In This Issue : Adam and Eve by Giselbertus
Autun Cathedral in Burgundy
Gislebertus
French Romanesque sculptor Gislebertus was one of the great geniuses of medieval art. His name is carved Gislebertus hoc fecit beneath the feet of the central figure of Christ in the tympanum of the west doorway of Autun Cathedral in Burgundy. The tympanum seen of the cover of the catalog (with our Adam and Eve carvings superimposed as lintels, represents the Last Judgment; it is a huge work (over 6 m. approx. 20 feet wide at the base) and a masterpiece of expressionistic carving, conveying with awesome power both the horror of the damned and the serenity of the elect. Most of the rest of the sculptural decoration of the cathedral can be confidently attributed to Gislebertus. It includes a carving of Eve, one of the few surviving fragments of the north doorway (now in the Musée Rolin, Autun), a large-scale reclining nude without parallel in medieval art. These display his great fecundity of imagination and range of feeling.
It is highly probable that Gislebertus was trained in the workshop that was responsible for the decoration of the abbey of Cluny, the most influential of all Romanesque monasteries, and that he worked at the nearby cathedral at Vezelay before going to Autun. He was already a mature artist when he started at Autun, where he worked c. 1125-35, and his style changed little while he was there. His influence was felt in the sculpture of various Burgundian churches, and many of his ideas had a long-term effect on the development of French Gothic sculpture.
The Trials of History
The Fire and Revolutions
A variety of Gothic additions were made to the church, including the great spire (raised by Cardinal Rolin), after a fire in the 15th century. But the main core of the church and its magnificent sculptures remain firmly Romanesque.
Many of the magnificent sculptures survived the French Revolution thanks to local clergy who, ironically, did not like them at all. In 1766, the canons decided the portal sculptures were mediocre and out of date and accordingly covered them with a thick layer of plaster and painted a more contemporary design over it. Christ's head kept protruding out of the plaster so they hacked it off and cast it aside. It survived in a local collection before being given to the Musée Rolin in 1895. It was returned to its proper place in 1948.
This saved them from certain destruction a few decades later when the tomb of Lazarus and the north tympanum with the Adam and Eve lintels (which had not been plastered over) were mostly smashed to bits by revolutionaries. In 1837, an Autun clergyman began chipping away the plaster over the main portal and was surprised to find the almost perfectly preserved original tympanum underneath
The lying Eve lintel, which adorned the North Portal of the cathedral, and was carted off in the 18th century, is now in the Musée Rolin.
With its strikingly elongated figures, the Eve (North Portal), is the first large scale nude in European art since antiquity and a model of sinuous grace (rather like a serpent herself), tentatively grasping the apple offered by the serpent, while whispering to Adam of her discovery.
“Beautiful, languid and sensual, this figure of Eve definitely seems more attractive and suggestive than struck by the original sin! Whatever the motivations of the sculptor (probably Gislebertus himself), it remains that this image expresses the freedom of the artist and his aspiration towards beauty beyond the stereotypes of his time." From an article on-line
This north portal of St. Lazare suffered the most harm over the years. Here Gislebertus had portrayed the resurrection of Lazarus, as well as Satan, Adam, and this magnificent Eve whose gesture at the moment she picks the fatal apple is an unrivaled example of absent-minded detachment. Of the main figures that adorned this entrance, only Eve has survived. She disappeared for years, having been carted down in 1766 by a local builder named Tacot, who incorporated it into a nice house he was building in nearby Rue de Lattre for the family Tacot. Almost exactly a hundred years later, the lintel pieces of Eve lacking Adam were rediscovered during renovation work on the house to the foot of the hill where the large stone on which she is carved served as building material for a house constructed in 1769. There she remained hidden for a century until that dwelling in turn was torn down.
