Church Art and Architecture in the Low Countries before 1566 by Jeremy Dupertuis Bangs (review)

304book reviews Eamon Duffy's article on rood screens deals with the function of the screen, its decoration, the piety underlying that decoration, its removal, restoration, and removal again. Duffy reminds us that while benefactors might pay to have the screen painted, while they might choose the saints to be painted and their placement on the screen, they first had to obtain the permission and concurrence of the parish for their benefaction, thus demonstrating the corporate nature of the medieval English parish. John J. LaRocca, SJ. Xavier University Church Art and Architecture in the Low Countries before 1566. By Jeremy Dupertuis Bangs. [Sixteenth Century Essays and Studies, Vol. XXXVII.] (Kirksville, Missouri: Sixteenth Century Journal Publishers. 1997. Pp. xii, 244. $65.00.) Bangs's book aims to recreate what the churches in the Low Countries looked like before they were stripped of their art during the Reformation. His book is designed to counter what Bangs takes to be common misconceptions that Dutch churches were always "Calvinistically empty" and that virtually no art survived the iconoclastic riots of 1566. To this end, after a brief historical account of the 1566 riots, Bangs devotes the bulk of his book to studying the art objects and furniture found in Netherlandish churches during the preReformation period. The broad variety of objects includes baptismal fonts, pulpits , choir screens, choir stalls, organ cases, altarpieces, tabernacles, paintings, stained glass, statues, tombs, textiles, and Mass implements; a closing section addresses Gothic and Renaissance architecture of the Lowlands. By and large, each chapter focuses on a single type of church furniture.After briefly assessing how the art form under consideration functioned within Catholic practice, and the attitude of the Reformers toward such works, Bangs provides a chronologically organized, descriptive survey of the style and iconography of the main surviving works. Among the better-known of these works are Reinier of Huy's baptismal font in Liège, Jacques Dubroeucq's choir screen at Mons, Cornells Florisz. de Vriendt's tabernacle in Zoutleeuw, Cornells Engebrechtsz' Crucifixion triptych, and Jan Borreman's St. George altarpiece. The book's utility lies in its offering the only complete survey of Catholic church furnishings in Dutch churches. Moreover, the analysis brings out a number of interesting stylistic issues, documenting not only the shift from Gothic to Renaissance styles, but also the combination of the two styles within single works of art (as seen, for example, in the Leiden pulpit). In addition, the book raises important points about how church furnishings conveyed Catholic theological beliefs and even at times contained specifically anti-Reformation iconographie programs (an issue considered,for example,in the study of the pulpit at 's Hertogenbosch). book reviews305 However, it is difficult to ascertain who the audience for this book might be. For the book is too specialized and at points presupposes too much art historical background to be fully accessible to the general reader. On the other hand, the book's value to the scholar of Netherlandish art is limited by the absence of sufficiently detailed analyses of individual works (many of the works are treated in just a single paragraph), and by the lack of sustained attention to key issues raised by the material (for instance, the interrelation between the various art forms, the impact of standardization on design, the nature of the different production centers, the documentary evidence about lost works, and the role of patronage). One would, of course, not expect a treatment of all of these issues within a book of this size and scope; nevertheless, because the book does not treat any of these at any length, it provides one seriously interested in this area with only a basic acquaintance with the art objects, not an interpretive structure for further study. The book's production,while generally good,has some minor flaws: there are some problems with the quality of photographs (e.g., Figs. 82, 109), a couple of inaccuracies in photo captions and numbering (in Chapter 9), and a vexing lack of consistency in the arrangement of columns, which, when interrupted by photographs, sometimes read across (as on p. 1 19), and sometimes down (as on p. 28). Lynn F.Jacobs University ofArkansas Early Modern European...