St. Bernulphus Guild
The St. Bernulphusgilde was a Dutch Catholic association founded on December 1st, 1869, with the aim of preserving national tradition and expertise in religious art and architecture, through excursions and the publication of the magazine Het Gildeboek . The guild was named after the 11th century bishop of Utrecht, Bernulf von Utrecht . The guild remained active until the 1930s.
Foundation and activity
The association was founded in Utrecht by Gerardus Wilhelmus van Heukelum (1834-1910) based on the model of the Flemish St. Thomas and St. Lucas guild . The guild was originally only open to clergy, but flourished when membership was also opened to artists and architects. Although the guild had members all over the Netherlands, it played a special role in church building in the Archdiocese of Utrecht , which was newly created in 1853 , especially in the province of Utrecht . Members of the guild, mostly artists whom van Heukelum had brought with him from the Rhineland, fulfilled certain style requirements and received important commissions.
Architectural style
The prescribed style was a conservative variant of the Neo-Gothic , which refers back to the original late Gothic design , particularly the Lower Rhine Gothic, and was almost exclusively made from local materials such as brick . This so-called Utrecht School stood in contrast to the views of Pierre Cuypers , who, by the way, was an honorary member, for whom the neo-Gothic was a starting point for innovations. The visual arts were carried out in historicizing styles. Van Heukelum's collection of works of art from the Middle Ages was also made available to the public in a Utrecht museum from 1872. This was elevated to the Archbishop's Museum in 1882 and is the forerunner of today's Catharijneconvent Museum .
Famous members and works
The guild's leading artists were the architect Alfred Tepe , who almost had a monopoly on building new Catholic churches in the province of Utrecht, the sculptor Friedrich Wilhelm Mengelberg , who, together with his studio, was responsible for many of the church furnishings , the goldsmith Gerard Brom and the Organ builder Michaël Maarschalkerweerd . Well-preserved examples of churches that implemented the ideas of the St. Bernulphus Guild are St. Willibrord in Utrecht and De Krijtberg in Amsterdam. The Sint-Willibrordus Church from 1870 in Vierakker was one of the first churches to be built in this style. The St. Joseph Cathedral in Groningen, designed by Cuypers, houses a very impressive high altar by Mengelberg, which is widely regarded as one of the highlights of Dutch neo-Gothic art.
literature
- Wolfgang Cortjaens, Jan De Maeyer, Tom Verschaffel: Historicism and cultural identity in the Rhine-Maas area: The 19th century in the field of tension between regionalism and nationalism , Leuven University Press, 2008, ISBN 90-5867-666-8
