The Exuding Wood of the Cross at Isenheim

This talk brings to light the late-medieval devotional trope of the exuding wood of the cross, which became popular in fifteenth-century allegories and served as the theological basis for one of the most celebrated but misunderstood ensembles of Gothic Germany: the high altar of the Antonite church at Isenheim sculpted by Nikolaus Haguenauer and painted by Matthias Grünewald. Resins, turpentine, pitch, and other tree exudates formed the basis of medieval medicine and were widely available for physicians as well as artists, who employed their distillates as paint thinner. A thick, viscous bodily humor that was a critical emulsive vehicle for the treatment of skin wounds, resin was also exploited figuratively as a mirror for the sacramental blood Christ shed on the cross. Specializing in the treatment of Anthony’s Fire, a devastating dermatological condition caused by the consumption of rye poisoned with ergot fungus, the Antonite monks expressed in their painted and sculpted altarpiece a trenchant awareness of the metaphorical and material relevance of trees to their headling practices.