thumb|300px|The [[Ghent Altarpiece (1432) by Hubert and Jan van Eyck, with its wings open. Considered one of the masterpieces of Early Netherlandish painting, a complex polyptych panel winged altarpiece, which lost its elaborate framework in the Reformation.]]

An altarpiece is a painting or sculpture, including relief, of religious subject matter made for placing at the back of or behind the altar of a Christian church. Though most commonly used for a single work of art such as a painting or sculpture, or a set of them, the word can also be used of the whole ensemble behind an altar, otherwise known as a reredos, including what is often an elaborate frame for the central image or images. Altarpieces were one of the most important products of Christian art especially from the late Middle Ages to the era of Baroque painting.

The word altarpiece, used for paintings, usually means a framed work of panel painting on wood, or later on canvas. In the Middle Ages they were generally the largest genre for these formats. Murals in fresco tend to cover larger surfaces. The largest painted altarpieces developed complicated structures, especially winged altarpieces with hinged side wings that folded in to cover the main image, and were painted on the reverse with different simpler images. Often this was the normal view shown in the church, except for Sundays and feast days, when the wings were opened to display the main image. At other times visitors could usually see this by paying the sacristan.

Altarpieces with many small framed panels are called polyptychs; triptychs have a main panel, and two side ones. Diptychs, with only two equally sized panels, were usually smaller portable pieces for individuals.

Altarpieces seem to have begun to be used during the 11th century, with the possible exception of a few earlier examples. The reasons and forces that led to the development of altarpieces are not generally agreed upon. The habit of placing decorated reliquaries of saints on or behind the altar, as well as the tradition of decorating the front of the altar with sculptures or textiles, preceded the first altarpieces. In the Romanesque period, painted altar frontals on panel seem to have been a common alternative location for paintings. Few survive, though small Catalonian churches preserved several, many now in the Museu Nacional d'Art de Catalunya in Barcelona. The development of altarpieces may have begun at the altars of side chapels, typically engaged with the wall behind, rather than at freestanding main altars.

Many early altarpieces were relatively simple compositions in the form of a rectangular panel decorated with series of saints in rows, with a central, more pronounced figure such as a depiction of Mary or Christ. An elaborate example of such an early altarpiece is the metal and enamel Pala d'Oro in Venice, extended in the 12th century from an earlier altar frontal. and until the Renaissance were generally the largest and most significant type of panel painting. In the 13th century, it was not uncommon to find frescoed or mural altarpieces in Italy; mural paintings behind the altar served as visual complements for the liturgy. These altarpieces were influenced by Byzantine art, notably icons, which reached Western Europe in greater numbers following the conquest of Constantinople in 1204. During this time, altarpieces occasionally began to be decorated with an outer, sculptured or gabled structure with the purpose of providing a frame for individual parts of the altarpiece. Vigoroso da Siena's altarpiece from 1291 (pictured) is an example. This treatment of the altarpiece would eventually pave the way for the emergence, in the 14th century, of the polyptych. They spread to France, but remained rare in Italy. By hinging the outer panels to the central panel and painting them on both sides, the subject could be regulated by opening or closing the wings. The pictures could thus be changed depending on liturgical demands. The earliest often displayed sculptures on the inner panels (i.e., displayed when open) and paintings on the back of the wings (displayed when closed).

Late Middle Ages

thumb|250px|[[Rothenburg ob der Tauber|Rothenburg: The Altarpiece of the Holy Blood, by Tilman Riemenschneider (1501–1505). An example of an altarpiece with a central, sculpted section and relief wings.]]

As the Middle Ages progressed, altarpieces began to be commissioned more frequently. In Northern Europe, initially Lübeck and later Antwerp would develop into veritable export centres for the production of altarpieces, exporting to Scandinavia, Spain and northern France.

Renaissance and Reformation

thumb|[[Sacra conversazione with a landscape setting and donor portrait, Palma Vecchio, c. 1519]]

The 15th century also saw a development of the composition of Italian altarpieces where the polyptych was gradually abandoned in favour of single-panel, painted altarpieces.

Other types of Italian composition also moved towards having a single large scene, sometimes called a pala (Italian for "panel"), often dispensing with the predella. Rather than static figures, narrative scenes from the lives of the main figures grew in popularity; this was to become the dominant style for large altarpieces over the next centuries. Originally mostly horizontal ("landscape") in format, they increasingly used vertical ("portrait") formats. Some were as much as 4 metres tall, and concentrated on a single dramatic action. This much height typically required a composition with an in aria group to fill the upper part of the picture space, as in Raphael's Transfiguration (now Vatican), though The Raising of Lazarus by Sebastiano del Piombo (now London) is almost as tall, using only a landscape at the top.

