The Gothic Screen Space, Sculpture, and Community in the Cathedrals of France and Germany, Ca.1200-1400

"In the Catharijneconvent Museum in Utrecht there hangs a panel painting whose diminutive size belies the magnificence of its contents (Plate I). Supporting a soaring canopy of rib vaults, two rows of polished marble columns mark the outer boundaries of the picture; their lower halves are concealed, however, by luminous winged altarpieces - most opened to display their gilt interiors, one decorated with paintings, and one still closed. But the sumptuousness of these material accoutrements carries little weight to the twenty-two tonsured men who fill the central space. With hands tucked into their gleaming white robes and mouths gently open as if in song, they gaze in quiet admiration at the Virgin Mary, dazzling with her loose golden locks and glittering crown, her gown of brocaded gold and purple velvet mantle, and the luminous infant she proffers to St. Dominic, the foremost friar. Whereas the phalanx of men forms a symmetrical buffer around the maiden and baby on the church's central axis, the scene is not wholly static. Following the steep orthogonals created jointly by architecture and figures, we discover the beginnings of movement as the two men farthest from our standpoint, thus deepest in the pictorial space, prepare to enter the choir"-- Provided by publisher.