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MEDIEVAL CHURCH ART
The Seven Sacraments Altarpiece.
By Rogier Van Der Weyden (1399 – 1464).
Illustration: MEDIEVAL CHURCH ART
The Seven Sacraments Altarpiece, by Rogier van der Weyden, is now in The Royal Museum of Fine Arts, in Antwerp, Belgium. It was painted between 1445 and 1450, when van der Weyden was in Brussels, and is generally held to have been commissioned for a Church in Poligny, in the Jura Département, Eastern France.
It is a Fixed-Wing Triptych, with a complex scene that continues across the three divisions of The Altarpiece. The central focus of the iconography is a large Crucifixion scene, with attendant figures set up in the centre of The Nave of a Late-Gothic Flemish Church. It’s a large Church, with double Side Aisles and an Apsidal East End with an Ambulatory. The Seven Sacraments are shown being acted out in the Church, primarily in the Side Aisles.
In this Article, I’m not going to look in any depth at The Sacraments as a whole, as I’m interested in focusing here on only one of them: The Mass [Editor: The Holy Eucharist]. In this complex image, there are three separate depictions of The Mass, all going on concurrently. I’m interested in thinking through what these depictions of The Mass might reveal to us about the use of space, the purpose of divisions within a Church building, and how 15th-Century Lay People encountered the Liturgical Action and experienced The Mass.
A Mass is taking place at an Altar up against the Chancel Screen.
The Priest is assisted by a Layman with an Elevation Torch.
Illustration: MEDIEVAL CHURCH ART
Behind the central Crucifixion, we can see that there is a division between The Nave and The Chancel of this large Flemish Church in the form of a Chancel Screen. The Screen, in part a barrier, physically and visually reveals and hides action going on behind it, but it is primarily presented here as a backdrop against which The Celebration of The Mass takes place.
In a recess in The Screen is an Altar, presumably Dedicated to The Virgin Mary, as there is a Reredos above it with her image. A Priest is Celebrating The Mass here, and he has come to the most Solemn moment of it, the Elevation of The Host.
We might think of the Late-Mediaeval Mass as a little-understood Ceremonial taking place apart from the people in a Clerical-ised, screened off zone. This Celebration of The Mass is in The Nave, the people’s space, and in proximity to them – the Sacred Species is shown here Confected among the hurly-burly of this busy place; God Incarnate comes Sacramentally into the midst of His people.
A Layman, in a Grey Doublet, stands some distance from the Screen Altar,
witnessing the Elevation of The Host.
Illustration: MEDIEVAL CHURCH ART
The Laity are not kept at a distance in this tableau, but play an integral part in this offering of The Mass. As the Priest elevates The Host, a Layman, in fine clothing, a Purple Doublet and Red Hose, holds an Elevation Torch, and he lifts the base of the Priest’s Chasuble. There is no fear here of any proximity to The Divine. Standing between two Pillars, is a man in a Grey, his hand on the knife at his belt, with his hat on the other, he focuses his attention on The Host; today, he has seen his Maker.
If we move to the Left-Hand Panel of the painting, to a depiction of a Side Aisle of this great Church, we see a Chapel at the end of the Aisle, screened off. There is an Altar, here, surrounded by "Riddels".
[Editor: Images and documentary mentions of early examples often have Curtains, called Tetravela, hung between the Columns; these Altar-Curtains were used to cover and then reveal the view of the Altar by the Congregation at points during Services — exactly which points varied, and is often unclear.
A Mass is taking place in a Chancel Side Chapel, beyond a Parclose Screen.
Lay people are gathered within the space.
Illustration: MEDIEVAL CHURCH ART
Altar-Curtains survived the decline of the Ciborium in both East and West, and, in English, are often called "Riddels" (from French "Rideau", a word once also used for ordinary domestic Curtains). A few Churches have "Riddle Posts" or "Riddel Posts" around the Altar, which supported the Curtain-Rails, and perhaps a Cloth, stretched above.
Such an arrangement, open above, can be seen in Folio 199v of The Très Riches Heures du duc de Berry. Late-Mediaeval examples in Northern Europe were often topped by Angels, and the Posts, but not the Curtains, were revived in some new, or refitted, Anglo-Catholic Churches by Ninian Comper and others around 1900.
In earlier periods, the Curtains were closed at the most Solemn part of The Mass, a practice that continues to the present day in the Coptic and Armenian Churches. A comparison to the Biblical Veil of The Temple was intended. The small domed structures, usually with Red Curtains, that are often shown near the writing Saint in early Evangelist portraits, especially in The East, represent a Ciborium, as do the structures surrounding many Manuscript portraits of Mediaeval Rulers.
