Naumburg master

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Donor figures in the Naumburg Cathedral Hermann von Meißen and Reglindis
Donor figures in Naumburg Cathedral Ekkehard II and Uta

Naumburg Master (also Master of Naumburg ) is the emergency name of a medieval stone sculptor who is not known by name . He worked in the middle of the 13th century and is considered one of the main masters of this epoch. His sculptures are among the most important works of art of the European Middle Ages.

The Naumburg master was most likely trained in northern France, when high Gothic was already flourishing there. Around 1225 he was probably active in Noyon , Amiens and Reims , and later perhaps in Metz . From around 1230 he worked on the cathedral in Mainz , where he created the only fragmentary West Latvian . His figurative program also included his Martins relief, created around 1240, which is now in the parish church of Bassenheim near Koblenz and is known as the Bassenheimer Reiter . Then he moved further east. The west choir of Naumburg Cathedral with the twelve donor figures and the rood screen in front are his main work, which is why he was named Naumburg Master. The donor and patronage figures from around 1260 in the Meissen Cathedral are also assigned to his workshop .

Individual aspects of the work of the Naumburg master

When the Naumburg master arrived in the cathedral city on the Saale that gave him his name, the construction of the new cathedral, which began around 1210, was almost complete. The construction of a west choir began around 1245, perhaps not until 1250. In 1249, Bishop Dietrich II and the cathedral chapter called for donations for the completion of the cathedral building, i.e. for the further construction or the construction of the west choir, which should have been completed around 1257. In current research, the dating of the sculptural works usually ranges between the second half of the 1240s and the 1250s.

The construction of the west choir began with the construction of the polygon. The Westlettner was not built until the west choir was structurally connected to the late Romanesque cathedral. In keeping with the new, early Gothic style, the new building is equipped with rich, realistic leaf capitals. The leaf capitals on the Westlettner in particular have been admired often.

Crucifixion group and passion reliefs

The crucifixion group stands directly at the entrance to the choir. To the left and right of the vertical cross beam are the two passages into the interior of the choir. When entering the west choir, one therefore passes under the outspread arms of Christ, past the side figures of Mary and John the Baptist. There were relics in the head of the Christ figure. On the parapet of the rood screen stage there are reliefs depicting the Passion. In the gable in the middle there is a stucco relief in a quatrefoil with the representation of Christ as judge of the world, surrounded by the arma Christi .

The reliefs show the passion in a dramatically moving, haunting and at the same time realistic way. The Naumburg master also paid attention to a realistic depth effect.

The details are shown (from south to north): the Last Supper, the betrayal of Judas, the capture of Christ, the denial of Christ by Peter (not as a relief, but as a group of figures: Peter and the maid, as well as two soldiers, left and right the gable drains), Christ before Pilate, the flagellation and the carrying of the cross. The last two reliefs mentioned are copies, as the originals were badly damaged in the cathedral fire in 1532.

The donor figures

Uta von Naumburg ( Naumburg Cathedral )

Some of the donor figures made from Grillenburg sandstone are inscribed with inscriptions. The others cannot be consistently identified with certainty.

In front of the service bundles that separate the front yoke and the end of the choir, the main donors stand north and south - in the north Margrave Ekkehard (identified by the shield inscription) and Uta , in the south Margrave Hermann and Reglindi . The four figures at the end of the choir, all with shield inscriptions, are more or less clearly identified: Dietmar, Syzzo ( von Kevernburg ), Wilhelm von Camburg and Thimo von Kistritz. The four figures on the walls of the front yoke cannot be assigned with certainty.

Ernst Schubert developed the thesis that the donor figures were made as a replacement for donor tombs in the cathedral and in the early Romanesque collegiate church, which were abandoned in the course of the late Romanesque cathedral construction. However, Holger Kunde recently made this reconstruction improbable with new evidence.

The figures of the margrave married couples and the statues in the polygon have been built as a unit with the services behind them. This is why it has always been assumed that the Naumburg master was not only the creator of the figure designs and the most important sculptor, but also the builder responsible for the west choir. It has also been suspected again and again that besides him several stonemasons worked on the figures.

