Sculpture

Billed as the first full-scale study of medieval sculpture in Western Europe, this magnificent album unfolds a panorama of riches that few art lovers or tourists have fully glimpsed. Its diversity encompasses fragile stucco figures in the Ravenna Cathedral, ornate polychrome altarpieces of Iberian craftsmen, sculpted gold marvels amassed by emperor Charles IV in Prague, the serene clarity of Loire Valley statuary and a powerful 12th-century French bronze of the prophet Isaiah. Duby ( History of Medieval Art ) teams with Guillot de Suduiraut, a curator at the Louvre, and French art historian Barral i Altet to trace the flowering of sacred medieval sculpture, as the sophisticated, studied Romanesque style gave way to the international gothic and led to the work of such masters as Claus Sluter and Nicholas of Leyden, artists arguably as great as the painter Jan van Eyck. (Feb.)