Gothic sculpture

style c. 1140-1500 France Italy

Gothic sculpture is the stone, wood and ivory carving of the Gothic age, from the 1140s to about 1500. It begins at the Royal Portal of Chartres, where jamb figures first stand free of their columns, still elongated and columnar. Within a century the style loosens: the Reims masters carve smiling, contrapposto saints whose drapery falls in natural folds, and the Naumburg Master gives donor figures startling psychological presence. Italy took its own path - Nicola Pisano's Pisa Baptistery pulpit (1260) revives Roman sarcophagi, and his son Giovanni pushes toward drama - while the Burgundian court produced Claus Sluter's monumental, hooded prophets of the Well of Moses (1395-1403). Across the period sculpture was painted and gilded, and worked in tight programs: portals, tombs, pulpits, choir screens and arks, each carving locked into the theology of its building.

Cartuja de Miraflores . En un rectángulo se inscribe una rueda de ángeles que alaban a Cristo crucificado como tema central del retablo. Gil
Cartuja de Miraflores . En un rectángulo se inscribe una rueda de ángeles que alaban a Cristo crucificado como tema central del retablo. GilCC BY-SA 4.0 (credit: original de Jl FilpoC) · source

Defining characteristics

  • Jamb and trumeau figures that stand free of the column, with individualized faces
  • The gentle Gothic sway: weight shifted, drapery falling in deep natural folds
  • Polychromy - painted and gilded surfaces - on stone as well as wood
  • Programmed portal ensembles: saints, prophets and Last Judgments carved as visual teaching
  • Late-Gothic realism: psychology, anatomy and observed texture, above all in Burgundy
  • Italian classical revival: Roman-derived profiles, contrapposto, narrative reliefs on pulpits

Key figures

  • Naumburg Master (fl. c. 1230-1260) — Anonymous German sculptor whose west choir donor figures rank among Gothic art's greatest
  • Nicola Pisano (c. 1220-c. 1284) — Pisan sculptor who revived classical Roman models in the Pisa Baptistery pulpit (1260)
  • Giovanni Pisano (c. 1250-c. 1315) — Nicola's son, whose pulpits at Pisa, Siena and Pistoia fuse Gothic drama with classicism
  • Claus Sluter (c. 1340-1406) — Burgundian court sculptor and pioneer of northern realism (Well of Moses)
  • Peter Parler (1333-1399) — German-Bohemian architect-sculptor of Prague Cathedral and the gallery of Czech kings

Example works

  • Pulpit, Pisa Baptistery — Nicola Pisano (1260)
  • Well of Moses — Claus Sluter (1395-1403)
  • West choir donor figures, Naumburg Cathedral — Naumburg Master (c. 1250)

Sources

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