Beautiful Madonna of Toruń
The Beautiful Madonna of Toruń (Polish: Piękna Madonna z Torunia ) is a Gothic statue of Mary of Mary with baby Jesus . It is one of the artistically most valuable sculptural representations of the Madonna and Baby Jesus, which were created around the turn of the 14th to the 15th century. In terms of typology and style, this work is pars pro toto of the Beautiful Madonna, an iconographic type designed before 1400. The carved pictures of the Beautiful Madonnas represent the Soft Style (also international Gothic ), a style that emerged during the Central European Gothic.
Before the Second World War , the sculpture of the Beautiful Madonna was in the St. John's Church in Toruń (German Thorn ), a former parish church in the old town, today the cathedral of the Diocese of Toruń . At the end of the war the statue was stolen by the Germans and taken abroad; there is no trace of the stolen work. The original console with the bust of Moses , which formed the basis for the figure, has been preserved to this day. In place of the missing sculpture, a true-to-original copy of the Madonna figure with the baby Jesus is now available as a replacement, made by Witold Marciniak in 1956.
history
Located in the southern part of the Teutonic Order , Toruń became a great artistic center, including sculpture, in the 14th century. The patronage for the art was taken over by the increasingly strong civil society, which around 1390 commissioned an unknown artist, who is referred to in literature as the master of the Thorner Madonna , to create a monumental figure of Mary and the baby Jesus, probably for the Franciscan monastery of St. Mary in the old City. At an unknown point in time, it was moved to the St. Johanniskirche - a city parish church.
The Beautiful Madonna was mentioned in the sources for the first time in 1650 and again between 1667 and 1672 on the occasion of the visit of the Bishop of Kulm , Andrzej Olszowski. The canons Strzesz mentions the Beautiful Madonna as part of a larger altarpiece on the east wall of the north aisle (where today the copy of the Madonna is on the original console with Moses).
In 1921, Jan Rutkowski restored the sculpture, removed subsequent overpainting, but left traces of medieval polychromy behind. In 1942, German restorers restored the sculpture and filled in the gaps. Two years later the statue was removed from the console and placed in the conservation warehouse in Grębocin . Before the advancing Red Army , the Madonna figure was removed and taken to an unknown location, most likely somewhere in Germany. In 1956, the Thorner sculptor Witold Marciniak created a faithful copy of the lost work, which was placed on the original console with Moses.
Appearance
The Beautiful Madonna of Toruń is a fully plastic figure (worked out on each side) with a height of 115 cm. It is made of limestone , there are traces of polychromy on the surface. Maria was depicted as a youth, her face is full of beauty, she has delicate features, a high forehead, slightly covered eyes, small lips. Your hair is curly. On her head she wears a veil with the crown on it. The pose of Maria corresponds to the contrapostal scheme. She stands on the right leg while the left leg is slightly bent and slightly stretched forward. As a result, the head and body are curved in opposite directions. The silhouette of the body is very blurred.
The dress and the coat thrown over it lie freely on the body, whereby the figure is largely sculpted by the lush folds of the clothing. On the right side it is characterized by strong, parallel and arched bends, on the left side - similar to the veil - it has the shape of decorative festoons with cascading folds. The child is naked and is sitting on the mother's right arm. Its eyes are fixed on the apple, which it timidly touches with its left hand. The artist realistically sculpted the body according to the age of the child. The thick and curly hair is an expression of the sculptor's artistic freedom. There is a strong relationship between Mary and the young Jesus, which emphasizes Mary's tender, gentle gesture with which she hands the apple fruit to the child. The child responds with a similar gesture: the left hand touches the apple and the mother's right hand. This reference to the gestures accentuates the composition, which is based on the flowing folds of clothing, the contrapostal pose of Maria and the slightly bowed heads. The diagonal relationships between pose, gesture and folds harmoniously emphasize the dynamics of the sculpture's composition. The base of the figure is an octagonal base.