In Italy, during the Renaissance, free-standing groups of sculpture also began to feature as altarpieces. The most famous example is the Pietà by Michelangelo, originally placed as the altarpiece in a side chapel of Old St Peter's.

thumb|[[Lucas Cranach the Elder's Lutheran Wittenberg Altarpiece, 1547]]

The Protestant Reformation under Martin Luther initially persisted with the creation of new some altarpieces reflecting the doctrines of the Lutheran Church, sometimes using portraits of Lutheran leaders in their statuary. Lutheran altarpieces, including those of the Last Supper, were commissioned under his purview. The Schneeberg Altarpiece (1539), along with the Wittenberg Altarpiece (1547) and the Weimar Altarpiece (1555), were Christocentric in their iconography and "these altarpieces reinforced the key teachings of the new church and helped consolidate a sense of confessional identity." Within eastern Germany alone, Lutheran patrons erected thirty new altarpieces. Most pre-Reformation altarpieces were preserved within Lutheran churches as the "altar was still believed to be a particularly holy place, and should be adorned accordingly."

In contrast, Reformed Christianity (Calvinism) opposed all large public religious images such as altarpieces, and by about 1560 production of Reformed Protestant ones had mostly ceased. Outbursts of iconoclasm locally led to the destruction of many altarpieces. As an example, during the burning of the Antwerp Cathedral in the course of the Calvinist Reformation in 1533, more than fifty altarpieces were destroyed. Both of these were essentially figures in the round, but Alessandro Algardi's Pope Leo the Great repelling Attila in St Peter's Basilica is a "huge" relief with a full scene with over life-size figures. Double-sided wing panels were often sawn apart by dealers or collectors, to give two paintings for hanging.

Types of altarpieces

thumb|Four detached predelle in a museum, mostly by [[Neri di Bicci]]

thumb|Neoclassical altarpiece by [[Carl Timoleon von Neff, Helsinki Cathedral (Lutheran), c. 1850]]

Altarpieces have never been made compulsory in the Catholic Church, nor their usage and treatment formalised, apart from some church authorities laying down guidelines on subject-matter and style after the 16th-century Council of Trent; therefore their appearance can vary significantly. In the Lutheran Churches, altarpieces are seen as "venerable and ancient, at least 1700 years old, calling forth man's best efforts, and highest gifts." Their role, according to the Evangelical-Lutheran Church in Denmark, is to "visually reinforce the understanding of the stories that we find in the Bible of the Eucharist and of the Christian fellowship." Occasionally, the demarcation between what constitutes the altarpiece and what constitutes other forms of decoration can be unclear. while those for side chapels were often attached to, or painted, the wall behind.

If the altar stands free in the choir, such that visitors can pass behind the main altar, both sides of the altarpiece can be covered with painting. The screen, retable or reredos are commonly decorated. Groups of statuary can also be placed on an altar.

In Eastern Orthodoxy, the iconostasis developed as a wide screen composed of large icons, placed in front of the altar, with doors through it, spanning sanctuary.

Leading examples

thumb|A [[polyptych altarpiece, workshop of the Lübeck master Hermen Rode in 1478–1481, at the High Altar of St. Nicholas Church (Lutheran) in Tallinn, Estonia]]

  • Pala d'Oro, metal and enamel in Byzantine style (St Mark's Basilica, Venice)
  • Maestà altarpiece (1308–1311) by Duccio (Siena Cathedral, Siena)
  • Adoration of the Magi by Gentile da Fabriano, 1423, Uffizi, Florence
  • Mérode Altarpiece (1425–1428) by Robert Campin (Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City)
  • Holy Trinity by Masaccio, c. 1427, in fresco
  • Ghent Altarpiece (1432) by Hubert and Jan van Eyck (St Bavo's Cathedral, Ghent)
  • The Descent from the Cross, Rogier van der Weyden, c. 1435, Prado
  • Martyrdom of Saint Sebastian, Pollaiuolo brothers, by 1475, London
  • Virgin of the Rocks by Leonardo da Vinci, two versions, now Louvre and London
  • St. Wolfgang Altarpiece (1481) by Michael Pacher, St. Wolfgang im Salzkammergut
  • San Giobbe Altarpiece by Giovanni Bellini, c. 1487, an early example whose background continues the architecture of the church
  • Altarpiece of Veit Stoss (1489) by Veit Stoss (St. Mary's Basilica, Kraków)
  • Kefermarkt Altarpiece (1490–1497) by an unknown artist (Kefermarkt)
  • Castelfranco Madonna, by Giorgione, c. 1504
  • Isenheim Altarpiece (1516) by Matthias Grünewald (Unterlinden Museum, Colmar)
  • Assumption of the Virgin (1516–1518) by Titian (Santa Maria Gloriosa dei Frari, Venice)
  • Volterra Deposition by Rosso Fiorentino, 1521, Mannerist
  • Vision of Saint Jerome by Parmigianino, 1527, now National Gallery, London
  • Assumption by Rubens, Antwerp Cathedral, 1626

Notes

References

  • "Murrays": Murray, Peter and Linda, The Oxford Companion to Christian Art and Architecture, 1996, OUP,
  • Wright, Alison, The Pollaiuolo Brothers: The Arts of Florence and Rome, 2005, Yale, ISBN 9780300106251, google books

Further reading

  • The Italian Renaissance Altarpiece: Between Icon and Narrative, David Ekserdjian, 2021, Yale UP, ISBN 9780300253641
  • The Altarpiece in the Renaissance, Humfrey, Peter & Kemp, Martin, 1990, Cambridge University Press, ISBN 9780521360616
  • https://web.archive.org/web/20120802145927/http://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/anatomy-of-an-altarpiece