16th century art Netherlands 16th century sculpture

Many Dutch architects, already known to us, were at the same time painters, and most of them were sculptors. The best works of Dutch sculpture of this time were parts of the luxuriously erected tombstones, altar decorations, fireplaces, seats and lettners that have already been described, as shown by the works of Marshall, Galland, Detre, Graul, Goedicke and others. This is due to their decorative nature.

In the 16th century, the production of Dutch late Gothic carved altars traced back to this century was in a flourishing state. Brussels also gave Antwerp leadership in this area. In Belgium, however, almost all the altars of this kind fell victim to the revolutionary storms. Most of the samples of the late Antwerp altars with the names of the craftsmen were therefore preserved in the German and Scandinavian north, where they were exported by the hundreds.

Next to this Late Gothic carved sculpture, which was increasingly moving towards a pictorial design, in the Netherlands a sculpture of a new time began to flourish. The first representative of a strong, not yet touched by the Italian influence of an independent direction was the high-German court sculptor of the ruler of the Austrian Margherita Conrad Mait from Worms, whom we have already pointed out. It remains unclear whether Mayt really developed in the Netherlands. Dutch documents call him German (“dit lallemand”). In any case, in the Netherlands he adapted to local needs and habits. In Belgium, where he performed two lying lambs and three sibyls for the famous altar decoration of the abbey church in Tongarloo, destroyed in 1796 by the French (1536 to 1548); not a single work of his work. However, his gravestone monuments of the church in Brou near Bourg-en-Bresse, three magnificent works of a noble northern-realistic style, executed for the ruler, apparently based on foreign models, have come down to us.

Jacques Dubrek, in contrast to Mate, transferred Andrea Sansovino's style from Italy in 1535 from Italy. From the sculptural works of his famous Lettner in Saint Vodru in Mons (1535–1548), his yellowish alabaster abruptly appear on the black marble pedestal of the Savior statue and the seven virtues, large round reliefs depicting the Creation of the World, the Last Judgment and the Triumph of Religion, then wide and low reliefs of railings with images of the Last Supper, the Se-Man and the Judgment on the Savior, as well as the high stone reliefs of the Flagellation, the Carrying of the Cross and the Resurrection. All old Dutch memories have disappeared here. The events of the Gospel are narrated, from the outside, clearly, but without a real inner revival through the medium of slim, free figures, with somewhat calculated movements. Together with Goedicke, one can trace the development of his style from multi-figure compositions to more perfect low-figure ones with a clearer construction, from a wide, decorative manner to a diligent, more solid, even more immobile manner. The tombstone of Priest Eustache de Creuil in the Cathedral of Saint Omer (1538–1540) was determined from the gravestone monuments of the work of Dubreuk. Although disfigured, it represents the deceased lying on a sarcophagus of black marble without animals under his feet, attached to Mate figures in Bru, and in the heads of the sarcophagus the figure of the bishop is repeated, but alive, praying kneeling. And here you can see free, attentive work, but without the depth of artistic experience. Dubrek is considered to be the teacher of that Giovanni da Bologna, who brought back Dutch-Italian art to Italy.

Dutch spirit is felt in the simultaneous art in Bruges. The marble reliefs of the famous Steffenov’s fireplace, performed by Guyot de Bogran in 1529 according to the designs of Lancelot Blondel, draw the story of Susanna in rich figures, somewhat cramped and squeezed, but full of life reliefs. The life-size wooden statues of Charles V over the fireplace, his grandfather and grandmother on the father’s and mother’s left and right sides of the fireplace, finished in 1532 by Hermann Glosenkamp according to Blondel’s sketches, are short, strong, imbued with northern life figures. The tombstone of Charles the Bold by Jacob Ionjelink in the Church of Our Lady in Bruges (1559–1562) was purposely set in the old style, here, however, showing free craftsmanship, next to the older monument of his daughter Mary of Burgundy. The 28 reliefs with cupids on the tambour door of Paul van den Schelden in Odenaard are works of rather an ornamental, but still quite Florentine manner. The altar predella of Jan de Mona in Notre-Dame in Galle no longer has any Dutch echoes in its equestrian figure of sv. Martina, nor in oblong medallions, executed in high relief depicting works of mercy.

