Last Judgment Tympanum, Cathedral of St. Lazare, Autun Video Lecture - Humanities/Arts

(piano playing)
Dr. Zucker: The prospect
of spending an eternity
in Hell is terrifying
even in the abstract,
but to be confronted with
images that depict this
must have really scared the medieval mind.
Dr. Harris: We're
looking up at the doorway
of the Cathedral of
Autun which represents,
I think, the most terrifying image of
The Last Judgement, of the damned in Hell
that exists in art history.
Dr. Zucker: Of course
it also includes Heaven,
but I think people were, probably,
spending much more time looking
and fearing Hell.
This is a sculpture
that is one of the first
monumental sculptures to be made in the
Medieval period.
There had been, of course,
monumental sculpture
in Ancient Greece and Ancient Rome
but after the 5th Century or so,
monumental sculpture really fell away
and this has been part
because of the economic
and political chaos of
the Medieval Period.
It's at this time, around
1000 or just after that
things begin to stabilize.
Dr. Harris: There's an
enormous building boom
of churches in Europe during this time
and we begin to see monumental sculpture
on the doorways of churches and inside the
churches on the Capitals.
Dr. Zucker: We have this
magnificent new cathedral
at Autun and it's
important to remember that
this was because of the
relics that were here.
Dr. Harris: Pilgrims were
traveling all over Europe
during this period to visit the relics,
the parts of saints, in
this case, here at Autun
the bones of St. Lazarus;
each church had relics.
Dr. Zucker: The relics
were extremely important.
It was believed that
they could heal the sick,
that could offer blessings that might even
shorten ones time in purgatory if you came
and paid homage to them,
if you prayed to them.
Dr. Harris: Often
churches were refurbished
or special reliquaries were made to house
those relics, but in the case of Autun,
this church was built
specifically to house
the relics of St. Lazarus.
They built a whole
church for their relics.
Dr. Zucker: Of course there's
the spiritual dimension,
but there's also an economic dimension,
these relics were economic
engines for a community
because you had these pilgrims come in,
they needed to stay in
inn's, they needed to eat,
there was a real economic prosperity that
surrounded important relics.
That's certainly the case here.
If you think about Lazarus,
the person who's bones
are within the church,
this is the brother of
Mary Magdalene who Christ
brought back to life,
according to the New Testament.
This is about rebirth,
about a kind of hope
after death.
Of course, that is the subject of
The Last Judgement.
Dr. Harris: So we imagine
the faithful looking up
at this doorway reading
the sermon in stone,
as Bernard of Clairvaux said, the story
of The Last Judgement,
people were illiterate,
this was how they learned these stories.
Dr. Zucker: The images really were text
and we are meant to read them,
so let's go ahead and do exactly that.
Dr.Harris: So, we have
the most obvious figure,
Christ in the center.
He's bigger than everybody else.
Dr. Zucker: This is a kind
of heiratic organization,
the most important
figure is largest by far.
He's so flat, he's so linear,
and there's no concern
with the proportions of his body.
Dr. Harris: He's
elongated and we see lines
that are carved into the
stones to indicate these
repeated folds of drapery.
Dr. Zucker: There's real
concern with the decorative.
Dr. Harris: He's frontal,
he's symmetrical,
he's this divine figure who
stares out in judgement.
Dr. Zucker: He stares out
past us as if he's on a plan
that is completely different from ours.
He sits on a throne that
is the city of Heaven
and you can make out the
little arched windows
both below his feet and
as if it was actually the
furniture that he sits upon.
Of course that's a literal reading
and this is meant to be metaphoric.
His hands and his halo and his feet
break the mandorla.
This almond shape that completely encloses
his body and is meant
to function as almost
a kind of a full body halo,
a representation of his divinity.
Dr. Harris: There are four
angels that surround him
that seem to be ushering him forward.
Dr. Zucker: They also
are literally holding up
the Mandorla as if this divine light that
surrounds Christ has weight.
Dr. Harris: And like
Christ, those angels are
also elongated, their
bodies move and twist in
these wonderful ways.
Dr. Zucker: There is this
incredible expressiveness.
Dr. Harris: We read images
of The Last Judgement
thinking about Christ's
left and Christ's right.
On Christ's left are the
damned, going to Hell
and on his right are
the blessed who've been
selected for Heaven.
Dr. Zucker: On Christ's right, at the top,
we see the Virgin Mary
who's enthroned in Heaven.
There's an angel next to her.
Dr. Harris: Blowing a
trumpet to awaken the dead
and to announce the coming of Christ.
Dr. Zucker: We can see
the architecture of Heaven
itself with some blessed souls within it.