In 1837, archaeologists freed The Last Judgment from the mortar and in 1858, the architectural restorer Viollet-le-Duc restored the tympanum by replacing lost or damaged sculptures with copies, leaving the head of Christ unrestored. In 1948, St. Lazare's choir-master Abbe Denis Grivot, proved what he and others had suspected. A head of Christ in a nearby museum was the sculpture that had been removed 200 years previously. Grivot found that the sculpture fit perfectly into the tympanum. Other sculptures remain missing.
The Flight into Egypt and Judas Hangs Himself, etc.
As Denis Grivot says, it is still entirely possible that the north portal lintel images of Adam and the devil will turn up in an Autun house, as may the tympanum images showing the resurrection of Lazarus. Some of the sculptures are in the Metropolitan Museum in New York, which has an archivolt angel as has the Fogg Museum in Cambridge, Mass.
The Adam lintel accompanying the Eve from the north portal has not been seen and no images of its likeness have been seen for centuries…until now.
"Fidem Fati Virtue Sequemur"
With courage follow the promise of Destiny!
“Thank you for your kind letter of February 6th regarding the Williamsburg Circle of International Arts and letters. I am pleased and grateful to be invited to the first event on April 14th...I am sure it will be a great success."
Thomas P. Campbell, Director, Metropolitan Museum of Art
In 2012 Terrance Lindall founded the Williamsburg Circle with outstanding scholars, writers and artists.
Dr. Robert J. Wickenheiser, Chairman of the Williamsburg Circle, 19th president of St. Bonaventure, was asked to lecture on his collection of John Milton, one of the greatest in the world. On display was the gold illuminated elephant folio of Paradise Lost and many editions from the 17th century onward.
At that time Terrance added new works of art to his Milton collection for display at Wickenheiser’s lecture that included two remarkable alabasters of Adam and Eve. They were two of the most expressive works on the subject Terrance had ever seen. The dealers from whom he bought them knew they were Romanesque or Gothic, but what they did not know was that the Eve was a representation of the Eve of the Autun Cathedral.
Terrance displayed them but did no further research on them until he decided to do a catalog for the Yuko Nii Foundation Milton collection in February of 2015 in preparation for the 2017 Paradise Lost exhibit celebrating the 350th anniversary of the publication of Paradise Lost.
Lo and behold, there was no photo or drawing or rendition of the lost Adam that accompanied the Eve lintel in any library or museum!
The Lost Gislebertus Adam
These YNF alabasters of the Autun Adam and Eve lintels were probably done while the Autun lintels were intact before or after the 15th century fire or before the 18th century “redecorating” and plastering or even the possible French Revolution smashing, which means somewhere between the 15th and 18th centuries, or even back further to the 12th century. The YNF alabaster may be the only surviving replica of this Gislebertus Adam masterpiece, which makes it significant.
The originals were probably of limestone and they were door lintels, quite large. The YNF alabasters are quite small. The YNF Adam might be quite important because we know of no other representation of that Lost Adam.
Perhaps Gisiebertus did small alabasters of the saints so his stone carvers had a model. Supposedly Michelangelo did small models out of plaster. There was a recent controversy about the discovery of a plaster model of Michelangelo's David. Or else some artist did these as copies for a wealthy client or other church.
In any case, the alabasters are really beautiful with their patination of age. Certainly quite old. But it would be nice to date them and explain them.
We are doing a catalog of our collections and would very much appreciate any insight from an expert.
“Hast thou not wonderd, Adam, at my stay? Thee I have misst, and thought it long, But strange Hath bin the cause, and wonderful to heare: This Tree is not as we are told, a Tree Of danger tasted, nor to evil unknown Op'ning the way, but of Divine effect [ 865 ] To open Eyes, and make them Gods who taste
“Thus Eve with Countnance blithe her storie told; But in her Cheek distemper flushing glowd. On th' other side, Adam, soon as he heard The fatal Trespass don by Eve, amaz'd, Astonied stood and Blank, while horror chill [ 890 ] Ran through his veins, and all his joynts relax'd;”
John Milton Paradise Lost, Book 9
