Altarpiece
An altarpiece is an work of art in painting, sculpture or relief representing a religious subject made for placing at the back of or behind the altar of a Christian church.[2] Though most commonly used for a single work of art such as a painting or sculpture, or a set of them, the word can also be used of the whole ensemble behind an altar, otherwise known as a reredos, including what is often an elaborate frame for the central image or images. Altarpieces were one of the most important products of Christian art especially from the late Middle Ages to the era of Baroque painting.[3]
The word altarpiece, used for paintings, usually means a framed work of
Altarpieces with many small framed panels are called polyptychs; triptychs have a main panel, and two side ones. Diptychs, with only two equally sized panels, were usually smaller portable pieces for individuals.[5] The predella is a row of much smaller scenes running below the main panel; often these showed narrative scenes related to the subject of the main image. They were only properly visible from close up, but the extra height allowed the main panels above to be clearly seen by the congregation, and any shutters to be opened and closed with less distubance to other items on the altar.[6]
Many altarpieces have now been removed from their church settings, and often from their elaborate sculpted frameworks, and are displayed as more simply framed paintings in museums and elsewhere.
History
Origins and early development
In the first several centuries of large Christian churches being built, the altar tended to be further forward (towards the congregation) in the sanctuary than in the later Middles Ages (a position to which it returned in the 20th century) and a large altarpiece would often have blocked the view of a bishop's throne and other celebrants, so decoration was concentrated on other places, with antependiums or altar frontals, or the surrounding walls.[7]
Altarpieces seem to have begun to be used during the 11th century, with the possible exception of a few earlier examples. The reasons and forces that led to the development of altarpieces are not generally agreed upon. The habit of placing decorated
Many early altarpieces were relatively simple compositions in the form of a rectangular panel decorated with series of saints in rows, with a central, more pronounced figure such as a depiction of
The emergence of panel painting
Painted panel altars emerged in Italy during the 13th century,
The sculpted elements in the emerging polyptychs often took inspiration from contemporary Gothic architecture. In Italy, they were still typically executed in wood and painted, while in northern Europe altarpieces were often made of stone.[8]
In the early 14th century, the
Late Middle Ages
As the Middle Ages progressed, altarpieces began to be commissioned more frequently. In Northern Europe, initially Lübeck and later Antwerp would develop into veritable export centres for the production of altarpieces, exporting to Scandinavia, Spain and northern France.[14] By the 15th century, altarpieces were often commissioned not only by churches but also by individuals, families, guilds and confraternities. The 15th century saw the birth of Early Netherlandish painting in the Low Countries; henceforth panel painting would dominate altarpiece production in the area. In Germany, sculpted wooden altarpieces were instead often preferred, for example the Veit Stoss altarpiece in Kraków (completed 1489), while in England there was a 15th-century industry producing relatively cheap painted altarpiece kits in Nottingham alabaster, many of which were exported, the frame being added at the destination.
In England, as well as in France, stone retables enjoyed general popularity. In Italy both stone retables and wooden polyptychs were common, with individual painted panels and often (notably in Venice and Bologna) with complex framing in the form of architectural compositions.[8] In Spain, altarpieces developed in a highly original fashion into often very large, architecturally influenced reredos, sometimes as tall as the church in which it was housed.[17]
Renaissance and Reformation
The 15th century also saw a development of the composition of Italian altarpieces where the polyptych was gradually abandoned in favour of single-panel, painted altarpieces.
Other types of Italian composition also moved towards having a single large scene, sometimes called a pala (Italian for "panel"),[19] often dispensing with the predella. Rather than static figures, narrative scenes from the lives of the main figures grew in popularity; this was to become the dominant style for large altarpieces over the next centuries. Originally mostly horizontal ("landscape") in format, they increasingly used vertical ("portrait") formats. Some were as much as 4 metres tall, and concentrated on a single dramatic action. This much height typically required a composition with an in aria group to fill the upper part of the picture space, as in Raphael's Transfiguration (now Vatican), though The Raising of Lazarus by Sebastiano del Piombo (now London) is almost as tall, using only a landscape at the top.
In Italy, during the Renaissance, free-standing groups of sculpture also began to feature as altarpieces. The most famous example is
In the north of Europe, the
But
If anything, the Protestant destruction stimulated the creation of more and larger altarpieces in Catholic Europe. Titian produced a number of ones with very large single scenes, mostly now on canvas. Among the most influential were his Assumption in the Frari Church (1518, still on panel, 690 cm × 360 cm (270 in × 140 in)), the Pesaro Madonna in the same church (1526, now on canvas), Killing of Saint Peter Martyr (1529, now lost but known from prints and copies).
Baroque
In the
Increasingly, the size and shape of altarpieces became dictated by the overall design and decoration of the church, which the artist was required to fit in with. If funds allowed several altarpieces were commissioned for Baroque churches when they were first built or re-fitted, for the main and side-altars, giving the whole interior a consistent style. Medieval churches had mostly acquired altarpieces gradually over time, from different donors.
