Gothic sculpture

Gothic sculptures were born on the wall, in the middle of the 12th century in Île-de-France, when Abbot Suger built the abbey at St. Denis , considered the first Gothic building, and soon after the Chartres Cathedral . Prior to this there had been no sculpture tradition in Ile-de-France—so sculptors were brought in from Burgundy.

The French ideas spread. In Germany, from 1225 at the Cathedral in Bamberg onward, the impact can be found everywhere. The Bamberg Cathedral had the largest assemblage of 13th century sculpture, culminating in 1240 with the Bamberg Rider, the first equestrian statue in Western art since the 6th century. In England the sculpture was more confined to tombs and non-figurine decorations (in part because of Cistercian iconoclasm). In Italy there was still a Classical influence, but Gothic made inroads in the sculptures of pulpits such as the Pisa Baptistery pulpit and the Siena pulpit. A late masterwork of Italian Gothic sculptures is the series of Scaliger Tombs in Verona (early-late 14th century).

Gothic sculpture evolved from the early stiff and elongated style, still partly Romanesque, into a spatial and naturalistic feel in the late 12th and early 13th century. Influences from surviving ancient Greek and Roman sculptures were incorporated into the treatment of drapery, facial expression and pose.

Dutch-Burgundian sculptor Claus Sluter and the taste for naturalism signaled the beginning of the end of Gothic sculpture, evolving into the classicistic Renaissance style by the end of the 15th century.