THE GERMANIC WORLD AND THE NETHERLANDS

Detectable before the mid—fifteenth century, the renewal of style was essentially achieved in the work of Nicholas of Leyden, which lies at the very source of late Gothic sculpture (Spdtgotik) in the southern part of the Empire. In Swabia, Hans Multscher (recorded in Ulm from 1427; died before 1467) had already begun to stiffen the pose of his figure carvings, with their compact and solid silhouettes; to harden the pliant folds and soft curves of international Gothic, on which he nevertheless remained dependent. The break was finally made by Nicholas of Leyden. Probably of Dutch origin as his name indicates, he was also called, more rarely, Nicolaus Gerhaert after his father. Nothing is known of his training and   we have records for only eleven years of his life, from 1462 to 1473; years marked by a few undisputed works (only four are extant), by his arrival in Strasbourg in 1462 at the latest, and by his departure in 1467 for the court of the Emperor Frederic III in Vienna and Wiener Neustadt, where he died in 1473. That is little indeed, measured against this remarkable sculptor’s personality.
The tomb of Archbishop Jakob von Sierck at Trier, signed and dated 1462, is already a work of his maturity. The plastic density of the recumbent figure is well served by the sweep of the draperies, hollowed or distended with sharp and broken folds conferring live movement upon this tomb effigy of an all too often static type, formerly accompanied by a withered corpse effigy. The doorway of the Strasbourg Chancellery, erected in 1463—1464, was ornamented by Nicholas of Leyden with a Virgin and Child, the armorsal bearings of the town, and two busts:
an old man and a yonng woman probably representing the Emperor Augustns and the Sibyl of Tibur, who were known from earlier casts (only the two heads in red sandstone are preserved, sn Strasbourg and Frankfurt). The stock theme of the half-length figure leaning on a window ledge, whether handled in pasnting as in the portraits by Van Eyck or inserted in an architectural setting as in the Jacques Ccenr palace at Bonrges, is here completely remodelled. Leaning over the windowsill, advancing a shoulder and inclining the head in a skilfnl play of contrasting lines, the two figures of the Chancellery have a mobile posture that lends an inner dynamism to the carved bnst and suggests spatial recession. The Epitaph of a Canon in Strasbonrg Cathedral, signed and dated 1464, and the admirable Leaning Bust of a Man in the Notre-Dame Museum of Works, attrsbuted to Nicholas of Leyden and sometimes regarded as his self—portrait, give the same sensation of life, thanks to the naturalness of the gestures and the movement of the bodies. Added to the delicate rendering of faesal expression the attentive gaze of the Emperor and the Sibyl, the lowered eyes of the leaning man sunk in thought is a sharp and exact treatment of the features which inscribes in detail on the stone surface every hne, every wrinkle, every fold of flesh. This focus on the human, going beyond the mere transcription of reality. places Nicholas of Leyden in the line of the great innovative painters of the southern Netherlands and in more distant descent from sculptors bke Claus Sluter. The elongated body of Christ on the cross at Baden-Baden. another signed work dated 5467, takes over devices used by Van Eyck and Rogier van der Weyden, also disseminated by the prints of Master E. S. The Crucifix of the Nrdlsngen altarpiece (1462), because of its kinship with that of Baden-Baden, has been attributed to Nicholas of Leyden and would thus be his only extant woodcarving. His altarpiece for the cathedral of Constance (1465-1467) was destroyed at the Reformation and the other figure carvings of the Nhrdhngen altarpseee are ascribed to an anonymous Strasbourg master directly in touch with Nicholas, the maker of the Dangolsheim Virgin and Child. The slim and pliant silhouette of the Virgin is concealed behind the flaps of the cloak flung far out from the body, which stands back, creating empty spaces that seem to penetrate the sculptured form. This new and complex plastic conception, worked out in Strasbourg and adopted along the Upper Rhine, was diffused through South Germany by the prints that propagated the Upper Rhenish repertory of forms: it constitutes one of the dominant features of late German Gothic sculpture. The widespread use of limewood, light and soft, allowed sculptors to carve freely and deeply in the material in order to chisel with virtuosity those intricate forms so characteristic of Germany, and to release broad flights of drapery rhythmically broken by folds with sharp edges and acute angles.