Location and the experience of early Netherlandish art

In The Limewood Sculptors of Renaissance Germany, Michael Baxandall incorporated contingent site-specific observations into his interpretation of Tilman Riemenschneider’s Holy Blood Altarpiece (1499-1505). Where Baxandall typically linked such site-specific analysis to the processes of authorial intent, the present article expands this mode of inquiry to investigate how the contingent viewing contexts of early Netherlandish art could have affected viewers’ perceptions of meaning, in ways that may or may not have accorded with the artists’ or patrons’ expectations. This approach potentially yields new interpretations that cannot easily arise in a museum setting.