Image, Imitation, Indulgence. Netherlandish Art and Devotional Practices in Denmark-Norway c.1400-1600

The around sixty late medieval Netherlandish carved altarpieces preserved in Scandinavia comprise valuable information about the development of workshop practices, styles, forms and iconography. Testifying to the so-called "infinite variety" of such altarpieces, the ones in Scandinavia also add to the contextual discourses of late medieval Netherlandish art in general, visualizing and reflecting changing modalities of persuasion, concepts of gift-giving and habits of religious reading. The project "Image, Imitation, Indulgence" has demonstrated how the cults and the representations of saints Maria Magdalena, Gertrude of Nivelles and Clare of Assisi changed and/or spread locally through import art. The project has also looked into the co-operative altarpiece production in Antwerp by analysing the relation between artistic on-site choices and the ones (possibly) requested by the patron in the making of the altarpiece in Ringsaker parish church, Norway. Moreover, the project has studied the inclusion of the motif known as The Resurrected Christ Appearing to His Mother in Netherlandish altarpieces. The motif appears proportionally more frequent in the ones imported to Scandinavia than elsewhere in Europe. The preserved corpus invites us to discuss to which extent altarpieces made for export were prone to receive unsanctioned, apocryphal motifs; if the many examples found in Scandinavia are merely an accident; or if the appreciation of the scene in the north is to be traced not to Vita Christi-literature in general, but to the encounter between mother and son referenced in the visions of St Birgitta.

By exploring how devotional literature and devotional artefacts originally written and produced in the Netherlands affected devotional practices in Denmark-Norway between ca.1400-1600, this project has focused on a hitherto unrecognized European dimension of contemporary religious culture. The project instigated a novel research agenda, addressing the altarpieces as "travelling concepts". By seeing the objects as transmitters of doctrinal tenets visually, the project came closer to constructing the laity's religious experiences aligned with the following changes in religious paradigms 1) imitation in the wake of the devotio moderna in the 14th century; 2) indulgence in the wake of the concept of the immeasurable abundance of the saints? merits in the 15th century; and 3) what Martin Luther referred to as memory-images after the Reformation in the 16th century.

The proposed project offers a contextualization of objects hitherto only studied in order to catalogue imported altarpieces according to style and stylistic development or by way of their physical appearance. Therefore, embedding them in liturgical rituals and devotional practices, does not only contextualize the object themselves, but also widen our understanding of how they acted as transmitters of religious culture from a centre of religious reform (the Netherlands) to areas in the European periphery (Denmark-Norway). In particular, the altarpieces will be examined as possible transmitters of ideas influenced by the devotio moderna, founded in 1374 as a movement calling for apostolic renewal through the rediscovery of genuine pious practices such as humility, obedience and simplicity of life. Followers of the movement favoured a more intimate and affective devotion and the trade in indulgence letters increased dramatically. The main hypothesis is that through their displayed imagery, carved altarpieces imported to churches further north were both active and incidental catalysts for the development of liturgical rites and devotional practices acted out in their vicinity. In order to get a more thorough understanding of these practices, the project combines an innovative approach with a diachronic perspective. The former is conceived by accessing the conglomerate of image (altarpiece), imitation (devotion) and indulgence (the care-taking of one's afterlife) as a single unit, drawing on the concept of hierotopy (sacred + place, space). The diachronic perspective is achieved by an examination of traces of devotio moderna also in Lutheran and Calvinist theology and the re-use of medieval sculpture in the early Protestant church room, arguing that the presence of certain saints and visual dogma in the altarpieces were a pretext for preserving or re-using them in the church room notwithstanding reformatory iconic strifes.