 Welcome to Barns Takeout, your daily serving of art. I'm Robin Quarin, the Collections Research Coordinator at the Barns Foundation. Today I'm gonna talk to you about one of the sculptures on the mezzanine. It's a often overlooked part of the barns, probably because it's kind of on the way up from the first to second floor in the staircase. You can see the handle right here. But I encourage you to take a look because it's really this flow of some beautiful pieces, a lot of sculpture, these tapestries, and this belt right here. But we're gonna talk about this one right over here. So this is a wood sculpture in relatively low relief. And it's by an unknown artist, but likely from Tyrol, which is a place in modern day Austria. It was created around 1500. And it's part of this kind of wider medium of wood sculpture, which was happening at the time period in the 15th century into the 16th and long before as well and long after. In Germany, or modern day Germany, Northern Europe and some parts of Eastern Europe. So many sculptors used wood because that was something available to them. And different woods were available in different areas. So oak was more readily available in some parts of the North, but a wood called lime wood, which is part of the linden tree, was a popular medium in the South. It was very expensive. So it was usually reserved for larger pieces or for pieces in the round. And it was sought after for how well it was able to be carved. And that was because the wood itself grew very evenly and had this very even cell structure. So it often didn't warp. It also was a lot easier to carve because of that cell structure. And so these wood sculptors were really considered to be very highly skilled workers because they were able to understand how would work, how it would warp or crack without the knowledge that we have today of the cell structure of the wood or something like that or the knowledge that we've gained now from science. So many of these sculptures, like I said, were in high relief, almost in the round, and they were hollowed out often, sometimes with no backing if they were going to be placed against something because then that other piece of wood could be used for another figure. But they were often carved out also because that prevented them from cracking. It removed the part of the wood, known as heartwood from the interior of the log, which was actually the thing that often caused the cracking itself. The figures were often carved from a full log. So these were very massive, big, big things. This piece is quite a bit more low relief, so it would not have been carved to exactly the same way, but it's part of this bigger medium that I think is worth mentioning. It's also really indicative of the style of the late Gothic period in Northern Europe. We see that in the draperies in particular, which mostly obscure the bodies and pretty much all the figures are draped like this, and it's really so that they can allow that creates this kind of drapery. So the draperies really like falling from the shoulders, creating these long folds and breaking at the base of these figures. And then these V-shaped folds are very common of this style that we're seeing in the saints tunics. The way that the naturalism is rendered is also very common of this style. If we zoom in, we can see the curves of the hair. It's very uncommon to see something like straight hair. It's usually quite wavy, and it's really so that the artist can render the hair in that manner. The smaller figures in the background also allow for this depth of space, the sense of distance. And that's really something important. So they're able to create this depth of space but also make the impact of these figures still very important. So they're still these larger figures, so more important in the story. But there is this sense that these figures, had they been up here, would be the same size. Like I said, it was by an unknown artist, but it can be compared to another artist who was working in Tyrol between about 1482 and 1500 known as Hans Klöcker. There are also parts of the stylistic details, which are partially based off of German prints from Martin Schongauer or Master AG. It was very common in the time period for artists to work from prints because they were not able to see a lot of paintings or sculpture, so they were working off prints which were much more readily available and less expensive and more widely distributed. So the dimensions of this and the steeply sloping background that we see here underneath the figures, these are both indications along with kind of the rendering of the saints, their proportions, that this sculpture probably would have been seen from below. It's positive that this could have been hung in a church, so a little bit higher and probably on a wall in the aisle of a church, it wouldn't have been as important or large enough really to have been part of like an altarpiece. It's just not large enough for that. But let's talk about the subject. So this is of the agony in the garden, which is a part of the story of Christ that happens after the Last Supper. So we want to remember that at the Last Supper, Christ identifies that or predicts that one of the people at the table will betray him. So he leaves that supper and goes on a walk to pray. Each of the Gospels, the four Gospels give a slightly different account, but Matthew and Mark identify the place that he goes to pray as Gethsemane. So sometimes this is referred to as the agony in the garden at Gethsemane. He's accompanied on his walk by three apostles. He is first by Peter, who we see right here, sleeping, with his hand resting on his head resting on his hand, and he has a sword and a book. Over here is James with the beard. And then if we move over here, that's St. John, the evangelist with the book. So Jesus steps away from the three apostles, a stone's throw away, and he is feeling this deep anguish and sorrow from having learned that somebody would betray him. This sorrow is so powerful, and is feeling so powerful that as said in the Gospel of Luke, his sweat became like drops of blood falling on the ground. And we see this reflected quite literally on Jesus's face and in his hands. And right here on his neck, we see these droplets of blood, his sweat. So in prayer, he's praying up to this chalice because it's referred to as a cup is referred to while he's praying. And he's praying to God to let the suffering pass him by. Each time he ends the prayer with the words, yet not as I will, but as you will, recognizing that it is out of his control and in God's hands. He says this prayer three times. After each time, he checks on the apostles who have all fallen asleep. And in those moments, he remarks that he is alone in this prayer. He's alone in this struggle. He is only with God. So at the end, Jesus accepts that the time has come for him to be betrayed. And that leads us to these figures in the back. So they are at the center, Judas, who we remember betrays Christ. And he's holding a small bag of silver for which he did betray Christ. And these figures over here on either side and back here are looked to be soldiers. So we know that they are coming to arrest Christ. And some of this is rendered in paint and then some of these are these figures. These low relief figures in the background. He's entering the garden. So the artist is really able to create this scene with these differing levels of depth and interest and even in this texture. So he's creating these grassy knolls or grassy hills with this texture from the wood, not from the paint. But he's also able to create these different levels of space and different shapes and objects with color, not just with the wood. So we see the grass at the top, the differentiation of this cup or chalice. And then these beautiful robes and hair of Christ and the apostles and the book. This would have been much more vibrant in its time, but obviously things have worn over time being over 500 years old. And the paint at the time, during the time period, was known as polychromy. And it also would have been gilded likely. So it really would have been this really magnificent, beautiful, vibrant piece. This same sign either side to the left is St. Stephen. He was the first martyr of the Christian church and he was stoned to death. So that's why we see these three stones. It's an attribute of his. He's also shown in Deacon's Dalmatic, which is this shoulder, or sorry, obo-length tunic, which was worn over other liturgical vestments. And that's to show he was a deacon. Then on the right over here is St. Lawrence, who was martyred in the third century by being roasted alive on a gridiron. Not a very pleasant death. He was a deacon of the church also. So he's also wearing the Dalmatic, but a different color, if you'll notice, red over here and green over here. And they're there because they were both martyred. So they're emphasizing the suffering of Christ, emphasizing his sacrifice, which is the next kind of step in this story of Christ. So that's it for today's Barnes Takeout. I hope you enjoyed taking a closer look at this beautiful sculpture. And I really encourage you to make a stop on the mezzanine on your next visit, which I hope will be soon. As always, if you have any questions or concerns or comments, please leave them below. If you're interested in seeing more of these, please subscribe to our channel. Thank you. I'm Tom Collins, new Bauer family, executive director of the Barnes Foundation. I hope you enjoyed Barnes Takeout. Subscribe and make sure your post notifications are on to get daily servings of art. Thanks for watching and for your support of the Barnes Foundation.