Episcopal tomb and deacon

In addition to the pictorial works mentioned, the bishop's tomb in the east choir and the “deacon” also placed there today can be ascribed to the Naumburg master in the cathedral. The tomb shows Bishop Dietrich II of Naumburg , who built the west choir and completed the construction of the new cathedral in the 13th century. The attribution is considered certain; the earlier identification as the tomb of Bishop Hildeward has been convincingly refuted. The location of the grave also speaks for Dietrich: As the builder and finisher of the cathedral building, he was given the most prestigious place in the church building directly in front of the main altar. The deacon figure is actually a lectern. The pictorial solution chosen here was imitated several times.

Bassenheim rider

Bassenheim rider

Another work of art that is attributed to the Naumburg master is the so-called Bassenheimer Reiter . The roughly 1 meter square sandstone relief shows St. Martin of Tours sharing his cloak with the beggar. Originally, the relief was created around 1240 for the west lettuce of Mainz Cathedral . When this was demolished in 1683, Canon Waldbott von Bassenheim had the relief walled up in the outer choir wall of the parish church of his ancestral home. In its successor building it is now installed on the inside above the left side altar. The assignment to the Naumburg master was made in 1935 by the art historian Hermann Schnitzler .

Further aspects of the history of art and reception

Tomb of the knight Hermann von Hagen

More recently, Wolfgang Hartmann has for the first time put forward the thesis that the Naumburg canon Magister Petrus von Hagen established the connection to the outstanding artist. More recent studies by Volker Seifert and Holger Kunde come to the same conclusion independently of one another. Both show u. a. points out that the Naumburg master is also responsible for the tomb of the knight Hermann von Hagen, preserved in Merseburg Cathedral , who was verifiably a brother of the master’s.

Furthermore, the Horburger Madonna is attributed to the Naumburg master.

To the reception history

The older art history of the Naumburg master in the 100 years before 1990 was given by G. Straehle in his dissertation, taking into account over 800 titles. Numerous quotes from the sometimes difficult to access original publications are available online here. A juxtaposition of the often strongly differing views, which despite all the advances in the development of the sources and the research methods, still clash, show the limits of objectivity.

With regard to the donor figure of the Naumburg West Choir, usually referred to as Gepa, Straehle speaks of “a long line of interpreters of this figure who were repeatedly unsure whether the widow was to be described as old or young.” This illustrates the importance of subjective sensitivities the interpreter and other viewers in the artistic and religious experience, which is even higher in the interpretation of facial expressions and gestures.

The history of reception also includes the novel on the heretic of Naumburg , mentioned in section 4.1 , which has found wide circulation with numerous editions. The fictional and imaginative story was created against the background of a frequently published representation by Pastor Paulus Hinz about the Naumburg master as a Protestant in the Middle Ages . This in turn is based on the thesis put forward by Ernst Lippelt, a professional art historian, in 1938 of the influence of the Waldensians as the “ Protestants before the Reformation ” on the Naumburg master.

The Waldensian thesis was not required to recognize the Protestant character of the Naumburg West Choir and the donor figures. As early as 1933, in the 1st edition of Richard Hamann's then widespread art history, a " medieval Protestantism " of the donor figures in Naumburg Cathedral as a " medieval Protestant church " with a relief depiction of the Passion of Christ on the rood screen " as in heretical southern France " was established. Regarding Lippelt's 1938 Waldensian thesis, Hamann's 1955 publication on the famous abbey church in Saint-Gilles-du-Gard in southern France states that the thesis has an intrinsic probability “ at least in art ”.

It was about " the survival of a hostile thesis ", as the headline of a multi-page consideration by Straehle. Violent hostility came from East and West, but ultimately fizzled out. In the dissertation it says: “For Hinz 'study ..., especially for his newly recorded and excellently researched religious-historical excursions to the history of the Waldensian movement, however, a science based on orderly theological worldviews had around the mid-1950s in East and West no longer used. "

There is broad agreement that the relocation of the diocese from Zeitz to Naumburg under the influence of the Ekkehardian Margrave of Meissen from the 1st half of the 11th century had a major influence on the design of the west choir more than two centuries later. In the exhibition brochure of the "United Cathedral Donors" it says about the planning of this choir: "In the cooperation of Bishop Dietrich II. , Leading representatives of the cathedral chapter and the master called from Mainz, the plan emerges to establish the legal basis of the Naumburg diocese seat with this western end."

