Les stalles de la cathédrale Notre-Dame d’Amiens: Histoire, iconographie (review)

The early-sixteenth-century choir stalls of Amiens Cathedral feature hundreds of sculptures on elbow carvings, misericords, panels, and other surfaces. Previous studies on this important monument have done much to address problems of iconography or construction techniques—the latter recently examined in an admirable book by Charles Tracy and Hugh Harrison. The primary goal of Kristiane Lemé-Hébuterne’s lavishly illustrated volume is to understand this corpus of wood carvings against the backdrop of late-medieval society. Consistently grounding her analysis in archival research and comparisons to other monuments, Lemé-Hébuterne’s book offers an informative and lucid overview of the stalls of Amiens, as well as late-Gothic stalls in general.

The text—supplemented by many excellent diagrams, indices, color photographs, and tables—is divided into three sections. The first considers the patrons and artists, offering succinct and informative introductions to houses of canons, as well as the working methods of early-sixteenth-century artists in northern France. Throughout this section, the strongest of the book, Lemé-Hébuterne exerts a vivid historical imagination, as when she asserts that the wood of the stalls was preferable to stone because it would have been more comfortable during the cold Picardy winters. The second section offers an overview of the iconographic themes and ornamental motifs, with occasional comments on the religious or political import of several carvings. The third aims to find reflections of daily life by focusing primarily on the figures of the elbow carvings.

The notes of this semi-popular study are spare, albeit informative, and a rather short bibliography includes important studies (all but one in French). The text is in an enthusiastic style appropriate for a general audience, but contains several perplexing statements. For example, what exactly does it mean to proclaim that “aucun ensemble de stalles n’exalte la religion chréti-enne autant que celui de la cathédrale d’Amiens” (p. 119)? Overlooking such platitudes, many of the observations in the largely descriptive art-historical analyses fail to add up to substantial conclusions. Lemé-Hébuterne repeatedly points out, for one, that the stalls combine what she identifies to be “Gothic” and “Renaissance” motifs, but never addresses the significance of this admixture. The author plausibly speculates that “Renaissance” motifs were transmitted to Amiens via Amboise (pp. 74–76), but this does little to explain their social significance, nor, among other issues, the possible ramifications for our understanding of periodization. What is more, the justification of chapter divisions seems largely a matter of convenience, doing little to advance an argument. For example, the opening remarks of a chapter on images of “travail” briefly notes that the notion of “work” was very different in the Middle Ages from what it is today, but, nevertheless, that this anachronistic category is useful for presenting material (p. 175). It is hard to reconcile this rather cavalier attitude with the author’s determination to understand the stall’s imagery in its historical context. Near the end of the book Lemé-Hébuterne points out that the stall sculptures present a “mélange” of realism and imagination, and do not offer a transparent window onto early-sixteenth-century society (p. 215). Nevertheless, in many cases, the author fails to make the distinctions between art and life clear.

Despite these criticisms, Lemé-Heburtene has done a great service by pointing to a potentially productive avenue for studying late-Gothic stalls. She rightly signals that much work could be done on these fixtures of cathedrals and collegial churches from a variety of methodological perspectives, anthropological to ethnological.