The sculpture of Mary with the baby Jesus stood on a decorative console, which consists of an almost fully plastic figure of Moses emerging from the flames of the burning bush . In contrast to the figure of the Beautiful Madonna, the sculptor did not show Moses completely. It is not a bust either, the sculpture reaches the height of the hips. The Prophet was shown here as a person in old age, his head bowed down, wrinkles appear on his cheeks and forehead, eyebrows and eye sockets are pronounced. In contrast to the highly sublime figure of the Madonna, the figure of Moses was designed more realistically, the artist stylized carved wavy strands of hair, beard and whiskers. Numerous defects can be seen on the sculpture, in particular the fingers of the hands and the second panel with the text of the Decalogue are missing .
analysis
The Beautiful Madonna of Toruń is considered to be the quintessence of the style around 1400; The tradition of Gothic realism, including Parler art , was also preserved here. This synthesis of style is evidenced by numerous elements: the composition is dynamic and fluid, beauty is largely idealized, the lush drapery of the clothing is subtly decorated, Mary has a counterost pose, the baby Jesus is softly modeled, the proportions are preserved, the sculptor has Knowledge of anatomy, individual pieces are spacious and the artist takes care of the details.
The name of the sculptor of the figure was unknown, so he was given the emergency name Master of the Beautiful Madonnas or Master of the Beautiful Madonna of Toruń . Due to new research, the master is attributed, among other things, the work Modlący się Chrystus (German The praying Christ ) in the Church of St. John the Baptist in Malbork (currently in the collection of the castle museum there), and he is also associated with Pieta in St. Barbara Church in Krakow. Research into the complete works of the Thorner master turns out to be complicated due to the similarities to many other works found in different places in Central Europe, both in terms of their composition, their style and their iconography . Therefore art around 1400 is called "international". The problem of the origin of the Thorner work largely reflects the hitherto unresolved questions about the sources of the Soft Style. The main centers that would shape the style around 1400 are the Czech Republic and Prague , Silesia and Wroclaw , France and Paris , Austria and Salzburg and Rhineland and Cologne . The court culture and the Parler current are important foundations for the Soft Style. In addition, these two trends have shaped much of Europe. Around 1400 East Pomerania belonged to the Teutonic Order State and became an important artistic region. The artistic centers were Gdansk , Toruń , Elblag and the Grand Master's seat , Malbork Castle . Numerous works from around 1400 have been preserved in Toruń (including Saint Mary Magdalene raised by angels from the Toruń Cathedral). Each of them has its own characteristics independent of the shape of the Beautiful Madonna, with the exception of the Madonna of Good Hope (also known as Madonna Brzemienna ) from the Toruń City Hall, which was lost during the Second World War. The researchers emphasize the close relationship between the Beautiful Madonna of Toruń and the Beautiful Madonna of Wroclaw; some of them associate the two works with the same sculptor. Numerous similarities to the figure from Toruń can be seen in statues of Mary and the baby Jesus in Bonn, in Mährisch Sternberg , and in Gdansk (including the Pietà in St. Mary's Church). In addition to Toruń as the place of origin of the Beautiful Madonna, researchers point to Prague. Numerous stone sculptures were created in this town around 1400, including the Beautiful Madonna of Český Krumlov (now in the collection of the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna). However, according to the majority of art historians who have studied this figure, it has no direct relationship with sculptures from Wroclaw and Toruń. The capital of the Czech crown belonged to the last Luxembourgers during the reign , especially King Wenceslaus IV . (1378–1419) and his father Charles IV ., To the most important artistic centers of Central Europe.
