Erwin Panofsky - Early Netherlandish Painting - Its Origins and Character by Erwin Panofsky (1966, Harvard University Press) PDF [PDF]

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EARLY NETHERLANDISH PAINTING ITS ORIGINS

The

AND CHARACTER

Charles Eliot Norton Lectures

1947-1948

M

EARLY

NETHERLANDISH PAINTING ITS

ORIGINS AND CHARACTER BY

Erwin Panofsky VOLUME ONE

HARVARD UNIVERSITY

PRESS

CAMBRIDGE MASSACHUSETTS •

1966

COPYRIGHT, 1953, BY THE PRESIDENT AND FELLOWS OF HARVARD COLLEGE

SECOND PRINTING, IQ58 THIRD PRINTING,

1

964

FOURTH PRINTING, I966

Distributed in Great Britain by

OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS

LONDON

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOG CARD

NUMBER 52-5402

PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

HF"*UC LIBRARY

D.M. FAVTI MAGISTRI

GVILLELMI VOEGE OBIIT

A.D.III

KAL.IAN.AN.SAL.MDCCCCLIII

PREFACE

A HE

title

of the present publication

is,

like

most

inaccurate.

titles,

have not attempted a

I

presentation of Early Netherlandish Painting in entirety — a task which will have to wait, on believe, for another Max Friedlander or Hulin de Loo — but concentrated my its

I

efforts

J.

Hubert and Jan van Eyck, the Master of Flemalle and Roger van der Weyden.

we know,

about their

developments which tradition.

Thus

subject and,

Like lectures

my

style

;

and

must dwell

on the other hand, omit important

at

some length on the antecedents

previous book on Albrecht Durer, this study has case, the

It steers,

this

under much

and works of an individual

them

to

base.

He who

(who may

at

of a series of public

Harvard University

in

between the requirements of the

derive

some

favorable conditions.

less

artist places his listeners in

of the

itself.

grown out

Charles Eliot Norton Lectures delivered

therefore, a similarly precarious course

and bibliography), and

we know,

roughly, the course of those ensuing

aspects of the subject

"general reader" and those of the special student

life

however

to chart,

tried to

be said to constitute the main stream of the Early Netherlandish

limited, the discussion

— in this

1947-1948.

may

have

premises of their achievement; to assess what

clarify, as far as possible, the historical

or think

I

benefit

from the notes

He who

speaks of the

armchairs, so to speak, and invites

admire the varying aspects of a sculptured figure displayed before them on a revolving attempts to describe a

phenomenon

as vast

and

intricate as Early

Painting routs them out of their houses and asks them to accompany

through the remains of an ancient

him on

city partly preserved, partly in ruins,

Netherlandish

a strenuous tour

and partly buried in

the ground.

Faced with

this task,

I

could not proceed like an archeologist

most recent excavations. Rather

straight to the

I

who leads

a

group of colleagues

have contented myself with the role of a

cicerone who, while not entirely avoiding excavations and occasionally venturing into tangly thickets

where the digging has barely

location

and topography and concentrate upon the major

to

many members

of his party;

who

light of intervening impressions;

up between two I

am

very

started,*

must

try to give a general idea of the old city's

often reverts to the

sights, familiar

same

spots to reconsider

and now and then points out an unexpected

them

vista that

in the

opens

walls.

much

indebted to the Bollingen Foundation for a most generous grant in aid of

the publication of this book, and to the Institute for

Advanced Study

which made

I

it

though they may be

possible to print the notes in

what

• This applies especially to Chapter IV.

vii

hope

for a special appropriation

will prove to be a fairly convenient

PREFACE manner. As

far as content

and students

that

it is

concerned,

is

I

have enjoyed the help of so

use of specific observations or suggestions,

G. H. Forsyth,

places. Messrs.

Jr.,

Meiss, C. Nordenfalk, A. Pope,

many

for

them

impossible to mention

a fruitful discussion

J.

all;

where

I

am

many

friends, colleagues

conscious of having

acknowledgement has been made

L. Grodecki, E. Holzinger,

Rosenberg,

W.

W.

in the proper

Koehler, C. L. Kuhn, M.

Stechow, and H. Swarzenski

and the last-named

made

wish

I

to

thank

as well as Mr. H. Bober for having called

my attention to a number of pertinent manuscripts. For information on particular problems am very much obliged to Messrs. M. Davies, J. Dupont, A. L. Gabriel, W. S. Heckscher, I

J.

S.

Held, L. H. Heydenreich, R. A. Koch, M. de Maeyer, M. Pease, R. G. Salomon, G. Schon-

berger, Brizio,

Byam Shaw, G. von

J. I.

M.

Churchill and

J.

der Osten, and E. K. Waterhouse as well as to

And

Salinger.

shall

I

always be grateful to the

Mmes. A. M. Miss Belle

late

da Costa Greene and Miss Meta Harrsen, both of the Pierpont Morgan Library, Miss Dorothy

Miner of the Walters Art Gallery, Mile. Jeanne Dupic of the Bibliotheque Municipale

at

Rouen, Mr. Francis Wormald, formerly of the British Museum, M. Jean Porcher of the

M.

Bibliotheque Nationale, and

shown unfailing

these have

Lyna

Frederic

of the Bibliotheque Royale de Belgique;

patience and friendliness in giving

me

access to

articles

which were published

Belgium and not

in

of

and information

about the manuscripts entrusted to their care, and M. Lyna was good enough to

have several books and

all

let

me

available here at

the time.

Great

difficulty

this respect, too,

some

of

lections.

at

express

am much

in obtaining photographs suitable for reproduction. In

indebted to

many

of the friends

and colleagues already mentioned,

whom were even so kind as to give or lend me photographs from their private colam particularly grateful to Miss E. Louise Lucas and Miss Helen B. Harris for I

much kind Art

I

was encountered

help and for permission to reproduce material belonging to the

Cambridge and the Department

my

and Archaeology

of Art

Fogg Museum

at Princeton.

And

profound appreciation for the unselfish generosity with which Dr.

P.

I

wish

of to

Coremans,

Director of the "Archives Centrales Iconographiques d'Art National" and the "Laboratoire

Central des Musees de Belgique," as well as his helpful associates, Monsieur R. Sneyers and

Mademoiselle N. Verhaegen, have placed photographs (designated by "Copyright all

at

my

ACL

disposal, not only a great

graphs were supplied by or obtained through the good

stable,

Pita d'Andrade,

J.

W. W.

S.

Cook,

J.

C.

A. H. Barr,

Jr.,

W.

Olifirenko, H.

Messrs. K.

Parsons, A. E.

S.

Ghent

altarpiece.

offices of the

V. Bloch, H.

Other photo-

following: Messrs. P.

Broadley, A. Chastel,

Ebbinge-Wubben, H. Gerson,

Hanfstaengl, P. Hofer, H. Kauffmann, E.

of excellent

Bruxelles" in the List of Illustrations) but also

the evidence concerning the technical investigation of the

d'Ancona,

number

J.-A. Goris,

J.

W.

G. Con-

Gudiol Ricart, E.

King, H. Marceau, K. Martin, E. Meyer, G.

Popham, G. Ronci, H. K. Rothel,

P.

J.

Sachs,

Count A.

I.

Seilern,

M. Swoboda, John Walker, M. Weinberger, K. Weitzmann, and G. Wildenstein;

and Mmes.

S.

Fosdick, H. Franc, L. Guerry-Brion,

M.

E. Houtzager, R.

McGurn and

E.

Naramore. In conclusion,

I

wish to express

my

warmest gratitude

to Miss Ellen Bailly for her untiring,

perceptive and intelligent assistance in converting lecture notes into a book. E. P.

Princeton, N.

J.

viii

CONTENTS Introduction

i

i i

polarization of European painting in italy and the lowlands

the

fifteenth-century

french and franco-flemish book illumination fourteenth century

in

the 21

the early fifteenth century and the "international style"

iii

and panel problem of burgundy

sculpture

51

painting

about

i4oo;

the 75

iv

the regional schools of the netherlands and their importance for the formation of the great masters

v

reality and symbol in early flemish painting: "spiritualia sub metaphoris corporalium"

131

"ars nova"; the master of flemalle

149

JAN VAN EYCK

178

HUBERT AND/OR JAN VAN EYCKJ THE PROBLEMS OF THE GHENT ALTARPIECE AND THE TURIN-MILAN HOURS

205

ROGER VAN DER WEYDEN

247

THE HERITAGE OF THE FOUNDERS

303

NOTES

359

CONDENSED BIBLIOGRAPHY

5i3

INDEX

537

VI

VII VIII I

X

EpilogUC

ILLUSTRATIONS AT END OF VOLUME

IX

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS IN Frontispiece Roger van dcr

Wcydcn:

VOLUME ONE

Peter Bladelin.

PLATES AT END OF VOLUME Text Illustration I.

Masolino da Panicale: The Death of

2.

Piero della Francesca: Sacra Conversazione of Federigo Montefeltre. Milan,

Ambrose. Rome, San Clemente.

St.

Brera.

Land

3.

Rome, Vatican Library: Odysseus

4.

Ravenna, San Vitale: Abraham and the Angels (Mosaic).

5.

Utrecht, University Library:

Lord "Pure in Circles 6.

in the

of the Cannibals.

The Utrecht Psalter, fol. 6 v. The Word of the Tried in a Furnace"; The Wicked Chastised and Running

as Silver

(Psalm XI [XII]). Ms. lat. 8846 (Psalter), fol. 20. The Word of the Tried in a Furnace"; The Wicked Chastised and Running

Paris, Bibliotheque Nationale:

Lord 'Ture in Circles

as Silver

(Psalm XI [XII])

Madonna from Otzdorf

7.

Dresden, Altertumermuseum: Romanesque

8.

Amiens, Cathedral, Northern Portal of the West Facade: Apostle Statues.

9.

10.

Paris, Notre-Dame, St Stephen.

Tympanum

Paris, Bibliotheque Nationale:

The People

of the South Transept Portal:

Ms.

lat.

10525 (Psautier de

of Israel Giving Presents to Saul (I

The Dream

11.

Florence, Baptistry:

12.

Monreale, Cathedral:

The

of

St.

Saxony.

in

The

Story of

Louis),

fol. 74.

Kings X, 3-5).

Pharaoh (Mosaic).

Last Supper (Mosaic).

13.

Monreale, Cathedral: Christ Healing the Palsied

14.

Naumburg, Cathedral,

Jube:

The

Man

(Mosaic).

Last Supper.

Buoninsegna: The Last Supper. Siena, Opera del Duomo.

15.

Duccio

16.

Ambrogio

17.

Pietro Lorenzetti:

18.

Ambrogio

19.

Cambridge, Fitzwilliam Museum: Achilles Taking Leave from the Daughters of Lycomedes, Detail from a Roman Sarcophagus.

20.

New Noli

di

Lorcnzetti:

The

The

Presentation of Christ. Florence, Uffizi.

Birth of the Virgin. Siena, Opera del

Duomo.

Lorenzetti: "Ager Senensis." Siena, Palazzo Pubblico.

York, Morgan Library: Ms. 72 (Psalter of Isabella of Aragon), Tangere.

fol.

41 v.

Me

21.

Austrian Master of 1327-1329: The Three Marys at the Tangere. Klosterneuburg, Monastery.

22.

Giotto: Noli

23.

New

24.

Florence, Accademia:

Me

Tomb; Noli Me

Tangere, Detail. Padua, Arena Chapel.

The Entombment (Gothic Ivory). The Entombment, Detail of the Apron of a Tuscan

York, Metropolitan Museum:

Dugento

Cross.

25.

Berlin, Staatsbibliothek:

26.

Giotto:

The Lamentation

of Christ (Byzantine Ivory).

27.

The Lamentation. Padua, Arena Chapel. Altotting, Parish and Pilgrimage Church: The "Goldenes RosseV (Front View).

28.

Altotting, Parish

and Pilgrimage Church: The "Goldenes Rossel" (Rear View,

Detail). 29.

Master Francke: The Adoration of the Magi. Hamburg, Kunsthalle.

30.

The Master

of the

stadt, Hessisches

31.

Ortenberg Altarpiece: The Adoration of the Magi. Darm-

Landesmuseum.

Master Francke: The Pursuit of

St.

Barbara. Helsingfors,

XI

Museum.

ILLUSTRATIONS 32.

Follower of Master Bertram: Angels Announcing the Passion to the Infant Christ.

Hamburg,

Kunsthalle.

33.

Conrad

34.

Paris,

Notre-Damc, Trumeau of the North Transept

35.

Paris,

Notre -Dame: "Xotre-Dame

36.

Workshop

37.

La Fcrte-Milon, Church: The Coronation

38.

Muhlhauscn, Parish Church: Charles IV Receiving Homage.

Dated

of Socst, Calvary,

of Peter Parlcr:

Tomb

Niederwildungen, Parish Church.

14 14 (?).

la

Madonna.

Portal:

Blanche."

of Ottokar

Prague, Cathedral.

I.

of the Virgin.

39.

Hans Multschcr: The "Karg

40.

Strasbourg, Cathedral:

41.

Jacques de Hacrze: Adoration of the Magi; Calvary; Entombment. Central Relief ot .\n

Altar,"

Dated

42. 43.

New

Ulm, Cathedral.

Champmol.

Altarpiccc for the Chartreuse de

Claus Sluter

1433.

Catherine Looking up to the

St.

et al.: Portal of

the Chartreuse de

Top

of the Spire.

Musee dc

Dijon,

la Villc.

Champmol.

York, Morgan Library: Ms. 46 (Book of Hours),

The Man

v.

99

fol.

of

Sorrows. 44.

Flemish Master of

ca. 1460:

The Man

Sorrows (Woodcut). London, British

of

Museum. 45.

Master Francke: The

46.

The Master

Man

of the St.

of Sorrows.

Erasmus: The

Hamburg, Kunsthalle.

Man

Sorrows (Engraving). Dresden,

of

Kupfcrstichkabinett.

The

Hamburg,

47.

Master Francke:

48.

Baltimore, Walters Art Gallery: Ms. 211

Nativity.

Kunsthalle.

(Book of Hours),

The

139 v.

fol.

Nativity. 49.

50.

Lower Rhenish Master of 1420-1425: The Annunciation (Brenken Berlin, Deutsches Museum. Upper Rhenish Master

of ca. 1430:

Altarpiece).

The Annunciation. Winterthur, O.

Rein-

hart Collection. Courtesy of Dr. O. Reinhart. 51.

New

52.

Reims, Cathedral:

53.

Hubert van Eyck (?): Monkey, Detail of

54.

Berlin,

York, Metropolitan Museum: The Annunciation (Tapestry).

Madonna

55.

Cod.

Staatsbibliothek:

"Werthina" between

St.

in the

West

theol.

Benedict and

Portal of the

lat.

fig.

North Transept.

284.

fol.

323

(Vita Ludgeri),

Cambridge, Mass., Philip Hofer Collection: Cite de Dieu, Holding the Two Cities. Courtesy of Mr. Philip Hofer.

56.

Jan van Eyck: Pelican, Detail of

57.

School of Fra Angelico:

58.

Haarlem, Teyler Stichting: Ms. 77 (Pontifical),

fig.

fol.

2 v.

Ludger.

St.

fol.

1

v. St.

Augustine

241.

The Entombment. Munich, fol.

Alte Pinakothek.

LVI. The Consecration of

a Bishop. 59.

Cambrai, Cathedral: Notre-Dame de Graces.

60.

Hayne de

61.

Nelson Collection. Courtesy of the William Rockhill Nelson Kansas City. Amiens Master of 1437: Our Lady as Priest. Paris, Louvre.

62.

French Master of biittel,

63.

Bruxelles:

ca. 1450:

in

Half Length. Kansas City, William Rockhill

The Annunciation

(Silver Point

Drawing). Wolfen-

of Heiligenthal: St.

Andrew

Baptizing the Proconsul's Wife, Dated

Luneburg, Nicolaikirche.

64.

Burgundian Master of 1450-60: The Presentation of Christ. merly Dijon, Pellctier Collection).

65.

Gottingen, University Library: Cod. theol. 231 (Sacramentary),

Community 66.

Collection,

Landesbibliothek.

The Master 1438.

Madonna

of the Saints

of the Saints

Louvre

(for-

m.

The

fol.

Worshiping the Lamb.

Paris, Bibliotheque Ste. -Genevieve:

munity

Paris,

Ms. 246 (Cite de Dieu),

fol.

406.

The Com-

Worshiping the Triune G(xl ("La Cour Celeste").

xii

ILLUSTRATIONS

DIAGRAMS AND GROUND PLANS Page 4.

Perspective construction according to Brunelleschi.

6.

"Correct" perspective rendering of a Loggia according to Vignola.

11.

219.

Apparent magnitudes determined by distances and

visual angles.

Original scheme of the Ghent altarpiece (reconstruction).

229.

Simplified cross section through the lower portion of the central panel in the

280.

Ground plan

upper

John

tier of

the

Ghent

altarpiece.

of the apartments represented in

Roger van der Weyden's St

altarpiece.

335.

Misericord in the Church of

414.

Arrangement

434.

Ground plan

Ludlow

in Shropshire

of the zodiacal Signs in Jan

(England).

van Eyck's Washington "Annuncia-

tion."

of the basilica represented in Jan van Eyck's

"Madonna

in a

Church." 434.

Ground plan

497.

Original scheme of Geertgen tot Sint Jan's big altarpiece for

Haarlem

of Notre-Dame-de-Dijon.

(reconstruction).

Xlll

St.

John's at

EARLY NETHERLANDISH PAINTING

;

INTRODUCTION

THE POLARIZATION OF EUROPEAN

FIFTEENTH-CENTURY PAINTING IN ITALY

AND THE LOWLANDS VVhen

two men of the sixteenth century

widely disparate as Luther and

as

Michelangelo turned their conversation to painting, they thought only two schools worth mentioning, the Italian and the Flemish. Luther approved of the Flemings, while Michelangelo did not; but neither considered what was produced outside these two great centers.

Giorgio Vasari, the sixteenth-century historiographer of a

German when

Diirer's forerunner,

turn, the

one

antithesis

developments. (or, to

is

same Vasari automatically

Martin Schongauer,

One-sided though to

quite correctly refers to Diirer as

deploring his influence upon a great Florentine

more general

takes a

art,

is,

it

as

2

but as soon as the discussion

classifies

not only Diirer but also

"Flemings" operating in Antwerp.

3

such a reduction of the whole diversity of European painting

not without justification

From

1

about 1430

down

to the

when

considered in the light of the preceding

end of the

fifteenth century, Italy

and Flanders

be more precise, the Netherlands) had indeed enjoyed a position of undisputed pre-

dominance, with

all

the other schools, their individual differences and merits notwithstanding,

depending either on

Italy

and Flanders

in conjunction or

on Flanders

alone. In England,

Germany and

Austria, the direct or indirect influence of the "great Netherlandish artists,"

as Diirer calls

them, ruled supreme for two or three successive generations; in France, in the

Iberian peninsula, and in such borderline districts as the southern Tyrol, this influence rivaled but never eclipsed by that of the Italian Quattrocento; itself

was deeply impressed with the

Italian princes,

and occasionally sent

lands for instruction. Italian writers lavished praise

were eager

Italian

Quattrocento

Flemish painting.

merchants and cardinals commissioned and collected Flemish pictures,

invited Flemish painters to Italy,

painters

and the

distinctive qualities of Early

was

to fuse their

their Italian proteges to the

Nether-

upon the Flemings and some

buona maniera antica with what was most admired

Italian

in the

maniera Fiamminga. In Colantonio of Naples and Antonello da Messina the Flemish influence is

so strong that the latter

That Ghirlandaio's

"St.

was long believed

Jerome" and

to

have been a personal pupil of Jan van Eyck.

Botticelli's

"St.

Augustine," both in the Church of

EARLY NETHERLANDISH PAINTING Ognissanti, are patterned after an Eyckian "St. Jerome" then

knowledge; and

so

were inspired by

the Medici

is

'

common

the fact that the adoring shepherds in Ghirlandaio's "Nativity" of 1485

is

Hugo

van der Goes' Portinari

When we

three or four years before."

ings," the less palpable but even

approach and

owned by

which had reached Florence

altarpiece,

just

take into account, in addition to such direct "borrow-

more important

diffusion of a Flemish spirit in psychological

Cosimo's landscapes, for example, would be

pictorial treatment (Piero di

in-

explicable without the wings of the Portinari altarpiece just mentioned), the influence of

Flanders upon the Italian Quattrocento becomes almost incalculable.

What

characteristic of this First, there

Flemish

upon

predicated

a

new

skeptics alike

own

— considered

as

words.

was

technique, the invention of which

Jan van Eyck himself.

later expressly, to

new

this

and

can be inferred from their

spirit

was the splendor of

by implication and

first

— enthusiasts

the Italians of the Renaissance

3

ascribed,

Second, and in a measure

technique, there was that adventurous and all-embracing, yet

"naturalism" which distilled for the beholder an untold wealth of visual enchant-

selective,

ment from everything created by God or contrived by man. "Multicolored writes Cyriacus of

Ancona, the greatest antiquarian of

his time, in 1449,

enhanced by purple and gold, blooming meadows, flowers,

soldier's cloaks,"

"garments prodigiously

and shady

leafy

trees,

hills,

ornate halls and porticoes, gold really resembling gold, pearls, precious stones, and everything

you would think

else

have been produced, not by the

to

all-bearing nature herself."

4

picture she

because

A

more humanistic

— and, in a sense, more formalistic —

great lady of fifteenth-century Florence wrote to her son that, whichever

might be forced

to dispose of, she

was "una divota figura

it

e bella";

5

would not part with

and Michelangelo

"women, young

eyes of the devout, though these were mostly

much

The most of biographies,

Flemish "Holy Face"

a

would bring

girls, clerics,

circumstantial and outstanding tribute

paid to Flemish painting in a collection

composed

in 1455 or 1456 by

Alphonso of Aragon

Famous Men no

Weyden,

the latter

still

less

is

Bartolommeo Fazio, at

Naples.

Of

a

humanist from Genoa

than two are Flemings: Jan van Eyck and Roger van der

alive at the

scientific

classics

time of Fazio's writing.

7

Jan van Eyck

He

classical

unfortunately

had known about "the property of pigments"

antiquity. all

of

is

is

referred to as

praised for his

accomplishments and credited with the rediscovery of what Pliny

those technical innovations

from

who

the four painters included in this

"the foremost painter of our age" (nostri saeculi pictorum princeps).

and other

nuns and gentlefolk

6

art."

Boof( °f

and

tears to the

understanding for the true harmony of

lived at the court of

scholarly

have remarked, to

said to

is

the dismay of the saintly Vittoria Colonna, that Flemish paintings

without

but by

Third, there was a peculiar piety which seemed to distinguish

the intent of Flemish painting from the spirit of Italian art.

human hands

artifice of

them

which

a

good humanist

felt

bound

— an

to derive,

obvious allusion to

by hook or by crook,

In his descriptions of such individual works as he lost

— Fazio,

hand, and verisimilitude on the other.

too, untiringly stresses pious

He

is

moved by

had seen

—

sentiment on the one

the grief of Roger van der

Weyden's

Josephs of Arimathea and Marys, witnessing the Descent from the Cross, and by the Virgin's

INTRODUCTION "dismay, with dignity preserved amidst a flow of tears" Christ's arrest.

But no

keen

less

is

his enthusiasm for Jan

in

which

at

measurable distances; his delight in Jan's

"if

she received the

van Eyck's

"Map

news of

of the

World"

the places and regions of the earth were represented in recognizable form and

all

you step back a

while he

when

little,

who comes

seems

"St.

to recede in space

Jerome in His Study," where a bookcase,

and

books in their entirety

to display the

near sees only their upper edges"; and his admiration for a donor's

portrait

with "a sunbeam stealing through a chink in the wall so that you would think

was the

real sun."

— perhaps

And

Fazio's highest praise

magic

a rendering of

refinements.

1

It

little

dog

was

— which

must have been

people of diminutive

room; an aged

in the

up the

that lapped

burns"; and, furthermore, a landscape

that

reserved for Jan's picture of a a

it

Women's Bath

summa

of optical

included a mirror showing, in addition to the back of a bather represented

in front view, whatever else

perspire"; a

practices

is

spilled water; a

attendant

lamp "looking

who "seemed

like

one that

to

really

— apparently seen through a window — where "horses,

mountains, woods and

size,

woman

castles

one thing seemed to be separated from the other by

were elaborated with such

artistry

fifty miles."

In thus describing the direct juxtaposition of the minutiae of an interior with a vast, almost cosmic panorama, of the microscopic with the telescopic, so to speak, Fazio comes very close to the great secret of Eyckian painting: the simultaneous realization, and, in a

"two

sense, reconciliation, of the It is this secret

infinites," the infinitesimally small

that intrigued the Italians,

and the

infinitely large.

and that always eluded them.

ii

When we

confront Jan van Eyck's famous double portrait of Giovanni Arnolfini and

His Wife of 1434 work, such

as the

(fig.

247) with a nearly contemporary and relatively comparable Italian

"Death of

Masolino da Panicale (text In both cases the scene

is

St. ill.

Ambrose"

we

1)

laid in

in

San Clemente

at

Rome

executed about 1430 by

observe basic similarities as well as basic differences.

an interior drawn

to scale

with the figures and furnished

according to upper class standards in fifteenth-century Flanders and in both cases advantage has been taken of that representational

Italy, respectively;

method which more than

any other single factor distinguishes a "modern" from a medieval work of

which the rendering of such

The

purposes, however, to

interiors

which

"Perspectiva" says Diirer,

this

"is a

would not have been

word and means

something). As coined by Boethius and used by

word

all

on the other hand,

gives an excellent

and

2

a 'Durchsehung " (a view through

writers prior to the fifteenth century, the

"seeing through"; a direct translation of the Greek

method

(and without

are altogether different.

perspectiva refers to perspicere in the sense of "seeing clearly,"

theory of vision and not a mathematical

art

possible), namely, perspective.

method has been turned

Latin

and

otttlkt),

it

and not in the sense of

designates a mathematical

of graphic representation. Diirer's definition,

brief description of "perspective" as

postmedieval usage, including our own. By a "perspective" picture

we mean

understood in

indeed a picture

/

EARLY NETHERLANDISH PAINTING wherein the wall, panel or canvas ceases

drawn and

painted,

and

is

to be a solid

interpreted — to quote

Battista Alberti — as a "kind of

working surface on which images

another theorist of the Renaissance, Leone

window" through which we

look out into a section of space.

