080086 SE Seminar: Nicholas of Verdun (2016W)

Brought into focus will be two artworks: (1) The covering of the pulpit of the collegiate church of the Canons Regular of St. Augustine in Klosterneuburg (Lower Austria), carried out by the Lotharingian goldsmith Nicolaus of Verdun at about 1170 to 1181, two hundred years later (1330/31) being re-build into the later so-called "Verdun Altarpiece", now in the Leopold Chapel of the monastery; (2) the "Shrine of the Three Kings" of the Cologne Cathedral, datable between 1181 and 1205, which reasonably was planned by the same goldsmith who also carried out some figures of prophets for the shrine. These two works of art are lying equal - in their evolutionary relevance - with the frescos of the Sistine Chapel. Nevertheless, regarding the degree of fame, light years are lying between the two works of the goldsmith Nicolaus of Verdun and the frescos of Michelangelo.
The seminar wants to attract attention to these two works at the transition of the High to the Late Middle Ages, and here especially to their style, not only by deriving it but understanding it as evidence and therefore investigating the theological and philosophical context.
At the beginning of the seminar its head will present the two works in a condensed way. Topics will be: places of execution and purpose, content (Klosterneuburg: the typologic basic program and the compositional coherence of the matching types and anti-types), history of the rebuilding and restoration of the two works, places of installation in their contexts, liturgical use etc.
During the term emerita professor Hannelore Karl MA (University of applied Arts, Vienna) will give an introduction workshop about the technology of enamel applied at the Klosterneuburg-pulpit.