Scherpenheuvel: Space, Image
and Ritual
Margit ThA?fner
E: m.thofner@uea.ac.uk
The workshop began
with four short papers, structured so as to move from
the interior decoration of the pilgrimage church and
its architecture towards its wider cultural significance.
Each of these papers was followed by a short discussion
stimulated by the appointed respondent, Luc Duerloo.
Margit TA?fner, the workshop organizer, gave the first
paper. She considered the fact that a currently lost
Nativity of Christ was originally made by Theodor
van Loon to form part of the altar-piece cycle at
Scherpenheuvel. Her chief point was that this change
of plans served to foreground a particular characteristic
of the painting cycle: its privileging of a personal
and physical experience of the Divine. Joris Snaet
gave the second paper, focusing on the architectural
precedents for the church at Scherpenheuvel as well
as on its marked impact on ecclesiastical architecture
in the Low Countries. The third paper was given by
Cordula van Wyhe, who discussed the dissemination
of the Scherpenheuvel cult in Bellefontaine in the
Franche-ComtA(C) and in Cologne. She argued that, in
both of these locations, the Scherpenheuvel cult was
reformulated and represented to serve the political
concerns of those promoting it. Finally, Maarten Delbeke
considered Pope Alexander VII's appropriation of the
Scherpenheuvel cult. He demonstrated how the cult
was reshaped to become part of the cultural and political
life of Alexander's court. Several interesting points
were raised in the lively closing discussion. Perhaps
the most important amongst these were the exact ritual
usages that the pilgrimage site was built to cater
for, as well as the problem of accounting for the
hugely varied range of visitors to the site and the
equally varied range of meanings that this generated.
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