Exact mathematical perspective as developed in the fifteenth century of

making

this

significantly

"view through a window" constructible, and

under the guidance of an

it is

well

is

known

architect, Filippo Brunelleschi,

about 1420 by drawing the mathematical consequences from the

nothing but a method that the Italians,

had achieved

window

simile.

ceived of the visual rays as of straight lines that form a pyramid or cone having the eye and

its

are

this

They its

end con-

apex in

base in the object seen; of the pictorial surface as of a plane intersecting this

pyramid or cone; and of the picture

itself as

of a central projection onto this plane

A-B

B'-F'

D'-H'

— perfectly

;

INTRODUCTION analogous to that produced in a photographic camera — which can be constructed by elementary geometrical methods. It should be noted, however, that the Flemings, about thirty years

arrived at a

later,

no

less

"correct" solution

on

a purely empirical basis, that

is

to say, not

by

deriving a workable construction from optical theory, but by subjecting shop traditions and direct visual experience to draftsmanlike schematization until consistency

However

arrived

spective picture infinite

number

at,

was reached.

the "correct" construction implies the following rules: in the per-

all parallel lines,

and

regardless of location

of "vanishing points";

one of an

direction, converge in

parallels intersecting the picture plane at right

all

angles ("orthogonals," often loosely referred to as "vanishing lines" pure and simple) converge

which can be defined

in a central vanishing point (often loosely called the "point of sight") as the foot of the perpendicular

dropped from the eye onto the picture plane and which

determines the "horizon" of the picture. This horizon of

parallels located in horizontal planes,

all

and

the locus of the vanishing points

is

equal magnitudes diminish in direct

all

proportion to their distance from the eye: "Lcs quantites

et

Ont concordables

from

to quote

a

French

treatise

les

distances

differences,"

on perspective of

1509.

This construction (exemplified by the diagram on the following page) formalizes a conception of space which, in spite of

changes, underlies

all

"Demoiselles d' Avignon" by Picasso (1907), just as to Einstein's theory of relativity (1905)

term substance etendue —

or, to

:

is

It

is

is

— which

is

thought of

as

is

no difference

therefore, artistic experience as

being three-

thought of as being three-dimensional because it is

thought

supposed to be nothing but an attribute of matter

supposed to be everywhere whether or not

tangible "things" (so that

— and,

postmedieval physics up

uniquely and sufficiently determined by three coordinates;

being continuous because extension

and matter

all

the

borrow the expression preferred by Descartes' Netherlandish

dimensional, continuous and infinite. every point therein

underlies

to, say,

the conception later to be designated by the Cartesian

Arnold Geulincx, corpus generaliter sumptum

pupil,

of as

*

it

postmedieval art up

all

in principle exists

opposed

it

assumes the shape of

visible

and

between what everyday experience

to scientific

analysis

— identifies

as "solid

bodies" in contrast to the "void" or "empty space" that seems to separate and environ them)

and

it is

thought of

as

being infinite because the three coordinates which determine a given

point are parallel to those which determine any other point. In fact a "vanishing point" can

be defined only as the projection of a point in which parallels meet; and Alberti explicitly states that the

converging orthogonals in a perspective picture indicate the succession and

alteration of transverse quantities "quasi persino in infinite."

Two

things, however,

struction presupposes,

must be borne

in

mind. One

is

that a "correct" perspective con-

and does not engender, the conception of space which

The Greeks and Romans,

it

manifests.

not to mention non-European peoples, never arrived at a "correct"

construction because they had never arrived at the

modern conception

of a three-dimensional,

EARLY NETHERLANDISH PAINTING continuous and infinite space. Postmedieval Europe, on the other hand, had gradually evolved conception of space long before the "correct" construction had been worked out,

this very

and adhered to

it

for centuries long after the "correct" construction

had ceased

to

be practiced.

1

\\ \

/

V

/

/

i

/

/

w

.//

'

D

Correct Perspective Rendering of a Loggia (Iacomo Barozzi da Vignola, Le Due regole della prospettiva, Bologna, 1682, p. 125.)

The second thing

it

—

is

remember

an empirical

theoretical or

freedom

to

a two-edged sword. Since

for purely pictorial ones

if I

on the

modern

perspective

— whether

it

may

makes

solids

and voids equally

it

medium:

the

way

light behaves

at a respectful distance

from the scene

as well as

as well as

when

different

makes the appearance of the world dependent upon the symmetry

and

phenomena contingent

and texture or passing through media of

position of the eye, perspective can produce

beholder

and measurable,

other. Perspective permits the artist to clarify the shape

of an extracorporeal

surfaces of different color density. Since

real

intuitive

on the one hand, and

say so, topographical purposes

relative location of corporeal things but also to shift the interest to

upon the presence

developed on a

whether handled with mathematical precision or

basis,

can be used for plastic and,

that

is

freely

reflected

by

volume and determined

asymmetry and can keep the

admit him

to the closest intimacy.

INTRODUCTION Since

it

presupposes the concept of an infinite space, but operates within a limited frame,

perspective can emphasize either the one or the other, either the relative completeness of

what

is

It is

actually presented or the absolute transcendence of

Ambrose"

San Clemente.

in

executed by an

matters

is

within the picture space.

and connective

He

studies

employing modeling shadows

is

— that

— and

is

"Death of

the

and uses

and

in fact hardly per-

is

St.

Ambrose,"

fairly

"correctly"

light

and

isolating

that he places us before rather than

mainly in terms of rectilinear propagation,

to characterize the plastic shape of material objects,

van Eyck, however, studies and uses

and diffused

He

reflection.

and

cast-

light, in

stresses its action

upon

modification by solids and thereby works that magic so ardently admired

throughout the centuries: those luster of

and

principle,

addition, in terms of diffraction, reflection its

little

not and has four central vanishing points instead

to clarify their relative position. Jan

surfaces as well as

matters

that the Italian master conceives of light as a quantitative

rather than a qualitative

subdued

merely implied.

already familiar with Brunelleschian methods,

artist

constructed whereas the Arnolfini portrait

What

It

and compass

ceptible without the application of ruler

shadows

is

these dual possibilities that are exemplified by Jan van Eyck's Arnolfini portrait

the "Death of St.

of one.

what

reflexes

on

brass

and

crystal, that

sheen on velvet or fur, that

wool or seasoned wood, those flames that look "as though they were

really

burning," those mirrored images, that colored chiaroscuro pervading the whole room.

where the death chamber of

Ambrose

St.

is

a complete

and closed

And

unit, entirely contained

within the limits of the frame and not communicating with the outside world, the nuptial

chamber of the Arnolfinis and

is,

ceiling are artfully cut

in spite of

on

its

all sides

cozy narrowness, a

slice

of infinity. Its walls, floor

so as to transcend not only the

picture plane so that the beholder feels included in the very disclosing the thin brick wall of the house

and the

room;

tiniest strip of

kind of osmosis between indoors and outdoors, secluded

cell

frame but

yet the half-open

also the

window,

garden and sky, creates a

and universal

space.

Millard Meiss has recently pointed out the close connection that exists between Jan van

"Madonna van

Eyck's

der Paele" of 1436

(fig.

248) and Piero della Francesca's Brera altarpiece

produced for Federico of Urbino in the early painting of the figure of a

Madonna and

donor

(text

1

ill.

2).

'seventies,

saints represented in a

The

the "earliest example in Italian

church" together with the

great Italian appears to be indebted to the great Fleming,

not only for the "analysis of color and light, especially in the armor of the well be compared to that of Jan's

St.

George) but

also for the idea of

Duke" (which may

an architecture which

"by implication extends forward beyond the frame, around and over the spectator within

more

it."

who

stands

Yet no two pictures so closely related in iconography and composition could be

different in spirit. Piero's soaring basilica with

majestic

full-scale

and

self-contained,

where

its

unbroken, windowless surfaces

Jan's small, low, circular church, seen as a "close-up"

communicating with the outdoors by

a fenestrated ambulatory,

is,

is

and

like the Arnolfini portrait,

Duke of Urbino, turned to full profile, is set apart from the community of the saints, the Canon van der Paele, depicted in threequarter view and kneeling between the Virgin Mary and his patron saint, is included in this

both intimate and suggestive of

infinity.

Where

the

EARLY NETHERLANDISH PAINTING community; and the same

privilege

is

accorded, in a lesser degree, even to the beholder. True,

the longitudinal arches of Piero's structure, with their anterior impost blocks overlapped by the frame,

do suggest incompleteness; but they

also

keep us

from the

at a distance

event, for

they place us in the nave of the edifice, with the triumphal arch (not to mention the lance

and gauntlet of the Duke) interposed between us and the apse and transept where the Virgin holds her court. Jan includes us within the boundaries staked out by the columns and thereby

draws

conversazione; and the carpet spread over

us, quite literally, into the circle of the sacra

the steps of the Virgin's throne, cut off as

it

by the lower frame, seems

is

to

extend to the

very tips of our shoes.

This sense of intimacy

makes the unique.

It

picture a

is

deepened by that worshipful respect for the particular which

world inexhaustibly

little

God

accepts the things created by

is

exemplary

or, as the

or produced by

man

instead of searching for a universal law or principle to

endeavor to conform. But

North — that

is

it

complete in

itself

and irreplaceably

Gothic tends to individualize where the Italian

a truism that northern Late

is

Renaissance strives for that which

rich,

phrase goes, for "the ideal," that

it

as they present themselves to the eye

which they more or

less successfully

perhaps more than an accident that the via moderna of the

nominalistic philosophy which claimed that the quality of reality belongs

exclusively to the particular things directly perceived by the senses

known through

psychological states directly

inner experience

fruit in Italy outside a limited circle of natural scientists; specifically, in

Florence that

Neoplatonism according

to

we can

to the particular

— does not seem to have borne

whereas

it

is

in Italy and,

more

witness the resurgence and enthusiastic acceptance of a

which, to quote from

its

greatest

truth of a created thing consists primarily in the fact that

Thus we can understand

and

it

spokesman, Marsilio Ficino, "the

corresponds entirely to

its

Idea."

the peculiarly one-sided relation between Flemish and Italian

painting in the fifteenth century. Flanders and Italy shared the basic principles of "modern" art;

but they represented the positive and negative poles of one electric circuit and

easily conceive that

we

can

during the fifteenth century the current could flow only from north to

south. Exploiting the plastic rather than the pictorial possibilities of perspective, the Italians

could gracefully accept some of the Flemish achievements and yet go on with the pursuit of that "beauty"

the

Romans:

had once

which they found embodied "I

in the art of the

Greeks and

solemnly surrender these beautiful statues to the

arisen,"

wrote Sixtus IV

The Flemings, conceiving

when

Roman

their

own

ancestors,

people whence they

restoring a part of the papal collection to the Capitol.

of perspective as a

means

of optical enrichment rather than stereo-

graphical clarification and unchallenged by the visible remains of classical antiquity, were

long unable to understand an idiom so strongly flavored with Hellenism and Latinism.

It

was, with but a few and well-motivated exceptions, not until the very end of the fifteenth

century that Flemish painting came to be

drawn

classicizing influence first sneaking in, as

it

as

into the orbit of the Italian Renaissance, the

were, in the shape of such decorative accessories

garlands of fruits and leaves, playful putti or ornamental medallions fashioned after classical

cameos;

'

and

it

took the

spirit

of a

new

century, the rise of

8

new

artistic centers,

and even

INTRODUCTION the help of a

German, Albrecht

Diirer, to

open Netherlandish eyes

more

to the

basic values of

the Italian rinascimento}

During the greater part of the

on

a strong impression

Italy,

was

making

fifteenth century, then, painting in Flanders, while virtually impervious to influences

greater part of the fourteenth century, however, the situation

from

Italy.

had been the

During the

it may Weyden were

reverse;

said that the very weapons with which Jan van Eyck and Roger van der

be to

achieve their victories had been forged in Siena and Florence; and that the ore that went into the

making

of these

weapons had been mined

Rome and

in

Alexandria.

in have remarked that the Greeks and Romans never arrived

I

construction. This, however, does not

mean

at a "correct" perspective

method

that they never arrived at a

representation. Plato thunders against the "deception" or "trickery" of painters as different in size

what was

concave or convex what was

in truth equal, as crooked

We

flat.

what was

straight,

of perspective

who

depicted

and

as either

hear of genre scenes staged in interiors, and, as early as

the end of the fourth century B.C., of such extraordinary specimens of luminarism as

Antiphilos'

"Boy Blowing

a Fire," with the boy's face

reflected light. In the Hellenistic

we

to us

find not only

ground

and the whole

setting illumined

by

and Roman mosaics and paintings that have come down and

planes, walls

ceilings receding into

depth but also an

almost impressionistic treatment of forms and the use of cast-shadows and reflections; and, in the

famous "Odyssey Landscapes" of the

picture as a "view through a kind of

first

window"

century, Alberti's definition of a perspective

continuous scenery as though through the openings of a pergola (text

No

doubt, then, that Hellenistic and

space; but this space

was in

itself

Roman

ill.

look upon a

3).

art achieved a perspective interpretation of

quite different

visually symbolized in postmedieval art.

we

so literally realized that

is

from

that infinite

continuum which

Unlike nineteenth-century Impressionism, with which

the style of the "Odyssey Landscapes" and their kind has often been compared, they

convey the impression of a stable and coherent world, it is

"seen," but of a

world unstable and incoherent

in

made

itself.

to flicker

Rocks,

coalesce into a unified whole, nor to extend

beyond our range of

their

all

a result, the

could assert

figures

vision.

to

The volume and

the objects are strongly affected by the action of light and atmosphere; but neither

diminution in

relation to distance.

As

and tiny

and things do not seem

and

sea; but space

do not

and vibrate by the way

trees, ships

are freely distributed over vast areas of land

color of

is

size

nor their optical attenuation

There are

reflections

expressed in terms of a constant

and cast-shadows, but nothing

whole has an unreal, almost

itself

is

spectral quality, as

like unified lighting.

though extracorporeal space

only at the expense of the solid bodies and, vampirelike, preyed upon their

very substance.

In

fact, classical

antiquity never outgrew the feeling that extracorporeal space

was some-

thing foreign, even inimical, to the world of plastic shapes. In pre-Hellenistic periods, this

9

EARLY NETHERLANDISH PAINTING extracorporeal space had been expressed, in paintings and reliefs alike, as an opaque, esthetically negative surface;

and even

after

Empedocles and Anaxagoras had discovered

a material substance, the artists continued to interpret space as a

compound

that air

was

of solids and

"voids" rather than as a modification of one continuum comprising the corporeal and non-

Roman

corporeal alike. In Hellenistic and

come down

paintings that have Style"

and

'

to us

painting

— and

can be verified by the few

— space was suggested by placing interstices between such

figures, rather

is

reflected in the Brunelleschian construction.

remained a composite of two competing elements, the

and the equally

The

finite

sum

which

total of that

is

is

a

;

and where

"

Anaxagoras' attempt

was accepted

it

at

overcoming

infinites":

if

seemed

it

which

is

solid

to the classical

mind

Pythagorean dictum

to quote a

to contradict the concept of con-

this contradiction

meria" had been reduced to the absurd by Zeno, the

between the "two

In short, space

total of that

somehow repugnant

form of the unlimited and good of the limited,"

endorsed by Aristotle) tinuity. After

sum

finite

not.

very concept of the infinite (aneipov) was

evil

solids as rocks, trees, walls

than by allotting to solids and intervals an equal share in that corpus

sumptum which

generalitcr

("For

this

from the period preceding the "Second Pompeian

classical thinkers

by

his theory of

had

"homoio-

to choose, so to speak,

they believed in the infinitesimally small, resulting from con-

tinuous and unlimited division, they had to renounce the infinitely large resulting from con-

The

tinuous and unlimited augmentation, and vice versa.

and Democritus, was around that

infinite but discontinuous in that

which could be defined only

in a void (kcvov)

Democritus applied

this atomistic

atomism, on the other hand, believing

view even

to

universe of the atomists, Leucippus consisted of indivisibles whirling

it

"non-being"

as the

pure mathematics.

an unlimitedly

as they did in

(/at) 3

6V),

and

it

seems

The opponents

divisible

of

continuum, were

forced to postulate a limited universe. In mathematics, the antinomy between infinity and continuity

was

implicitly

though not

explicitly resolved

by the genius of Archimedes and

Apollonius of Perge; and Democritus' "atomization" of mathematical figures

— exemplified

by his analysis of the cone as a summation of disks or laminae of unequal radius and imperceptibly as a

though not infinitesimally small height, 4 and by

polyhedron which

is

"all

corner"

5

his

famous definition of the sphere

— went a long way to make

Nonatomistic cosmologists and physicists, however, found

it

this

achievement

possible.

impossible to reconcile a continu-

ous structure of the physical world with what Aristotle terms the "actually" as opposed to the "potentially" infinite (ivepyeiq arreipov as opposed to hvvapet aneipov). Precisely because he

denied the possibility of the void and insisted on the unlimited and continuous all spatial

and temporal magnitudes,

his universe

had

to be finite.

It is

encompassed by the

outermost sphere of the firmament beyond which there

is

and "a magnitude

an impossibility since

in excess of every finite

transcend the heavens."

To

numbers and geometrical

Thus even

magnitude

is

divisibility of

"neither place nor void nor time"; it

would have

7

to

the mathematicians he leaves the right to stipulate the infinity of

quantities; but he will not admit infinity to the world of physics.

the "universal space" (70770? koij/o?)

is

finite;

and

it

differs,

8

moreover, from the

space occupied by individual bodies (707705 18109) in that the latter has only three dimensions

10

INTRODUCTION (Siaoracrei?) whereas the former has six: "above" and "below," "before" and "behind," "to right"

and "to

J

left."

— graphically anticipated by Brunelleschi and Alberti and geometrically reproduced by Desargues — was identical with the space of Euclid. Formally, the Cartesian substance itendue

Materially, however, it

was accepted

it

to the

for, or

differed therefrom in that

it

as the

modus

it

was acknowledged

essendi of the physical universe

realm of mathematical speculation. The

classical

where

Aristotle

own

had relegated

world view, therefore, did not

even admit, the "modern" perspective construction which, as

Alberti's

as a reality, in that

we

call

could infer from

words, lends visual expression to the concept of the "actual"

infinite.

And

a

further obstacle, insurmountable to artists and theoreticians alike, to the development of this

"modern" construction was the optics.

surface,

"Modern"

perspective,

which means

that

distances

from the eye;

distances

d and

as a.

fact that

it

conflicts

we remember,

with one of the basic tenets of

represents a central projection onto a plane

magnitudes objectively equal appear inversely proportional to their

if,

for instance,

two equal

vertical lines,

a and

b, are

seen at the

id> respectively, b will appear, in the perspective image, precisely half as long

According

to classical optics,

however, the apparent magnitudes are not inversely propor-

tional to the distances but directly proportional to the visual angles,

apparent magnitude of b will more or

Eighth Theorem of Euclid's Optica,

less

a and

so that the

/?,

considerably exceed one half of that of a; the

explicitly stating that "the apparent difference

equal magnitudes seen from unequal distances is

classical

is

between

by no means proportional to these distances,"

so patently at variance with the rules of Brunelleschian perspective that the Renaissance

translators of the Euclid text decided to

diction between classical optics

two equally revered

amend

it

authorities.

2

in order to eliminate this flagrant contra-

What

this

amounts

to

is,

considered our sphere of vision quite literally as a sphere, and

to note that this

of course, that it is

interesting

assumption more nearly agrees with physiological and psychological

reality

than that which underlies the Brunelleschian construction. As early as 1624, a friend of Kepler's,

named Wilhelm

Schickardt, proposed that in our optical experience straight lines

and plane surfaces are always curved;

this thesis

was experimentally confirmed

in the nine-

teenth and twentieth centuries; and according to the latest mathematical analysis, binocular

II

;

EARLY NETHERLANDISH PAINTING visual space

is

spherical surface cannot be developed

evolved or even envisaged

down

to break

on

a plane,

x

space."

Now,

since even a simple,

no exact perspective construction could be

long as the urge for such a construction was not strong enough

as

the fundamental assumption of the classical theory of vision. In fact not a

single correctly constructed picture rule, the

Riemannian

a finite piece of a "hyperbolic

known

is

have existed in

to

classical antiquity

where, as a

vanishing lines tend to converge, herringbone fashion, towards an axis instead of

being focused in a unified "point of sight"; which, incidentally, amounts to a rough approxi-

mation of a spherical image developed on a plane.

IV

We can easily

see that the

"modern" conception

of space, as ultimately realized in fifteenth

century painting, could not develop directly from the "Odyssey Landscapes." In order to convert composite and finite space into continuous and infinite space, the elements of the

compound had

The

to be unified,

first

deceptively

upon something; and and Early Christian

Of

this

Rather

amount

it

of depth and

still

denotes

the design

and

is set

it

kind of luminous film which

— though

is

a similar effect

decorative carvings. light,

is

this

light

mat gold

is

produced by the deep

The

voids, pattern

San Vitale

in

it is

spatial

environment; as

and ground, merged

tries to

convey. In mosaics

The vellum

of

is

and

entire spectacle

surface; is

solid,

Ravenna a

foils

to close again; but

impermeable (text

Durchsehung

the forms in reliefs and

ill.

is

4)

it is

closed

wall.

may

be said to epitomize

evident from the fact that the

follow the curvature of the border, thus demonstrating

rather than as a hard,

flat

at

no longer

left,

shade that

"window" begins

porous curtain rather than with a

may

—a

and

suggests a certain

and dark within which both play an equally

interstitial

prospect through a

viewed through a frame. Yet there

it

still

suggestive of the "everlasting light."

that the artist thought of his picture as of

energy;

opaque,

often stained with a purple suggestive of something like space in general

and even the rocks on the

The

and

impression which Early Christian art

ambivalent tendency. That

shade.

no longer reproduces

similarly attenuated. Solids

The "Abraham Mosaic" trees,

"flat,

of Periclean paintings

environment could be fused with the forms of figures and objects

the natural sky, or against

with a

again to that

out against cloud-dotted blue or many-colored striations, both suggestive of

illuminated books

this

a

were into a homogeneous fabric of

positive role;

in favor of a design

Middle Ages, beginning with Late Antique

which had formed the background

was compressed into

soon as these two were

and

in the

abandoned

to be

art.

this quasi-spatial

it

could be achieved only by what looks like regression.

course, extracorporeal space could never be reduced

reliefs.

as

this

what happened

is

esthetically negative surface"

and

and

"modern" view through something had

something

still

all

filling a

frame and not

a feeling for depth; the

ground

as of is

something

treated as sky

the forms are interpreted in terms of light and

thus unified at the expense of linear distinctness and plastic

be said to symbolize the Neoplatonic cosmology of Proclus and Dionysius the

12

INTRODUCTION pseudo-Areopagite, where space

itself is

conceived of as "the most subtle light," and where

(beyond which there

the "nothingness" surrounding the Aristotelian universe place nor void nor time") angels.

filled

is

with the luminous infinity and

1

Byzantine art never quite outgrew

why

experienced a

it

number

ambivalent

this

fluidity,

and

waren Griechen,"

this

is

— "sie

Wilhelm Voge's unforgettable and

to quote

waren

Greco-Roman

They frequently

illusionism.

Unable

Greise, aber

untranslatable phrase

some of the

the Byzantine masters always preserved, and often deliberately revived, features of

one of the reasons

of successive renascences but never a real Renaissance.

or unwilling to cut themselves off from the Hellenistic tradition sie

"neither

is

God and His

eternity of

2

—

basic

retained a kind of receding ground

plane; they rendered terrain and vegetation in pictorial rather than draftsmanlike fashion;

they tended to harden into strips the streaks of light and grooves of shade that served for the depiction of drapery, but never went so far as to transform these strips into purely graphic

Most important, they continued

lines.

to use foreshortening

mostly for the rendering of architecture, the

latter

— the

and overlapping

mostly in landscapes

former

— to indicate recession

in depth.

was

It

Western Europe, and in the period known

in

clean break with Hellenism. so to speak,

We

when we compare

can observe

a specimen of

from the end of the twelfth century, with ca. 816-835.

— with

A

dogs and

made

a

archetype, the famous "Utrecht Psalter" of

— an

ill.

5) revives

Early Christian model which must have

of the spatial illusionism exemplified by the Odyssey landscapes.

3

lions, bucolic flocks of sheep, feathery trees, classicizing

unsubstantial buildings, rivers and clouds;

art

illumination, dating

product of the Carolingian Renovatio, the "Utrecht Psalter" (text

much

figures, fierce

Romanesque, that

High Romanesque book

its

very different means and intentions

retained

as

transformation under laboratory conditions,

this

Excited

little

but curiously

vivaciously rendered with a nervous,

all this is

intermittent pen (occasionally accentuated by bold washes)

and

organized in depth by hillocks and mountain ranges. Without

scattered about a scenery

much

three-dimensionality, even without the expedient of a frame through

explicit indication of

which the scene might

be viewed, the very looseness of arrangement and the very sketchiness of treatment give so persuasive an effect of airy expanse that

open

many

space,

much

as

we do

in

we

accept the

modern drawings

working surface

itself as

which the "Utrecht

of

a symbol of

Psalter"

is

a cousin

times removed.

By spirited

the end of the twelfth century,

impromptus emerged

as

and

something

after

two intermediary transformations,

totally different (text

frameless pen drawings

we have opaquely pigmented

border whose function

it

figures are reduced in

composed

is

to delimit the

number but enlarged

in scale,

and the

loose,

The

ill.

6).

these

Instead of breezy,

miniatures surrounded by a strong, area,

more

in behavior; the feathery foliage of the trees

not unlike flowers or mushrooms. aspect;

working

4

is

and not

to

flat

frame a "view." The

substantial in appearance

and more

condensed into well-defined shapes

buildings offer a sturdier and unmistakably nonclassical

impetuous pen strokes and washes have given way to firm, continuous

13

EARLY NETHERLANDISH PAINTING amounts

contours. All this is

to

what may be described

as "surface consolidation."

As

ground

the

consolidated into a massive wall of color (the earlier gold grounds, purple grounds and

Romanesque),

flickering over-all patterns tend to disappear in

schema of two-dimensional areas organized by

into a

a

so

the design consolidated

is

network of one-dimensional

In our twelfth-century Psalter this "cartographic" tendency

lines.

further proclaimed by the

is

elimination of oblique foreshortenings and by the gratuitous introduction of numerous scrolls

which, being without inscriptions, can serve no other purpose than to enrich the planimetric

and

pattern;

all

the indications of terrain are transformed into a system of brightly colored,

sharply delineated ribbons which have lost

reference to three-dimensional reality and

all

operate as mere partitions. In

Romanesque

Small wonder that

painting, then, line

nothing but

is

this period disrelished

as early as

of

about 1140)

which amount

the latter

first

mentioned

novum

line

and plane over

in the second half of the tenth century.

the ground for the development of

Romanesque painting

as

mean

could merge into one plane.

analogous treatment; but just for

Similarly,

characteristic of the

to

flat,

clean-cut areas

Romanesque

and the

sculpture eradicated

the

mass forms whose surfaces demanded and received an

this

reason the "pattern" and the interstices could merge into

one block. This made possible that integration of the representational is

was

yet this very renunciation

opposed to Greco-Roman space.

firm, clean-cut lines; but just for this reason the "pattern"

vestiges of illusionism in favor of

which

storied glass,

a final renunciation

eradicated the vestiges of illusionism in favor of

bounded and organized by interstices

And

"modern"

both

art forms,

and

2

So radical a break with the Hellenistic tradition would seem to

clear

new

spatial depth: heraldry

of every attempt at representing extracorporeal space.

indistinct-

contra usum, by the Abbot Suger

and, conversely, produced and cherished two

triumph of

to a

and planes are nothing but planes.

and ultimately discarded the shimmering

ness of the mosaic (described as "out of fashion," '

line

High Middle Ages. Murals and

arts

with architecture

stained-glass

windows

affirm

and

archi-

the impenetrability of architectural boundaries instead of defying or concealing tectural sculpture, unlike the classical

metope

relief or caryatid, is part

it,

and parcel of the

being an adjunct or an insertion: the very substance of the wall, the

edifice instead of

embrasure, the arch, the capital takes shape in the

relief,

the

jamb

statue, the archevault figure,

the chapiteau historic.