With this in mind, it was decided that, exceptionally, “non-saints” should be represented in a cathedral choir, which elsewhere was reserved for apostles and saints . The aristocrats gathered in the figure cycle are historically divided into three generations of the 10th and 11th centuries. They stand like saints under large canopies, but appear in the same "liveliness" and clothing as the later, contemporary observer, who was also called to donate.

An important part of the theological message of the choir is conveyed by the stained glass in the windows, some of which date from the time the choir was built. These are the depictions of the wise and foolish virgins as well as the virtues and prophets triumphing over vice , while the Passion, scenes from Mary, apostles as well as other prophets and other saints are also depicted on very high quality discs from the first third of the 15th century.

According to H. Krohm the west choir was "obviously built to here in Eucharist to commemorate and prayer fraternization the benefactor of the diocese from the time of transfer of the episcopal in 1028". In contrast, in other subsequently named representations, the design of the choir as the venue of the common ecclesiastical and secular jurisdiction placed in the foreground.

Current questions

Beyond the “immanent critical” processing of the Naumburg literature, an independent contribution was made in Straehle's dissertation with the further development of a “synodal choir hypothesis” founded for the west choir by Friedrich Möbius in 1989 by opening up new sources. The original plan of an episcopal synodal choir as the site of the unified ecclesiastical and secular jurisdiction based on the Mainz and Bamberg model was then modified by the master's choir concept with a donor cycle and rood screen. The modification was made as a result of shifts in power "in a way in which the supremacy of the margrave ... is expressed in the meeting of a noble society of eleven founders and an 'Occisus'."

Concerning the state of research, a letter that G. Straehle wrote to Emeritus Friedrich Möbius as a doctoral student in 2007 on the question:

"Can a critical review and presentation of past researchers' opinions help to clarify the actual meaning of the Naumburg donor cycle?" (Of course, this also applies to the West Lettner and the Naumburg master as a whole.)

Möbius had said “tendentially no ”, because this still requires considerable basic and source research, for which he has drawn up a program. Straehle, on the other hand, writes “tends to be yes ” and explains this in detail based on his dissertation. The following section also corresponds to this view.

meaning

The Naumburg master is one of the most important artistic personalities of the high Middle Ages. Although he cannot be traced in the sources, research has been able to assign him sculptures in several important churches due to his characteristic style. It is not clear whether he made the sculptures himself or whether other stonemasons were involved; It is also uncertain whether he executed the Meissner figures himself or had them executed after the middle of the 13th century. The work of the master in Merseburg, Naumburg and Meißen goes hand in hand with the change in style from late Romanesque to early Gothic. Within the works assigned to him and his workshop, there is a style development towards High Gothic, which begins to establish itself in central Germany around 1260. This development can already be seen in the last works created in Naumburg, such as the crucifixion group, and it will be completed in Meißen. The activity of the master attracted a rich succession in Central Germany.

