Architecture as Narrative Structure in Renaissance Windows.

The Renaissance system of artificial perspective places special emphasis on the mediation between realms on either side of the picture plane.  A study of five works from Art Institute of Chicago and the Cleveland Museum of Art reveals how the projected reality of the perspective allowed the viewer to approach an intimacy with the spiritual reality depicted.  A panel of Tamar crying and consoled by Absalom, circle of Bernard van Orley, ca. 1535-40, condenses three episodes - one dramatic moment commanding the foreground, and prior and subsequent events in the background.  Renaissance manuscript traditions do not appear to have influenced this narrative schema, but rather its origins stem from the painted and sculpted altarpieces as executed by Rogier Van der Weyden and Michael Pacher.  We note, for example, a Lowlands roundel of Lazarus and Dives, ca. 1520 that shows a markedly different spatial narrative from that of the Dives illumination in the Spinola Book of Hours, ca. 1515.  Internal shifts in architectural perspective created additional meanings.  In a roundel Birth, Circumcision, and Naming of John the Baptist, attributed to Pieter Cornelisz. Kunst, ca.. 1525, perspective lines unite the upper architectural frame but isolate the floor patterns, creating a separation between the three episodes.  A roundel attributed to Pieter Cornelisz Kunst about ca. 1525, Mardochai overhearing the Conspiracy of Bagathan and Thares, links the placement of the buildings and characters to the empathy conjured in the spectator.  In certain cases, the architecture itself could become dramatis personae.  A panel of Esther presented before Assuerus ca. 1525-30, attributed to Dirik Vellert from the Charterhouse of Louvain narrates Aman's hubris and cupidity through architectural images and placement.