Claus Sluter

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(From left) Zechariah, Daniel, and Isaiah from the "Well of Moses," marble sculpture by … (credit: Foto Marburg/Art Resource, New York)

(born c. 1340/50, Haarlem?, Holland — died between Sept. 24, 1405, and Jan. 30, 1406, Dijon, Burgundy) Early Netherlandish sculptor. He entered the service of Philip II the Bold in 1385 and became his chief sculptor in 1389. All his surviving sculptures were made for the Carthusian monastery of Champmol at Dijon, which Philip founded. Sluter moved beyond the prevailing French taste for graceful figures, delicate movement, and fluid falls of drapery and toward highly individual naturalistic forms. His works infuse realism with spirituality and monumental grandeur. His influence was extensive among both painters and sculptors of 15th-century northern Europe.

For more information on Claus Sluter, visit Britannica.com.

(b Haarlem, c. 1360; d Dijon, before Feb 1406). Netherlandish sculptor, active in Burgundy. He formulated the 15th-century Burgundian style and strongly influenced northern Renaissance sculpture. The name Claes de Slutere van Herlam appears in the guild list of the Brussels stone-cutters and masons about 1379. After possibly training in a family workshop in Haarlem, his formal training probably took place after he arrived in Brussels. This would make a birth date of c. 1360 more probable than 1340, as has been suggested. The various changes in the spelling of Sluter's name, his continued association with contemporaries in the guild list, and the influence of Brussels artists on his work, all indicate that he spent a considerable length of time there.

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The Dutch-Burgundian sculptor Claus Sluter (ca. 1350-1405/1406) was the most important northern European sculptor of his age. He restored figural sculpture to its former monumental scale. He is considered a pioneer of "northern realism."

Claus Sluter was born in Haarlem. Records indicate that by 1380 he was active in the stonecutters' guild in Brussels. The present state of our knowledge does not afford a satisfactory answer to the question of his training and the formative influences on his style. It is conjectured that in this early period he worked on a set of seated prophets for the Brussels Town Hall.

Sluter's first certain activity occurred in 1385, when Philip the Bold called him to the court at Dijon to assist Jean de Marville in the design and preparation of statues for the facade of the chapel at the Chartreuse de Champmol, a nearby Carthusian monastery founded as a place of interment for the ducal succession. Whatever the nature of Sluter's apprenticeship, he apparently arrived at Dijon a complete master of his craft. At Marville's death in 1389, Sluter succeeded him and is generally credited with the execution of most of the surviving portal sculpture. Life-size portraits of Philip and his duchess, Margaret of Flanders, flank a freestanding group of the Madonna and Child. Not only is this work characterized by an unprecedented degree of sculptural realism, but the artist's feeling for organic form and the expression of human emotions are greatly advanced for the period.

In 1392 Sluter visited Paris to purchase alabaster, and in 1395 he made a trip to the Low Countries to buy marble. His next major commission was a Calvary group intended for the cloister of the Chartreuse de Champmol. Executed between 1395 and 1405, the Well of Moses, as it is usually called, is the only extant work entirely by Sluter. Of the original group, six large statues of prophets and an equal number of mourning angels are all that remain. These figures are especially noteworthy for the strong sense of tragedy which they evoke and the highly individualized treatment of character. Sluter's great feeling for sculptural form, combined with rich surface texture, is most fully revealed by the figures of Moses and Isaiah, which rank among the greatest masterpieces of medieval sculpture. His nephew and successor, Claus de Werve, assisted him, and Jean Malouel was responsible for gilding and polychroming the statues. Several of the figures still retain vestiges of the original paint.

When Philip the Bold died in 1404, Sluter was given the task of designing a tomb (now in the Musée des Beaux-Arts, Dijon) for his great patron and benefactor. Though Sluter did not live to see the finished work - it was completed by Claus de Werve in 1410 - it is thought that a major part of the carving is by his own hand. Much damaged during the French Revolution, the tomb was heavily restored in 1824. Sluter's chief contribution to the work is the figures of the mourners (pleurants), which are located in individual architectural niches below the recumbent form (gisant) of the duke. Intensely realistic, yet profoundly emotive, these mourners represent the highest achievement of his art. Too advanced for his age, Sluter had little impact on the subsequent development of late Gothic sculpture.

Further Reading

The most important work on Sluter is in German. A brief but excellent account in English of Sluter's style is in Erwin Panofsky, Early Netherlandish Painting (2 vols., 1953).

David and a prophet from the Well of Moses

Claus Sluter (born 1340s in Haarlem ^[1]; died in 1405 or 1406, Dijon) was a sculptor of Dutch origin.^[2] He was the most important northern European sculptor of his age and is considered a pioneer of the "northern realism" of the Early Netherlandish painting that came into full flower with the work of Jan van Eyck and others in the next generation.

Sluter probably worked in Brussels before moving to the Burgundian capital of Dijon, where from 1385 to 1389 he was the assistant of Jean de Marville, Court Sculptor to Philip the Bold, Duke of Burgundy. From 1389 to his death he was Court Sculptor himself, with the rank of valet de chambre. He was succeeded by his nephew Claus de Werve.

He restored the monumental scale and naturalism of the classical era to figural sculpture. His later work is highly emotional, using facial expressions, figural stance, and drapery; this can be particularly seen in the heavy folds of cloth that so many later imitators draped around their figures. His most famous surviving work is the Well of Moses (1395–1403), created for the Carthusian monastery of Champmol built by Philip the Bold just outside Dijon (at the time - now part of the city). Sluter was also responsible for the main part of the work on Philip's tomb, which (restored and partly reconstructed) has been moved to the former ducal palace in Dijon.

References

1. ^ [1] Netherlands Institute for Art History
2. ^ Murray, P. & L. (1997). Penguin dictionary of art and artists (7th edition ed.). London: Penguin Books. pp. 492. ISBN 0-14-051300-0. 

External links

• Claus Sluter Works at Artst.org

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