Sculptural altarpieces, or designs integrating painting with sculpture, became more common. Examples by
Later developments
While many altarpieces remain today, the majority have been lost. In 1520, there were 2,000 winged altarpieces in the Austrian state of
Types of altarpieces
Altarpieces have never been made compulsory in the Catholic Church, nor their usage and treatment formalised, apart from some church authorities laying down guidelines on subject-matter and style after the 16th-century Council of Trent;[26] therefore their appearance can vary significantly. Occasionally, the demarcation between what constitutes the altarpiece and what constitutes other forms of decoration can be unclear.[8] Altarpieces can still broadly be divided into two types, the reredos, which signifies a large and often complex wooden or stone altarpiece, and the retable, an altarpiece with panels either painted or with reliefs. Retables are placed directly on the altar or on a surface behind it; a reredos typically rises from the floor.[27]
Older retable-type altarpieces are often made up of two or more separate wood panels, sometimes with framed divisions, as in medieval examples, but later with the joins between panels invisible under the painted surface (as with some works by
The
At least in the 15th century, altarpieces for main or
If the altar stands free in the choir, such that visitors can pass behind the main altar, both sides of the altarpiece can be covered with painting. The screen, retable or reredos are commonly decorated. Groups of statuary can also be placed on an altar.[8] A single church can furthermore house several altarpieces on side-altars in chapels. Sometimes the altarpiece is set on the altar itself and sometimes in front of it.
Much smaller private altarpieces, often portable, were made for wealthy individuals to use at home, often as folding diptychs or triptychs for safe transport. In the Middle Ages, very small luxury diptychs or triptychs carved in ivory or other materials were popular.[30]
Matters evolved differently in Eastern Orthodoxy, where the iconostasis developed as a wide screen composed of large icons, placed in front of the altar, with doors through it, and running right across the sanctuary.[31]
Leading examples
- Pala d'Oro, metal and enamel in Byzantine style (St Mark's Basilica, Venice)
- Maestà altarpiece (1308–1311) by Duccio (Siena Cathedral, Siena)
- Adoration of the Magi by Gentile da Fabriano, 1423, Uffizi, Florence
- Mérode Altarpiece (1425–1428) by Robert Campin (Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City)
- Holy Trinity by Masaccio, c. 1427, in fresco
- Ghent Altarpiece (1432) by Hubert and Jan van Eyck (St Bavo's Cathedral, Ghent)
- Prado
- Pollaiuolo brothers, by 1475, London
- Virgin of the Rocks by Leonardo da Vinci, two versions, now Louvre and London
- St. Wolfgang Altarpiece (1481) by Michael Pacher, St. Wolfgang im Salzkammergut
- San Giobbe Altarpiece by Giovanni Bellini, c. 1487, an early example whose background continues the architecture of the church
- )
- Kefermarkt Altarpiece (1490–1497) by an unknown artist (Kefermarkt)
- Castelfranco Madonna, by Giorgione, c. 1504
- Isenheim Altarpiece (1516) by Matthias Grünewald (Unterlinden Museum, Colmar)
- Assumption of the Virgin (1516–1518) by Titian (Santa Maria Gloriosa dei Frari, Venice)
- Mannerist
- National Gallery, London
- Antwerp Cathedral, 1626
Notes
- ^ DeGreve, 15-16
- ^ Murrays, 10-11
- ^ Collins, Neil. "Altarpiece Art (c.1000-1700)". visual-arts-cork.com. Retrieved 27 July 2014.
- ^ Murrays, 11
- ^ Murrays, 11
- ^ Murrays, 11
- ^ DeGreve, 12
- ^ ISBN 978-0-19-539536-5.
- ^ DeGreve, 13
- ^ DeGreve, 13
- ^ DeGreve, 13-14
- ^ Péter Bokody, "Mural Painting as a Medium: Technique, Representation and Liturgy", in Image and Christianity: Visual Media in the Middle Ages, ed. Péter Bokody (Pannonhalma: Pannonhalma Abbey, 2014), 136-151.
- ^ DeGreve, 13
- ^ ISBN 978-0-89236-853-2.
- ^ DeGreve, 13-14
- ^ DeGreve, 13-15
- ^ DeGreve, 16
- ^ Murrays, 10
- ^ Murrays, 362, 10. By contrast in Italian a paliotto is an antependium or altar frontal in any medium, Murrays, 364
- ^ DeGreve, 17
- ^ ISBN 978-0-19-533466-1.
- ISBN 978-0-7148-3867-0.
- ^ DeGreve, 17-18
- ^ Murrays, 11
- ^ "Saint Michael completed 1469, Piero della Francesca". The National Gallery. Retrieved 27 July 2014.
- ^ Murrays, 10; DeGreve, 12, 17
- ^ Murrays, 10
- ^ Murrays, 11
- ^ Wright, 316
- ^ Murrays, 137-138
- ^ Murrays, 12, 237-238
References
- DeGreve, Daniel P. (2010). "Retro Tablum: The Origins and Role of the Altarpiece in the Liturgy" (PDF). Journal of the Institute for Sacred Architecture (17). Institute for Sacred Architecture: 12–18. Retrieved 25 July 2014.
- "Murrays": ISBN 0198661657
- Wright, Alison, The Pollaiuolo Brothers: The Arts of Florence and Rome, 2005, Yale, ISBN 9780300106251, google books
Further reading
- The Italian Renaissance Altarpiece: Between Icon and Narrative, David Ekserdjian, 2021, Yale UP, ISBN 9780300253641
- The Altarpiece in the Renaissance, Humfrey, Peter & Kemp, Martin, 1990, Cambridge University Press, ISBN 9780521360616