Set in Stone: The Face in Medieval Art
A Special Exhibition Review by Stan Parchin
About the show:
Any exploration into the history of facial expression in art is a study of the human condition at a given time. It necessarily includes the circumstances with which certain images were created, sometimes altered or unfortunately destroyed. Set in Stone: The Face in Medieval Art, an enlightening special exhibition on the ground level of The Metropolitan Museum of Art's Robert Lehman Wing, is the stunning result of one such serious academic endeavor. Charles T. Little, The Met's Curator of Medieval Art and The Cloisters, along with esteemed scholars, used traditional art-historical tools and Neutron Activation Analysis (NAA), a scientific method pioneered by the museum in the 1970s, to determine the provenances (origins) of numerous sculpted heads and their places in the artistic history of the Middle Ages. The works on display, produced in limestone, marble, polychromed wood and silver gilt, are arranged thematically, geographically and chronologically. Representing French, German, Italian, Byzantine, English and Iberian sculptural traditions, they date from the Third Century A.D. through the first quarter of the Sixteenth Century.
During the Middle Ages in Western Europe, the head symbolized not only the intellect but the location of the soul, a concept derived from antiquity. The face determined one's identity. As such, a statue's character was conveyed largely by its facial expression. To have disfigured a sculpture's visage or removed a head entirely from its torso was to have deprived a statue of its meaning and purpose.
At the base of the Lehman's Wing's left-hand staircase, Set in Stone... begins by investigating the phenomenon of iconoclasm or the willful destruction of images, a practice that can be traced back to the ancient Egyptians. Beyond the uncontrollable forces of nature, religious rebellion, revolution, war, vandalism and shifting aesthetic tastes have cruelly fueled the intentional dismemberment of religious and royal statuary throughout history. In France, where a majority of this exhibition's objects comes from, the Hundred Years War (1337-1453), the Wars of Religion (1562-98) and Baroque and Rococo artists' disdain for medieval art contributed to the maiming of sculpture from the Middle Ages. The most violent of these heinous attacks were sanctioned by government decree during the French Revolution (1789-1800) and its virulent Reign of Terror (1793-94). In January 1793, the same month as the guillotining of French monarch Louis XVI (r. 1774-1792), the Paris Commune ordered the systematic removal and destruction of all sculptures of kings on the Gothic Cathedral of Notre-Dame and elsewhere. The savage beheading of these statues some months later was a symbolic refutation of French royal authority and oppressive political power.
Above the entrances to the Cathedral of Notre-Dame were statues of 28 Old Testament kings of Judah, ancestors of Jesus Christ. From the Thirteenth Century onward, these sculptures were popularly believed to have been modeled after a number of French rulers. When the Paris Commune's despicable directive of destruction was issued, the works were removed from the colonnade above the building's three portals and their heads were severed, 21 among the 364 fragments having been recovered in 1977. A Head of a King of Judah (ca. 1220-30) in this show serves as a testament to how intensely the French revolutionaries, having mistaken the statues' biblical identities, reviled their Bourbon ruler's absolutist government and the exigencies of French eighteenth-century aristocracy. Traces of pigment on the noseless head indicate that the sculpture was originally painted. The S-shaped curls of the king's hair and beard suggest stylistically that the statue was carved at a time different from that of the other stone figures that once graced the cathedral's western façade.
Head of a King of Judah, ca. 1220-30
France, Paris
Notre-Dame Cathedral, west façade
Limestone with traces of polychromy
H. 28 in. (71.1 cm)
© Musée National du Moyen Âge,
Thermes et Hôtel de Cluny (Cl. 22988)
Photo Credit: Réunion des Musées
Nationaux /Art Resource, NY
Head of an Angel (?) (ca. 1250) is a relatively recent acquisition by The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Scientific results from Neutron Activation Analysis revealed that this sculpture's stone fingerprint matched that of statues from Notre-Dame Cathedral. They identified the head's limestone composition with that of a quarry from which many of the medieval church's monumental artworks were sculpted. Due to the vicissitudes of the French Revolution, one still cannot determine with certainty if this jovial head belonged to the Cathedral of Notre-Dame's jubé (choir screen). Nevertheless, the angel's gleeful smile definitely reflects an innovation in French sculpture of the Thirteenth Century.
Head of an Angel (?), ca 1250
France, Paris
Notre-Dame Cathedral (?)
Limestone
H. 9 5/8 in. (24.5 cm)
Purchase, Michel David-Weil Gift, 1990 (1990.132)
© The Metropolitan Museum of Art
At the exhibition's midpoint is a marvelous Head of a Woman (first quarter of the 16th Century). The anonymous stone sculptor carefully articulated each bead crisply in her elaborate headdress. Of unknown geographic origin, scholars have suggested Saints Barbara, Catherine and Mary Magdalene as the subject of this work. The head's reserved smile on its minimally abraded face liberates it from a generic look and introduces the viewer to portraiture as the art of sculpting identity.
Head of a Woman,
First quarter of the 16th Century
Limestone
H. approx. 9 in. (22.9 cm)
Private Collection
Photograph provided by The
Metropolitan Museum of Art
In the Middle Ages and Renaissance, relics (the presumed remains of Christian saints) were venerated by devout Christians. Their worship was believed to assist in a person's atonement for earthly sins, relieving his or her stay in Purgatory. The reliquary of a saint's head (a container protecting the most important part of the body in medieval times), like those designed for other anatomical features, came to possess protective abilities and was revered as a power object. The bejeweled Reliquary Bust of Saint Yrieux (second quarter of the 13th Century) is one such example of this type of medieval devotional sculpture.
Reliquary Bust of Saint Yrieix,
Second quarter of the 13th Century
France, Limousin, Saint-Yrieix-la-Perche
(Haute-Vienne)
Church of Saint-Yrieix-la-Perche
Gilded silver, rock crystal, gems and glass,
originally over walnut core with silver leaf
and gesso on the interior
H. 14 3/4 in. (37.5 cm)
Gift of J. Pierpont Morgan, 1917 (17.190.352)
© The Metropolitan Museum of Art
The special exhibition Set in Stone: The Face in Medieval Art successfully traces the development of facial expression in sculpture across the medieval millennium. The form and function of each beautifully displayed work are expertly explained. And the methods used by modern-day art historians to determine the sculptures' origins are flawlessly described. With this show, a new chapter in the history of medieval art has been written.
Click here for a gallery of additional works of art in the special exhibition.
About the catalogue:
Little, Charles T. (ed.). Set in Stone: The
Face in Medieval Sculpture (exh. cat.).
New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2006.
The 240-page hardcover catalogue of this special exhibition features 201 illustrations (87 in full color) and mirrors the organization of the artworks on view. Its essays on medieval physiognomy and iconoclasm are well worth reading.
For further reading:
Carmen Gómez-Moreno (ed.). Sculpture from
Notre-Dame, Paris: A Dramatic Discovery (exh. cat.).
New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1979.
"Set in Stone: The Face in Medieval Art" is on view from September 26, 2006 through February 19, 2007 at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1000 Fifth Avenue at 82 Street, New York, NY 10028-0198 (Telephone: 212-535-7710; Website). The museum is open Tuesday through Thursday and Sunday from 9:30 AM to 5:30 PM and Friday and Saturday from 9:30 AM to 9:00 PM. SUGGESTED admission is $20.00 for adults. Paid parking is available in The Museum Garage.
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From your Guide: Stan Parchin, Senior Correspondent for Museums and Special Exhibitions, is a specialist in ancient, late-medieval and Renaissance art and history, and a regular contributor to About Art History. You may read all of his Special Exhibition and Catalogue Reviews here.