The beautiful Madonna of Toruń is characterized by rich symbolism as well as its biblical and theological references. The extraordinary beauty of Mary is the reflection of the spiritual beauty of the Mother of God in theology . With regard to the apple fruit given to Christ, Mary becomes the New Eve and Jesus the New Adam. This gesture means forgiveness and remission of the sins of mankind and of their ancestral father and their ancestral mother who, against the will of God, plucked the fruit of the tree of knowledge and ate it. The naked body of the baby Jesus presented by Mary not only reflects the humanity of the Savior, but is also associated with the Eucharist .
Adoration
Even after the loss of the original figure, the cult of the Beautiful Madonna of Toruń did not come to a standstill, rather she became an icon in both Toruń's culture and social consciousness. During the service that Pope John Paul II celebrated on June 7, 1999 as part of the seventh Apostolic Journey through Poland at the airport in Toruń, he received a replica of the Beautiful Madonna made by Tadeusz Porębski from the hands of the people of Toruń. On the first anniversary of John Paul II's visit, Radosław Ociepa unveiled a monument to the Polish Pope by the cathedral. It is the oldest of five monuments to John Paul II in Toruń. It shows the Pope presenting the figure of the Beautiful Madonna of Toruń in his hands. Today's replica of the Thorner sculpture can be found in the Basilica of the Beheading of John in Chojnice .
literature
- Jan Białostocki: Sztuka cenniejsza niż złoto . Warsaw 2004.
- Anna Błażejewska, Katarzyna Kluczwajd: Dzieje sztuki Torunia . Toruń 2008.
- Carl Heinz Clasen: The Master of the Beautiful Madonnas. Origin, development and area . de Gruyter, Berlin 1974, ISBN 3-11-003944-3 .
- Tadeusz Dobrowolski: Sztuka polska . Kraków 1974.
- Lech Kalinowski: Sztuka około 1400 . In: Sztuka około 1400. Materiały Sesji Stowarzyszenia Historyków Sztuki, Poznań, listopad 1995 . Warsaw 1996.
- Monika Jakubek-Raczkowska: Rzeźba gdańska przełomu XIV i XV wieku . Warsaw 2006.
- Monika Jakubek-Raczkowska: Plastyka średniowieczna od XIII do XVI wieku . Catalog wystawy stałej, Muzeum Narodowe w Gdańsku, Gdańsk 2007.
- Monika Jakubek-Raczkowska: Uwagi o znaczeniu tzw. Pięknych Madonn w sztuce i religijności państwa zakonnego w Prusach . In: Acta Universitatis Nicolai Copernici . Zabytkoznawstwo i Konserwatorstwo, Vol. XL, Toruń 2011, pp. 39–94.
- Janusz Kębłowski: Polska sztuka gotycka . Warsaw 1983.
- Janina Kruszelnicka: Dawny ołtarz Pięknej Madonny Toruńskiej . In: Teka Komisji Historii Sztuki , Vol. IV, Toruń 1968, pp. 5-85.
- Zygmunt Kruszelnicki: Piękne Madonny - problem otwarty . In: Teka Komisji Historii Sztuki , Vol. VIII, Toruń 1992, pp. 31-105.
- Anton Legner (ed.): The Parler and the Beautiful Style 1350–1400. European art among the Luxembourgers . Schnütgen Museum, Cologne 1978 (5 volumes).
- Wojciech Marcinkowski: Co to jest Piękna Madonna? In: Piotr Kapustka (Red.): Prawda i twórczość . Wrocław 1998, pp. 39–53.
- Wojciech Marcinkowski: Sztuka około roku 1400 - spór o pojęcia . In: Jerzy Gadomski (Red.): Magistro et amico amici discipulique. Lechowi Kalinowskiemu w osiemdziesięciolecie urodzin . Kraków 2002, pp. 51-62.
- Andrzej M. Olszewski: Niektóre zagadnienia stylu międzynarodowego w Polsce . In: Piotr Skubiszewski (Red.): Sztuka i ideologia XV wieku. Materiały Sympozjum Komitetu Nauk o Sztuce PAN, Warszawa, 1-4 grudnia 1976 . Warsaw 1976.