Thus

it

was

which, for the

From now

just

first

the simultaneous reduction of the corporeal and the extracorporeal

time in European

on, the solids were

art,

wedded

the solids began to free themselves

established a genuine consubstantiality of these two.

for better or for worse to their environment;

and when

from the bondage of the plane, they could not do

so with-

out carrying with them, as their indispensable complement, a corresponding spatial envelope.

This process culminated in the Gothic

style of the thirteenth century.

14

INTRODUCTION

What

and beyond

besides

and

distinguishes Gothic shafts

ribs

technical differences

all

from

— the

their

Romanesque

to

which they

and webs

symptom

are attached; they have crystalized, instead, into

as plastic entities

of this feeling

had not

architecture

much

to the wall

is

upon the

walls, piers, or

what the French graphic-

as yet

in the

having an axis within themselves.

A

small but very significant

the appearance of the so-called corbel ring at a time

completely devaluated the wall.

same way

acknowledge the

explicitly

The

—

colonnettes and nervures, independent tubular forms which contrast with the walls,

ally call

piers

is

simple fact that they are no longer con-

ceived as relief forms integrated with and esthetically predicated

webs

predecessors

The

when Gothic

corbel rings fasten the shafts

that gas or water pipes are attached by brackets;

and thus

independent of their background.

fact that shafts are basically

thirteenth-century architect Villard de Honnecourt stressed this principle of axiality by

marking, in his cross sections of piers and mullions, the center of every shaft with a Similarly, the figures in Gothic statuary

and painting

surface behind

does from

it,

a surface

is

"statue" but remains a relief

—a

axis of their

conceived in relation, not to an axis within

from which

its setting; esthetically,

from Romanesque ones

around a central

that they, too, give the impression of being crystallized

In Romanesque sculpture the figure

differ

protrudes

it

much

as a

dot.

little

it

in

own.

but to a

convex garnet or moonstone

even a free-standing cult image does not constitute a relief,

1

however, which, in contradistinction to

may well be designated as a relief en cabochon (text ill. j). 2 The Gothic figure, on the other hand, is a real "statue" (text ill.

all

real

other

styles,

body either paralleled by a full-cylindrical colonnette as

High Gothic jamb

:

a basically cylindrical

the case of the orthodox Early and

is

figure, or encased in a half-cylindrical

8)

channel as

is

arche vault sculptures (and, from the middle of the thirteenth century, of Just so did the figures in the

as well).

virtually detached

a

little

no

less

from

their

platform which soon

Gothic

relief

for

Gothic

many jamb

figures

develop into self-dependent statuettes

background and capable of pivoting around

made room

all

the case of

their axes as

upon

two or more rows of performers, the ones in back

completely rounded than those in front (text

ill.

9).

And

an analogous change can

be observed in paintings and miniatures. In an attempt to duplicate the effect of sculpture to project a relief onto a plane, so to speak

—

— the figures, however linear in design, are endowed

with similar voluminousness, mobility and independence. Moving and turning, they seem to

have emancipated themselves from the suggested by

flat strips

pictorial surface,

and

no longer

plastic values are

and patches of color but simulated by a continuous modeling which

— a remarkable innovation — gives the impression of a strong light coming from one direction. A

climax of

Honore,"

power and

Now,

development

1295 and

Paris about 3

this

is

commonly

the miniatures of

reached in the "Breviary of Philip the Fair," produced at ascribed to a

which may be

renowned illuminator known

said to rival

any High Gothic

as

"Master

relief in plastic

vitality (fig. 2).

as

I

said before, this liberation of the solid bodies

!5

was accompanied by the

liberation

EARLY NETHERLANDISH PAINTING of a corresponding exist

volume of enveloping

The Gothic

statue,

wherever placed, cannot

— both three-dimensionalized descendants of the Byzan— which, together with a plinth or console, creates a kind of aedicula

without a canopy or tabernacle

and Romanesque

tine

space.

around the

spatial shell

series of arches (or

figure. In the reliefs, the scene of action

is

normally overhung by a

conventionalized clouds) which, like a valance, determines the front plane

An

of a shallow but undeniably three-dimensional podium.

even more elaborate framing

system was often adopted in glass paintings and book illuminations, where the figures are

shown

as

though seen through

example being the "Psalter of

St.

framing system

was assured

It

Gothic portal, the best

a complicated

a spatial effect

Louis" of

1255 (text

ca.

to miniatures

ill.

by a

10)

:

new

known and most

and even without such

style

had

a

marked

a

treatment of the ground.

tends to be differentiated from the figures and objects "in front" of

burnished gold to which the Romanesque

glorious

it,

first,

by the use of

aversion (not without reason

has the style of book illumination of the thirteenth century been called the style a jonds d'or) and,

later,

by the introduction of rinceaux,

and the

tessellation, diaper patterns

like,

;

which

give the impression of a tapestry spread behind the figures rather than of a solid surface

containing them.

Thus

the

High Gothic

style freed

and extracorporeal space and,

at the

from the

fetters of

two-dimensionality both plastic form

same time, preserved

that consubstantiality of the

one

with the other which was the precious heritage of the Romanesque. This was a tremendous

advance in the direction of the postmedieval or "modern" conception of space

and

infinite

between the High Gothic linear;

and High Gothic

interior of a

style

space,

High Gothic

High Gothic

relief or

background which, while intercommunication

though already continuous, remains inexorably

cathedral

is

a

sum

object, scan over

make room

is

for plastic

the space presented

deployment and

the figures, continues to be impenetrable.

Romanesque

ability of

wide horizons and

style,

active

In contrast with the

the narrow, mobile eyes of

looking rather than staring; they can focus on a definite establish contact

with the glances of others. But nowhere

figures look or act "out of the picture" in order to invite the participation of the

beholder, whereas Leone Battista Alberti admires and too,

the

of distinct parts (even as far as the individual

shifted back so as to

among

Gothic figures possess the

As

finite.

miniature confined to the interval between the front plane and the

wide, transfixed gaze so characteristic of the

do the

continuous

and the "modern." High Gothic design remains inexorably

bays are concerned) and does not communicate with the outdoors, so in a

as a

substance; and yet there exists a fundamental, in fact insurmountable, gap

recommends

precisely this.

1

The

unfolds in a direction parallel to the representational plane, passing across our

vision rather than advancing or receding within

each other within their space but not, as

yet, a

it.

We

see a

action, field of

world of forms communing with

world of forms communing with the spectator

within a space in which he shares. In paintings and miniatures these forms remain arrayed

upon

a transverse

standing line

— or

upon

a series of transverse standing lines placed above

each other

— instead of being distributed over a standing plane apparently receding in depth;

and there

is

no difference

in size

between figures and objects "in front" and "in back." In

16

INTRODUCTION short,

High Gothic

world constructed without reference to the visual processes of the

art, its

beholder and even without reference to his very existence,

And now we

unalterably nonperspective.

is still

can almost predict that "modern" space was to come into being

when

the

High

Gothic sense of volume and coherence, nurtured by sculpture and architecture, began to act

upon the

had lingered on

illusionistic tradition that

in Byzantine

and Byzantinizing painting;

in other words, in the Italian Trecento.

Touched by but not

really rooted in the Carolingian revival

Late Antique and Early Christian traditions, the art of

Apennines, had not been very progressive up

to,

Italy,

and long committed

to

south of the

particularly

and largely including, the thirteenth century.

Sculpture and architecture had culminated in a precocious classicism which, after an encounter

with the kindred Romanesque of southern France, had ultimately succumbed to Gothic,

though with

so

many

and mass never completely

reservations that the results, with wall

absorbed in structural form, remained essentially different from the

And

North.

in Italian painting the influence of

an extent that Vasari seems But

it

justified in referring to

its

leading role after the turn of the thirteenth century.

pre-Trecento phase as "maniera Greca."

fresco,

Owing

wall in favor of windows, tended to conceal

it

for a

if

Italy walls

had

continued to be

not entirely eliminating the

with blind tracery, paneling or tapestries;

were embellished with painted ancone instead of with statuary and goldsmiths' work;

and painting even invaded the northern vived, lenistic

taste

— as cassoni,

field of the carpenter in

spcdlieri

and deschi da

parto.

and were occasionally revived from Byzantine and

Roman

The "Dream

perspective so thoroughly

and a coffered

"herringbone" construction which, of the mosaics at Monreale (text

framed by receding of the Palsied

side walls;

Man

(text

ill.

In

all

these

which

we remember, had

its

is

is

all as

n),

sets of

displays

staged in a kind of courtyard cycle, presenting the

shows an equally vigorously receding

Healing

tiled floor treated in

forming a "herringbone pattern" the vanishing is

lines

preserved in specimens It is

not

vanishing lines have been assumed in the "Healing of the Palsied Man,"

and that the throne and the bed do not conform

nowhere

ill.

the letter rather than the spirit of a perspective interpretation of space.

only that two

sur-

origin in classical antiquity. In one

converge, fairly accurately, towards one single point. However, what like these

media there had

are foreshortened according to that

12) the Last Supper

surprisingly advanced fashion: instead of

foreign to the

sources, the technical devices of Hel-

and another mosaic in the same

13),

— quite

at Florence, for instance (text

ceiling both of

ill.

such objects 1

abandoned in northern Romanesque and Gothic.

Pharaoh" in the Baptistry

of

a simulated cornice

as the

it

to this retrospectiveness, Italy

and panel painting. In

adorned with mosaics and murals where the Gothic North,

of

style of the

was, paradoxically, the very retrospectiveness of Italian painting that qualified

upheld the traditions of mosaic,

altars

High Gothic

Byzantine art had come to prevail to such

in all our instances

do we encounter

a rationally constructed interior with

Apostle would say.

The "Dream

of

to the foreshortening of the

pavement;

a setting conceived as a coherent unity, least

its floor,

walls and ceiling "fitly framed together"

Pharaoh" has a foreshortened cornice and ceiling

but no side walls and no floor; the "Last Supper" at Monreale has receding side walls but no

17

EARLY NETHERLANDISH PAINTING floor

and no

floor

comes

"Healing of the Palsied Man,"

ceiling; in the

dead stop

to a

bed of the patient

finally, the beautifully

being lowered by two attendants.

is

In the thirteenth century, then, Italian and Gothic art were comparable to the

one of

in the fairy tale,

receding

unforeshortened front of the building from whose roof die

at the

whom

had

a

magic

whereas the other had a magic

spyglass,

former could locate the dragon but had nothing

two brothers

to shoot

him with;

rifle:

the latter could kill

the

him

know where he was. In a High Gothic picture — and even more so in a High Gothic relief — there was much plastic volume and perfect coherence but no perspective; in a product of the mamera Greca there was perspective, or at least its rudimentary technical apparatus, but not much plastic volume and no coherence at all. In the Italy of around 1300, but did not

dominated

by a more or

And

this

and sculpture by

in architecture

thoroughgoing Byzantinism, the two brothers could pool

less

what happened, engendering

precisely

is

Romanesque-inclined Gothic and in painting

a

and Early Christian

1

great masters, Gothic

a basically

modeling

new approach

to

Late Antique

Duccio and Giotto. In the works of these

in Pietro Cavallini,

spatiality,

their resources.

asserted itself against the

luminous

linearity of the

Byzantine

tradition (so that the filigree of gold lines by

which the Byzantines had indicated drapery

manner assumed

in Duccio's paintings the special significance

folds in purely conventional

of designating the transfigured or resurrected Christ). Pisani

who,

as

is

Gothic sculpture

itself

to

all,

that Giotto

that

— like

one knee

Niccolo Pisano's is

found the archetypes of 2

and those

who

place

more confidence

—

fastened to the Cross with three nails instead of four so

is

and mobility.

Extended from individual features

endow even

le

the most rigid of figures with a

3

to the composition as a whole, this fusion of the

Gothic with the Byzantine resulted in a space which

may

be defined as

temperament Gothique." Take the "Last Supper"

unsubstantial, loosely interrelated figures fashion, perspective space;

Pharaoh"

his statuesque, space-displacing

placed in front of the other, an innovation introduced by the French sculptors

of plastic variety

"vue a travers

also in

point with gratification to the fact that Duccio's Crucified

of the early thirteenth century in an effort to

maximum

in the marbles of the

may

iconography than in "style"

Christ

was not only

were thoroughly familiar with Gothic sculpture but

and un-Byzantine, slant-eyed physiognomies;

figures in

known

It

in Florence,

add

show

and

to this other

its

inconsistent

Greco-Roman

Monreale with

in

and fragmentary

yet,

Byzantinizing works which, like the

a foreshortened coffered ceiling to

space its

after a

"Dream

of

supplement the foreshortened

walls; reorganize this material according to the standards of a nonperspective but solidly vo-

luminous, dramatically concentrated and, within of the

theme such

and you

Arena text

ill.

for instance, the relief in the

as,

will obtain

its

something

(ca. 1305) or to

limits, perfectly

Naumburg

closely akin to Giotto's "Last

coherent Gothic redaction

jube of

ca.

1260 (text

ill.

14):

Supper" in the Cappella

dell'

Duccio's "Last Supper" in the "Maesta" of Siena Cathedral (1301-1308,

15).

This was, of course, a mere beginning. By the standards established in the fifteenth century, the space presented in Duccio's "Last Supper"

18

is

sorely limited,

and

its

construction

INTRODUCTION lamentably incorrect. While the orthogonals of the central section of the ceiling converge, not in a definite vanishing point, at

if

concentrated "vanishing area," those of

least in a fairly

the lateral sections run considerably lower and the stripes of the tablecloth behave quite

Where

erratically.

Death"

there

is

an undivided

ceiling, as in Duccio's

"Annunciation of the Virgin's

or in Giotto's "Confirmation of the Franciscan Rule,"

(fig. 6)

the

all

ceiling converge with reasonable accuracy; but other vanishing lines converge centers,

unto

and the Virgin's bench

is

— like

beams of the

toward different

the tablecloth in Duccio's "Last Supper"

—a

law

Even the most progressive masters of the next generation, the Lorenzetti brothers

itself.

who narrowed

many

the "vanishing area" to a geometric point (while

of their less advanced

contemporaries relapsed into the antiquated "herringbone" construction), could not bring themselves to treat an entire plane, regardless of divisions or obstructions, as a unified whole,

much

to bring into a single focus the vanishing

less

Ambrogio

vanishing

1

Lorenzetti's "Presentation" of 1342 (text

of 1344, exact convergence

ill.

16)

"Madonna with Four stripes of the carpet

and even

and Angels," the

Saints

took them

expanding the

and by focusing

pictorial space in all directions

it

physical reality of the infinite, an idea

still

to

3

It

the foundations for the

— by their

Oresme could envisage so,

a

the fact remains

"modern" conception of

space. In

medieval representations, Duccio's "Last Supper" and "Annunciation of the

window frame"

being delineated on a material surface; and in contrast to Hellenistic and tions, the space of

which these

infinite rather

made long

Siena

took the painters

which even the philosophers of

Virgin's Death" are staged in genuine interiors "seen through a

at least)

in the

longer to proclaim

and anticipate Descartes' analytic geometry. But even

that the Italian Trecento laid

and

planes in one single "point

all

period accepted only gradually and with reluctance until Nicole

contrast

2

mathematical terms as "plane" instead of in such concrete

and

heliocentric system

"Annunciation"

pavement and the orthogonal

of the

tiles

converge towards two different vanishing points.

to think in such abstract

— the

in his

limited to the central section of the floor whereas the lateral

visual terms as "central section" or "carpet";

of sight"

orthogonal planes. In

all

separated from the former by the figures, go astray;

lines,

some time

is still

points of

interiors are a part

than composite and

before Brunelleschi's discovery.

difficult to discipline his

is

finite.

Roman

instead of representa-

thought of as continuous and (potentially

Thus

several spectacular advances

The same Ambrogio

were

who found

Lorenzetti

it

orthogonals has given us the earliest landscape both morphologically

accurate and panoramic (text

ill.

18)

and introduced,

in the

"Annunciation"

a fundamentally important scheme of space construction which

I

just

propose to

mentioned,

call,

for

want

of a better term, the "interior by implication": without any indication of architecture the fact that the scene tiled

is

laid indoors

is

made

pavement instead of rock or

clear by the simple device of placing the figures

grass,

whereby the very absence of

boundaries gives the impression of illimitedness.

Virgin" (text

ill.

Durchsehung

in explicit fashion:

17) revived, for the

we

first

And

his

lateral

upon

a

and supernal

brother Pietro's "Birth of the

time since the "Odyssey Landscapes," the idea of

look into one

19

room through

different openings, a bold

EARLY NETHERLANDISH PAINTING anticipation of (fig.

what we

is

what

I

had

in

mind when

and Roger van der Weyden were Florence."

The

Ghent

altarpiece

which

we

media to

it

had

I

said that "the very

weapons with which Jan van Eyck

to achieve their victories

had been forged

in Siena

and

invention of perspective alone would have sufficed to change the course of

history for nearly a

was

in the

276).

This

as

immeasurably perfected,

shall encounter,

hundred years and

lost after the

readily understand,

— architecture,

to assure to Italian art

an international predominance

Roman Empire — a

predominance, however, which,

downfall of the

was limited

to the

sculpture and metal

remain almost impervious

domain

work

— the

to Italian influences

of painting. In the three-dimensional

North, the

up

home

of the Gothic style,

to the sixteenth century;

1

it

even

continued to influence the Italian masters. In painting, however, the current was reversed with the advent of Duccio and Giotto, and the erstwhile masters were forced into a position of disciples.

From

about 1325 the Northern painters and book illuminators

felt

compelled to

absorb the Italian innovations until, towards the end of the fourteenth century, a state of

equilibrium was reached. This state of equilibrium marks the phase national Style of around 1400,"

when

known

as

"The

Inter-

the influences flowed back and forth almost to the

point of promiscuity.

And

the Italy of Masaccio

and Fra Angelico and the Flanders of the Master of Flemalle and Jan

van Eyck emerged

it

was from

as the only

this fluid

phase that, after a

Great Powers in European painting.

20

new

parting of the ways,

FRENCH AND FRANCO-FLEMISH

BOOK ILLUMINATION IN THE FOURTEENTH CENTURY At was

not only through

its

achievements in the representation of space that Italian

Trecento painting gained ascendancy over the Gothic North. Another factor was establishing a

new form

Classical art

enormous by a

of psychological expression.

had developed a vocabulary of

— "pathos formulae,"

expressions

variety of states

vitalistic

success in

its

as

postures, gestures, drapery motifs

Aby Warburg used

to call

and emotions; but the character of

or organicistic interpretation of

human

nature.

them

and

facial

— which manifested

an

this

vocabulary was determined

The

ancients conceived of

man,

not as an immortal soul forced into a precarious, even "miraculous," alliance with the "dust of the ground," but as a

harmonious union. The

spirit is

immanent and not transcendent

commen-

tion to the flesh. Conversely, the soul seems capable only of such experiences as are

surate with the functional capacities

and limitations of the body, and every human being

and self-contained "microcosm,"

constitutes a self-sufficient

as

Democritus

In many-figured compositions, therefore, the style of writing

harmonic.

The emotions

neither tend to break

down

they force the body into positions incompatible with

its

is

demanded another kind

is

not

is

so evenly distributed

much more

as in

martyrdom or

Ages abolished individualized

them

serious than

ecstasy,

extinction or near-extinction of individuality in the presence of the supernatural.

call

do

The drapery always

of language: a language that

independence of the soul from the body

and body which we

it.

part.

Christian spiritualism justice to the

1

put

polyphonic rather than

natural articulation.

over the entire figure that, in case of damage, the loss of the head

any other major

first

the barriers between individuals nor

remains clearly separated from the organic form, and the expression

that of

in rela-

organic.

The Romanesque

and

in neither case

expression.

21

and

to the

the Middle

between soul

froze the figures into immobility or twisted

into contortions incompatible with the laws of nature.

into lyrical self-abandonment;

As

portraiture, so did they abolish that integral unity

would do

The Gothic

would we speak

preferred to melt

of a "dramatic"

them

mode

of

EARLY NETHERLANDISH PAINTING When young

Achilles, spurning the entreaties of the princesses

20)

ill.

Departure of Achilles (text

this

— not an entirely unfair comparison woman

dearments of a kneeling Gothic composition

The dramatic

all

movement

19) with

ill.

any Gothic Noli

me

tangere

1

2

both cases a hero repudiates the en-

in that in

in the fulfilment of his mission

— we

perceive that in the

forms are dominated by a force beyond and above individual existence.

contrast between the

the will to yield and the will to is

expressive of his conflicting emotions, and this

dramatic contrast with the suppliant pose of the maiden kneeling before him.

a truly

When we compare (text

he had been

he turns from them with a

to follow the call of his destiny,

movement

violent contrapposto

forms

away

tears himself

brought up,

among whom

two

figures has disappeared. Instead of being torn

Christ gently sways

resist,

away from

between

the Magdalen. His

raised in blessing instead of expressing either rebuke or farewell,

hand

and her love turns into

prayer. All the elements of the composition, including the very plants, are subordinated to the

sweep of

movement which

a unifying, curvilinear

and drapery. Yet the attention of the beholder expression, the faces a life of their

and the hands. In medieval

own, and

is

forcibly directed

art gesticulating

Gothic statue deprived of

a

between body

obliterates even the distinction

head

its

toward the

foci of spiritual

hands frequently seem to lead

strikes us as

much more

vitally

mutilated than a classical "torso." Ultimately, most Gothic postures, gestures and drapery motifs can be traced back to classical sources; It

but they had undergone a metamorphosis which

all

but obscures their derivation.

was, again, in the Byzantine sphere that the classical vocabulary had been preserved in

more

original

form

— attenuated,

East yet always retaining

human

are inherited

some of the

Greek and

figure in

simile, passed

Roman

on the heritage of

from household

moisture and heat."

3

stiffened

The

to

and often diluted by influences from the Asiatic

vitalistic

and organicistic feeling that had animated the

Byzantium,

art.

classical

quote Adolph Goldschmidt's immortal

to

Antiquity "in the form of dehydrated foodstuffs that

household and can be made digestible by the application of

recurrent waves of Byzantine influence that swayed the western

world from the tenth century

to the thirteenth bear witness to the success of this

for undernourished countries.

4

in the

In the North, however, the

overpowering stream of Gothic. In

the Trecento masters could evolve a

new

life

Italy

it

into the ghosts of classical "pathos formulae" just as they

tion of the

me

all earlier art." first

two

in retaining

figures

some

it

had evolved

— namely,

a

"modern"

its

22), Giotto restored to the figure of

emphatic contrast with the supplica-

rhythm he avoided disrupting

the

and achieved a personalization of sentiment beyond the range

Instead of a gesture of either stern rejection or formal blessing,

had not been

classical antiquity

ill.

of the Gothic

time, one of mild, understanding refusal.

became what

food program

was submerged

classical perspective.

tangere" in the Arena Chapel (text

Magdalen. But

intrinsic unity of the

the

of these waves

froze into the maniera Greca; and from this

Christ a classical contrapposto attitude and reinstated

of

last

"modern" form of psychological expression by infusing

form of space by restoring the remains of In his "Noli

its

And

— namely,

have, for

the tension between entreaty and recoil

drama

— and what

in

Gothic

art

a

drama

of purely spiritual significance.

22

we

a

it

The

had not been

in

figures regained

BOOK ILLUMINATION some

pagan

of their

vitality

without renouncing the Christian privilege of possessing a soul

whose experiences transcend the realm logue of souls"

'

new, more

It is this

human

now

nature,

many

Mary Annunciate on her knees

mid wives taking

new-born Saviour

care of the

Magi with

length; the

One

Madonna

of Humility.

art

the Entombment —

or, conversely,

Man

Nicodemus and Joseph

with the

the Adoration of

;

of Sorrows in half

is

is

the Lamentation of Christ. This scene

— as

distin-

not described in the Bible and was originally foreign to

which knew only the Entombment. The Western representations

are, quite literally, "de-positions": the

figures,

Infant's foot; the

humbly

2

of the most telling instances

guished from

Western

Kings kissing the

the oldest of the

or

in flight instead of stand-

Virgin Mother adoring the Christ Child instead of being represented in bed the

inti-

taken for granted but in reality attributable to the Italian Trecento:

on the ground; the Angel Gabriel genuflecting or approaching

ing; the Nativity with

by Titian and Correggio.

iconographical motifs of an intensely emotional or

the Annunciation staged in a domestic interior; the sitting

are confronted with a "dia-

set free

affective attitude that accounts for the introduction, or at least for the

accentuation and elaboration, of

mately

We

of natural existence.

charged with a latent passion that was to be

body of Christ

of Arimathea,

Hypnos and Thanatos had done with

who

is

of this subject

lowered into the sarcophagus by two

support His shoulders and feet

the body of Sarpedon in classical renderings.

3

much

As

as

a rule,

but not always, the grieving Virgin and some Disciples appear behind the sarcophagus; and in

many Gothic representations one of the mourners, placed in the center, pours ointment onto the body. The whole composition tends to be fairly symmetrical and gives the impression of quiet, dignified restraint (text

ill.

23).

Owing to the Eastern custom of burying the dead in caves, Byzantine art conceived of the Entombment as an act of propulsion rather than of lowering (text ill. 24). The body is pushed into the grave much as — if I may use such a simile — a loaf of bread is pushed into the oven; and

it

is,

therefore, as a procession

Entombment was

moving forward

rather than as a "de-position" that the

represented in the "Rabula Gospels" as early as 586. Originally, the group

approaching the cave was led by Joseph of Arimathea; but when, in the Middle Byzantine period, an increasingly important role

the lead in the procession; tation or "Threnos."

