Discussion of the Pictorial Techniques used by Sculptor of Hildesheim's Bronze Doors.

 World Heritage Sites

Ahttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bernward_of_Hildesheimdd caption

The Bernward Doors at St. Mary's Cathedral, Hildesheim

 Discussion of the Pictorial Techniques used by Sculptor of Hildesheim's Bronze Doors.

The bronze doors were commissioned by Bernward. They are at Saint Michael’s, Hildersheim, and were completed in 1015. There are sixteen narrative panels. There are eight on the left that are devoted to Genesis, and there are eight on the right that are about the life of Christ. The left side starts with the creation of Adam, and ends with the murder of Able by his brother Cain. The right side begins with the Annunciation of Christ and ends with the resurrection. They were made by the lost wax method. They are 23 by 43 inches. In the scene of Adam and Eve being reproached by God, God is in human form, clothed and looking like a human father reproaching his children for their disobedience. He points directly at them. There punishment is that they will be mortal and not immortal as he is. He is taller than they are, and shows his superiority by the position of his body, and the fact he is clothed. Adam and Eve are bent forward trying to hide the fact they are naked. This was a dead giveaway, because until they had disobeyed God they had been completely comfortable with their nakedness. They were unaware that there was any shame in it. The tree is behind Adam, and it follows the contour of his back. It is possibly a representation of the cross. The back ground is very simple. There are two trees, and what looks like an animal of some kind, but it is to represent the serpent. It was a traditional animal style of that period.The serpent was condemned to crawl on its belly while God stands upright. Standing upright is a symbol of moral rightness.  There is a row of decorative plants on the left they are resemble ‘a Hyberno-Saxon interlaced motif’. Each picture is very simple, and uses only a few figures. Each figure expresses an emotion. The sculptor does this very effectively. Even the placement of the pictures is part of the story.  The left side tells the story of the fall of mankind, and the right side shows mankind’s redemption from the fall. Someone must take the blame, and so Adam points to Eve, and Eve to the serpent, and God points at all of them, and sets forth their punishment. They were the first works cast in one piece since antiquity. There was an emphasis on Typology which implied that the former prefigured the later. They read left to right, or Old Testament to New Testament.