Monks, or modern dancers? Robes dwarf these hooded men, but outsized drapery befits their monumental expressivity.
Claus Sluter (with Claus de Werve), Mourners, Tomb of Philip the Bold, Duke of Burgundy, 1410 (Museum of Fine Arts, Dijon)
[0:00] [music]
Dr. Steven Zucker: [0:04] We’re in the Museum of Fine Arts in Dijon, and we’re looking at one of the great treasures of Burgundy. These are the Mourners, a series of small alabaster carvings of Carthusian monks, the clergy, and the family mourning the death of Philip the Bold, the Duke of Burgundy.
Dr. Beth Harris: [0:22] The Dukes of Burgundy, specifically at this time Philip the Bold, ruled Burgundy, which included Flanders, areas that are today France. He was very powerful, very wealthy, and he had established a Carthusian monastery just outside of the city walls of Dijon as a burial place for his family.
[0:42] These mourning figures occupied arcaded space below a sculptural effigy of the duke himself in prayer and angels ushering him into heaven. The idea of making his tomb there was that the monks in this monastery would be available to pray for the soul of Philip the Bold.
Dr. Zucker: [1:03] The most remarkable element here is the individuality of each of these figures.
Dr. Harris: [1:08] That’s something that Claus Sluter, who was one of the sculptors along with Claus de Werve, was known for, a kind of attention to realism and expressiveness.
Dr. Zucker: [1:19] There’s something incredibly powerful and monumental about these tiny little figures. They’re only about 18 inches, 14 inches tall, and yet there’s a real sense of solemnity.
Dr. Harris: [1:30] Well, they’re certainly not the ethereal, swaying figures that we see normally in Gothic art. Here’s this transitional moment away from the Gothic toward what we think of as the Renaissance. The figures have that weightiness and a new monumentality to the drapery and bodies that we associate with the Renaissance.
[1:50] But these figures are so expressive. Each one represents, in a way, a different aspect of grief. It’s not just in the faces. In many cases, we don’t see the faces. The figures are hooded. It’s in their drapery. It’s in their bodies, that emotion.
Dr. Zucker: [2:06] They do embody the very notion of mourning.
Dr. Harris: [2:10] This is a figure where we don’t see the face at all. We see a hood in place of a face. And [these] vertical folds of drapery gathered in one place where the monk underneath is obviously holding the drapery in a sense of pain.
Dr. Zucker: [2:23] That’s right. It’s turning inward, and the drapery becomes as expressive as a human face, as hands, even when they’re not exposed to us.
Dr. Harris: [2:31] In some ways, it’s incredibly modern. It’s almost like Martha Graham and dance, where the movement of folds of cloth is expressive of feeling.
Dr. Zucker: [2:41] I love the way so many of the figures deal with the pain of mourning in an isolated way, but then there are also these very tender moments where there’s a comforting that takes place.
[2:53] Seeing these figures isolated outside of the context of the effigy allows us to see that abstraction, but of course, this would have been just one element in a grand space that was meant to honor the dead.
Dr. Harris: [3:05] You’re right. We’re here, and the figures are in glass boxes. We can walk around them, but we certainly were never meant to see them this way.
[3:11] [music]