literature

  • Wolfgang Hartmann: From the Main to Trifels Castle - from Hirsau Monastery to Naumburg Cathedral. On the traces of the Franconian noble family of the Reginbodonen in the Middle Ages. Aschaffenburg 2004, ISBN 3-87965-098-5 . (Publications of the History and Art Association Aschaffenburg eV, Vol. 52.)
  • Albrecht Gubalke: Gerburg. Tried to interpret the donor figures in the Naumburg Cathedral of Christendom. , Wilhelm Schneider Verlag , Siegen and Leipzig 1943., Ppbd., 121 pp.
  • Holger Kunde: The west choir of Naumburg Cathedral and the Marienstiftskirche. Critical research considerations. In: Enno Bünz , Matthias Werner (ed.): Religious movements in the Middle Ages. Festschrift for Matthias Werner on his 65th birthday. Böhlau, Cologne 2007, ISBN 978-3-412-20060-2 .
  • Hartmut Krohm, Holger Kunde (ed.): Catalog for the exhibition 2011 Der Naumburger Meister. Sculptor and architect in the Europe of cathedrals. 2 volumes. Michael Imhof Verlag, Petersberg 2011, ISBN 978-3-86568-601-5 . (Critical to this: Peter Kurmann: The Naumburg Master - A Revenant of Art History . In: Kunstchronik 66, 2013, 481–488)
  • Gerhard Straehle: The Naumburg Master in German Art History. One Hundred Years of German Art History 1886-1989 , Critical Art History, Munich 2009. ISBN 978-3-936275-01-8 (= Dissertation Munich 2009 full text ; PDF; 15.5 MB)
  • Gerhard Straehle: The Naumburg donor cycle. Eleven donors and the slain in the west choir (synodal choir) of Naumburg Cathedral (= The Blue Books). Langewiesche publishing house, Königstein i. Ts. 2nd edition 2013, ISBN 978-3-7845-2962-2 .
  • Hermann Schnitzler : An unknown equestrian relief from the circle of the Naumburg master , in: Zeitschrift des Deutschen Verein für Kunstwissenschaft 2, 1935, pp. 398-423.
  • Günter Donath, Frank Richter; with a contribution by Holger Kunde: Gardens made of stone: the flora of the Naumburg master . Michael-Imhof-Verlag, Petersberg 2015, ISBN 978-3-7319-0315-4 , p. 272 .
  • Peter Bömer: The Westlettner of the Naumburg Cathedral and its sculptures. Studies in the history of form and function. Regensburg 2014. ISBN 978-3-7917-2563-5
  • Bernadett Freysoldt: Art-technological investigation of the polychromy of the sculptures of the Naumburger Westlettner. Collecting, securing and interpreting the findings. Regensburg 2015. ISBN 978-3-7917-2598-7
  • Daniela Karl: The polychromy of the Naumburg donor figures. Art-technological investigation of the color versions of the 13th and 16th centuries. Regensburg 2015. ISBN 978-3-7917-2599-4
  • Dominik Jelschewski: Sculpture, architecture and construction technology of the Naumburg West Choir. Regensburg 2015. ISBN 978-3-7917-2600-7
  • Ilona Katharina Dudziński: The western latin of Naumburg Cathedral. Historical building research on architecture and sculpture. Regensburg 2018. ISBN 978-3-7917-2754-7

novel

Web links

Commons : Naumburger Meister  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Notes and individual references

