The Cistercian Arts from the 12th to the 21st Century ed. by Terryl N. Kinder and Roberto Cassanelli (review)

The Cistercian Arts is a magnificent compilation of scholarship that is truly synoptic. Here the splendors of architecture and art, which have traditionally drawn the attention of scholars, can be seen and apprehended, but they also can be seen together across a vastly extended range of Cistercian creativity. The reader can explore medieval Cistercian churches as well as learn about medieval mills and granges. The scholar is introduced to manuscripts, and medieval sacra vasa and seals. Furthermore, this summa of Cistercian productivity extends geographical boundaries so that information and illustrations are provided on Cistercian architecture in France, Italy, Spain, Germany, Poland, Hungary, and the Baltic regions. Above all, this synopsis allows the reader to see the entire field of Cistercian creation over time, since it encompasses not simply the medieval period but also the period between the order’s inception in 1098 and the present day. As Terryl N. Kinder says in her introduction, “this diversity represents the creativity of many people from widely different cultures and places and centuries, revealing a rich panoply that makes up the Cistercian order over time” (p. 9). Finally, the book is synoptic in that it allows the reader to see the fruits of the many different types and nationalities of experts who have contributed to this magnum opus. Essays by academic art and architectural historians are integrated with those by theologians, practicing architects, as well as Cistercian monks and nuns, all of different backgrounds and nationalities. Thus the reader is introduced to the sheer diversity of Cistercian studies.

In this context the chapters on Cistercian granges, hydraulics, mills, and forges are particularly valuable because they allow the reader to appreciate the achievements of the order in religious architecture, in the context of monks who were able engineers, industrialists, and businessmen. On another level, the chapters on St. Bernard of Clairvaux allow the reader to judge how far his principles, as expressed through his life and writings, infused the life and productions of the Cistercians for the next 900 years.

Such considerations inevitably lead to big questions. How far can an organization that has spread on a global scale and endured hundreds of years, and has included many types and nationalities of members, be seen to be cohesive and to be following unquestionably the precepts of its original founders? Within this book it is possible to see how soon the rules of simplicity and austerity were broken and how soon the tide of opinion turned against Bernard’s strongly worded comment on lavish ecclesiastical architecture and decoration in the Apologia ad Guillelmum abatem of 1125. We learn of extravagant Cistercian sacra vasa even in the twelfth century. We learn that, far from being cheap, the grisaille glass used in Cistercian churches was extravagantly expensive: “the appropriate agents from Cistercian monasteries wilfully and intentionally ordered the glassmakers under their employ to undertake this extra step and incur greater cost, because the Cistercian monks had an aesthetic preference for clear glass” (p. 211). The many illustrations allow us to see that medieval Cistercian architecture, far from being homogenous, was diverse, following the stylistic preferences of the builders of the different localities in which it was built. The chapters “Cistercian Nuns and Art in the Middle Ages” and “Seventeenth and Eighteenth-Century Cistercian Architecture in the German-Speaking Regions” leave us in no doubt that, for these Cistercians, simplicity was not a central precept.

This book shows the reader that the constant qualities that have driven all Cistercian productivity over the years are energy and ingenuity. It represents an excellent introduction to the Cistercian order, as rich and multifarious as the creations of the order itself.