1. Bachelors Bridging the Baltic: The Artistic Ambitions of the Tallinn Brotherhood of the Black Heads, c. 1400-1524.
- Author
-
Keelmann, Lehti
- Subjects
- Art History, Medieval, Early Modern, Baltic, Hanseatic League, Artistic Patronage
- Abstract
The Brotherhood of the Black Heads was a religious, military, and commercial corporation unique to the territory of Livonia (modern-day Estonia and northern Latvia). This dissertation examines the artistic patronage of the Brotherhood in fifteenth- and sixteenth-century Reval (Tallinn, Estonia). I focus on the agenda and values of the corporation through an interrogation of the Brotherhood’s artistic ambitions. During the fifteenth- and sixteenth-centuries, the Hanseatic League oversaw a vital trade network in the Baltic Sea region. Reval served as a crucial port town on the easternmost reaches of the mercantile community. I seek to move beyond conceptions of centre-periphery relations in the Hanseatic League and I use the Brotherhood as a case study to engage with larger issues of artistic exchange and mediation. The aspirations of the corporation and its construction of identity are arguably most compellingly visualized in the two extant altarpieces co-commissioned by the association with its father organization, the Great Guild. The two retables are the Saint Nicholas Altarpiece (1478-81, oil and tempera on panel and polychrome oak sculpture) by Hermen Rode and the Mary Altarpiece by the Master of the Saint Lucy Legend (before 1493, oil and tempera on panel). The altarpieces convey the way in which the Brotherhood wanted to be perceived as an organization open to the world, yet with a local orientation, asserting its Revalian position as a lucrative gateway to Orthodox Russia. Imported from the artistic centres of Lübeck and Bruges, these retables display saints such as Victor of Marseille and Nicholas of Myra, who are showcased within ornate, earthly interiors adorned with luxury articles such as Baltic furs, amber jewellery, Flemish tapestries, eastern Mediterranean carpets, and Spanish tiles. The altarpieces point to the desire of Brotherhood members to promote themselves as wealthy merchants with links abroad, but above all, to demonstrate their piety and devotion as servants of God seeking salvation. Both retables are fashioned with a degree of material opulence and conspicuous display intended to overwhelm viewers. Together they demonstrate the scope and diversity of art patronage in the Hanseatic League beyond the cultural center of Lübeck.
- Published
- 2016