Virgin

is

and

it

As though

was

was assigned

this

Mary,

it

was she who took

rearrangement that produced the Byzantine Lamen-

the tragic cortege

shown bending forward

to the Virgin

had come

to a halt for a last farewell, the

or even sitting on the ground, throwing herself over the

dead Christ, holding His body with her arms, and kissing His mouth (text the fact that the

ill.

25). * Despite

Synod of Aniane had condemned the pagan custom of kissing the dead,

dramatic composition had been adopted in the West in the centuries in the course of the

late twelfth

most powerful wave of Byzantine

Entombment

merge with the

traditional

stead of resting

on the Virgin's bosom, and

soon superseded by the quiet Gothic

in that the

and But

body was placed upon

early thirteenth it

had tended

its

occidentalized

23

to

a sarcophagus in-

in the northern countries this synthetic type

Entombment pure and

the Byzantine "Threnos" persisted, both in

influence.

this

simple. In Italy,

was

on the contrary,

form (with the body reposing on

EARLY NETHERLANDISH PAINTING a sarcophagus kiss) as

is

and the symmetry of the whole group preserved

in spite of the motif of the

the case with Duccio (fig. 8), and in the original version

in Giotto's fresco in the

Arena Chapel

(text

26).

ill.

And

which was

was further

in both cases the scene

emotionalized by the inclusion of motifs not as yet current, so far as

Huddled mourners were added

to be glorified

I

know,

in

Byzantine

art.

in the foreground and the grief of the others grows to such

proportions that they throw up both arms, tear their hair or frantically bend forward with

arms outstretched behind them.

It

would seem probable

features, apparently peculiar to Italian art,

monuments;

1

specifically,

and

that these additional

were borrowed from

Roman and

so expressive

Etruscan funeral

should venture the hypothesis that the unforgettable gesture of

I

Giotto's St. John, poignantly contrasting with the quiet attitudes of the figures behind him,

was

by a Meleager sarcophagus which influenced Tuscan

directly inspired

the centuries.

artists

throughout

2

n In view of

all this, it

was, historically speaking, inevitable that Italy should gain ascendancy

over the northern countries in the field of painting. fact that the

moved

Curia had been

to

Avignon

Not

too

much

stress

should be laid on the

in 1309, not to return to

Rome

until 1377.

Needless to say, the Babylonian Exile of the Church did cause a tremendous conflux not only of Italian clergy but also of Italian scholars, merchants, bankers, lawyers, and artists; also needless to say,

it

opened many channels of transmission, some of which can be traced with some

precision even today.

3

However, the impact of Trecento painting was

than Avignon, and long before the Popes had embarked upon major

Simone Martini and

Avignon

his relatives (soon to be succeeded

until ca. 1340,

4

a

crew of

Roman

was

artists

at

felt in

many

places other

artistic enterprises.

While

by Matteo da Viterbo) did not reach

work

at Beziers in

Languedoc

as early

5

as ca. 1302

and was subsequently employed by the King of France, and by 1325 the wave of

Italianism

had struck regions

many

(especially Austria),

as

widely removed from Avignon as Paris, Spain, South Ger-

and even England.

We

are faced with

an

infiltration too simultane-

ous and ubiquitous to be accounted for by an historical accident. As in a system of connecting tubes a liquid, once

its

level

is

ized, so did Italian painting,

achievement to

all

raised at

to all others until all levels are equal-

once having attained superiority, automatically communicate

other countries.

painting would not have been

one point, flows

It is

safe to

assume that the history of fourteenth-century

much changed had

the Popes continued to reside in the Lateran.

ways and with vary-

This general diffusion of Italianism proceeded, of course, in various ing results according to the difference of regional conditions. penetration took place in Catalonia and on the Balearic late arrival

and weak development of the Gothic

style,

Isles,

and

The

deepest and most continuous

where ethnic

affinity,

eclectic

from

ca. 1330,

the relatively

a well-established tradition of panel

painting favored so unrestrained and indiscriminate an appropriation of styles that,

its

all

available Italian

Catalan painting and book illumination give the impression of an

Trecento school in partibus.

6

The

opposite was true of England and South Germany.

24

BOOK ILLUMINATION The

three conditions just mentioned being reversed, Italian influences appeared as sporadic in-

roads rather than as a continuous permeation and were at

mode of expression. master who from 1324 to

first

unable to shake the foundations

of an essentially Gothic

The Austrian

1329 decorated the back of Nicholas of Verdun's

Klosterneuburg altarpiece with four great panels indubitably knew, directly or indirectly, the frescos in the

me

1

Arena Chapel;

tangere" (text

and

The

21).

ill.

his

dependence on Giotto

is

especially evident in his

placed on the right, her arms groping forward and her face uplifted, reveal a passion

human

"Noli

Magdalen

general disposition of the scene, with Christ and the

more

than in earlier Northern representations; and in both pictures the hand of Christ

is

placed perpendicularly above the hands of the Magdalen. Yet the Austrian painter's composi-

High

tion remains essentially

Gothic. Although he shows an exaggerative interest in the per-

(which he developed into a "table-tomb" supported by arcades,

spective of the sarcophagus

provided with heavily projecting consoles and supplemented by the omits), he had no understanding for that

lid

which Giotto simply

which was fundamentally new. Aiming

at the ab-

— and therefore perhaps more strongly appealing to the of the twentieth century than does Giotto himself — he retained, as were, only the planar patstract rather

than the concrete

taste

it

and disregarded

tern of the composition against a neutral

had used

as a

its

development in depth. The figures are outlined

background instead of being embedded in

space.

The

landscape,

sounding board amplifying and diversifying the voices of the

which Giotto

human

figures,

eliminated; and the ground plane no longer recedes, so that the resurrected Christ, placed

above rather than behind the Magdalen.

hillock, appears

little

of depth, but of height.

The

figures,

The

relationship

is

on

is

a

no longer one

formerly massive and fully developed beneath their gar-

ments, are elongated and unsubstantial, as though exempt from the law of gravity; the contrapposto attitude of Christ

is

Gothicized into a swaying, floating motion, and where Giotto

limits himself to the events described

Three Marys according gistic scene instead of

to

Mark XVI

being

set off

by

St.

John, the northern master adds the

so that the

Noli

me

tangere

is

of the

visit

rivaled by another dialo-

against the unconsciousness of sleeping soldiers

and the quiet

presence of immobile angels.

Important though foreshortenings,

2

was

this first

neuburg panels and

German

it

tradition.

in several ways, especially in arousing

3

in style; ca.

Berlin "Nativity" of ca. 1350, though

and

this

is

much more

more, rather than

whole school of painting petered out

1350 "all artistic forces in

The

Kloster-

did not start a general reaction against the earlier South

in composition than the four panels of 1324-1329, 4

interest in perspective

encounter with the Trecento remained an interlude.

their relatives

The

an

less,

literally

linear

Giottesque

and

vertical

in the second half of the century.

Austria came to be diverted to another"

From

— and, we may add,

dis-

— "form of two-dimensional representation, to wit, glass painting." In England, too, the direct influence of Trecento painting was episodic — so episodic that J

tinctly un-Italian

this influence

was not noticed

until fairly recently.

6

At

precisely the time that the Klosterneu-

burg panels were painted there appeared in a number of East Anglian manuscripts a tinguished from

its

style dis-

purely Gothic antecedents by an attempt to emulate both the Italian treat-

25

EARLY NETHERLANDISH PAINTING mcnt

of space and the Italian formulae of expression. In the Crucifixion miniature in the

famous "Gorleston

Psalter," for instance, the figures are placed

on

whose

a strip of terrain

rocky structure, pictorial treatment and perspective recession clearly derive from a Trecento

model.

1

And

from Sienese sources not only the posture and gesture of

the illuminator adopted

2

St.

John but also the characteristic motif of the Magdalen embracing the Cross. By 1340, how-

ever, this Italianistic episode

was

of English painting than had the

twenty or thirty years

over, having

still

more ephemeral

later, illustrated

Setting aside the exceptional

no more

and

effect

upon

the so-called "Egerton Genesis."

complex

fairly

so

overwhelming and,

who, some

efforts of that lonely Italianist

situation in

3 4

Hungary, there were only

two countries where the Trecento influence on painting was neither and England nor

the further development

so

ephemeral

in a sense, oppressive as in Spain;

where

as in Austria it

operated as

a pervasive force stimulating

and guiding rather than interrupting or impeding the growth

of an indigenous style. These

two countries

— which thus developed into secondary centers of

dispersion transmitting a kind of predigested Italianism to wherever the Trecento style could

not take root by direct assimilation, including the British

Isles

— were Bohemia and France.

In spite of their geographical separation these two centers were closely joined, not only by dynastic and political but also by cultural

Emperor from 1356 up

to his

ties.

Charles IV of Bohemia (born 1316 and

death in 1378) and his father, John the Blind, were thoroughly

"Frenchified." John's daughter,

Bonne

of

Luxembourg, was the wife

of

King Jean

France, and John himself was killed at Crecy as an ally of Philip VI. Charles in Paris

and married Blanche of Valois. Both Bohemian

with Avignon and invited to their court French

commissioned by

a

Neopolitan

artists as

trated by a Parisian illuminator,

Flanders a picture of in

and where,

Roman workmanship.

in 1338, a 5

Bon

of

IV was educated

well as Italian. Their capital, Prague,

was written by an English

ecclesiastic

le

rulers maintained the closest relations

was pervaded by an international atmosphere not unlike that of Paris where, script

German

Flemish painter sold

in 1336, a scribe

to the

manu-

and

illus-

Countess of

Yet the development took a very different course

France and in Bohemia. In the peripheral milieu of Bohemia, a

very individual

artists,

number

Italian.

As

the continuity of

France

—

a result

which

at least in that

we is

and partly

find a succession of at least

largely based

upon the

zation. Artists of different origin, yet unified

partly styles,

persistence of certain national

8

traits.

— we are in the very center of Gothic

and supported by

adopted country, engaged in a methodical and

— "selective"

Tuscan and

three comparatively unrelated

indirect, partly

In

region north of the Massif Central where, pace the champions of

Avignon,' the really momentous events took place

Meiss

homogeneous but personally

mostly hailing from the Germanic parts of the country, yielded to a

great variety of Italian influences, partly direct

North

of nationally

— to

borrow

a

assimilation of the various Trecento currents.

civili-

the solid tradition of their

happy phrase from Millard

At the beginning they con-

centrated on the style of Duccio and his direct followers, a style most readily acceptable to the

Gothic

taste;

then they gained access to Simone Martini, Barna da Siena and the Lorenzetti;

26

BOOK ILLUMINATION finally,

As

self.

they graduated to the other Italian schools, especially the Florentines and Giotto him-

we can

a result,

observe a progressive synthesis, the continuity of which was guaranteed

by the very strength of the indigenous tradition and by the very gradualness of Italianization.

m If

any major event in the history of

must be ascribed

this process

to

an

can be credited to one individual, the initiation of

art

whom

artist to

appellation of Jean Pucelle, active at Paris

from

shall continue to refer

I

1

ca. 1320.

He was no

North than were Giotto and Duccio

by the traditional

important in the devel-

less

development of painting

opment

of painting in the

in Italy.

But unlike Giotto and Duccio, he did not express himself in large frescoes and panels.

He was

a

tion;

and

book illuminator, or were most of

so

rather, the

head of a big workshop engaged in book illumina-

his distinguished followers. It

picture galleries, churches

in the

is,

in fact, in libraries rather than in

and palaces that we must study the antecedents of the great

Flemings.

To

a great extent, this

sions which, in spite of the

have been destroyed or

is

due

to the accidents of preservation.

penchant for

rebuilt.

The

tapestries,

altarpieces

castles

and man-

were not infrequently adorned with murals,

and ex votos in Northern churches invited the

fury of iconoclasts, religious and antireligious alike, or taste that called for

Most of the

fell

prey to no

replacement. Books, on the other hand, have a

parative obscurity, and therefore security, of libraries

and private

less

way

destructive changes in

of surviving in the

com-

from the

studies, quite apart

pages are automatically protected from injuries by exposure. Yet the numerical

fact that their

preponderance and

— other things being equal — more progressive character of book illumina-

tion cannot be explained by the rate of survival alone.

In the

first

place,

no region or period

in

variety of illustrated books than did France fifteenth centuries.

demand

for

With

a greater

number and

a richer

and the Netherlands during the fourteenth and

the disintegration of high medieval feudalism and ecclesiasticism the

sumptuously

of a wealthy

Europe produced

and cultured

illustrated

books had been immeasurably increased by the emergence

lay society

with

its

concomitants of passionate collecting and "pride

of ownership."

Up

to the latter half of the thirteenth century the only liturgical

had been the if

Psalter.

Now, no

book

in private

hands

person of good standing could show his face without possessing,

not a Breviary, at least a Book of Hours, one of the most characteristic innovations of the

fourteenth century.

A

private

and highly individualized

exactly alike), the Livre d'Heures

pendent book

"Hours

of

2

that

Mary

of

service

and prayer book (no two are

had developed from an appendix

to the Psalter into

had become an accepted symbol of wealth and position; a page

Burgundy"

exhibits a

charming

collection of

Book

of Hours.

to the latter half of the thirteenth century the illustration of secular texts

virtually restricted to legal, medical, botanical or otherwise professional treatises

27

in the

what was considered de

rigueur for a lady: a rosary, a bottle of scent, a well-stocked jewel box, and a

Up

an inde-

3

had been

and a few

EARLY NETHERLANDISH PAINTING epics.

This

circle

was now widened by the

mundane

translated for the benefit of

illustration of countless texts

poems, fanciful descriptions

society: chronicles, didactic

of foreign lands, popularized philosophy such as the

newly composed or

Somme-le-Roy or the Livre des Proprietis

des Choscs by Bartholomeus Anglicus, translations or paraphrases of Petrarch and Boccaccio,

Livy and Terence, Valerius in

French.

the Bible

Maximus and

God was

Augustine's City of

St.

itself,

Flavius Josephus; there are even illustrated Aristotles available in the translation by Raoul de Presles,

previously not often read or

we must

made

the layman, was

accessible to

and

him

and paraphrases {"Bibles Historiales").

in copiously illustrated translations

In the second place,

owned by

not forget that, as already mentioned, the tradition of fresco

painting was somewhat weakened and a tradition of panel painting practically nonexistent in

France

at the

beginning of the fourteenth century; the three

Massonnier in 1327 are about the painter. turies

1

The

known

refer to

it

tury France, therefore,

so

much more

as "quell'arte it

was

lost retables

ordered from Pierre

have been executed by a French

to

book illumination, however, had been

art of

and flourished there

Dante could

earliest panels

home

at

in

e

chiamata

in Parisi." In fourteenth-cen-

as natural to incorporate the innovations of the it

was natural

in eighteenth-century

Tuscan painters

New

England

execute Palladian cornices and pediments gleaned from the Vitruvius Britannicus in rather than in stone.

remain somewhat

head

a

retardataire.

start

Book

High Gothic page

it

on the other hand, developed

finally ceased to

so rapidly

be book illumination. Within

the narrative miniatures had been no less subservient to the

purpose of surface decoration than the the script.

wood

over panel painting, which by comparison tended

illumination,

in the direction of perspective naturalism that

the system of a

to

2

Thus book illumination had to

cen-

vigorously than in any other European country that

che alluminare

in miniatures rather than in panels as

many

France for

initials,

the frames, the marginal ornament and even

During the fourteenth century, however, the miniatures assumed more and more

the character of independent paintings

and about 1400 many

a

book

illustration, entirely defy-

ing the restrictions of a decorative principle, more closely approximated the

window" than

"prospect through a

modern

ideal of a

did the most progressive panels. Developed into full-fledged

landscapes or realistic interiors, the miniatures produced at the beginning of the fifteenth century seem ready to step out of the vellum page and to in posse: "pictures" in the Albertian or

This

is

precisely

what was

to

"modern"

happen

in the

become

in esse

what they already were

sense of the term.

works of the great Flemings. Their accom-

plishment amounted to a liberation of the forces that had accumulated in book illumination,

and we can decay.

From

a derivative

easily see that,

the middle of the fifteenth century

and

finally a residual art,

imitation of "real" killed itself

drained of these forces, book illumination

— meaning panel — pictures. it

It

earlier

it

workshop

patterns or

to

commit

on the

suicide by converting

would have died of an overdose

28

to

has been said that book illumination was

had already begun

Even without Gutenberg

was doomed

became, with only a few glorious exceptions,

dependent either on

by the invention of printing; but into painting.

it

itself

of perspective.

BOOK ILLUMINATION IV

This whole development, then,

set in

He

with Jean Pucelle.

appeared at a

moment when

— and

the Paris tradition had reached a point of comparative stagnation. Paris, like Rome, was in a

measure

— a reservoir rather than a well: a place where many

still is

and

learn

artists

live

but few are born, which has the power to attract, to synthesize, and to refine but not to originate.

The

from

Paris tradition collected "artists

them out again;

often sent

routine. This

when

but,

1317 — was the case in the

as

produced in

"The Fables

4),

first

down

to

an elegant

talkatively circumstantial 1

Legende de St.-Denis of Most of the

manu-

Paris

"Book of Kalila and Dimna" (otherwise known

of Bidpai") of 1313 or 1314 (fig. 3), the "Bible of Jean de Papeleu" of 1317 (fig.

and even the two "Lives of

St.

Louis" by Guillaume de St.-Pathus and the Sieur de Joinville,

until 1330-1335

and

tenuated phase of the thirteenth-century (fig. i).

2

In

all

dark rather than on

around an

settle

quarter of the fourteenth century.

this period, for instance the

though not executed

Honore

kingdom," disciplined them and

tended to

— with such well-known and probably English-inspired exceptions as the rough

and vigorous Somme-le-Roy of 131 1 or the

scripts

parts of the

all

left to itself, it

axis,

fairly

advanced in ornament, exemplify a

High Gothic

these miniatures the emphasis

modeling and organic

plastic

is

as

late, at-

culminating in the work of Master

on contours and

flat

articulation. Instead of

areas of light

and

being organized

the flattened, jointless figures give an impression not unlike that of the colored

silhouettes in a Javanese

shadow

play,

and whatever depth there

is, is

suggested by the over-

lapping of planes rather than by the displacement of volume. Even where the strong modeling

measure retained, the schematization of form and movement

of the thirteenth century

is

and the hardening of the

linear skeleton give a distinctly calligraphic effect.

To which

in a

juxtapose a specimen of this style with the "Annunciation" in a still

I

d'Evreux,

Queen

of France,

between her marriage

to Charles

in 1328, produces something like a shock. Reverting to the

may

or

Book

of Hours,

hold to be identical with a Prayer Book executed by Jean Pucelle for Jeanne

3

he

little

may

effect of plastic

IV

in 1325

style of

and the

latter's

Master Honore, with

death

whom

not have been in personal contact during his youth, Pucelle concentrated on the

forms; but these he modeled by light and shade alone, suppressing

contours except for such details as facial features, hands and hair.

It

all

was no accident

linear

that he

favored a semi-grisaille technique reserving color for backgrounds, architectural scenery and

human

flesh.

But even more remarkable

is

the fact that the figures are placed, for the

time in Northern art, in a coherent perspective setting. wall removed, this setting

is

not, as yet,

A complete little building with its front

an "interior" in the

rooms, especially the main chamber with

its

receding

strict

floor,

sense of the term ; but

is

strengthened by the contrast between the darkness of the

anteroom and the brightness of the main chamber, and even such

details as the

the ceiling or the paneling of the right-hand side wall are pointed

29

its

two

converging ceiling beams and

foreshortened side walls, do constitute a rationally conceived perspective ensemble.

dimensional effect

first

Its three-

little

porch or

two consoles of

up by luminary

accents.

EARLY NETHERLANDISH PAINTING Needless to

bold departure from the Northern tradition would not have been

say, this

more

possible without the aid of Italy; to be

from

tinguishes Jean Pucelle

was sought and

his

Englishmen, he was not

He

positional pattern.

contemporaries in other lands

moment

satisfied

own

in

which

this aid

could any of his works be mistaken for an Italian

approached the Trecento

"Annunciation"

its

(fig. 5) is

on

the Annunciation proper, but of the Virgin's

way

literature

man

an intelligent

style as

learns a foreign

nor to pick out quotations, but to express

new medium.

ideas in a

Pucelle's

the

try to achieve a literal imitation

with the appropriation of single motifs or the general com-

language: neither in order to transcribe his

is

dis-

with Spanish pictures and miniatures. Unlike the Austrians and

so often the case

is

without the aid of Duccio. But what

Unlike the Spaniards, Pucelle did not

utilized.

of the Trecento style; not for a

product as

specific,

Death

based, characteristically, not

was from

(fig. 6). It

much

his interpretation of a this still

on Duccio's rendering of

rarer subject, the Annunciation

more emotional

yet wonderfully

harmoni-

ous composition that he appropriated the architectural setting (disclosing, however, the interior

anteroom which

of the

the kneeling Angel; ideas of

is

blacked out in Duccio's panel) as well as the beautiful posture of

from Duccio's "Annunciation" proper he

anything, only the

if

showing the Virgin standing rather than seated and of placing the Angel within

rather than in front of the anteroom. Pucelle, then, takes

them, and even his quaint

and an

retained,

attic

little

"doll's house," lacking

pendent and, upon

its

and fuses

a trap door, bears witness to his inde-

premises, perfectly logical thinking. This "doll's house" represents a

reinterpretation of the fanciful architectural frames so into real,

pictures, transforms

front wall but provided with a roof

its

from which the Dove comes down through

two

common

book illumination

in earlier

three-dimensional structures opened up in front, and this reinterpretation enabled

Pucelle to display a coherent interior without endangering the graphic unity of the page; he

could permit us to look into a "room" by removing the front wall of a house instead of cutting a hole in the vellum. it,

and

this effect

is

His structures hover before the picture plane instead of extending behind

especially

emphasized by the

In the case of the "Annunciation," a sturdy

little

angel,

and

this,

and

think,

I

fact that they are held aloft

in this case only, the caryatid has

is

which the Angelic Salutation had taken place was

from Nazareth as the

to

Dalmatia and thence

"Santa Casa di Loreto."

to Italy

where

He

Holy Land by

caryatids.

assumed the shape of

which was

to

the infidels, the house

said to

have been transported by angels

it is still

venerated, encased by Bramante,

1

Modeling and perspective were not the only Italians.

little

the earliest allusion to a nascent legend

attain considerable popularity: after the conquest of the in

by

also strove to assimilate that

new

novelties

which Jean Pucelle admired

in the

form of psychological expression of which, he

thought, the Angel in the "Annunciation of the Virgin's Death" was a more distinguished

example than that the Gothic

"Annunciation" proper.

Entombment by

hands or covering the

in the

He was

in

a

first

northern

artist

who

replaced

the Italo-Byzantine Lamentation with mourners wringing their

their faces in unutterable grief

body of Christ

the

final

embrace

(fig.

7).

30

and the Virgin Mary throwing Pucelle's composition

is,

herself over

again, generally

BOOK ILLUMINATION 1

patterned after Duccio's

which, however, exhibits neither the huddled figures in

(fig. 8)

mourner on the

front of the sarcophagus nor the veiled

the

work

of Duccio's followers,

2

we may

right. Since

suppose that they were

both these motifs occur in

known

in Siena as early as

about 1320. But Pucelle partly restrained and partly intensified the psychological expression and coordinated

If

all

fluent

art

upon

He

rhythm.

recreated rather than copied his models.

"Hours of Jeanne d'Evreux" bear witness

the narrative miniatures of the

impact of Italian less

more

the motifs by a

Parisian painting,

its

to the first

marginal decoration reveals an influence, no

important for the future, which originates in the North rather than the South of Europe.

In the Annunciation page, for example, a succulent ornament blossoms forth from the

"D," the loop of which letter shelters the

is

initial

developed into a curious monster while the interior space of the

— or rather sitting — case angels are perched upon

diminutive figure of the King, his majordomo standing

— guard on the other side of the hasta. Little figures — in

this

or interwoven with the marginal decoration; and the bas-de-page (the miniature in the

oblong space between the

of the text

last line

and the lower border) represents a charming

genre scene: a lazy young man, squatting upon a cushion (time-honored symbol of idleness or indolence), spurns the advances of

more

of a

two

pretty girls while

one of these

rejects the overtures

energetic but apparently less desirable partner.

Devices such as these, especially the figurated bas-de-page, originated in English Psalters

and Horae of the

late thirteenth

and early fourteenth centuries

by the customary routes via the Channel of the Rhine and Meuse;

we

Tournai, Dijon and Verdun

looking

as

find

them

(fig. 9).*

districts

3

and the Netherlands, and up the

in manuscripts

first

and had reached the Continent

from Cologne, Cambrai and

In general appearance, too, Pucelle's

though they were molded out of a pliable and ductile substance

the paintings and sculptures produced in these regions;

some

little

figures

We Paris

of the closest parallels both in

We know

between 1319 and 1324, when he designed the

aux-Pelerins,

and

for stylistic reasons It is,

perhaps, no

may assume

only that he was well established in

seal of the Confraternity of St.-Jacques-

was well acquainted with the work

that he

more than accident

manuscripts were written by English scribes; but he

that

may

two of

well have

or northeastern provinces, the art of which had already exerted

Honore

stalls in

5

are ignorant of Pucelle's birthplace.

of Master Honore.

—

— bring to mind

treatment and in subject are found in the decoration of the choir screen and choir

Cologne Cathedral.

valleys

his

major authenticated

come from

the northern

some influence on Master

himself.

Be that

as

it

may,

it

was

who also introduced new AngloDomain and perfected them according

Pucelle, the great Italianist,

Rhenish and Anglo-Mosan elements into the Royal

and Anglo-Mosan decoration into

He

disciplined the fanciful

freedom of Anglo-Rhenish

a graceful, crystal-clear system;

he elevated the bas-de-page

to the standards of the Paris tradition.

3

1

EARLY NETHERLANDISH PAINTING — which

had shown a tendency either

marginal ornament

— to

a fairy tale alive with birds

and

flowers, snails

little

and

picture; he refined the "drolleries" into

and among these

insects;

a place of

for the elegant dragonfly, demoiselle or pucelle in popular French,

was reserved the

dangle or to remain too closely involved with the

to

the dignity of a real

punning trademark of

honor

which became

his shop.

These delightful decorative features are absent from a Bible completed by Jean Pucelle

and the English

more

on Thursday, April

scribe Robert of Billyng

austere tradition, contains only marginal rinceaux

30,

1327 which, adhering to a

and historiated

initials.

1

They

arc,

however, abundantly present in the third authenticated manuscript by Jean Pucelle and his assistants, the

that

and

owned 1326,

it

and

famous two-volume Breviary, before its

it

came

called the "Breviaire

V;

into the possession of Charles

'

de Belleville it

1 ''

after the family

was written between 1323

illumination would therefore seem to be roughly contemporaneous with that

of the "Billyng Bible."