  1. ↑ Capital with male figure , website of the Gipsformerei Staatliche Museen zu Berlin accessed on January 19, 2020 based on a finding by Richard Hamann-Mac Lean from 1935
  2. ^ Volker Seifert: New research on the Naumburg canon Magister Peter von Hagen. In: Yearbook of the Historical Commission for Saxony-Anhalt. Vol. 25, Cologne / Weimar / Vienna 2007, pp. 95-108.
  3. ↑ In his Festschrift contribution, H. Kunde mentions the book by W. Hartmann on p. 215 only when criticizing the insufficient consideration of sources on the western choir ensemble.
  4. ↑ Straehle 2009.
  5. ↑ A wide range of humanities and natural science studies are being carried out in the “Naumburgkolleg” , a graduate college for interdisciplinary research on the history of architecture, furnishing and conservation of the west choir of Naumburg Cathedral from 2009–2012.
  6. ↑ Straehle 2009, p. 7. In a further footnote on p. 907 8 examples are given from one extreme to the other.
  7. ↑ Jens-Fietje Dwars : Continued Reflections - Continuities and Breaks in the Reception History of the Naumburg Masters. In: Krohm and Kunde, 2011, Vol. I, pp. 43–64. An illustrated brief description of the associated part of the exhibition can be found in the Internet brochure listed under the web links on page 22f. - In the features section of the Frankfurter Allgemeine on June 27, 2011 according to faz-net , it was said about the sins of the past described: “The abuse that Germanness practiced on him has pushed the ingenious Naumburg master out of our consciousness. Now an exhibition on his pan-European Gothic is rehabilitating him. "
  8. ↑ Paulus Hinz : The Naumburg Master. A Protestant man of the 13th century. 1-8 Ed. Evang. Publishing house Berlin 1951–1960.
  9. ↑ A Protestant Waldensian church still exists today with almost 100,000 members worldwide. - In R. Schuder's novel, the medieval Waldensians are largely dealt with jointly with the Cathars, who were persecuted even more intensely by the Roman Church and who were ultimately destroyed in crusades . These were the original namesake of the heretics and also had their followers mainly in southern France. - The ideological freedom, which is not consistently given even in the art-historical representations that touch on these questions, cannot be expected for a novel-like representation.
  10. ↑ Richard Hamann , "History of Art" Vol. II: "From the early Christian times to the present". Akademie-Verlag Berlin and Droemersche Verlagsanstalt Munich 1959 (anniversary edition for Hamann's 80th birthday), pp. 301–304.
  11. ↑ The term “Protestant” was often referred to as unhistorical in connection with the cathedral and its master, although this criticism does not apply to “ heretical ” , which is used in the same sense but is less common . - The cathedral finally became Protestant in the historical sense when the first Protestant bishop of the empire was installed in Naumburg in the wake of the Reformation in 1542 .
  12. ^ Richard Hamann: The Abbey Church of St. Gilles and its artistic successor. Akademie-Verl. Berlin, text volume 1956.
  13. ↑ Hamann viewed the master's visit there as very likely due to several iconographic similarities with Naumburg. On the other hand, a stay in the south of France is hardly considered by other authors and also not considered necessary for a Waldensian influence because of its expansion to the north at the time.
  14. ↑ Straehle 2009 p. 756. Previously, he characterized an attack by W. Hütt, the lead author of “The Naumburg Cathedral, Architecture and Sculpture” (Dresden 1956) , who believed in progress : “ With reference to Friedrich Engels (and certainly in the sense of the ruling ... ) Hütt declared the Waldensians to be a reactionary movement of alpine shepherds who resisted social progress, which at that time would still have been represented by feudality. "
  15. ↑ Also Richard Hamann was then attacked first from both sides and then often ignored. There are now more factual representations in an anthology by Ruth Heftrig and Bernd Reifenberg (eds.): Science between East and West. The art historian Richard Hamann as a border crosser . Writings of the University Library Marburg No. 134. Jonas Verlag, Marburg 2009, ISBN 978-3-89445-427-2 . - For his work on art history at the GDR Science Academy as well as on relevant questions of “art history between East and West” see Friedrich Möbius : Basilica and Hall Church and the “ideological systems” of art history. Personal remarks on Uwe Bölt and Matthias Müller's article “Class-fighting vocabulary in GDR art history”. In: Critical Reports: Journal for Art and Cultural Studies. Vol. 19 (1991) No. 2, pp. 6-13. Abridged in the FAZ on November 28, 1990.
  16. ↑ See under “Weblinks”: Download brochure on the Naumburg Master (2011), p. 7.
  17. ↑ Whatever the religious convictions of the master and his attitude towards the cult of saints, which the Waldensians rejected (Straehle 2009, p. 676ff.), The already discussed Bassenheimer Martin relief depicts a much venerated saint. As with the example of the Gepa donor figure of Gepa (see above), there are also a wide variety of interpretations up to the Goethean "two souls in one breast" as an alternative to two different masters (reported in Straehle 2009 p. 865).
  18. ^ Hartmut Krohm: Concept and program of the Naumburg West Choir. (Introduction). In: Krohm u. Kunde, 2011, vol. 2 p. 1115.
  19. ↑ See also the book by Straehle (2011) on the “Westchor (Synodal Choir) of the Naumburg Cathedral” .
  20. ↑ According to the end of the "Abstract" for the dissertation under "Weblinks".
  21. ^ Addendum to the Straehle dissertation in the online edition (p. 1088ff.).
  22. ↑ Franz Jäger, Helga Sciurie (ed.): Form - function - meaning: Festschrift for Friedrich Mobius's 70th birthday. Glaux Verlag, Jena 1999, ISBN 3-931743-24-1 .
  23. ↑ On the importance of the master for the high medieval cultural landscape, or, as it is called there, "rulership landscape " on the Saale and Unstrut see Walter Bettauer et al. (Red.): Ways to World Heritage. The Naumburg Cathedral and the high medieval landscape on the Saale and Unstrut. Friends of the "World Heritage on Saale and Unstrut eV", Naumburg 2011, ISBN 978-3-00-026640-9 . (online) (PDF; 10.5 MB). Here is a World Heritage application project is UNESCO with the already in the Tentative List of BRD added Naumburg Cathedral described as a central object.
personal data
SURNAME Naumburg master
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Master of Naumburg (emergency name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Stone sculptor of the Middle Ages
DATE OF BIRTH 12th century or 13th century
DATE OF DEATH 13th Century