I admit with some shame that the subject matter of the scenes is much beyond my knowledge and clearly an
advanced understanding of the Bible and the Gospels is required to fully
appreciate this work’s content. Comparisons to the work of Andrea Pisano are
obvious, with this work showing a less deliberate and more expressive
character in the energy and formal treatment of the individual cells. This is
truly a work I will have to study for years as my understanding of the
Bible develops. |
Age visually influences all works to a degree, but this one is on a par with The Investiture of Zimrilim. Human forms carry the same almost whispy, slightly bent gestures of two-dimensional works from the medieval period. Realism applies with less textural and spatial manipulation than that found in The Life of John the Baptist. Expressing the emotional states and interactions of active figures on passive is prioritized, charging the individual scenes with some energy to the sensitive observer.
The relatively high-relief, regularly-paced figurative shapes create a sense of pattern and timing that cause me to read it panel-by-panel from left-to-right, top-to-bottom. Actually, it is read from top-down along the first column, then bottom-up along the second column. Rather than promote the even-paced sense of time typical of patterned work, this is a collection of moments read scene-to-scene.
Depth is organized into two distinct planes. The foreground contains all figures and takes advantage of nearly all extant relief work. The background contains scenery and buildings and medium development is flattened to near-etchings on the pictorial surface. Repeated figurative shapes, related by size and texturing, evenly populate and set the pace for the global surface. Strong organization are balance are present.
On a cell-to-cell basis, relative elemental embellishment guides the eye to where the focus should be. Specifically, this means the high-relief interactions of the figures, with the assumption that the observer would have a strong understanding of the Old and New Testaments. One of the qualities of this work I personally appreciate is how each of the sixteen scenes position the narratives from the same perspective in a strongly consistent proportional framework.
This is a master work of form and content that heralds the sumptuous exterior developments that would characterize architectural decoration in the coming centuries. The designer, or team of designers, constructed a series of compositions gracefully organized by allegorical time, content source and formal design. The vertical halves depict themes found in the Bible (left) and those found in the Gospels (right), while the horizontal divisions are thematic comparisons made between the two sources expertly arranged by the traditional time of their occurrence. Taken on a pair-by-pair basis, an analysis of the similarities and differences of and between the events and figures is a complicated, intellectual and uniquely personal experience. What this combination of master works states to me is that, as someone who is about to enter the space of the patron bishop, I must prepare myself for someone who has an intimate knowledge of the Christian texts and a deep understanding of the human condition.
Age visually influences all works to a degree, but this one is on a par with The Investiture of Zimrilim. Human forms carry the same almost whispy, slightly bent gestures of two-dimensional works from the medieval period. Realism applies with less textural and spatial manipulation than that found in The Life of John the Baptist. Expressing the emotional states and interactions of active figures on passive is prioritized, charging the individual scenes with some energy to the sensitive observer.
The relatively high-relief, regularly-paced figurative shapes create a sense of pattern and timing that cause me to read it panel-by-panel from left-to-right, top-to-bottom. Actually, it is read from top-down along the first column, then bottom-up along the second column. Rather than promote the even-paced sense of time typical of patterned work, this is a collection of moments read scene-to-scene.
Depth is organized into two distinct planes. The foreground contains all figures and takes advantage of nearly all extant relief work. The background contains scenery and buildings and medium development is flattened to near-etchings on the pictorial surface. Repeated figurative shapes, related by size and texturing, evenly populate and set the pace for the global surface. Strong organization are balance are present.
On a cell-to-cell basis, relative elemental embellishment guides the eye to where the focus should be. Specifically, this means the high-relief interactions of the figures, with the assumption that the observer would have a strong understanding of the Old and New Testaments. One of the qualities of this work I personally appreciate is how each of the sixteen scenes position the narratives from the same perspective in a strongly consistent proportional framework.
This is a master work of form and content that heralds the sumptuous exterior developments that would characterize architectural decoration in the coming centuries. The designer, or team of designers, constructed a series of compositions gracefully organized by allegorical time, content source and formal design. The vertical halves depict themes found in the Bible (left) and those found in the Gospels (right), while the horizontal divisions are thematic comparisons made between the two sources expertly arranged by the traditional time of their occurrence. Taken on a pair-by-pair basis, an analysis of the similarities and differences of and between the events and figures is a complicated, intellectual and uniquely personal experience. What this combination of master works states to me is that, as someone who is about to enter the space of the patron bishop, I must prepare myself for someone who has an intimate knowledge of the Christian texts and a deep understanding of the human condition.
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