We can see angels, as
well, assisting the blessed
into Heaven.
It's interesting to note
that souls are represented
as nude figures.
Dr. Harris: One of the most famous parts
of this Tympanum is the
figure of St. Michael
who is weighing souls, a demon seems to be
trying to tip the scales
in favor of those who have
sinned so they can get
more souls for Hell.
Dr. Zucker: It's so
interesting to think about this
literal representation
of the weighing of souls,
that morality has gravity in some way.
Dr. Harris: Look at
that figure who hides in
the drapery, those curling,
lovely swirls of drapery
of St. Michael.
That figure is so
different from the figures
to the right who are
being pulled up by hooks,
by a demon, into the fires
of Hell who have realized
that they're going to spend
eternity being tortured.
Dr. Zucker: It's pretty bad.
Dr. Harris: It's terrifying.
Dr. Zucker: I find the
demons much more interesting.
Their mouths are gaping open,
they look just ravenous
as if they're ready
to eat those souls.
They've got claws, there's
a three headed serpent
wrapping around the legs
of one of the devils.
There really are images of horror here.
Dr. Harris: There's an
inscription right below
the figures that make this point exactly.
It reads, "May this terror
terrify those whom earthly
"error bind, for the
horror of these images here
"in this manor truly
depicts what will be."
In the Medieval mind
there is no doubt this
will happen and where will you be
when this happens?
Dr. Zucker: And don't
look to Christ because
Christ is looking past us, it's too late.
So, let's move down
then to the area that's
closest to us that speaks to this issue
of which side will we be on.
The Tympanum itself is that Lunett,
it's that half circle, but it's supported
by a long cross beam
which is called a Lintel.
This is the moment when
the dead are lifted out of
their graves, are
resurrected to be judged.
This is kind of a line,
waiting, for the judgement.
Dr. Harris: They're
literally, at this moment,
emerging from their tombs.
Dr. Zucker: You can see the
sarcophagi at their feet.
I see an angel that is
clearly helping one soul,
but on either side there
are two other souls
who seem to desperately
clutch at that angel
hoping that he'll bring
them along as well.
As we move to the center,
things almost seem to
become a little less certain.
You can see two people
purses, one with a cross,
one with a scalloped shell.
This would be a reference
to pilgrims who had
perhaps gone to Jerusalem,
who had perhaps gone
to Spain trying to visit important relics
so that they might be among the blessed.
Dr. Harris: Right, to
improve their chances of
getting into Heaven.
Dr. Zucker: And if you
didn't thing would not
always work out well.
Dr. Harris: And so we see exactly that.
Directly below Christ
we see an angel wielding
a sword toward a terrified figure, who,
with his eyes bulging,
seems to try to move
away from the angel.
Dr. Zucker: And in fact
everybody who's in front
of the angel looks absolutely terrified.
Look at the figure that is kneeling,
clutching the sides of his head,
almost as if he's saying,
"How could this be true? How can it
"have come to this?"
Dr. Harris: If you continue
to bring your eye toward
the right we see figures who are contorted
in this recognition of their fate in Hell.
They bend their knees,
they form angular shapes
with their bodies,
compressed as though they're
being crushed into Hell.
It's incredibly expressive
in their bodies.
Dr. Zucker: Dramatic, absolutely,
but probably nothing is more dramatic than
the realization on the
face of the soul who's head
is being clutched by two enormous claws;
the hands presumably
of a devil who's being
plucked up into Hell.
Dr. Harris: You can see
that the sculptor carved
the eyes deeply, carved
the open mouth deeply
so that we get a sense of
his, almost, primal scream.
Our historian's have
interpreted an inscription
on the doorway which reads,
"Gislebertus hoc fecit,"
Gislebertus made this
as being an inscription referring
to the sculptor himself.
Dr. Zucker: That would
be extremely unusual.
In the modern era we
associate artwork with the
genius of the individual,
but in the Medieval Period
artists were craftsman,
artists were not seen
as individual geniuses.
So these objects were not signed.
Dr. Harris: But it was so nice to imagine
that we knew the name of
the artist who did this.
Dr. Zucker: There has
been some new scholarship
that suggests that perhaps
we have been mislead
and that Gislebertus is
not actually the name
of the artist.
Dr. Harris: The recent
scholarship suggests
that Gislebertus is
actually the name of a Duke
who was associated with bringing the bones
of St. Lazarus to Autun, so in a way,
legitimizing this church
as the rightful place
for the bones of Lazarus.
Dr. Zucker: But even if
we don't know the name
of the artist, we do know
the power of his work.
Dr. Harris: There's no doubt about that.
(piano playing)