Seeing Is Behaving: Sculpted Portal Programs on Churches Along the Upper Rhine Ca. 1300

This paper will consider the changing nature of sculpted portal programs on church and cathedral facades along the Upper Rhine.  In particular, it will focus on the sculpted portals at Strasbourg cathedral, Freiburg minster, and the original Gothic portal at Basel cathedral.  These portals date to the late thirteenth century and are thematically highly moralizing, making them radically different from any portals that preceded or succeeded them both in the Upper Rhine and elsewhere. 

I will argue that the highly moralizing sculpted portal programs at Strasbourg, Freiburg, and Basel are reflective of the highly charged religious activity in the Upper Rhine in the late thirteenth century, which tended to focus on morality and pastoral care.  Furthermore, I will argue that the sculpted portal programs were presented and constructed in a lucid manner so as to be legible to wide and varied lay and spiritual audiences.