Excellent lying images of Adelheida Eileborg in the church in Iselstein and Duke Carl Geldern in the main church in Arnheim in Holland are equipped with more Gothic animals in the form of footrests. In contrast, the tombstone of Count Engelbrecht II of Nassau and his wife in the Breda Cathedral (circa 1525) produces a completely modern, almost Michelangelovian impression: thin spouses rest on a straw bedding, on the four corners of which are knee-length alabaster, knees ancient heroes. The suggestion that this work, which is not particularly pleasing to the eye, belongs to an Italian, is not at all convincing. On the contrary, the 16 reliefs of Jan Terven, depicting the entry of Charles V into Dordrecht, on his Dordrecht choir benches, and completed in 1542, are truly classical. The cavalcade remotely resembles the Frieze of the Parthenon, and yet it undoubtedly belongs to some Dutchman of the first half of the XVI century. The stone sculptures of Jacob Colin, Utrechts, on the Kampen fireplace, the relief friezes of which depict the Solomon Court, Scipio's Generosity, the Courage of the Scevols and Dent's Incorruptibility, while being close to the forms of the Renaissance, are still independent. The gravestone of Vrerode in Vianene with the image of whole bones under the top slab, on which the noble couple with their slightly marked knees rests in a quiet sleep, is also attributed to Colin.

To Alexander Colin from Mecheln, who worked, as we have seen, in Germany, there is no need to return here. From the second half of the 16th century, we can single out only one Flemish and one Dutch, already known to us architects, the Antwerp Cornelis Floris and the Utrechts Cornelis Blomart. The sculptural works of Cornelis Floris are inseparable from his decorated monumental buildings. Numerous reliefs from the Old and New Testament on the altar beater in St. Leonard in Leo are located in ten tiers. Statues of saints in the corners follow the lines of the entire structure. Here, of course, it is impossible to find a large independent plastic life, but in the decorative aspect of the sculpture merge with a powerful structure into one, making a strong impression. The same can be said about the canopy of the church in Suerbemide near Diest, on both sides of which donators are kneeling around the solemnly sitting in the lower niche of the Madonna. In the main building of Floris, the Antwerp Town Hall, the relief of the fireplace with the image of the Court of Solomon in the front room of the council room and the relief of the beating of babies in the Wedding Hall, painted by his brother France, belong to his best works. Then followed (in 1573) its famous Lettner in the form of the triumphal arch of the Lettner Cathedral in Tournai, decorated with numerous statues, twelve reliefs with biblical scenes and six medallions of the Passion of the Lord. Of the tombstones of Floris, as usual with the caryatids, most are outside the Netherlands. The most important are the monuments of Christian II in the cathedral in Röskilde, Gustav Vasa in the Uppsala Cathedral, King Frederick I in the Cathedral in Schleswig and the Duke Albrecht I of Prussia in Königsberg Cathedral. His influence throughout the north, as Ehrenberg showed, was enormous. His style, however, was due more to time than his personality, and therefore is short-lived.

Cornelis Blomart, a pupil of Terven, was the first half of his life as a sculptor. The set of sculptural works on the famous department of it in Herzogenbush allows to recognize the work of students. Blomarth reliably owns a lively frieze with cliros-boys on the plinth of the chair railing, but one can hardly attribute five luxurious reliefs depicting Christ's sermon, ap. Paul, ap. Peter, John the Baptist and ap. Andrew, reminiscent of the best German works of the XVI century. A series of less remarkable Amsterdam sculptures of the second half of the 16th century opens, as Galland says, “as the Dutch plastic of that time, step by step, was moving away from the ideal Italian design to get closer to the realistic trend of its contemporary painting.”