-47. Narrow fields at either end hold

proverbial figures of "pillar biters"--hypocrites who reject sincere piety. The arms on the four panels at the bottom of the two doors and on one housed within the base cannot be identified. Two panels hold the arms of St. Bavo. The remaining fields display the arms of Haarlem, Leiden, Gouda, Alkmaar, Enkhuizen, Monnickendam, Dordrecht, Delft, Amsterdam, Hoorn, Edam, Medemblik, and Beverwijk. Two wood lions stand before the middle posts, whereas two dogs with their young wrapped about their neck sit in front of the end posts. Allan suggests that the lions may represent true piety, while the dogs (located near the pillar biters) may signify false piety.

82. Likewise, on the Markiezenhof at Bergen op Zoom, the palace built by the Keldermanses for Jan van Walhain, the molding around the entrance forms a bell-shaped protuberance on top that contains a statue of a local saint. See Van Mosselveld, 135-41; Korneel Slootmans, Bergen op Zoom: Een stad als een huis (Tilburg: Stichting Ziudelijk Historisch Contact, 1985), 99-136, esp. 100-104. Anthonis Keldermans, present in the city as early as 1476, received the commission for the reconstruction of the Markiezenhof in 1485. The grand entrance portal probably dates from about 1500. Jan van Walhain soon becameJan III of Bergen op Zoom.

83. Jacques Boudoin, La sculpture flamboyante en Champagne, Lorraine (No- nette: Crier, 1990), 99-104; Steppe, 60-61; Cali (as in n. 4), ills. 37, 38. Gahilde's name has been spelled Gailde, Gualde. In the accounts of the church of the Magdalen for 1495, he signs his name "Jeha[n] Gahilde." The jube was constructed between 1508 and 1517 with the help of the masons Martin de Vaux, Huguenin Bailly, and Simon Mauroy. The figural sculpture was carved by the Fleming Nicolas Halins. Boudoin characterizes the jub6 as "treated like a piece of gold work, according to Flemish conceptions."

84. Emmanuel Bourassin, "La h6rauderie au XVe siicle: Rois et h6rauts d'armes," in Jeanne d'Arc: Une tpoque, un rayonnement; Colloque d'Histoire Midiivale, OrMans, Octobre 1979 (Paris: Editions du Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, 1982), 107-11; Michel Pastoureau, "Aux origines de l'embleme," in L'hermine et le sinople: Etudes d'hdraldique midiivale (Paris: LUopard d'Or, 1982), 327-33; Jacques Lemaire, "L'int6r&t pour l'h~raldique dans les prologues des chroniques Bourguignonnes," in Sources de l'hiraldique en Europe occidentale: Actes du 4e Colloque International dHiraldique (Brussels: A.G.R., 1985), 78-80.

85. As on the gateway of the chiteau of Chaumont, for instance. The traditional coat of arms appears over the gate and within an Italianate aedicula on a nearby tower, but it is here accompanied by linked initials and a personal device.

86.J. Daoust, Ficamp: L'abbatiale de la Saint-Trinite (F6camp: L. Durand et Fils, 1989), 30. The carving is found in the chapel of SS. Peter and Paul. Chardon, incidentally, was involved in several building projects within the abbey. In his service to Antoine Boyer, he saw the completion of the jub6 and the commission of the monumental sculptural group of the Dormition of the Virgin, now in the right transept. See Daoust, 7, 20.

87. Van Mosselveld, 94-96, 123-29, fig. 57. The facade on the market holds a statue of Charles V with the imperial orb, though it is not clear that this feature was part of the Keldermanses' design. The roundels, which now hold profiles of Roman emperors l'antique, appear originally to have been blank.

88. The transept portal, somewhat obscured today by later construction, is clearly presented and appreciated as the public focus of the exterior in older prints. See A. Sanderus, Flandria illustrata (Cologne, 1644), vol. 2, 496; Legrand thidtre sacri du Duchi de Brabant (1729; Antwerp: C. de Vries-Brouwers, 1981), vol. 1, 336. For this and other images, see as well Aalst in kaart, beeld, prent: Viff eeuwen iconografie en cartografie van Aalst, exh. cat., Stedelijk Museum-Oud Hospitaal, Aalst, 1976, 129-30, nos. 182, 185, 186, 189. At Brou we find a related situation. On the north portal, the coat of arms of Margaret of Austria is prominently exhibited within the delicate ogival tracery that overlaps the openwork balustrade. The west facade of the church, however, carries no such heraldic display (Fig. 16). The elegant carved lobe rising from the portal similarly overlaps the balustrade but leaves it fully visible, free of any escutcheon. This tracery figure no longer fills its customary role as cartouche. Associated with the outer molding of the portal, as we have seen, it seems to form a single motif, which gives a distinctive caste to the facade. More traditional signs of identity are also present: the tympanum holds sculptures of Margaret and Philibert with their patron saints and angels supporting small coats of arms; a statue of Saint Andrew, protector of the Burgundians, stands atop the central lobe. The notable tracery form that spans the portal, however, overshadows these traditional markers, dominating the perception of the facade when seen from any distance.



Renaissance Gothic in the Netherlands

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