In these two works the Italianate element

"Hours of Jeanne d'Evreux" which seems

is

on the whole

less

conspicuous than in the

to antedate both. In the "Billyng Bible"

can be

it

detected in the figures but not in the treatment of space. In the "Belleville Breviary" nonItalianate miniatures alternate

of the figures

with others that show Trecento connections both in the

and in the character of the

minable prototypes

as

of Jeanne d'Evreux."

is

architectures, but

do not keep

so closely to deter-

the case with the "Annunciation" and "Lamentation" in the

While

partly based

style

on Sienese models and evincing

"Hours

a familiarity with

Trecento perspective, the architectures seem to come about by a free manipulation of "props" rather than by the imitation of a given setting, and Northern elements are often intermixed

with Italian ones

as in the little

churches seen in the bas-de-pages of the Psalter section; even

such more thoroughly Italian structures as the Palace of Saul in the (fig. 10), skillfully

individual models.

3

initial in vol.

In a

still

later

manuscript that has been associated with Pucelle's

margin of the dedication page

sententiarum by Durandus of St.-Pourc.ain completed by another English

— no trace of Italianism

is

visible.

4

It

would seem,

assistants

its

atelier

on

—a

less

William

scribe,

acquisition

many

may have been

Throughout the or genre scenes as

analogous

Trecento-minded

example, an

development of the initial

phase of avid

followed by one of calm assimilation.

"Belleville Breviary" the bas-de-pages

no longer display mere

do the "Hours of Jeanne d'Evreux." They contain instead

appropriation of an English idea fact the

cases, Diirer's for

we may

in the case of the "Billyng

Bible," three in the case of the "Belleville Breviary") but also to the

master himself. As in so

Liber

then, that in the Pucelle

evaporation was due, not only to the collaboration of

(none in the case of the "Hours of Jeanne d'Evreux," two

v.

to

manuscripts the strength of the Italian influence diminished by degrees, from which

conclude that

24

down

foreshortened and sporting coffered ceilings, are hard to track

the strength of a dragonfly appearing in the

of Kirby, in 1336

I, fol.

5

whole marginal decoration

— the is

drolleries

— again

by

elements of a serious and continuous narrative. In

fraught with a symbolism so elaborate that 32

its

inventor,

BOOK ILLUMINATION Dominican theologian, found

doubtless a

Commentary

stantial

The

ment examples

in his

of the

De

— so

show

sacramentis

Deadly Sins on the

Christian virtues on the right: is

which does not occur

the like of

bas-de-pages of the Psalter section

Thomas Aquinas

St.

necessary to preface the whole

it

'

— the

any other

in

a circum-

liturgical manuscript.

1

drawn by

as to illustrate the parallels

Seven Sacraments flanked by Old Testa-

and by object

left,

work by

lessons in the corresponding

on the Saul and David page, for

instance, the

Holy Eucharist

depicted between the Slaying of Abel (the prime example of Hardness of Heart) and the

Giving of Alms

as

an example of Charity.

The Calendar reconstructible

of the

volume

first

from the Commentary

—

of

five

Church) who

Before the Gate

carries a

seen

is

letters to their respective

hand,

St.

its

replicas

3

—

zodiacal sign, but also one of

banner inscribed with one of the Articles of Faith

addressees during the rest of the year.

The

bas-de-pages,

concordance between the Old Testament and the

illustrate the

Twelve Apostles convert the sayings

that of the Apostle

and reading

Paul, receiving his vocation in January

for instance, the scroll of the Prophet

and

leaves unfortunately cut out but

Twelve Gates of the Heavenly Jerusalem surmounted by the Virgin Mary (embodiment

of the

the

six

month and

displays, at the top of each page, not only the

the

its

mentioned and a great number of

just

Thaddeus

this "revelation"

is

visualized,

dictum

:

"Cum

as signifying the

by showing

how

When,

odio habueris, dimitte,"

"remissionem peccatorum";

by the Apostle's "unveiling" the Prophet;

literally,

first,

(II, 16)

n).

on the other

of the Prophets into the Articles of Faith.

Malachi says

reveals this

New

(fig.

his eleven

and, second, allegorically, by the Prophet's tearing a stone out of the fabric of the Synagogue

and passing

it

on

to the Apostle so that

a process

which naturally

edifice in

January and February,

the year and

is

From

show

traces of

tear

handsome

by the middle of

November and December.

Pucelle's novel

is

wear and

A

way

of depicting the

months themselves.

time immemorial they had been characterized by the labors and pastimes peculiar to

each. January, for instance, recollection of the

a farmer

Roman

plowing the

history of art, holds

In the

begins to

completely reduced to rubble in

Perhaps even more important

serve as building material for the Church,

gradual ruination of the Synagogue.

results in the it

might

it

first

was represented

Janus), February by a

fields,

and

so on.

4

volume and

its

derivatives,

ber picture, where a peasant

is

however,

month must shown

himself at a

leaves in the fall

budding branches

in

March by

"Belleville Breviary" itself (fig. 12).

was abandoned

it

be inferred, not

With

cutting

for a

March, flowers in May,

months; in the November

activity

but from

the well-motivated exception of the

wood

picture,

huge

fire,

no human

Diagrammatic though they

are,

trees in January, a

is

heavy

a ripe cornfield in July, falling

which usually shows a swineherd beating

these rudimentary

33

Decem-

figure

acorns from a tree for his hogs, the hogs find their acorns without the benefit of assistance.

5

in favor of a totally different

from human

have before us nothing but landscapes showing bare

rain in February,

fire,

This tradition, one of the most unvarying in the

the changing aspect of nature (figs. 13-16).

We

man warming

sway in the second volume of the

principle: the character of each

present.

gentleman feasting (often two-headed in

as a

little

landscapes —

human all

sur-

EARLY NETHERLANDISH PAINTING mounted by arches on winch announce

They

are the

humble

Berry"

left to

from the

a truly revolutionary shift of interest

Due de

tin

from

the sun travels

right in the course of the year

famous Calendar pictures

ancestors of the

man

to the life of nature.

in the

"Tres Riches Heures

of

life

and ultimately, of the "Seasons" by Pieter Bruegel.

at Chantilly,

—

1

Small wonder that Pucelle's inventions and discoveries enjoyed prestige for several

more than any other man

generations; he

is

from

the French and Franco-Flemish development in the first

mentioned

volume

of the "Belleville Breviary"

known

(its

replicas

and

produced

shown

is

so unconventional

variant the roof

and

what may be

— the

attic

is

and

which show

of the

an opening

little

augmented from

draperies

a separate

garbled imitation;

monograph. 3

is

and

France

in

development.

a consistent

4

In

all

and the Dove no longer enters the

as a trap door.

6

six to

progeny of the "Lamentation"

5

Beginning with the second

building are omitted so that the "doll's house"

called a "doll's parlor'' effect;

hung with

to trace the

rise to a single, terribly

impression of an actual interior

chamber

was copied many times has already been

seated instead of standing

room through

to

2

a series of at least eight variants

of these the Virgin

movements. That the Calendar

"Hours of Jeanne d'Evreux" would require

in the

In England the "Annunciation" gave it

all parallel

variations have recently been

seven and range from ca. 1335 to ca. 1415);

and "Annunciation"

which distinguishes

responsible for that continuity

in the

most developed one

cunningly strengthened by the

and united with the anteroom, both

within one fenestrated wall and provided with a continuous

tiled

is

changed

— about

fact that the

1385

main

units being enclosed

pavement.

7

VI

Jean Pucelle's workshop was active, presumably well beyond the master's death, up to

among

the middle of the fourteenth century, producing, closely interrelated service

Book the

of

Bonne

"Hours 9

1349)

;

as the

the

of

books for the ladies of the Royal Family: the "Psalter and Prayer

Luxembourg" (died

of Jeanne

II

other manuscripts, a series of small,

de Navarre"

1349) which has but recently emerged from obscurity; (figs. 13, 14),

"Hours of Blanche of Burgundy," aunt

"Heures de Savoie";

10

daughter of Louis

X

(who

8

also died in

of Jeanne de Navarre (died 1348),

known

and the "Hours of Yolande de Flandre," daughter-in-law of u

Jeanne de Navarre (died 1353).

The

earliest

and

Prayer Book of Bonne of Luxembourg." In freshness that

pictures developed little

it

"Belleville Breviary"

from those seen

it

and

and

of

its

and the

entertaining fashion: occupation

this in

such a

way

are juxtaposed with that the Signs of the

were, into the scenery; in the February picture, for example,

the zodiacal Fishes are caught by a fisherman

The

in

volume of the Breviary

first,

much

ascribed to Jean Pucelle himself,

are fused

in the second

landscapes developed from those in the

Zodiac are incorporated, as

to be the "Psalter

the style of the atelier retains so

some of the miniatures may well be

two Calendars of the

would seem

best of these small manuscripts

other manuscripts of the group are

amid the less

34

rain

and the bare

trees (rig. 15).

imaginative in iconography and their Calen-

BOOK ILLUMINATION dars are

— fortunately,

copies of that in the

view of the almost complete destruction of the original

in

volume of the

first

become

creasing tendency to

either denser or sparser,

"Belleville Breviary."

or even retrogressive.

static

and in both

cases drier.

Their

style, too,

— mere

shows an

in-

The marginal ornament became

The wealth

and birds

of flowers, insects

made

tended to shrink and ultimately to disappear, and no advances were

in the

conquest of

space beyond the imitation and elaboration of such perspective settings as had been intro-

duced by Pucelle himself, especially that of the inevitable "Annunciation." All the other compositions, often enclosed in those tricolor quatrefoils which were to

become

a standard

feature in the manuscripts produced for Charles V, remained non-perspective.

design became progressively

and harder, a process already

flatter

far

sententiarum of 1336 and culminating in the "Heures de Savoie" Pucelle

workshop degenerated,

tradition which, as

was

we must

individuality

its

the

advanced in the Liber

(fig.

became submerged

And

18). In short, as the

in the conservative Paris

not forget, had always persisted as a powerful undercurrent and

to reach another climax in the elegantly calligraphic style characteristic of so

manuscripts produced for Charles

V

many

in the 'seventies: the Information des Princes (fig. 17),

the Echecs Moralises, the Rational des Offices Divins or, at least for the most part, the

Grandes Chroniques de France}

At about to

this

the same time, however, a progressive countermovement arose in opposition

sophisticated,

if

somewhat barren formality;

a

countermovement prompted by

a

craving for volume and space as opposed to two-dimensional patterns, for light and color as

opposed to

for concrete, particularized reality as opposed to abstract, generalized

line,

This modernistic rebellion

formulae.

those nominalists

who found

— was led by

artists

who

can be proved to have been what

be conjectured but cannot be demonstrated of Jean Pucelle: immigrants from the North.

The masters

first,

—a

and one of the most important, of these demonstrably "Franco-Flemish"

term which

active in Paris

I

shall use exclusively

France — was

lands but working in

from 1368

and

Paris of the 'twenties

'thirties.

Blanche of Burgundy in the

1348,

Jean Bondol.

That

after

artists

2

He may

born in the Nether-

unknown

be said to have played,

date and

on an even larger

the Paris of the 'seventies that Jean Pucelle had played in the

Jean Bondol revert to Jean Pucelle.

was completed

with reference to

Jean Bondol, born in Bruges at an

to at least 1381.

scale, the rejuvenator's role in

for

indeed to the philosophia moderna of

the quality of real existence only in things "individual by virtue

of themselves and by nothing else"

may

— comparable

And It is

as Pucelle

had reverted

to

Master Honore, so did

almost symbolic that the "Heures de Savoie" begun

atelier of

Jean Pucelle but

left

unfinished after her death in

an interval of more than twenty years under the supervision of

3

this

was the case

is

evident from a comparison between any of the later minatures

— for example the Leonard freeing two unattractive but rather appealing prisoners accomplished illustrations — for example 19) — in the "Heures de Savoie" with any of the — in Jean Bondol's only authenticated manuthe "Healing of the Palsied Man" on 513 script the famous Bible — rather, Bible historiale — in the Museum Meer20). This St.

(fig.

less

v.

fol.

(fig.

is

or,

35

EARLY NETHERLANDISH PAINTING manno-Westreenianum

in

The Hague,

presented to Charles

V

by one of his courtiers, Jean de

Vaudetar, which was completed and signed by Jean Bondol in 1371 and forms the nucleus

him on

of a voluminous oeavre attributable to

The more

stylistic

grounds.

1

miniatures of Jean Bondol and his assistants form a no

less striking contrast to

conservative Paris production of the 'seventies than did the

say, the "Bible of

modeled

retained

still

and stocky with the

linear

The

vigorously

element eliminated even where Jean

as in the facial features, the hands,

it,

the

of Jean Pucelle to,

Jean de Papeleu" or the "Book of Kalila and Dimna."

figures are sturdy

Pucelle had

work

and the

hair.

Figures and

objects are rendered with a broad, fluid brush, a technique pictorial rather than sculptural,

alone graphic; and this pictorial tendency

let

would tend and the things:

wood

to separate

interest

on the

is

one area from the other are suppressed in favor of subdued

specific tactile qualities of

wool or

and

character —

With

tonality,

times

at

fleecy animals' coats as

opposed

to flesh, of

suggested in foreshortened buildings or pieces of

is

furniture and by the indication of a receding

"beauty."

evident throughout. Strong local colors that

focused not only on the plastic form, but also on the surface texture of

or stone as opposed to metal. Space

reality

is

ground plane, and the general emphasis caricature — rather

verging upon

than convention and

honest, straightforward veracity Biblical events, legends of the saints

for that matter, scenes

from Roman

history

on

is

—

or,

— are staged in a bourgeois or rustic environment

portrayed with a keen, observant eye for landscape features and such homely details as casually draped curtains, seats barrel vaults,

That these strated

and couches with wooden overhangs shaped

and crumpled bed

Museum Meermanno-Westreenianum which was

by a Missal in the

is first

mentioned

in Paris. In this manuscript,

men and Quaebeke, we

sense a kindred

inclination for soft, contourless

"Nativity" on anticipate the

fol.

22

(fig.

who

years before

commissioned by Arnold, Lord of Rum-

homespun

of

spirit

— two

at

truthfulness

and a similar

22) the position and drapery of the foreshortened bed clearly

Man"

on the dedication page of

Jean de Vaudetar

2

produced

modeling and a subdued color scheme; in the charming

"Healing of the Palsied

profile portraits

diminutive

Flemish rather than French can be demon-

peculiarities of Bondol's style are

Ghent, no more than thirty miles from Bondol's native Bruges, in 1366

he

like

clothes.

kneels before

him

Hague

in the

this

Bible.

Bible — Charles

— with

two

And when we compare

V

the

accepting the book from

slightly earlier portraits,

one executed

by a pureblooded Frenchman, the other by a Netherlandish master, the regional connotations of Jean Bondol's style are

no

less evident.

produced between 1360 and 1364 by

The famous

portrait of Jean le

Bon

in the Louvre,

a Parisian court painter (possibly Girard d'Orleans),

firm and linear in treatment and sharp and alert in expression

(fig. 28).

The

portrait of the

Provost and Archdeacon Hendrik van Rijn in the "Calvary" in Antwerp, given by St.

John's at Utrecht in 1363,

as a

harmony

No of

it,

is

delightfully vague

in

face

him

to

and hair treated

of modulated tones instead of being graphically delineated (fig, 103).

doubt, then, that the portraits of Charles

more

and dreamy, with the

is

common

V

and Jean de Vaudetar have, on the face

with the portrait of Hendrik van Rijn than with that of Jean

36

le

Bon.

BOOK ILLUMINATION But where the anonymous

Bondol

is

cosmopolitan. Like

new environment than he

employed by the Utrecht Canon

artist

was no

perceptive immigrants he

all

affected

it.

Without

is

plainly provincial, Jean

less

deeply affected by his

forfeiting his heritage of optical sensibility

and joyful respect for nature, he absorbed the broadening and refining influence of the Parisian milieu, assimilating

making

opportunity of

Hague

fortunately

The

fresh contacts with Italian art.

on the right-hand

somewhat damaged

leaf of a "tipped-in"

— faces

Lord

King

of France, in the thirty-fifth year of his

made

John of Bruges, painter of said King, has

own

with his

1371, this

was illuminated (pictum) by order and in honor of the

itself]

miniature

— un-

earlier periods)

work

[scil.,

the

illustrious prince

and the eighth of

life

at this

with a magnificent, gold-

filled

reads, in translation, as follows: "In the year of the

Charles,

this

(normally found only in manuscripts of considerably

lettered inscription

manuscript

dedication miniature of the

double sheet,

page entirely

a

and benefiting by the

have been produced in the Netherlands

Bible, for instance (fig. 23), could not

time. Executed

which

tradition of elegant draftsmanship

its

his reign;

and

this picture [scil., the dedication

miniature]

— the

hands and

hand."

This unusual testimonial

well deserved.

is

and the blue

faces rendered in natural colors,

enlivened with golden fleurs-de-lys intimate individualization;

it is

ventions of the period (see

—

is

The

delicate semigrisaille

background, canopy and cushions

fabric of the

a masterpice of coloristic taste, unfaltering design and

significant that "Charles le Sage," quite contrary to the con-

fig.

17),

wears the cap and

rather than his crown. Moreover the miniature

gown

marks the

of a Paris Master of Arts

first

major step beyond Jean

Pucelle in the mastery of space. Jean Pucelle and his immediate followers had limited themselves to

definite as

what

have called the

I

volume limited on

an expanse unlimited,

house" scheme; they had represented space as a

"doll's

all sides

by a closed receptacle. Bondol began to interpret space

not visibly limited, in height as well as width.

or at least

perspective to open landscapes as well as to architectures,

the

Hague

tion"

from

Bible he appropriated, doubtless

applied

and in the dedication miniature of

Italian sources,

mentioned in connection with Ambrogio Lorenzetti,

considerable depth and impeccably focused

He

on one vanishing

its

1

the "interior by implica-

tiled

pavement extending

to

point.

In stressing that he had executed the dedication page propria manu, Jean Bondol implies that

some of the other

illustrations (such, for instance, as the

which we have compared with the assistants.

Yet his

own hand may

later miniatures in the

also be recognized in

instance in the stories of

Samson and David

partite frontispiece of the

New

Testament

(fol.

of the Magi, the Massacre of the Innocents

of superior quality

and bear witness

humorous, observation and

shown both

as the

his flock rather

(fols.

to a

than his people, his

Man"

"Heures de Savoie") were done by

many

of the narrative miniatures, for

123 and 134

v., fig.

21) and the quadru-

467) which shows the Nativity, the Adoration

and the Flight into Egypt. All these pictures are combination of delicacy with sharp-eyed, even

to a delightful sense of

conqueror of Goliath and

"Healing of the Palsied

sympathy with God's

as the shepherd's

sheep dog

David

is

boy so that he seems to protect

furiously barking at the

37

creation.

dumb,

helpless giant.

EARLY NETHERLANDISH PAINTING midwives

In the "Nativity" one of the as she

does in Giovanni Pisano's

relief

is

shown

on the

Egypt" emerges in half-length from the

Two

stylization of the terrain;

were ascending a

Samson, carrying the

The

flight of stairs.

bunched together that the whole

mushroom. These clumps of index

which helps

fossil

Holy Family

must be pointed out

characteristic features

other

And

Pisa pulpit.

passes by.

in the landscapes.

a preference for little

is

One

Gaza, climbs a

city gates of

cluster looks like

the scalariform

is

hill as

clumps of

though he

trees so closely

an overgrown and somewhat complicated

{boquetaux) constitute,

trees

the ass in the "Flight into

corn that has miraculously sprouted up from

tall

the seeds scattered by the Christ Child as the

testing the temperature of the Infant's bath,

would

as the geologists

an

say,

produced in the workshop or under

to identify further manuscripts

the influence of Jean Bondol. It is, if

we

insist

who

Bondol himself

in fact,

on retaining

this

was limited

Bondol and

cussed, Jean

others, the texts

Golden Legend

first

claim to be called the "Maitre aux Boquetaux"

somewhat misleading

appellation. This, of course, neither

'

means

boquetau must be by Jean Bondol nor that Jean Bondol's

that every miniature containing a

arboreal vocabulary

has

boquetaux. Apart from the two manuscripts thus far

to

produced or contributed

his atelier

to the illustration of

dis-

numerous

ranging from the Bible to the Grandes Chroniques de France, from the

from

to Livy,

St.

Augustine's City of

God

to Aristotle's Politics.

I

shall confine

myself to his contributions to the enormous "Bible of Jean de Sy" in the Bibliothcque Nationale

(begun

and never completed) because

as early as 1356

master not only as an illuminator but also as a draftsman. finished miniatures as the admirable "Parting of

2

enables us to appreciate the

it

Besides such finished or nearly

Abraham and

Lot,"

contains illustrations

it

in all possible states of completion, especially a series of bas-de-pages, either lightly contoured

and

partially

touched up with color, or more circumstantially carried out in ink and entirely

untouched by the brush. It is

from

these exquisite

design qua design, that

we

only the cartoons while

its

series of tapestries

This

series,

known

little

pen sketches, which give us a

can most easily approach that great execution was as the

craftsmen over

whom

for

which he furnished

he had no control: the

"Angers Apocalypse."

woven by Nicholas

(died 1384). His elder brother,

left to

clear idea of Jean Bondol's

work

Bataille in Paris,

was ordered by Louis

King Charles V, had

lent

him

I,

Duke

of

his painter together

Anjou

with an

illuminated manuscript of the thirteenth century which was to serve as a model for Bondol's cartoons and has been identified with ms. baillee a

Mons. d'Anjou pour

manuscript

is

only one

faire

member

lat.

403 in the Bibliothcque Nationale ("le roi

son beau tappis").

of a large and fairly

It

must be noted, however, that

l'a

this

homogenous group and was apparently

not the only one accessible to and utilized by Jean Bondol. In addition to the "royal copy"

he must have used such early fourteenth-century Flemish manuscripts Brussels

and Cambrai which would appeal

directness of characterization.

A

somewhat

the Rylands Library at Manchester,

comes

to

later

him by

ones

now

their native roughness of style

in

and

Flemish member of the group, preserved in

fairly close to

38

as the

Bondol's

own

3

style.

BOOK ILLUMINATION Why wished

a particularly cruel

and avaricious prince of the fourteenth century should have

—

to decorate the halls of his castle

Cathedral — with

given to Angers

customary and suitable subjects

Chanson dc Troic,

that the tapestries

160 yards of Apocalypse instead

as the

Arthurian

cycle, the Story of the

perhaps

difficult to say;

is

it

was only subsequently

it

Be that

as

it

may,

what

significant that

is

it

Northern fourteenth-century

years later these cartoons

to a

book illuminator.

would probably have been designed by

documents that the painters makers and

textile

at times resented the pirating of their

2

workers. Another thirty years

we

learn

of the cartoons' being influenced by engravings or woodcuts;

and

hundred

would

from

Raphael, Bronzino, Rosso Fiorentino, Charles

le

at

certain

good chance

a

after that tapestries of this

importance would have been designed by such renowned representatives of the grand

Boucher. But in the fourteenth century,

1

compositions by mirror

would have been

there

later,

A

a panel painter or

have heavily leaned upon panel paintings already in existence;

least

and testament.

last will

perhaps the most monumental decorative

is

was entrusted

art

more

Golden Fleece or the

unusual commission announces those

this

pangs of conscience which are pathetically evident in Louis of Anjou's

enterprise of

of with such

were

goiit as

Brun, Jean Baptiste Oudry or Jean Francois

we remember,

pictorial genius

tended to gravitate to

what was then the most progressive medium.

No

less significant is

the fact that Jean Bondol decided, or was asked, to

The second

earlier or at least distinctly archaic models.

work from much

half of the fourteenth century was,

by and large, a period of observation and not of phantasmagoria. The time of pure preternaturalism had passed and the time for a renewed affirmation of the visionary in contrast

with

reality

was

still

to

come. Bondol, one of the most matter-of-fact

have been unable to do

unangenehm zu inspiration

From

justice to the wildness

variations in style

these manuscripts, in

two of which have survived)

which every page

is

closely

in

two zones or

dependent upon

to call Bondol's "Apocalypse," as has

thing exactly as effect,

He

to read")

would

called "ein

had he not received

and motifs notwithstanding, do not

from an archetype established about the middle of the thirteenth century. is

horizontally divided into

Bondol appropriated the general idea of arranging

individual scene

of his time,

and weirdness of what Luther

Buch" ("a book most disagreeable

from manuscripts which,

essentially depart

fields,

lesend

artists

we might

expect

tiers.

his

to

Moreover the composition of nearly every

manuscript models. Yet

been done, a

him

two oblong

his ninety-odd scenes (only seventy-

series of

have changed

it

would be unjust

copies. He changed everyHe modernized the coloristic

mere

it.

shading, for instance, yellow draperies with crimson and greenish ones with deep blue.

gave vent to his enthusiasm for perspective architecture in the foreshortened tabernacles

that shelter the Bishops of the Seven

Churches in Asia whose figures are inserted between

the sections of the narrative, and in such Italianate structures as the

out to the Visionary in Revelation XI,

i.

He

lent perspective

Temple

depth to

all

of

God

pointed

the landscapes and

elaborated on such details as terrain and vegetation whereas even the latest of his models

were entirely two-dimensional. the most wonderful

He

equipped the Horsemen of Revelation IX, 17-19, with

plumed helmets, halberds and

39

scimitars,

vitalized

the

movement

of

EARLY NETHERLANDISH PAINTING humans and

animals, and sharpened the expression of suffering; and his

personal

little

mannerisms, surviving the somewhat distorting intervention of the weavers, are recognizable. in the

The

"Whore

Upon Many Waters"

"Reaping of the Harvest of the Earth" instance the

is

effect

as described in Revelation

XIV,

as described in Revelation

perhaps the interpretation of Revelation XIV, 13 where the

Lord are shown

They

groups of three in two enormous beds

in

XVII, 1-2 and the

The most telling Dead Which Die in 15.

slantwise into space (fig. 25).

set

are enveloped, like multiple cocoons, in the now-familiar crumpled blankets, and the is

For

which

strikingly similar to that of a bas-de-page in the "Bible of Jean de Sy"

engagingly depicts the well-known episode of Lot and his daughters

ties

two examples,

steplike ledges of terrain, for instance, recur, to give only

Sitting

clearly

all his

originality Jean

Bondol was not an

can be observed in the representational

when

the fourteenth century,

temporary

German

in these parts a reaction

France or England,

phenomenon. Analogous

isolated

began

come

to

an end and,

and

to live again

High Gothic

against the senescent

to

quote from a con-

to be merry," there arose

Whether we look

style.

