Today I got to lecture in class on one of my fave objects we address over the course of the semester: candlesticks commissioned by Bishop Bernward of Hildesheim before 1022. Conceptually, they're brilliant so I thought I'd walk thru some of what I find so ingenious about them./1

First, here's a great illumination of Bernward from his precious Gospels. There he is presiding over his altar, and one can see candlesticks surrounding it. /2

One of the things that's awesome abt these candlesticks is their materiality. According to the inscription over their base, “Bernward ordered his servant to cast this candlestick in the first flowering of this art, not from gold or silver but nevertheless as you see it here.”/3

Jennifer Kingsley has written gorgeously on the idea expressed here: that the alloy electrum was seen as embodying the divine and human nature of Christ, brightening the human with gold, and tempering the divine with silver. ("VT CERNIS and The Materiality of Bernwardian Art")/4

What I also adore about these candlesticks is how much they repay close formal analysis by embodying the idea of transition from the carnal to the divine. Let's start from the bottom. Note how the base is made of a beast's four legs. /5

And then we see other mammals (humans) hunching over a tangle of vines above the paws. They gaze up the shaft of the candlestick, their mouths slightly open as they gape while plotting their ascent. /6

And the candlestick shaft itself is a swirl of climbing vines, on which small humans clutch as they scramble up its height. /7

Finally (or so we think): the cup for wax and the stick for the candle. Gripping the cup are birds' talons (3, I think, which contrasts with the earthly number of 4 paws down below). While the base are the legs of land-walking quadrupeds, the cups are held by beasts of flight./8

But wait, there's more! Bc there wd have been wax candles alight at the summit, above which would be a flickering flame, giving rise to an ethereal smoke. Fleshy beast supports solid man who climbs toward flying bird to hold liquefying wax beneath flame that dissipates in smoke.9

IS THIS NOT A THING OF GLORY?!

And now, it's time for me to cook dinner.

Fin