Sculpture: The Great Art of the Middle Ages from the 5th to the 15th Century.

The Great Art of the Middle Ages from the 5th to the 15th Century, has been translated from the fine French of the eminent historian Georges Duby, and includes texts by Xavier Barral i Altet and Sophie Guillot de Suduiraut. Covering as it does the thousand years of sculptural history from the fall of Rome to the inception of the High Renaissance, this book could not possibly be detailed enough to satisfy anyone who already has a good acquaintance with the subject. Nevertheless, its coverage of all the major areas of its subject will make it a sturdy reference work, and it will introduce many to the excellences of what is apt to seem a dry and pallid subject. Something about the closeness and deep piety of this art makes it ideal for the cold, wintry days ahead. If Burckhardt's book breathes the heady exuberance of the Renaissance, the art carved such exquisite care into the porous granite of Chartres, the alabaster of Burgundy, and the polychrome limewood of Nuremberg suggests the cloistral seclusion of the Middle Ages. Duby and his co-authors explore how the native traditions of the Germanic and Celtic tribes after the fall of Rome, with their spiraling bosses and interlocking labyrinths of serpents' tails, mingled with the traditions of high classicism to produce the barbarously raw and beautiful art of the early Middle Ages. Following fast upon the staid neo-classicism of the courts of Charlemagne and the Ottos, the sinuously twisting figures of Moissac and Souillac seem all nervous distortion, and the lascivious depiction of Eve carved by Ghiselbertus over the trumeau of the Cathedral of Autun appears downright improper. Throughout Europe we see the Romanesque style expand and change, only to yield, in turn, to the far greater naturalism of the Gothic sculptures of Chartres, Claus Sluter's uncannily realistic statuary in Dijon, and the humanistic classicism implicit in Giovanni Pisano's pulpit in Pistoia.