Theodoric of Prague in Bohemia or Master Bertram

at

monuments

at decorative sculptures in Flanders or funeral

a rising propensity for sturdiness as

opposed

proclivi-

over Northern Europe. In the second half of

arts all

the Black Death had

chronicle, "the world

(fig. 24).

in the Rhineland,

convex

to frailty, for the

as

at

Hamburg,

we can

opposed

at

observe

to the planar

or concave, for large, comparatively undifferentiated spherical surfaces as opposed to linear calligraphy.

Even

marks

in the matter of dress, the period after 1350

High Medieval and,

modern

in a sense, the beginning of

a radical break with the

The gentlemen

fashion.

time sported short, tight-fitting doublets (as worn by Jean de Vaudetar in the the

Hague

Bible), often

padded around the chest

in order to

may

The

be called "shorts,"

the waist and had to be fastened to a primitive equivalent of

wore what may perhaps be described changed from a linear

modern

as exterior corsets. In short,

of the

page of

emphasize simplified

shape in contrast to the diversified drapery of the preceding period. formerly only thigh-length and attached to what

title

plastic

equally tight hose,

now

reached up to

suspenders, and ladies

even in fashion the emphasis

to a plastic stylization.

In France the plastic though not the pictorial tendencies of Jean Bondol were shared

by another Franco-Flemish Charles

V

from

ca.

artist,

before 1402, the King's youngest brother Jean,

of the arts

much more

rise to real bravery.

a tyrant.

Due de

He

and

finally,

up

to his death

Berry. Less ruthless and less politically

Anjou,

this great collector

and patron

could be harsh to the point of cruelty and,

But normally he preferred intrigue and negotiation to drastic

action and maintained, as far as he could, a neutral conflicts of his chaotic

native of Valenciennes, he served

of Flanders,

ethical than Louis of

was a "tycoon" rather than

on occasion,

Male

1360 to 1374, later Louis de

ambitious, though not

A

Andre Beauneveu.

period. His

and conciliatory

main concern was

to

attitude in

amass riches by

all

all

the major

imaginable

methods, probably including being bribed by the enemy. For his overweening passion was to call into being or to acquire buildings, tapestries, sculptures, paintings, jewelry, medals,

carvings in crystal or ivory, enamels and, above

all,

40

illuminated manuscripts. Cautious, cultured

BOOK ILLUMINATION and personally

he managed to survive

affable,

nephews and died

several of his

amount

and

debts.

This fabulous prince used Beauneveu in

many

equally enormous

two wives,

his

all

his brothers, all his sons,

of possessions

1

capacities both practical and, as

managerial. Principally, however, Beauneveu was a sculptor; and this

even

book illuminator. The only miniatures attributable

as a

twenty-four Prophets and Apostles on the 2

1380-1385

ca.

(figs. 26, 27).

behind him an

in 1416 at the age of seventy-six, leaving

initial

to

were,

what he remained

him with

Due de

pages of the

is

it

certainty are the

Berry's Psalter, executed

Dignified figures in semigrisaille enthroned in lone splendor

before a background of rinceaux or tessellation, they are so closely akin to the statuary of

Beauneveu and

might have been surmised even without

his collaborators that his authorship

documentary evidence. To invent twenty-four variations on the monotonous theme of an isolated seated figure

a task

is

which only

the variety of poses and drapery motifs

brushwork, however, lacks

show

little

view.

The emphatic

a sculptor

as impressive as the force of the

is

finesse, plainly

would have imposed upon

himself, and

modeling.

refinement, and the author's interest in space

is

limited by a sculptural point of

perspective of the thrones serves only to permit the plastic development

Though Beauneveu was acquainted with the foreshortened floor as Hague Bible, he never extended it behind the

of the figures.

seen in

the dedication miniature of Bondol's

and did not

scruple,

them obey the

The

betraying the nonprofessional; the hands and faces

on

several occasions, to

rule of convergence.

Beauneveu translated statuary into

show

the

Where Bondol the medium of

tiles as

thrones

pure squares instead of making

tried to enrich painting

by

plastic values,

painting.

Beauneveu's miniatures are independent of the Pucelle tradition and untouched by Italian influences.

have made

no

Bondol,

at least

some

we remember, was

familiar with Pucelle's style

But he was

fresh contacts with Italian art.

direct copies after Jean Pucelle are discernible in his

and appears

to

essentially self-reliant;

work, and he resorted

to Italian

models for perspective devices rather than for composition and iconography. In other quarters, however,

we can

observe a deliberate reversion to Jean Pucelle concomitant, understandably,

with a deliberate revival of Italianism. The "Breviary of Charles V," produced about 1370 in a

workshop

as

yet unidentified,

copies pages

and pages from the

"Belleville

(excepting, curiously enough, the Calendar) and other works by Jean Pucelle;

afterwards there emerged two

artists, later to

enter a kind of partnership,

Pucelle's inventions in a spirit of free re-creation while, at the

who

3

Breviary"

and shortly

exploited Jean

same time, seeking contact

with more recent Italian developments.

One

of these

two

artists is

the

anonymous Master

chapel hanging painted in grisaille on It

was discovered

to

do with

its

two narrow

at

Narbonne by

silk,

of the

perhaps in preparation for embroidery

a nineteenth-century painter

questionable condition)

;

but

strips that separate the central

it

Harrowing

of Hell,

and the Noli

me

was indubitably executed

tangere

4

1

— are

a

(fig. 29).

(which may have something in Paris. For,

Calvary from other Passion scenes

the Betrayal, the Flagellation, and the Bearing of the Cross, the

"Parement de Narbonne"

on the

right, the

— on

on the

the

left,

Lamentation,

seen, beneath representations of the

EARLY NETHERLANDISH PAINTING Church and Synagogue, donor's In

many ways

portraits of Charles

V

and

Queen, Jeanne de Bourbon. 1

his

the Style of this work, probably produced in the

middle

adhered to

'seventies,

The figures, slender in proportion and calligraphic in design, move with consummate grace. The tone of the narrative is elegantly restrained, and some of the compositions may strike us as almost archaic; the "Noli me the standards of contemporary Parisian court art.

tangere," for example,

more

is

closely akin to the thirteenth-century

new Trecento

the beginning of this chapter than to the

"Parement de Narbonne" endeavored

these limitations, however, the Master of the

Ducciesque "Lamentation" but

known

of Sienese painters not as yet

at

to

match

volume (though not of perspective space) and not only

Pucelle in the realization of plastic

revived the latter's

formula referred to

type inaugurated by Giotto. Within

from

also appropriated motifs

to his great predecessor.

Such

a generation

details as the

henchman

seen from the back in the "Bearing of the Cross" and the Mongolian-looking, pigtailed Jew

Simone Martini and Barna.

in the "Crucifixion" testify to the influence of such masters as

The

other, even greater, artist

Due de

to the

Jacquemart de Hesdin,

is

2

first

mentioned

as illuminator

Berry in 1384 (which date establishes, of course, only a terminus ante quern

for his appearance at court).

Coming from

the Artois, which then belonged to Flanders, he

continued the glorious sequence of Franco-Flemish masters initiated by Jean Bondol. But while

we know

his

name and

origin

is

it

not easy to isolate his individual style from that of

his collaborators.

His

atelier

sioned by the

produced four sumptuous manuscripts,

Due de

Berry.

They

which

de France, Royale

Due de 4

at Brussels;

completed

3

the "Tres-Belles Heures de Notre

as the "Brussels

and the "Grandes Heures du Due de Berry"

as late as i40C).

B

Of

these, the "Brussels

all

commis-

Heures du Due de

will be told very shortly; the "Tres-Belles

commonly known

Berry,"

Books of Hours and

are, in chronological order, the "Petites

Berry" in the Bibliotheque Nationale at Paris; strange, eventful history of

all

Dame"

the

Heures de Jehan

Hours," in the Bibliotheque in the Bibliotheque Nationale,

Hours" and the "Grandes Heures"

are

authenticated by documentary evidence, the former by the Duke's inventory of 1402 which lists it

as

being "enluminees

et ystoriees

inventory of 1412 which ascribes

The two

it

to

de

la

main de Jaquemart de Odin," the

"Jaquemart de Hodin

et autres ouvriers

latter

de Monseigneur."

other manuscripts must be assigned to the same workshop, not only on

grounds but

by his

also because their illustrations served as a basis for those in the

stylistic

documented

"Grandes Heures"

The

difficulty of

fact that the

"Grandes Heures" has

derivative in invention

Hours" page

— apart

— exhibits

special

in quality, are

Dame" and it

is

artistic

personality

is

caused by the

miniatures while the remaining ones,

mere shopwork; and

that the "Brussels

problem posed by the intrusion of an extraneous dedication

a style not easily reconcilable at

Millard Meiss which, shall

lost all its full-page

and indifferent

from the

Heures de Notre

I

forming an idea of Jacquemart's

first

glance with that of the "Tres-Belles

the "Petites Heures." Pending the publication of a study by

to be hoped, will give a final

answer

to these intricate questions,

proceed on the somewhat unfashionable assumption that the "Brussels Hours," as

42

BOOK ILLUMINATION stated in the inventory of 1402,

and

that

was

in fact

— though

the same "hand"

at

produced "by the hand of Jacquemart de Hesdin";

an

earlier stage of

— may

development

its

also be

recognized in those miniatures of the "Petites Heures" which are likely to have been produced

by the chef d' atelier.

The

Heures"

""Petites

member

in fact, the earliest

is,

though never

of the great tetralogy,

surpassed in imaginativeness and delicacy. Executed about 1380-1385,

opens, as though in

it

recognition of a debt to Jean Pucelle, with a "Belleville Calendar" (fig. 16) copied, after a lapse of It

more than

forty years,

from

also follows the Pucelle tradition in the

141

(fol.

fig.

v.,

32)

is,

marginal decoration; and one of

a variation

right-hand wall of the building

it

The

is!

anteroom has been omitted so

Angel who

the

with an

presses

The

The

as not to separate the

was not

to

through a long chain of intermediaries,

so close to

be

little

as

it

be forgotten for

—a

— creates

other propria

(fol. 22, fig.

many

as in so

this

also

presumption

is

is

The

On

viz.,

the

the

left

John the

tradition established

— more

is

The

its

Its

very

worn con-

marked than even fol.

209

v.

(fig.

31)

in such

— which

principal scene

— needless

Man

at the

is

to say,

surrounded by a frame composed of

two remaining Apostles on

St.

purely Sienese in

damaged page

the Matins page, which, setting

and right are seen ten standing Apostles;

top, three figures in half length, viz., the

and

dare not decide. There can

very organization of the page as a whole

—

on

is

I

almost invariably reserved to the chief

by that pronounced Italianism

another and more sumptuous Annunciation

Baptist.

pagan

confirmed, not only by the extraordinary finesse of

to culminate in the "Brussels Hours."

three seated figures,

it is

miniatures as the "Baptism of Christ" on

pictures.

to his

1

other cases, accounts for

patterned after the fashion of an Italian cult image.

little

in

generations. Transmitted

30) was decorated by the master himself.

a strong presumption of authenticity;

manu

swayed

masterpiece was manually carried out by Jacquemart or by an assistant

prominence which,

workmanship but

dividual

many

that he deserves to be regarded as his alter ego,

And

is

this very gesture recurs, for instance, in Diirer's last

does the style for the whole manuscript,

illuminator.

was

to be

theme and, transferred from the Angelic Messenger

which opens the Horae proper

dition

who seem

doubt, however, that the admirable though unfortunately slightly

prominence

architecture

supporting column of the

figures

famous "Mercury" by Giovanni da Bologna.

this little

him

The

forward in a diagonal movement parallel to hers, pointing heavenward

version of the Annunciation

Whether

two

shifted to the

is

Virgin, enveloped in the subtlest of draperies, shrinks back from

ecstatic gesture that

equivalent, in the

"Annunciations"

point of vision

seen from without.

is

embellished by faintly Italianizing friezes and paneling.

unison by one emotion.

its

almost inevitably, a variation on the type established in Pucelle's

"Hours of Jeanne d'Evreux." But what side, so that the

"Hours of Jeanne de Navarre."

a manuscript such as the

in-

bottom,

either side of the Prophet Jeremiah;

Madonna and "Man of Sorrows," however Gothic in treatment and sentiment, inspiration. The "Annunciation" itself adheres, to some extent, to the

And

of Sorrows between the

this

by the "Hours of Jeanne d'Evreux"; in recollection of

in contrast to the intervening variants, the Virgin

43

Mary

is

this archetype,

even shown standing. But

EARLY NETHERLANDISH PAINTING Pucelle's dispassionate statue has been transformed, as by a second

The Angel

being animated by gentle emotion.

no

attitude

less

Gabriel approaches the Annunciate in an

impassioned than in the smaller "Annunciation" on

longer salutes her in a small doll's house consisting of a narrow

narrower anteroom but in a deep and roomy

which with

aediculas, altar

its

piers

tall

and

little

interior, artfully contrived

241

fol.

from

was not

It

v.

But he no

chamber and an even from three magnified

vaults, deeply receding floor, tracery

gives the impression of a Gothic hall church.

that the consequences of this transformation

were

Pygmalion, into a living

windows and

until the following century

a domestic into

an

ecclesiastical setting

fully realized.

Among

the illuminators

singled out by

him

enabled

who

contributed to the "Petites Heures" one personality, already

Chanoine Leroquais, stands apart by reason of

not only to hold his

own

and fervor which

a strength

but even to leave the imprint of his style on that of

Jacquemart de Hesdin himself. Appropriately entrusted with the Passion scenes he produced compositions intensely dramatic and, small though they

(fols.

76-94),

genuinely monu-

are,

mental. There are few renderings of the Derision of Christ so forcibly expressive of the contrast between depraved cruelty

and supreme patience

tormentors threshing about like so

many

flails

form

yet

(fol. 82, fig. 36).

The hands

a beautifully rhythmicized

of the

ornament;

— a very rare interpreta— tion of Luke XXII, 64 makes His agony doubly mute and doubly eloquent. and the

scarlet

hood

that hides the entire face of the suffering Christ

In the "Lamentation" on

teeming with Pucellian

fol.

drolleries,

"Parement de Narbonne" the d'Evreux" and

derivatives.

its

v.

94

this

(fig. 34),

trenchantly set out against a background

Passion Master elaborated, like the Master of the

Italianate composition exemplified in the

1

But where the Master of the "Parement" had softened the

pathos of the scene, the Passion Master intensified the

woman

behind

it

it.

The sarcophagus

that pervades the Berlin spirit of a is

from Pucelle and

his followers,

of the Lord, are grouped around a

Christ on her lap as though

dramatic.

is

among them

Germanic

He were

a child.

compassion without being relieved of

its

2

John,

who

Passion scenes of Roger van der

work

of a capable

of the Italo-Byzantine motifs

hand

Mater Dolorosa holding the dead

And

down,

is

the pathos of the head of Christ,

as

unprecedented in

earlier art as

is

with averted face supports the Virgin's arm and shyly is

the

germ from which were

to flower the

Weyden.

second "Lamentation"

idyll,

excitement

the huddled figure kissing the

may

be said to represent a fusion between Jacquemart

de Hesdin and the Passion Master, the former's personal enchanting

apparently the

Some

Pieta, the

loneliness.

embraces her shoulder. This tiny miniature

this

shrill

This tragic group thus appears surrounded by

helplessly falling back with the hair streaming St.

and transfigures the

(fol. 286, fig. 35),

as lyrical as that of the first

assistant,

inherited

While

placed diagonally;

"Lamentation" by Simone Martini.

second "Lamentation"

the tenderness of the

is

throws up her arms in wild despair; and there are two mourning figures

in the foreground instead of one. This miniature reflects

The

"Hours of Jeanne

the "St. John in the Wilderness"

44

on

fol.

style

208

may

be recognized in an

(fig. 33).

As though

trans-

BOOK ILLUMINATION planting Jean Pucelle's fauna from the marginal decoration to the picture ting

it

over an

by animals.

Armed with

1

all

and

a stag look in

one of them showing Italianate

is

white

— which

tail.

A

bear

lies

That the

of a cave, embracing a

There

a contented panther.

and out of

their burrows,

setting of this Peaceable

a

distribu-

in the right foreground; a boar,

rabbits shoot in

"Nativity" — perhaps

evident from a Pisan

is

established tradition

snails.

from the margins; and

his tiny

haunch of

against the

left foot

kinds of birds, monkeys, rodents and

a goat

mouth

and

itself

Orpheus, surrounded

as a boyish

his book, the little saint sits in the

sentimental lion and resting his are

he interpreted the Baptist

Italianate scenery,

is

but reflecting a well-

later,

trifle

shows a very similar arrangement

Kingdom

(fig. 38).

In

it,

too, a cave

hollowed out of a gigantic, conical agglomeration of Byzantinizing rocks, and in the upper

corners are

two plateaus where buildings can stand and

Jacquemart de Hesdin

this

can grow. But

at the

hands of

agglomeration has assumed the character of delicately contoured

or eighteenth-century rocaille.

stalactites

The rocky employed

scenery of this composition, testifying to the widening range of Italian models

in the

workshop of Jacquemart de Hesdin,

Book

"Nativity" of the second

de Notre

trees

Dame"

Due de angels who the

Hours produced

of

Berry in an unfinished

The

state.

somewhat

similar to that in the

in this workshop, the "Tres-Belles

For reasons unknown,

(ca. 1385-1390).

flutter

is

this

Heures

manuscript was delivered to

borders, often enlivened by unsubstantial

about like the eidola on white-grounded lekythoi

(fig.

39),

little

had been

many of the miniatures and bas-de-pages were still missing. Between 1412 and 14 13 the Duke gave the manuscript by way of barter to one of his favorites, Robinet d'Etampes, who committed the vandalism of dividing it into two parts. What was approxi-

completed; but

mately finished, he kept for himself; and Collection at Paris and published in 1922,

this portion, 2

formerly in the Maurice de Rothschild

has disappeared after having been removed by the

Nazis. Heraldic evidence suggests that the remainder

came

into the possession of

Duke

member of his family, and it is this second portion of the "Tres-Belles Heures de Notre Dame" which was subsequently illuminated by several masters of the fifteenth century among whom there may or may not William VI of Holland and Bavaria,

have been Hubert and Jan

— or

or, possibly,

Hubert or Jan

of the manuscript was divided once more.

Turin where

it

was destroyed by 3

extenso two years before) until

it

fire in

the other

passed, confusingly, into the

the scene of the catastrophe of 1904.

We

are

manuscript "Petites artists

concerned left

at

this

was

One

another

— van

part found

its

way

Jacquemart

into the Royal Library at

Museo Civico

at

Milan

Turin, the same town that had been

4

moment

only with the miniatures completed before the

much

larger in scale than those in the

sacrificing refinement to impressiveness,

after the

second portion

in the collection of the Principe Trivulzio in

headed by the Master of the "Parement de Narbonne"

forces with

this

1904 (fortunately after having been reproduced in

the possession of the Duke. These,

Heures" and often

Eyck. Later on,

were executed by several

who

seems to have joined

death of his patron, Charles V, in 1380.

individuality he retained even while trying to adapt himself to his

45

How much

new

of his

surroundings

is

EARLY NETHERLANDISH PAINTING Heures de Notre Dame"

evident, for instance, in the "Flagellation" of the "Tres-Belles

which may be

Heures"

(fig.

37)," too, was probably designed (though not executed)

by the Master of the "Parement." But in past,

"Parement de Narbonne" The "Nativity"

called a revised edition of that in the

in the "Tres-Belles

'

own

he breaks away, not only from his

this case

but also from the entire tradition of Gothic iconography. In Northern Nativities of the fourteenth century, including that in the "Petites Heures"

(fol. 143),

the Virgin

Mary

normally shown recumbent in bed, while the Infant Jesus

is

either in the

manger

the locale

either indicated by a conventionalized architecture or,

is

or being taken care of by His holy mother,

as a rustic shed. Here, however, the Virgin Mary

The

Christ Child, entirely nude,

is

been temporarily accepted

at

art.

continued to be in favor

it

had seen during her sojourn

description

places

was

in Italy)

that the cave motif

cum

it

an

had

High

in St. Bridget

was

pictures

explicitly

intrassent speluncam").

"nude and most resplendent" Christ Child on the ground

the

nudum

("iacentem in terra

it

is

even after

at all times,

(composed about 1360-1370, and very probably inspired by

sanctioned in Western writing {Revelationes, VII, 21: "Qui

Her

staged in the

the height of Byzantine influence but was discarded in the

on the other hand,

of Sweden's Revelationes the. saint

is

In the northern countries

Giotto had revived the rustic shed from Early Christian sarcophagi. But

which

frequently, depicted

on her knees, adoring the Christ Child.

Eastern motif which had become standard in Byzantine

Italy,

more

This Cave of the Nativity, like the Cave of the Entombment,

interior of a rocky cave.

Gothic period. In

Joseph or a midwife, ami

St.

on the ground, and the whole scene

lies

is

nitidissimum"), and combines this

et

new

mise-en-scene with the

idea that the Virgin Mary, clad in white after having doffed her blue mantle, "adored the Infant as

soon

had given birth

as she felt that she

"Nativity according to

Bridget" (in

St.

Him." Needless

to

the saint

fact,

is

to say,

our Pisan picture

is

a

represented in person in a separate

cave on the left); and, needless to say, the miniature in the "Tres-Belles Heures de Notre

Dame" — so in

The

far as

I

know, the

— depends upon

France

a

example of

earliest

model very much

"Tres-Belles Heures de Notre

Dame"

de Hesdin did not participate in person. ca. 1390-1395,

his

the

we remember,

its

unique in that

and

St.

is

explicitly described as

and the only one

a collective effort in

which Jacquemart

being both adorned and illustrated "by initials

and

4

(fig. 40).

it

possesses

Andrew. The

is

peculiar but hard to avoid; the manuscript

two iconographically

showing the Due de Berry commended Baptist

art

3

"Brussels Hours," however, presumably executed

expression "first dedication picture"

in fact,

then,

kind in Northern

it.

miniatures are in fact as homogeneous as can be, except for the

dedication picture

first

The is,

is,

hand," and

The

its

like

first is

a

to the Virgin

identical dedication pictures, both

Mary by

his patron saints, St.

John the

double page in semigrisaille wherein the donor and

and the Madonna on the

The

the patron saints are seen

on one

dependent upon the

compresses these elements into a single composition and abandons

first,

side,

hieratic frontality in favor of a boldly diagonal

arrangement

other.

(fig. 41).

second, evidently

In addition, the second

dedication picture conforms to the comparatively loose and fluid style of the remaining

46

BOOK ILLUMINATION eighteen miniatures whereas the

which

shows the firmer and more

to

have been cut

down

originally belong to the manuscript. If

it

at the

The

margins.

had been intended

come from another, somewhat larger volume; but

it

may

inference

an independent devotional diptych. Thus the question of

is

or double,

that

it

did not

must have

it

have been designed

authorship

its

first,

book page,

as a

just as well

1

as

treatment of ca. 1380,

plastic

with the appearance of the donor; and, most important, the

also agrees

page appears

title

first

and

arises,

at first

glance the double dedication page seems so dissimilar to the rest of the miniatures that appears to be the

work

tentative attribution to similarity;

Andre Beauneveu, with whose Apostles and Prophets

it

its

has an obvious

includes birds and insects, and the ground

place, the border decoration

first

not of the customary diaper pattern, tessellae or rinceaux, but of a dark blue

consists,

on the donor's page and a dense

tapestry of

little

page. Both these features originated in the atelier of Pucelle, to

coresponsible for

is

but he has become doubtful of this hypothesis for several reasons.

'

In the

pattern

of another illuminator. This writer himself

it

3

with

whom

floral

Madonna

red angels on the

Beauneveu appears

have had no connection, but were accepted by Jacquemart de Hesdin and his associates;

the "angels' tapestry" ground appears, for instance, in the "Nativity" just discussed as well as in the

"Man

on the Matins page of the

of Sorrows"

the facial types of the

two

saints, especially the St.

"Petites

Heures"

was Jacquemart de Hesdin and not Beauneveu who was

upon an emphatically

we

receding and correctly foreshortened checkerboard floor such as Bible" by Jean Bondol, and

we remember

an

that

encountered in the

for an artist

whose miniatures, however grandly conceived, lack the

illuminator.

I

am

work

Heures'''

page.

is

And

simply too good

is

either the

work

of Jacquemart de Hesdin himself. quite compatible with the Virgin

The

"Trinity" on

Mary and

the

St.

fol.

or, possibly, a very

137 v. of the "Petites

John in the Brussels double

since the latter seems to have been executed as early as about 1380,

been produced by the young master

as a

it

may have

kind of piece de reception and with the deliberate

intent of emulating the style of his seniors: the style of Jean Bondol, illuminator to the

of France,

and that of Andre Beauneveu,

Whoever

its

author, the

first

achievement. Apparently for the

artist-in-chief to

time,

no

difference

is

status

made

Germany and Perugia

Christ as the "Seat of

was

patron. is

King

4

a remarkable

and prominence

approaches that which he was is

the earliest

to spread, in all conceivable media, as far as

in Italy. Boldly

Wisdom"

new

in scale

works of Claus Sluter and Jan van Eyck. The Madonna

instance of an iconography that in

Jacquemart's

dedication page of the "Brussels Hours" first

between the sacred personages and the donor, whose to enjoy in the

of a

but holding an intermediary position between Bondol and

Beauneveu on the one hand, and Jacquemart de Hesdin on the other; early

is

finish of the professional

therefore inclined to believe that the double page

unknown

was wholly

interest in perspective

foreign to Beauneveu. Fourthly, the double page in the "Brussels Hours"

master otherwise

it

susceptible to Italian influence.

Thirdly, the figures of the donor and his patron saints are placed

"Hague

Secondly,

(fig. 30).

John, are unmistakably Sienese, and

known

Hildesheim

humanizing the ancient concept of the Mother of

{sedes sapientiae), the miniature

47

shows the Infant

Jesus,

EARLY NETHERLANDISH PAINTING while

being nursed by the Virgin Mary, engaged in writing.

still

border, finally,

marks

a resolute

from the

rather than enframe the miniature.

Here

initial

would creep

the corners and or centers of the margins),

customary ivy

decoration of the

from

(or, in full-page miniatures,

over the borders and play about

all

these rinceaux, enriched by

and

are distinctly axialized

leaves,

The

break with the earlier French and Franco-Flemish traditions.

Previously, fancy-free rinceaux, starting

to the

1

flowers in addition

little

articulated

by large quatrefoils

(quarrefors) which consolidate the corners and divide the border into nearly equal sections,

two

a quasifunctional "picture

from

Italy

What had

top and bottom, three on either side.

at the

frame"; and

this

and England, where similar

been in favor for a long time"'

— was

been a decorative fringe became

novel idea — possibly due to a combined influence

quatrefoils, filled

adopted for

with heads or heraldic devices, had

the other miniatures in the "Brussels

all

Hours."

These other miniatures,

own hand

remembered, are assigned

will be

in the inventory of 1402; but

at face value.

