Nature and the Chapel Vaults at Ingolstadt Structuralist and Other Perspectives

Ethan Matt Kavaler

The sixteenth century saw the creation of remarkable works of Gothic architecture highly innovative in technical a~d decorative aspects and none more so than the six western chapels in the Church of Our Lady in Ingolstadt Bavaria Here we encounter a self-conscious use of the Gothic in the establishment of a sacred environment a space for mystical illumination These chapels thus constitute a set of demonshystration pieces for a mode of design in need of refurbishment as well as a series of essays in creating an environment conshyducive to profound religious experience

The chapels at Ingolstadt also exemplify the fashion for vegetal imagery around the tum of the sixteenth century Beneath a complex surface pattern of ribs the architects Erhard and Ulrich Heydenreich suspended a second level of flying ribs carved to simulate pruned vines and flowers in bloom (Figs 12)1 The six chapels designed by the Heydenshyreichs show a range of the most sophisticated vaulting forms then being employed Two of the chapels feature strictly architectural detailing while four present the remarkably naturalistic effects of the radical botanical imagery then i~ vogue Portals altarpiel=es choir stalls tabernacles and other elements likewise shared in this penchant for the organic transformation of architectural members

Scholars have offered mainly iconographic interpretashytions for the plantlike forms at Ingolstadt seeing them as simulating a divine arbor a paradisial garden but these analyses are too specific and selective to account for such phenomena A rigid iconographic analysis falsely attributes a certain and stable meaning to the vaults which more likely depended for their range of meaning on the vagaries of preconscious associations A different but more secure level of meaning is found in structural terms as an opposition between geometric tracery and vegetal sculpture That is

-gt each component derived much of its significance from its position relative to the other in this self-contained system Such a structuralist approach offers an understanding that transcends iconographic explanation but can be compleshymented by it

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At Ingolstadt as elsewhere geometry is a central reference Both layers of ribs acknowledge an underlying geometric order but whereas the architectural members reveal a close dependence on geometric shapes the organic elements partly obscure this relation The architectural and organic exist side by side and derive a significant level of meaning from the presence of the other Thus the pruned and flowshyering vegetal forms suggest a radical abnegation of the archishy tectural structure a canceling of the precise linear geometry that governs the whole The abstract architectural members by contrast register as permanent and supportive of the overall edifice a mark of stability in the face of the willful

movement of the organic This binary relation seen in the vaults atmiddot Ingolstadt is also evident in countless other examshyples of vegetal imagery from this time2

Even when one turns to iconographic analysis it is not clear that the botanical forms in microarchitecture and larger edifices must be interpreted in a positive way It is equally valid to read the vegetal imagery at Ingolstadt as a perverse corruption of divinely ordained maUer as a departure from Gods initial plan Nature as an arena for the competition between good and evil was as much a topos of the late Middle Ages as the heavenly garden

Although histories of the Gothic often end before 1500 the years that followed produced the south porch of Notre Dame at Louviers (begun 1506) the nave of the Church ofSt Barbara at Kutnl Hora Bohemia (begun 1512) and the cathedral of Segovia (begun 1522)-an impressive pan-Euroshypean array of ecclesiastical monuments These buildings while distinct from earlier Gothic creations in several ways are alike in one sense each represents the use of Gothic design over an alternative Italianate manner that had reshyl=ently been recognized if only sparingly employed With the French campaigns into Italy after 1494 and the subsequent importation of Italian art aItists and working methods to the north a southerlt or antique approach was soon introshyd~ced into-northern Frances In southern Germany commershycial and humanist connections with Venice likewise proshymoted the adoption of an Italian manner leading to such Italianate constructions as the Fugger Chapel in Augsburg4

Fran~ois Bucher and Paul Crossley have argued that ever since German architects were called down to work at Milan Cathedral about 1400 a consciousness of alternative Italian practice had spread through the German landss Certainly this was the case by the early sixteenth century It makes sense to regard the Gothic style of this time as a mode a conscious choice even ifan obligatory one over an opposing ltalianate approach

Several of the designers of this period worked simultashyneously in both modes At Prague Benedikt Ried composed Italianate windows for the exterior of the Hradchin in Prague (1493) while in the interior he fashioned a series of state-ofshythe-art Gothic vaults (1493--1502)6 Pierre Chambiges deshysigned both the south transept portal of Senlis Cathedral a Gothic creation and the antique ch~teau ofSt-Germain-enshyLaye7 And in the Netherlands Jan Gossaert worked concurshyrently in both a Gothic and an Italianate mode presenting both approaches together in his Salamanca triptych of 15218

Even those architects and designers who practiced only in a Gothic style appreciated the possibility of an alternative mode Many sought to reempower the Gothic through novel technical and decorative means Among the more notable Gothic structures of the sixteenth century are a series of chapels that feature double-layer vaults At Frankfurt Meisenshy