A single Curtain, hung, usually, on a wall behind an Altar, is called a Dossal].
The Deacon singing the Gospel at a Lectern in the Chancel.
Illustration: MEDIEVAL CHURCH ART
There is an Altarpiece, a Wooden Tabernacle with an image of the Saints. A Priest, in a Blue Chasuble, turns to the people, perhaps he’s turned to say "Orate fratres et sorores", to ask his brothers and sisters to Pray for him, as he begins The Canon of The Mass and begins to offer The Sacrifice on their behalf.
It’s important to note that those who are witnessing this Mass taking place are within the screened off Chapel. There is a group of men and women, just within the Screen, to The Left, and there is another figure, on The Right of the entrance, who appears to be busy with his Primer. Just below the Altar Step, is a figure dressed in a Green Doublet, with a Purple Liripipe over his shoulder. Here, The Screen of this Chapel acts, not as a barrier to keep The Laity at a distance from The Holy, but as an enclosure in which men and women, seeking Christ’s presence, are welcome. The Screen exists only to mark the particularity of this Liturgical Space.
Then, there is The Third Celebration of The Mass depicted in this painting, but we only get a glimpse of it. In The Choir Screen, there are two Gates, and these give us a restricted view beyond to The Chancel of the Church. Our restricted view gives us enough visual information to be able to determine that Solemn Celebration, a High Mass,is underway, there. We see, through The Left Gate, the Deacon of The Mass in his Dalmatic, where he appears to be reading The Liturgical Gospel from an Eagle Lectern. This Lectern is placed just where you would expect it, below the Footpace of the Altar, and we can see the edge of the Altar enclosed with Riddel Posts, with figures of Angels on the top and with a Green Frontal. A Missal is open on a Lectern on the Altar. We can see no more of the Altar and cannot see the Priest and the other Ministers.
A couple stand in a Chancel Aisle, viewing The Mass taking place in the Chancel.
Illustration: MEDIEVAL CHURCH ART
There is a further visual clue that shows that a Mass is underway in the Chancel. Through The Right-Hand Gate of the Choir Screen, we can see the Arcade, that divides the Chancel from an Ambulatory, and there are no Screens to create a division between these spaces.
Beyond, standing in the Ambulatory, are two figures. The first is a man in a Blue Doublet, who appears to be looking across the Chancel to where the Deacon is reading the Gospel. His wife stands beside him, dressed in a Purple and Black Gown, she is reading and concentrating on her Primer, in its White Chemise covering.
These people are standing at a reverential distance from the action in the Chancel, but they are not shut out; without Screens under the Arcade they will have had an uninterrupted view of the action, an action that is hidden from our eyes by the Choir Screen. The Liturgical action in the Chancel is clearly more complex than in the other two Masses, and the distance of those Lay people is probably explained, not by a desire to keep away from The Holy, but through a need to allow the complex Liturgical action to take place unhindered.
One thing to notice about these three depictions of The Mass, in Van der Weyden’s painting, is that they are at different stages in the Celebration. Those stages in the Liturgical action are more or less evenly spaced out, and The Elevations of The Host would have been staggered.
The Celebration at The High Altar has only got as far as the Gospel; that in the Side Chapel has got as far as the beginning of The Canon of The Mass, and the most prominent Celebration, in The Nave, has reached the moment of Liturgical climax; The Elevation of The Host.
Late-Mediaeval Churches were busy places, where complex Liturgical action took place concurrently, and, if this painting's observation is any evidence, that action took place in close proximity to the people.
The Braque Triptych.
Artist: Rogier van der Weyden.
Current location: Louvre Museum, Paris, France.
Source/Photographer: http://www.google.ie/imgres?
(Wikimedia Commons)
Rogier van der Weyden, or Roger de la Pasture (1399 or 1400 – 18 June 1464), was an Early-Netherlandish Painter, whose surviving works consist mainly of Religious Triptychs, Altarpieces and commissioned Single and Diptych portraits. He was highly successful and internationally famous in his lifetime; his paintings were exported – or taken – to Italy and Spain, and he received commissions from, amongst others, Philip the Good, Netherlandish nobility, and foreign Princes.
By the latter half of the 15th-Century, he had eclipsed Jan van Eyck in popularity. However, his fame lasted only until the 17th-Century, and, largely due to changing taste, he was almost totally forgotten by the Mid-18th-Century. His reputation was slowly rebuilt during the following 200 years; today, he is known, with Robert Campin and van Eyck, as the third (by birth date) of the three great Early-Flemish artists (Vlaamse Primitieven or "Flemish Primitives"), and widely as the most influential Northern Painter of the 15th-Century.
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