Compared with

Hours"

"Brussels

it

it is

to

Jacquemart de Hesdin's

glance to accept this statement

difficult at first

the authentic miniatures in the "Petites Heures," those in the

more advanced

strike us not only as

in their free, fluid treatment

and

soft,

much more radically Italianate that they seem to belong to a different artist. Yet this diversity may well be due, not to a difference of hands but to a change of mind; the two groups of miniatures may be to one another, not as, say, Raphael's "School cool coloration, but also as so

of Athens" to Perugino's "Tradition of the Keys" but as Raphael's "School of Athens" to

own

his

Italianist

Even

"Sposalizio."

available to

him by French and more

person, but certain

it is

and had gained access experiences

The

Heures" Jacquemart de Hesdin had been an

by intention, but then his horizon had largely been restricted

fresh, direct

new

in the "Petites

may

or Franco-Flemish predecessors.

diversified impact.

that he to

We

do not

as yet

"Brussels

Hours"

know whether he went

had become acquainted with

models

The

to prototypes

reveals a

to Italy in

working

Italian artists

unused. In one so responsive to Trecento

in France art these

well have sufficed to produce an apparently inexplicable change.

Passion scenes in the "Brussels Hours" abound in those exotic characters which the

post-Ducciesque Sienese masters had

compounded from

"Adoration of the Magi" the oldest King

shown on her knees

the Virgin

Mary

by way of

a concession to the

is

as in the "Tres-Belles

Northern tradition the scene

approaches the kneeling Virgin in contrapposto

movement

classical

and

oriental sources. In the

kisses the foot of the Christ Child.

kneels upon her bed instead of on the ground. flight

4

The

3

In the "Nativity,"

Heures de Notre Dame" although is

laid in a shed

and the Virgin

"Annunciation," in which the Angel

while she turns round to him with a startled

expressive of bashful perplexity, introduced to Northern art a lost

composition by Ambrogio Lorenzetti that can be reconstructed from several replicas 5

42). is

And

the "Bearing of the

directly copied It

is,

made

Cross" — as

from Simone Martini

also,

somewhat

less literally,

(fig.

the "Deposition"

—

6

(figs. 45, 46).

however, not only the wider variety and greater immediacy of influences that

distinguish the Italianism of the Brussels miniatures

48

from

that of their predecessors.

They

BOOK ILLUMINATION new

level.

works of Jacquemart de Hesdin himself

— the

approach their models with an entirely new purpose, or rather, on an entirely

— and

Hitherto

this also applies to the earlier

had been

imitative intent

partial, not total.

The

illuminators had been content to appropriate

techniques of modeling, figure types, architectural settings, landscape elements, iconographical

above

novelties, and,

all,

methods of space construction, but they had not attempted

to

duplicate the aesthetic structure of Italian panel painting as such. Their miniatures had

The

remained, in essence, an adornment of the page qua page.

Brussels miniatures, filling

the whole page and framed rather than bordered, claim the status of pictures as independent

and marginal decoration

of script

as

tation of their function led to so bold a departure

of the next generation,

however

from

1

the

ground

is

conform

workshops

to the old practice

no longer elaborated

pattern but painted blue so as to suggest the natural sky.

is

this reinterpre-

established tradition that the

progressive, often continued to

even while experimenting with the new:

may

And

though they were painted on panels.

However

flat

into a decorative

and opaque

this

sky

appear to an eye accustomed to the luminary refinements of the subsequent decades,

in the narrative miniatures of the "Brussels

naturalism in Northern landscape painting.

Hours"

The

3

that

we

2

it

witness the very beginning of

from mere

Italianate rocks are developed

props into a scenery of sweeping slopes and mountain ranges which by their bareness and

edgy peaks, often in shape not unlike origin.

Winding

depth.

The

sagging

Phrygian cap, clearly

a

roads, wattle fences, fields,

illusion of three-dimensionality

recall their

Mediterranean

meadows, and bodies of water lead the eye

into

strengthened by the repoussoir effect of low,

is

ridges in the .foreground. Little buildings,

from chapels and

fortified castles to rustic

dwellings and windmills, emerge in the distance. Even the seasonal changes are indicated notably in the "Annunciation to the Shepherds" and the "Flight into Egypt"

opposed to the "Visitation"

had been made as yet

43)

— by that

contrast between bare

in the Calendars of the "Belleville Breviary"

and

and

leafy trees

derivatives

its

44) as

4

which

but had not

been applied to the regular narrative.

With Trecento

the "Brussels Hours," then, style,

But we have us.

(fig.

(fig.

—

we have

reached a

end of Jacquemart de Hesdin's career

also reached the

and

explicitly assigned to

representative of his personal style,

the decay of his

workshop

all

the

of the "Petites Heures" in richness

pression of excess

and

to seed, so to speak,

ostentation.

and

workshop

evident.

The Calendar pages

The "Wedding

of

all

Cana" on

wide

sleeves of the kneeling servant

49

to

full-page

no longer

make

intend to surpass those

for this very reason give an im-

Hours" run

illogically multiplied quatrefoils.

too often fol. 41,

a replica of that in the Rothschild portion of the "Tres-Belles

for the fact that the

is

"picture frame" borders of the "Brussels

with rankly luxuriant foliage and

patterns.

known

its

ambitious size and excessively rich decoration

and circumstantiality, but

The

it is

"Jacquemart de Hesdin and others,"

its

more

as far as

after his death, deprived of

such narrative miniatures as have been preserved are of earlier

in the assimilation of the

and, in a sense, a turning point in the history of Northern European painting.

For the "Grandes Heures," apparently completed

illustrations

new phase

mere

And

copies or pasticcios

for instance,

Heures de Notre

is

nothing but

Dame"

except

have kept up with a characteristic

EARLY NETHERLANDISH PAINTING change

in

gentlemen's fashion;

combines the two versions of

1

ami the "Lamentation" on

this

theme

in the "Petites

fol.

77

Heures" the

hands thrown up, stridently interrupting the mournful silence of the

However, charming

"St.

in the three latest contributions to this ill-fated

Gregory" on

Gates of Paradise" on

fol.

fol.

96

(fig.

(fig.

49)

— we

manuscript

recognize the hand and

past.

50

woman,

her

— especially

the

excited

Picta.

100 (fig. 48) and the "Reception of the

belonging to the future and not to the

47) incongruously

Due de

Berry

spirit of a

at

the

generation

II

THE EARLY FIFTEENTH CENTURY

AND THE "INTERNATIONAL STYLE" A he new

phase of book illumination that marks the beginning of the fifteenth

century was ushered in by the

Due de

artists

They operated

Berry.

not

as

mart de Hesdin, not in the sense of

them by

Their

diffusion.

we remember, had In mediocre title

page of a

had reached

in that refined but conservative Paris tradition which,

persisted throughout the fourteenth century.

artists this

conservatism prevailed to such an extent that, for instance, the

Lit/re des Proprietes des

Parisian workshops tended to be a quisite manuscripts of the first (fig. 50),

peripatetic court of

lineal descent but only insofar as his influence

Choses by Jean de Niziere

could easily be antedated by half a century.

Phebus

somewhat

independent masters in Paris and were followers of Jacque-

was rooted

style

attached to the

officially

trifle

1

But even the

retardataire.

The

— otherwise

unknown —

productions of purely

first-rate

miniatures in one of the most ex-

decade of the fifteenth century, the Livre de Chasse by Gaston

charmingly conceived and executed

as they are,

almost give the impression

of diminutive tapestries, the elements of the composition arrayed above rather than behind

— mostly

one another, the animals singly or in groups,

herbarium.

and the

shown

in full profile

overdistinctly foliated trees a

Other Parisian masters harked back, not

Germanic influence

is felt

though dependent on Beauneveu in

aimed

3

reminiscent of specimens in a

to the elegant calligraphy of the local tradition but

From

the

wound

Andre Beauneveu. In

magnificent Missal,

as in a

now

certain cases an

in Brussels, which, al-

decidedly Germanic in the grim expressiveness

style, is

of the faces, the convulsive contraction of fingers

raphy.

little

over the surface either

2

to the vigorously sculptural but just as spaceless style of

additional

— scattered

and

toes

and

in

some

aspects of the iconog-

in the side of the Crucified Christ (fig. 52) spurts forth a jet of blood

at the heart of the

Virgin Mary; and

it

was Heinrich Suso, the upper Rhenish mystic

who had conceived this gruesome image and impressed it upon the German artists: "May ye be moved in your hearts by that rose-colored

of the fourteenth century,

minds

of Southwest

flawless blood

which thus pours forth over the

flawless

51

Mother."

If

it

were permissible

to

make

EARLY NETHERLANDISH PAINTING on the strength of

attributions

executed for the tives that

we

would be with

it

— demonstrably

this Missal

Saint Chapelle in Paris — rather than with the Livre de

Chasse and

its rela-

Upper Rhenish illuminator mentioned

might associate the personality of an

Royal Family from 1403 to 1415: Haincelin de Haguenot,

the service of the

Hagenau

mere name

a

1

in

a native of

within the very heart of Suso's sphere of influence.

in Alsace,

Needless to say, even the most traditional-minded masters of Paris were not wholly im-

makes more concessions

pervious to progress; even Jean de Niziere

treatment of space in the rest of his miniatures than he does in his Christ" in a

Book

of

Hours

may

against an astonishingly "open" landscape;

whole not very

shortened and shaded. characters, elephants

4

The "Land

same time (prior

at the

de

la

The

of

March

which

out

set

tapestrylike

22, 1403) the

3

Here the Pope

is

surrounded by

clear in architectural construction but convincingly fore-

of the Tartars" (fig. 51), peopled with gorgeous exotic

and dromedaries, gives the impression of a

foliage of the trees

to

Terre d'Orient.

rather than receding but considerably less conventionalized than

Chasse.

nude

and the workshop that produced the

de Chasse achieved

seen accepting the book in an hexagonal palace standing on a lawn

a rusticated wall, the

The "Baptism

surprise us by a splendidly lifelike

2

far less "stylized" miniatures of the Fleur des Histoires is

modern, perspective

page.

manner and by no means

for Troyes use, otherwise fairly linear in

progressive in the treatment of space,

animal pictures in the Livre

to a

title

real landscape, is

rising

still

the case in the Livre de

rendered as a fuzzy mass, not elaborated into isolated leaves;

is

more

the hillocks and ledges are modeled

softly;

and generous use

is

made

of overlapping as a

5 means of suggesting depth.

Decisive progress, however, depended once

more upon

a transfusion of Flemish blood

and

;

the beginning of this process can be observed in a group of Parisian manuscripts centered

around two closely interrelated copies of a French translation of Boccaccio's Liber de mulieribus, both executed in the

What considered slim,

same workshop and

chiefly distinguishes this is

a

new

lightness

and

"Master of 1402,"

airiness

which

in the

as

same

called,

from those thus

in a loose, informal, almost

7

(fig. 53).

Antiope and Oreithyia ("Oretre"), two other queens of the Amazons,

the Greeks as though they were engaged in a tournament at court (fig. 54). place

on

a distinctly receding stage

the individual figures.

The

battle scene, especially, appears to be is

produced about a century and

comparable

to that in the

all this

takes

is

a half before,

not new.

The

between the individual horsemen

realized.

The

a

kind of

are, for

"Psalter of St. Louis" (text

shows many a phalanx of horsemen quite

Antiope and Oreithyia miniature. But

intervals

pushed back into

convincingly arrayed en echelon?

In principle such an arrangement en echelon 10),

And

little

battle

with relatively ample space before, behind, and between

middle distance, and the phalanx of riders

ill.

im-

than "full of great aims and bent on bold emprise,"

seems to perform for an audience, managing her horse with easy grace and not a coquetry

far

The

creates a sense of fairly-tale-like poetry.

mannered, extravagantly costumed figures are rendered

pressionistic technique. Penthesilea, rather

year, 1402.

he has been

claris

6

want

in such earlier renderings the

of perspective, implied rather than

transformation of the standing line into a receding ground plan enabled the

52

THE "INTERNATIONAL STYLE" Master of 1402 to

make

these intervals visible. Injecting space between the various planes, he

expanded the High Gothic composition This procedure,

though opening an accordion.

seems, largely sufficed to satisfy the master's spatial needs;

it

he shows

his characteristics that

'

— are

is

it

one of

interest in architecture. Interiors — such as the room in

little

which Sappho, "grante poetresse gray-haired colleague

as

grante clergesse," lectures to two young students and a

et

indicated merely "by implication," that

is

by a

to say,

fore-

shortened checkerboard which, however, creates an effective spatial illusion by virtue of considerable depth (fig. 55).

Only where the

architectural setting has a definite iconographic

significance does the Master of 1402 trouble himself to depict

beyond what the

little

known

have called the

I

Romana

(fig.

it,

and then he does not venture

house" arrangement, with the interior and exterior of

"doll's

buildings visible at the same time. Such

as Caritas

its

56) where a

is

the case, for example, in the prison scene

young

lady,

Pero by name, saves the

life

of her

aged father by offering him her breast, a demonstration of loving-kindness praised by Pliny, depicted in

by

Guy

Roman

wall paintings,

de Maupassant,

2

and

last

much

favored by the Baroque, gracefully metamorphosed

observed (or so he says) by Mr. Steinbeck near Route

66 in California. It

we remember,

was,

Northern

into

art.

Jean Bondol,

who had

introduced the "interior by implication"

This alone would seem to indicate that the Master of 1402 was indebted to

the Franco-Flemish tradition; and a Franco-Flemish spirit can also be sensed in the broader, looser,

more

pictorial technique

which

or the Fleur des Histoires de la Terre pare,

on

telling

distinguishes his style

d'Orient.

It is,

from that

whether or not he,

too,

was an immigrant from Flanders,

laborators were

in his atelier,

Dutch or Flemish by

some miniatures

elegance. Certain

its

birth. In

we may comThough there is no way of

two Bibles

like

Bondol he

vitalized the

moreover, that some of his

it is,

Historiales, unquestionably

Solomon pages may well be the

master's

(fig.

whose

style

58). Others, however, must have been executed by unreconstructed Netherlanders scarcely affected

in a powerful,

and

at

by Parisian refinement

roughhewn technique,

4

(fig.

57)

Their

produced

own work

3

was

col-

two Boccaccio manuscripts, and

are very close to those in the

certain miniatures such as the superb

de Chasse

indeed, to Jean Bondol's that

a different historical level, the role of the Master of 1402.

Paris tradition without forsaking

of the Livre

rustic, thickset characters,

their broad, racy faces

painted

modeled with brownish washes

times framed by shaggy woodman's beards, would not surprise us in the contemporary

Dutch and Flemish manuscripts which

will be discussed in the

Fourth Chapter.

11

While

all

these currents developed

results, there arose in Paris the

had

in

mind when

I

most

alluded to the

Heures du Due de Berry." a career the beginnings of

5

and interpenetrated in various ways and with varying

brilliant genius of

new

spirit of

pre-Eyckian painting, the

are

still

obscure, except for the fact that

53

I

the three latest miniatures in the "Grandes

But when he made these additions, he was already

which

man whom

at the

height of

what appears

to be

EARLY NETHERLANDISH PAINTING his early style

with

shows some

rather than a

of the fifteenth century, his

is

him

instinctively inclined to consider

is

Frenchman pur sang; but

Jacques Coene, a native of Bruges

we

with that of the Master of 1402. Neither are

and name. One

his birthplace

artist

affinity

who

the hypothesis that he

We

have

still

Franco-Flemish

a

with one

identical

is

occupied an honorable position in Paris

not supported by evidence.

acquainted

at the

to call the great

beginning

man,

after

best-known and most sumptuous work, the "Master of the Hours of the Marechal de

Boucicaut," or, for short, the "Boucicaut Master."

The owner

of this

1

eponymous manuscript, Jean

Meingre

dreaded

parfit gentil knight": a

specimen of the "verray

II le

dit Boucicaut,

was

a belated

horseman and

duelist, insuperable

tennis player, adventurous, proud, chivalrous (he founded, for example, a special order for the

upon

protection of noble ladies in distress, bestowing

argent), kindly, just and

it

own tournament

his

twelve, a knight at sixteen, the terror of the Slavs in Prussia

England, a faithful servant of Charles VI France" also

by

at twenty-six.

his poetry,

France and

British in

abroad, he became "Marechal de

In 1393, having endeared himself to her not only by his prowess but

personal intervention of the et

home and

at

and of the

at

he obtained the hand of the beautiful Antoinette de Turenne, winning out

against a Prince of the Blood,

but their "belle

and

colors, vert

— by the standards of his time — unselfish. Born in 1365, a soldier

bonne

and breaking down the

King and

vie

The

the Pope.

resistance of her father only

through the

couple "s'entreaimaient de grand amour";

ensemble" was often interrupted and was

end in tragedy. In

to

1396 the "bon Marechal" was captured by the Turks at the battle of Nicopolis and narrowly

escaped execution.

He

did not return until 1398 to take his revenge, in the following year, by

saving Constantinople from his captors. In 1401, the City of Genoa, having subjected the

Crown

against

all

of France, requested

enemies up to 1410

and obtained him

when he

as

Governor.

in English captivity in 1421, outliving his wife

— now

in the

ruled

it

wisely and held

it

returned and became Governor of Guyenne and

Languedoc. In the Battle of Agincourt he was taken prisoner

His Book of Hours

He

itself to

by

six years

at the

and

head of

their only son

Musee Jacquemart-Andre

and died

his troops

in Paris

by nine.

— thus

came

into

the possession of his younger brother and, through the latter's childless son, Jean III le Meingre

(died 1490), into that of Jean's

first

cousin,

Aymar

de Poitiers (from

whom

was

it

to pass into

the hands of his famous granddaughter, Diane). These changes of ownership have

marks on the manuscript. Jean

III le

who may be

Meingre,

to be illustrated in not too tasteful fashion,

caused the

last

forgiven. But

two pages,

Aymar de

left their

originally blank,

Poitiers

tampered

with the original miniatures. Wherever he found the Boucicaut arms {argent an eagle played gules beaded and

— and he found

them

membered azure) and

in a

good many places

the Boucicaut device

dis-

"Ce que vous voudrez"

— he substituted or interpolated

his

own

azure

a chief or six torteaux argent and "Sans nombre," not even respecting the garments of the

Marshal and (fols.

42

v.

his wife

and 53

Apart from to be executed

on the dedication page

v.)

make

the

26 v.).

(fol.

damage done

Two pages which escaped

to the others

this disfigurement, the forty-one

by the master himself. But what

is

54

still

more

his attentions

evident.

miniatures are well preserved, and their date?

all

seem

THE "INTERNATIONAL STYLE" Thus

been centered around dating the manuscript as an entirety.

far the discussion has

seems, however, that

execution extended over a

its

surprising in view of the hectic

life

number

It

which would not be

of years,

who had little time and presumably None of the miniatures, of course, can

of the noble couple

small inclination to press the busy painter for delivery.

antedate 1393, the year of the Marshal's marriage, and none can postdate 1415, the year of his

capture at Agincourt. But to assign to them their place within these twenty-two years

more

only a few productions of the atelier are datable with comparative precision:

difficult as

the three pages in the

the beautiful

title

"Grandes Heures" which, we remember, antedate 1409

page of the Dialogues de Pierre Salmon in Geneva

been executed in 141 1 or 1412;

which precedes the one

du Monde

the

is all

2

number

a

which was

in the Bibliotheque Nationale (fig. 77)

(fig.

68)

49)

69) which must have

of miniatures in the Paris copy of the

Geneva and may be dated 1409-1410

in

(fig.

1

(figs. 48,

3

in existence

same Dialogues,

and the Merveilles

on January

1413,

1,

4

but can be considered only as shopwork. Using these manuscripts as points of comparison,

may The

Hours"

say that the miniatures in the "Boucicaut largest

group seems

fall,

roughly speaking, into three

we

classes.

contemporary with the three pages in the

to be approximately

"Grandes Heures," which would date them around 1405-1408; another, smaller group, broader in execution,

more schematic

in the treatment of drapery, less solidly

voluminous in modeling

— in sum, reminiscent — Master of 1402 except for a certain monumentality appears to be

and

less

assured in the construction of space

still

earlier;

est

group, close in effortless perfection to the

later.

The

inference

is

that the manuscript

of the style of the

and the

page of the Geneva Dialogues,

title

was ordered and commenced about or

I

small-

last,

hold to be

shortly before

1400 (the comparatively quiet interval between the Marshal's glorious return from Constantinople in 1399

the

and

his departure for

work was continued, without

completed

after his final

too

homecoming

Genoa

much

(fol.

26

v., fig.

64) with the

figure of St. Catherine

on

rendering of this saint on

page he appears

good ten years

as a

older.

38

fol.

fol.

man And

St.

40

v.

may

Catherine page v.

commander armed and

St.

(fol.

38

invocation; the

forming a striking contrast with the evidently

whereas in the

George on

fol.

23

v.,

and the chain and pendant

St.

the warrior returned. These two

St.

6

— the earlier

But in the dedication

Catherine page he looks

whereas the to the St.

a

later

one

is

a notable

Madonna, he

is

por-

Catherine, he wears the

befitting the

Governor of Guyenne

a natural point of departure for the illuminator, repre-

Catherine page

leaves, then,

may

may

be interpreted as the thanksgiving of

be taken to represent the beginning and the

end of an evolution within the "Boucicaut Hours," even such their covers reflecting a

was

Both miniatures

65).

v., fig.

spurred; where he kneels before

and Languedoc. The dedication page, initial

it

the earlier likeness conforms to an ideal of youthful knighthood,

long, brocaded, fur-lined mantle,

an

that

be found in a comparison of the dedication

example of individual characterization. Where he pays homage

sents

;

5

— contain a portrait of the Marshal.

in his early thirties

bearing a marked similarity to the

trayed as a

moment)

energy, during his absence; and that

in 1409, say in 1410 or 141 1.

External corroboration of this assumption

page

in 1401 being a very plausible

details as the prie-dieus

development from primitive schematization

55

to masterly

and

command

of

EARLY NETHERLANDISH PAINTING volume and space; and phases can be grouped.

it

is

around them that further specimens of the

The magnitude of the Boucicaut Master's achievement appears light when we juxtapose his "Visitation" on fol. 65 v. (fig. 59), one Hours" by Jacquemart de Hesdin

the "Visitation" in the "Brussels

Master was familiar with Jacquemart's particular, as

and

"earlier"

"later"

1

can hardly be questioned.

style in

as in a

sudden burst of

of the "late" pages, with

(fig. 43).

That the Boucicaut

general and with the "Brussels Hours" in

The marginal

decoration of the "Boucicaut Hours" fuses,

were, the playful freedom of the earlier rinceaux borders with the structural logic of the

it

"Brussels frames," the corners and the centers of the outer margins being emphasized by

may

be called "pseudoacanthus" which here seems to appear for the

Franco-Flemish book illumination.

2

As

first

what

time in French and

in the "Brussels Hours," the miniatures are

all full-

page pictures (though painted on the versos), and the two "Visitations" in particular are so analogous in general composition as well as in such details as the repoussoir devices in the

foreground that a direct connection must be assumed. Four or

seum

of Fine Arts acquired the fragments of a

than

later

3

There was a time when an outstanding scholar was inclined to the Boucicaut

Hours which, though hardly

of

half-way between Jacquemart de Hesdin and the

ca. 1405, are in style practically

Boucicaut Master.

Book

little

is,

—a

4

Master himself

position in the history of art

pardonable error, for the Boucicaut Master's unique

in a large measure,

and the secular rather than

Hours"

to ascribe the "Brussels

due

to the very fact that

of synthesizing the delicate, joyful variety of his Parisian predecessors, the minute

Boston Mu-

five years ago, the

in the

monumentality which had characterized the

he had the power

who had

excelled in

grand and the sacred, with the sombre,

Italianate

Jacquemart de Hesdin. Yet the two

later period of

masters belong to different types and different generations; and the Boucicaut Master's "Visitation" proclaims this difference

all

the

more eloquently

as

it

so closely depends

on

that in the

"Brussels Hours."

We

see at first glance that the figures in the Boucicaut Master's "Visitation," especially

endowed with

the gentle yet reserved Virgin Mary, are to the earlier miniature;

two

little

even on earth, the Virgin

is

a noble poise

the

Queen

of

and easy grace

Heaven who now

The

salient fact

is

that

we

tiny trees at the

bottom are out of

with the people. The sharp-edged

scale

hills

with the larger ones

sonages. But in the background

— treated,

as

happened. The heads of the Virgin Mary and

century. reflect

isolated

A

from the

the light of the rising sun.

On

its

its

far

it

St.

rest of the picture,

blue lake extends into depth,

at the side

is

still

"primitive."

and even more so

defining the foreground and the middle distance do

not recede but rather form a series of screens which partly

if

requires

are faced with a novel interpretation

of the visible world. True, with respect to linear perspective the miniature

which,

foreign

angels to carry her prayer book and the train of her mantle. But these are com-

paratively insignificant details.

The

still

foil

and partly enframe the per-

were, as a separate entity

—a

miracle has

Elizabeth are silhouetted against a landscape

might

easily

be misdated in the middle of the

surface stirred by tiny ripples which, in the center,

bank, a fisherman spreads his net, and on the water,

56

where

it

is

THE "INTERNATIONAL STYLE" a swan — that regal bird for which our master had

darkest, floats

no

(there are

less than eight in the "Boucicaut

"Le Maitre aux Cygnes." The lake of

human

donkey

bordered by hilly country, charmingly enlivened by traces

in the distance

and on

a sunlit hill about to be ascended

by a peasant and

perched a windmill. While some of these motifs, qua motifs, were not

is

to earlier masters,

By

such a passion

that he used to be referred to as

A few hovels cluster near the water, a flock of sheep is grazing on a meadow,

activity.

two hamlets appear his

is

Hours" alone)

1

there

is

no precedent

unknown

for their treatment.

the end of the fourteenth century

it

had been observed

that a certain

amount

of trans-

lucency could be achieved in book illumination by mixing or replacing the normal binding

medium

(beaten egg-white, technically

made more

ments, for instance, could be blue ones by tempering

them with

Boucicaut Master

who

"scumbles" in

painting

oil

covered that the sky

is

known

with other agglutinants. Red pig-

as "glare")

transparent by adding egg-yolk to the "glare," and

a recently imported substance,

exploited these

new

technical possibilities

gum

arabic.