234 ART BULLETIN JUNE 2005 VOLUME LXXXVII NUMBER 2

5 Ingolstadt Church of Our Lady third chapel vault 1510-20 (photo author)

The fifth and sixth chapels purely architectural display no botanical features (Figs 89) Yet they too exhibit an avantshygarde construction The vault shell of the fifth chapel (Fig 8) has a surface woven of double-curved ribs that inscribe a pattern of half circles and lobed squares encasing four dagshygers This tracery pattern on the center of the shell with its deeply cut and cavernous extremities manifests an interest in contemporary German and Austrian vaults At Freistadt in Lower Austria for example (Fig 10) a Schlingrippengewolbe a vault of looping ribs presents circles and half circles over its broad center that frame lobed squares containing similar tracery designs of four daggers forming a four-pointed star although without the second layer of flying ribs The vault in Freistadt may have been completed by 1501 or more likely after a fire in 1507 which would make it even more contemshyporary with the chapel at Ingolstadt At any rate the Freistadt design repeated with variations in other chapels and churches is closely related to a drawing in the Akademie der bildenden Kunsten in Vienna which demonstrates its wide appeal and dissemination in the early years after its creshyation IS The looping ribs at both Ingolstadt and Freistadt emerge from deep cavities at the sides of the vault and cross each other as they ascend toward the center much in keepshying with the complexities of late-fifteenth-century Gothic in the German lands Ribs disappear into the webbing at certain places and end abruptly at others cut off from their supports

6 Ingolstadt Church of Our Lady fourth chapel vault 1510shy20 (photo author)

Such playful intricacies recall the innovative vaulting designs of Benedikt Ried in early-sixteenth-century Bohemia in the Vladislav Hall at the Hradchin in Prague or at Kutna Hora where ribs cross and end suddenly in midair on either side of their presumptive supports16

The sixth and final vault at Ingolstadt (Fig 9) also betrays an interest in the latest vaulting developments in the German lands This is in some ways the simplest of the vaults for it boasts no suspended layer of flying ribs to generate a dynamic relation between registers The boss at the center of the vault arranged as a decorative six-pointed star with cusped tracery here provides the sculptural element Again circle and arc motifs frame the central boss and create interesting geometshy

ric figures across the flat extent of the ceiling Particularly notable however are the curved-rib fragments forming inshytersecting arcs crossing each other at several locations This abbreviated variation of the looping rib vault was also an innovation of Benedikt Ried in Bohemia and his followers in Germany The ribs to the vault over the rider stair at the

234 ART BULLETIN JUNE 2005 VOLUME LXXXVII NUMBER 2

5 Ingolstadt Church of Our Lady third chapel vault 1510-20 (photo author)

The fifth and sixth chapels purely architectural display no botanical features (Figs 89) Yet they too exhibit an avantshygarde construction The vault shell of the fifth chapel (Fig 8) has a surface woven of double-curved ribs that inscribe a pattern of half circles and lobed squares encasing four dagshygers This tracery pattern on the center of the shell with its deeply cut and cavernous extremities manifests an interest in contemporary German and Austrian vaults At Freistadt in Lower Austria for example (Fig 10) a Schlingrippengewolbe a vault of looping ribs presents circles and half circles over its broad center that frame lobed squares containing similar tracery designs of four daggers forming a four-pointed star although without the second layer of flying ribs The vault in Freistadt may have been completed by 1501 or more likely after a fire in 1507 which would make it even more contemshyporary with the chapel at Ingolstadt At any rate the Freistadt design repeated with variations in other chapels and churches is closely related to a drawing in the Akademie der bildenden Kunsten in Vienna which demonstrates its wide appeal and dissemination in the early years after its creshyation IS The looping ribs at both Ingolstadt and Freistadt emerge from deep cavities at the sides of the vault and cross each other as they ascend toward the center much in keepshying with the complexities of late-fifteenth-century Gothic in the German lands Ribs disappear into the webbing at certain places and end abruptly at others cut off from their supports

6 Ingolstadt Church of Our Lady fourth chapel vault 1510shy20 (photo author)

Such playful intricacies recall the innovative vaulting designs of Benedikt Ried in early-sixteenth-century Bohemia in the Vladislav Hall at the Hradchin in Prague or at Kutna Hora where ribs cross and end suddenly in midair on either side of their presumptive supports16

The sixth and final vault at Ingolstadt (Fig 9) also betrays an interest in the latest vaulting developments in the German lands This is in some ways the simplest of the vaults for it boasts no suspended layer of flying ribs to generate a dynamic relation between registers The boss at the center of the vault arranged as a decorative six-pointed star with cusped tracery here provides the sculptural element Again circle and arc motifs frame the central boss and create interesting geometshy

ric figures across the flat extent of the ceiling Particularly notable however are the curved-rib fragments forming inshytersecting arcs crossing each other at several locations This abbreviated variation of the looping rib vault was also an innovation of Benedikt Ried in Bohemia and his followers in Germany The ribs to the vault over the rider stair at the