— for the realization of new optical experiences.

not so uniformly and opaquely blue as

It

and taught

his pupils, to enliven these

graded

that overhang the scenery, white, feathery cirri 2

And

skies

it

was the

was he who

dis-

appears in the "Brussels Hours"

it

but gradually lightens and fades into a whitish tone towards the horizon; and learned,

But

— analogous to "glazes" and it

was he who

by genuine, meteorological clouds

and massive gray cumuli shaded with yellow

and crimson

(fig.

thin out as

approaches the earth, so did he observe that the color and substance of the objects

it

on earth seem

68 ).

as

he observed that the color and substance of the sky seem to

to thin out as they recede into

depth the most distant ;

trees, hills

and buildings

turn into disembodied phantoms, their contours dissolving in the air and local color drowned

out in a bluish or grayish haze. In short, the Boucicaut Master discovered aerial perspective;

and what that

this

meant

at the

Leonardo da Vinci had

beginning of the fifteenth century can be gathered from the fact still

to fight the belief that

lightens in proportion to distance.

an open landscape darkens rather than

3

Since the outdoors and the indoors are complementary aspects of one substance, namely,

accompanied by analogous ad-

space, important advances in landscape painting are always

vances in the interpretation of the interior. Before the Boucicaut Master,

we remember, Northern

painting had solved this problem in one of two ways: the interior was either exposed by show-

ing a more or

less

complete structure with the front wall removed, or merely implied by the

substitution of a tiled

The Boucicaut the "Boucicaut

pavement

Master, too,

for natural rock or grass.

knew and

occasionally used these

Hours" the "Annunciation"

and the "Pentecost"

(fol.

(fol.

53

v., fig.

60), the "Presentation" (fol. 87 v.)

The

scene of the "Annunciation"

of Jacquemart de Hesdin, in an ecclesiastical building seen both

on

Mary turning round

a cushion instead of

traditional methods. In

112 v.) are staged in opened-up exteriors detaching themselves

neutral or tessellated grounds.

the Virgin

two

to the

Angel

on the ground and

surprise as in the "Tres-Belles

as in the "Brussels

raising both

laid, in

obvious recollection

from within and from without, Hours"

(fig. 42),

but kneeling

hands in an expressive gesture of bashful

Heures de Notre Dame." In

57

is

from

all

these instances the buildings are

EARLY NETHERLANDISH PAINTING of larger scale than ever before

and deep perspective

turrets,

and are developed into complex structures with dormers, towers, cavities,

giving an impression not unlike that of the elaborate

half-models often prepared by architects; but the interior

an exterior opened up

still

is

in front.

The Study" the

"interior by implication,"

on the other hand,

when comparing

(fol. 171 v., fig. 61). Yet,

Sappho miniature by the Master of 1402

from being more of space.

The

it

(fig.

is

with such but slightly

we

55)

richly appointed, the Saint's study

exemplified by the "St. Jerome in his

is

organized into a clearly defined section

no longer a movable piece of furniture but

chair,

the wall, establishes an orthogonal plane while a backdrop

shape of a screen, a

prevailing in effect

all

from the

tessellated

ground. As a

the earlier interiors of this type

which does

so

nothing but a piece of ordinary diaper ground

Sappho miniature

with an upper border and diaper ground

itself.

of something detached

set off

from the

ground converts

itself

much

as

to a definite corner effect, a corner

St.

Pancras" on

is

fol.

29

In the case

v.

change

is

in reality

used in hundreds of other illuminations, for to

an appropriate height, provided

against the tesselation of the it

impression of indeterminacy

to bring about this

ground proper,

this piece of

were, into a tangible object, assuming the character

pictorial surface rather

instances this bold transformation

of

changed

is

However, cut down

here metamorphosed, as

is

fixture built into

provided behind the figure in the

is

result, the

even more explicitly realized in the "Martyrdom of

of the "St. Jerome" the "screen"

instance in the

permanent

a

higher than the Saint's head, which parallels the picture plane and

little

clearly detaches itself

earlier instances as

notice a striking difference. Apart

much

carried

than forming part of

it;

in

many

other

further so that the "metamorphosed" piece

into a real curtain suspended

from

a rod or spread out by angels.

doubt the Boucicaut Master made use of Italian models, not only representations of

No

Jerome

St.

himself but also such humanistic authors' portraits as the famous "Petrarch" in the "Sala

virorum illustrium" (now "Sala dei Giganti") 1

scripts.

But in adapting a prototype of

tion, his "St.

"Medici

St.

Jerome in

Jerome"

Padua

freely repeated in

numerous manu-

kind to the traditions of Northern book illumina-

this

Study" more nearly anticipates the general

his

(fig.

at

effect of

Jan van Eyck's

258) than any other rendering of the subject.

In addition to developing the opened-up exterior and the "interior by implication," the

Boucicaut Master either invented or at

least

immeasurably perfected an entirely new solution

which, in a sense, combined the advantages of both. of the "opened-up" exterior as a

He

and thereby transformed

it

isolated, as

into

it

were, the frontal aperture

what can perhaps

best be described

"diaphragm": an archway or doorway, apparently overlapped by the frame of the

which seems

to interpose itself

"field of vision"

between

from the context of

would touch the margins. 2 What

this

reality

frame and the picture space, thus cutting out

and concealing the points

this device is

meant

in

to accomplish

attempt to capture the

full effect of

be illustrated by a fol.

142 v.

the new, impressive and expensive custom

of placing the coffin beneath a so-called chapelle ardente, a catafalque bedizened with

of candles. Facing the front end of this chapelle ardente

58

a

which the orthogonals

may

comparatively early example, the "Vigils of the Dead" in the "Boucicaut Hours," (fig. 62), the first

picture,

which thus presents

hundreds

to us a dense

THE "INTERNATIONAL STYLE" we

forest of candles, 1

depths.

But

actually see of

it.

draws the eye into

find ourselves in a large choir that

would

this interior

With

strike us as

diaphragm

a

narrow and crowded were and cutting down our

inserted

is

its

dimly lighted

we

confined to what

on

field of vision

the pictorial space apparently transcends the limitations of the picture. to be removed from the painting surface; and what

it

What

is

all sides,

view seems

in

kept from view seems to extend in

all

directions.

In this miniature the perfect symmetry of the main vanishing lines and the very rapidity

somewhat detrimental

of their convergence are

called,

more

from the

back of

altar in

But soon the master learned

it.

discretion while handling the

and we have some

to the spatial illusion,

surmounting the

culty detaching the "chiel" or castrum doloris, as the structure

coffin

to use linear perspective

diaphragm device with greater audacity and

diffi-

was with

infinitely

— one of the most mature illuminations — Hours" the diaphragm curtails the of vision so drastically that the

greater effectiveness. In the "St. Catherine" miniature in the "Boucicaut

crown of the is

field

no longer be seen; and, even more important, the center of

vaults can

we

shifted far to the right so that

right-hand wall (see It

down

fig.

see

much

of the left-hand wall but nothing whatever of the

65).

took the genius of the great Flemings to interpret the frame

our

field of vision,

Boucicaut Master that perspectives

and thus

we must

which we admire

Horae

van Eyck. The

in the church prospects of Jan

in the Bibliotheque Nationale in

componere magnis,

nounce,

si

and

"Annunciation" in Washington

his

it is

cuts

for the

claim the honor of having anticipated those long "eccentric"

Jan's

Dead"

in is

"Madonna

238).

(fig.

It is

Catherine"

"St.

which the space-limiting curtain

so,

the "Vigils of the

omitted and the extension in depth increased by a multiplication of the bays part/a licet

which

itself as that

with a diaphragm altogether. But

to dispense

miniature in the "Boucicaut Hours" — and, perhaps even more a slightly later

vision

in a

(fig.

2

70)

Church" in Berlin

worth noting

— an-

(fig.

236)

also that the very idea

of staging the "Annunciation" scene in an ecclesiastical interior, foreshadowed by Jacquemart

de Hesdin, was fully realized only by the Boucicaut Master. In the Annunciation miniature of the "Corsini

Hours"

architectural shell

at

Florence he disengages, as

and thereby

setting as well as perspective.

No as

less decisive

opposed

Pierre

anticipates Jan

made by

progress was

in Paris

and Geneva

donated by the Due de Berry of private rooms, or even

to

when

little suites

they belong to the

the Boucicaut Master in the rendering of domestic,

such manuscripts as the two copies of the Dialogues de 69) or an approximately contemporary Lectionary

(fig.

King

4

(fig.

71 ),

the

diaphragm opens up

of private rooms, almost as comfortably,

when

which we can

see the sky

makes us

whose

view

they belong to Zacharias, the father of the Baptist,

of France. Completely self-contained, they

brilliance reflects itself

feel the contrast

a

though of course

still

communicate

with exterior space through open windows (occasionally with a flower pot on the

diffused light

its

van Eyck's Washington picture with respect to

Bourges Cathedral

not quite so sumptuously, furnished as

were, the ecclesiastical interior from

3

to ecclesiastical, interiors. In

Salmon

it

on the

window

panes.

sill)

through

And

a soft,

between sheltered intimacy and the great outdoors.

59

EARLY NETHERLANDISH PAINTING As

the Boucicaut Master discovered aerial perspective in the

open landscape,

so did

he discover

the chiaroscuro of the closed interior.

The Boucicaut

Master, then, was one of the great pioneers of naturalism. But he was not

— and could not be — a naturalist in principle. To his way of thinking the reality of nature and human

ordinary

was but one aspect of

life

a

world another sphere of which was dominated by

the social and aesthetic habits of an aristocracy

We

demanding

have already noticed that the Virgin Mary,

waited upon by two

celestial

when meeting with

her cousin Elizabeth,

fairy palaces, their

pavements composed of gold or

with green or crimson glazes, the glass of the windows

mentioned — rendered

in silver, the walls painted violet or white with milky,

The

naturalistic skies

deepening and darkening toward the zenith are often decked out with golden

and while the Holy Family on the journey

in regular patterns;

silver tiles

— in contrast to those in the domestic

shadows, the vaults and ceilings bright red or blue-and-gold.

violet

is

page boys. The more ambitious architectures in the "Boucicaut

Hours" give the impression of

interiors just

the utmost in artificial stylization.

to

Egypt

stars

90 v.)

(fol.

arranged is

greeted

by a fantastically gorgeous but not deliberately stylized sunrise, the golden glory that illumines the landscape in the

but transcends

somewhat

earlier St.

Conforming

reality.

Michael miniature

centric discs with curvilinear rays, the center burnished still less

realistic

glory

is

not only transfigures

earlier art,

combines con-

it

and the rays glazed with crimson.

A

we remember, may be considered exhibits the first known example of a

seen in the dedication picture which,

as the earliest miniature in the

half-length

(fol. 11 v.)

much

to the conventions of

Madonna on

volume and,

incidentally,

the Crescent in French

and Franco-Flemish

art (fig. 64).

This dedication picture also exemplifies the antinaturalistic component of the Boucicaut Master's style in

what amounts

was neither new nor unusual script in

which

swamps

it

to a real obsession

in the late

with heraldry.

Middle Ages, but

No

the very narrative.

it

A preoccupation with heraldry

runs wild in

this particular

manu-

than thirty of the forty-one miniatures

less

exhibit or exhibited the Boucicaut arms, the Boucicaut motto and the Boucicaut tournament colors.

And

and even

there are cases in

ecclesiastical

which

decorum. In the dedication page, an angel

Marshal's plumed helmet and pennoned lance.

amidst Boucicaut tapestries tent. St.

defy

this heraldic infatuation tends to

(fig. 63).

The

is

all

rules of probability

delegated to carry the

Trinity (fol. 118 v.) rules the universe

The Virgin Mary

(fol.

95 v.)

crowned

is

Francis receives the stigmata before a galaxy of Boucicaut insignia

George

fights the

Angels

(fol.

Dragon wearing

the Boucicaut colors (fol. 23 v.).

The

in a Boucicaut

(fol.

37

v.). St.

very vestments of

118 v.) and sainted Bishops (fol. 36 v.) are transformed into Boucicaut liveries.

An amazing and, seen in retrospect, most consequential contrast between courtly ceremonial and

as well as (fol.

— verisimilitude here being defied in order glorify the Virgin Mary and the "Adoration of the Magi" seen in the "Nativity" the Marshal — 73 to

realistic rusticity

83

v.).

(fol.

is

The

Nativity (fig. 66)

is

staged in a dilapidated shed

the rays of the Light Divine penetrating the interior the presence of only one side

before the bed (instead of

wall — through

upon

it

v.)

as she

—

if

interior

set

out against a starry sky,

it

can be called in view of

holes in the thatched roof.

The Virgin

kneels

does in the "Brussels Hours"); but she kneels on a

60

THE "INTERNATIONAL STYLE" tasscled cushion in

Boucicaut.

more

Lit de Justice of the French

hung from

The

vert of the

humble environment; kings,

in apparently deliberate assimilation to the

surmounted by a cloth of honor and canopy incongru-

it is

the rafters of the shed.

scene of the Adoration (fig. 67)

is

laid

with cleverly veiled consistency in

behind the bed, the

on the

lean-to roof

gives

right.

and wattle

now faces the it

same adoring angel looking

The manger fence,

beholder; and in

— and

is

meant

its

to give

ment

x

left

shelter

little

with

instead of in the rear. Accordingly the canopied bed

direct foreshortening,

with the Virgin

sitting erect

on

group forms an equilateral triangle that produces the

its

edge,

to

effect of

court. With the harsh contrast between splendor and poverty resolved in the

of patrician comfort, this bold combination of regal throne

was

a

— the impression of a royal throne. The younger Magi keeping

that of St. Joseph, the principal

warmth

them from

solid wall

in the rear

is

and the kneeling figure of the old king symmetrically corresponding

in the background,

a reception at

through the same window,

of the animals, accessible to

on the

is

in

this identical

The

building, changed only by having been turned at an angle of ninety degrees.

instead of

Marechal de

material recurs in the trappings of the majestic bed which forms an even

The same

striking contrast to the

ously

and

alternates with the argent

which brocaded red

to be revived in Jan

and nonregal environ-

van Eyck's Madonnas in Melbourne and Frankfort

(figs. 243,

252).

The

influence of the Boucicaut Master

servative a

workshop

as that

which

was instantaneous and ubiquitous. Even 1

in 1407-1408

produced the "Terence des Dues'

2

so con-

was not

so

completely impervious to this influence as has been assumed, and the Boucicaut Master's only

major competitor, the "Maitre du Missel de I'Oratoire de

St.

Magloire" whose hand can also

be recognized in the "Boccace de Jean sans Peur" of 1409-1411 (and the so-called Bedford Master), latter's style

3

certainly

owes nearly everything

dominated the Paris school up

to

northwest Europe, including England, to which

its

sors" of the Eycks,

it

who may

inglorious end, and there

did not penetrate. For, of

is

The

no corner

in

the "predeces-

all

he was the most progressive. Though he was indebted to Jacquemart de

Hesdin in many ways and may well have made some fresh contacts with drove him beyond the limitations of the Italian Trecento and specifically

be identical with

to the Boucicaut Master.

Italy, his

made him

inmost urge

the prophet of a

Northern mode of expression.

in

A

very different position

is

held by the most famous of

the brothers Paul,

Herman and John Malouel

Maelweel, which

is

"the

all

medieval book illuminators,

(recte Pol or Polequin,

probably a nickname meaning "Paint-well"),

Herman and Jehanequin commonly

referred to as

Limbourg brothers" although they probably originated from Limbricht (formerly called in Guelders rather than from the district known as the Limbourg. 4 They, too,

Lymborch)

were innovators; but where the Boucicaut Master was an explorer, they were one hand, they represent a glorious end rather than a beginning.

61

On

settlers.

On

the

the other, they surprisingly

—

EARLY NETHERLANDISH PAINTING and motifs that could not become

anticipated ideas this

may

shadowed by posthumous

new

of a

era.

And

revival almost exactly a century later.

and the

1

brothers started their career, prior to 1399, as apprentices of a goldsmith

effects of this early training

which we admire

precision

whereas their compositions enjoyed an unexpected

that of the Boucicaut Master,

The Limbourg in Paris

dawn

fruitful until the

explain the fact that their immediate influence in France and the Lowlands was over-

in so

many

may

still

be

felt in that filigreelike

of their miniatures.

From

ornateness and

1402 two of the brothers,

Paul and John, were in the service of Philip the Bold of Burgundy, residing in the "hotel" of

Durant. They

his physician, Jean

but in 141

Berry

1

at the latest

who showered

we

favors

find the

were

Born

whole

2

They

liked

them

much

educated in Paris, and serving the

Due de

Berry, the

the major currents in contemporary

all

so

that

he did not resent

evidently succeeded Jacquemart de Hesdin in

attaching themselves to the court of the

that they

Due de little

and

office,

his successors also in art.

in the Netherlands,

quainted with

served Philip's son John the Fearless for a time;

triad firmly established at the court of the

upon them and

practical jokes at his expense. in a sense they

may have

were able

to synthesize

art,

them without forsaking

Egypt" in the comparatively early "Heures d'Ailly"

in the

Duke

of

Burgundy before

Limbourgs were intimately

and

it

one of

is

their originality.

ac-

their chief merits

The

"Flight into

Maurice de Rothschild Collection,

3

with the Virgin Mary quaintly turning away from the beholder instead of facing him, reveals the influence of a composition originating in the circle of the great Melchior Broederlam of

Ypres

who

will be discussed in the following chapter.

script, especially the "Vigils of the

chapelle ardente,

5

Dead" with

its

4

Other miniatures

asymmetrical perspective and impressive

evince the brothers' thorough familiarity with the Boucicaut Master, and

even more important was the influence of their predecessor in

A

Book

of

Hours

Egypt" which even though

is

same manu-

in the

recently acquired by

a straight

this

Count

Seilern in

office,

London

6

Jacquemart de Hesdin. contains a "Flight into

copy after that in the "Brussels Hours," landscape and

all.

And

manuscript appears to be a workshop production postdating rather than

preceding the "Heures d'Ailly" this fact would seem to indicate the close relationship between the

two

The

ateliers.

strongest

bond between the Limbourg brothers and Jacquemart de Hesdin was an

enthusiasm for Italian d'Ailly''

art

which they not only matched but even

and the "Seilern Hours" bear witness

to this

surpassed.

enthusiasm throughout; and the "An-

nunciation" in the latter manuscript shows an Italian scheme of composition for instance,

by a panel in the Accademia

at

The "Heures

— exemplified,

Florence formerly ascribed to Agnolo Gaddi and

by Giovanni di Benedetto da Como's miniature in a well-known Prayer Book of

which had not been employed thus

far in

France (except, rather vaguely,

Heures de Notre Dame"). The Virgin Mary portico set slantwise into space contrast between exterior

and

is

interior space sharpened by the fact that the

62

1375

in the "Trts-Belles

represented in a richly decorated oratorio or

and approached by the Angel Gabriel from the

in different planes.'

ca.

two

outside, the

figures appear

THE "INTERNATIONAL STYLE" A

more

elaborate but fundamentally identical version of this miniature

Musee Conde and film

Through

at Chantilly.

directors this manuscript

minimum

ities

of the three brothers.

It

encies rather than persons,

discernible

Berry'' in the

in 1413, left partially unfinished at the

—

so well

is

comment. Attempts have been made

of

1

in the

the cumulative efforts of art historians, magazine editors

— begun

death in 1416 and posthumously completed by Jean Colombe limit myself to a

du Due de

the famous "Tres Riches Heures

Limbourg brothers opus maius,

found

is

more promising

seems, however,

known

that

Duke's I

shall

to separate the individual-

on

to concentrate

and of such tendencies we can indeed distinguish

though interpenetrating and often mutually reinforcing one another

stylistic

tend-

three, clearly as

though by

electric induction.

Throughout the manuscript, Jacquemart de Hesdin's diluted

form

in the

unique "Zodiacal

2

Man" on

fol.

14

v.

Italianism, surviving in almost un-

which may be compared

of Christ in the "Baptism" in the "Petites Heures" (fol. 209 is

carried far

beyond

momentum and

31), gains

v., fig.

to the figure

previous scope; even in the normally conservative decoration of the

its

margins the Gothic ivy rinceaux,

employed

still

in the

"Heures d'Ailly," have given way

to

genuine Italianate acanthus. In one group of miniatures this tendency grows to such proportions that a third

and

last

phase of Trecentismo in France.

lowed even more

closely than they

widened

the circle of these models

and an occasional piece of

had been

in

The models

sculpture. Still

more important,

North

Italians,

schemes of composition and not to emulate a

their native

the

do

fol-

Limbourg brothers not only

but also Giotto and his followers.

Arena Chapel

model was Sienese or Florentine because he intended

the Northern artists tried to

copying were

Jacquemart de Hesdin's "Brussels Hours," and

the Master of Klosterneuburg copied the frescos in the his

speak of

so as to include not only panel paintings but also frescos

imitated the Sienese, the Pisans and the

whether

selected for

we may

just this, they

style.

had

Gothic had the highest degree of

it

When

mattered

little

to appropriate impressive

But when, beginning with Jean Pucelle,

to concentrate

affinity, to wit,

they were able to absorb the spirit of other Italian schools, but

upon

that school with

the Sienese.

it

which

As time went

on,

took them nearly a century to

gain access to the stereographic monumentality of the Florentines.

The

star

example in

this

Taddeo Gaddi's "Presentation

— with changes far

connection

of course, the

Limbourg

brothers' adaptation of

of the Virgin" in the Cappella Baroncelli in Santa Croce

less radical

which

than in analogous cases of the past and with exact retention of

the complicated architectural setting to this star

is,

— was

transformed into a "Presentation of Christ." But

example may be added a motif apparently borrowed from Giotto himself, the

contrapposto attitude of the

St.

John on Patmos

(fig.

83), almost a mirror-image of the

memorable figure in Giotto's "Stigmatization of St. Francis" (fig. 86), also in Santa Croce. It would be futile to accumulate further instances of Italian influence in the "Tres Riches Heures." Apart from iconographic peculiarities such as the inclusion of a group of pious shepherds in the "Nativity"

(fig. 81),

3

and from the pervasive Italianism

elements, figure types and draperies,

we may

refer to the use of

63

in buildings, landscape

an architectural ornament

EARLY NETHERLANDISH PAINTING from Florence Cathedral sketchbook of a North

Roman hunting

for a similarly decorative purpose.

Italian painter,

1

A

"Boar Hunt" found in the

Giovanni dei Grassi (but ultimately derived from some

sarcophagus), was repeated in the December picture;

of an Early Renaissance figure

— such

artificially 3

not without difficulty, the apple from Eve

and the twisted posture

instance, the Isaac in Brunelleschi's

as, for

— was somewhat

"competition relief" of 1401

"

(fig. 82).

Adam

appropriated for an

One

well-known accepting,

of the brothers, at least,

would seem

a little problematic. In the

"Meeting of

have studied the sights of Florence in person.

to

One

case

the Three

is

Magi

worthy of attention

just

it is

Mount Golgotha"

the Crossroads near

at

because

(fig.

84)

— a scene unknown before

the very end of the fourteenth century, apparently inspired by the delightful description in the

Liber Trium Region by the Carmelite Johannes Hildesheimensis of before the gates of Paris

gold medals which the 5

85 ).

— the King in the upper

Due de Berry had

These medals represented the four Augustus, under

rise of Christianity:

Constantine,

saved

it

who

from the Persians by

made

it

and

Roman

is

is

also derived

I

King

believe,

circle

drawn around

Empire; and Heraclius,

in the

upper

left

lost.

But two

which

artisans,

A

who

number

of

of our page re-

however, that the horseman in the too,

is

represented in pure profile and

the very point in

would seem,

it

died;

which the

either the lost

folds of his long-

"Augustus" or the

"Tiberius."

In spite of

its

Italian connotations

and

conscientious topography, a second major tend-

its

ency characteristic of the Limbourg brothers a

that the

from one of the medals. He,

sleeved tunic converge; he transmits to us, lost

whom He

Khosroe. All the original pieces are

how we know

(fig.

played a decisive role in the

unlimited number of casts in gold and baser metal.

this

most beautifully into a

fits

who

emperors

as the official creed of the

peats the equestrian portrait of Constantine.

lower right

copied from one of the four

Christ was born; Tiberius, under

his victory over

make an

these have survived,

and here staged

and the Heraclius, were copied by the Duke's own

of them, the Constantine possible to

4

acquired from two Italian merchants in 1402

whom

adopted Christianity

left is literally

ca. 1370,

evident in the "Meeting of the Three Magi,"

is

tendency which they shared with most of their contemporaries, especially the Boucicaut

Master. all

It

reached

it

climax, however, in the "Tres Riches

Heures" and here

it

prevails over

others in a second group of miniatures. If

we

are careful not to read a derogatory

described as "manneristic." colors,

gold and silver

It

at the

manifests

meaning

itself in

may

into the word, this tendency

an emphasis on calligraphic

lines,

variegated

expense of spatial illusion; in excessive refinement of proportions,

behavior and dress of the figures; in richly ornamented armor, brocaded in a preoccupation with patterns within patterns, so to speak. In purest

textiles

form

and jewelry:

this taste

observed in the "Coronation of the Virgin"; the train of her mantle, carried by the

can be

now

evitable angels, flows in rhythmical curves instead of being draped in plastic folds as in the Italianate pictures;

be

in-

more

and the host of cherubim forms a lovely spiky wreath reminiscent of gold-

smith's work.

"Mannerism"

also

dominates those of the famous Calendar pictures which describe the

64

THE "INTERNATIONAL STYLE" May and August

pastimes of the higher classes in the months of January, April, tures painted (fig.

91)

is

on two double

leaves

and

an excellent case in point,

safely attributable to

its

two

(four minia-

one hand). The April miniature

protagonists, thin

and small-headed

like overbred

animals, displaying their gorgeous dress in a pure, bodyless profile view, whereas the minor

personages enjoy a somewhat greater amount of substantiality and freedom. Yet the scenery that foils these fashion-plate-like figures culminates in a building not only surprisingly real in

appearance but identifiable; residences.

There are no

it is

less

the castle of Dourdan, one of the

Due de

Berry's

numerous

than nine such "architectural portraits" in the Calendar pictures

Limbourg

alone; and they bear witness to the fact that the intensified the Boucicaut Master's penchant for

and

brothers, just as they shared

shared and intensified

artificial stylization, also

his sharp-eyed observant naturalism.

This third, naturalistic impulse

Heures

' 1 1

is

no

powerful and pervasive in the "Tres Riches

less

than are the Italianate and the "manneristic" tendencies. As

exhibition of stilted ceremonial, so did

imparted to the brothers by their "Crucifixion" and the

XVIII, 5 ("as soon ground"). Here

still

He

as

new

it

experiences with the Giottesque.

more admirable Gethsemane scene

had

said

it

intruded upon an

combine with the sense of dramatic monumentality

unto them

am

I

(fig.

From

this resulted the

87) according to John

He, they went backward and

fell to

the

— as already in a "Crucifixion" in the "Heures d'Ailly" folio 145 — the death

of Christ and His encounter with His thunderstruck captors are interpreted as genuine nocturnes, contrived by the miraculously simple device of

upon gray

the time-honored grisaille technique.

— with

little flecks

The

imposing a new,

two miniatures

fact that these

of gold to indicate the stars

naturalistic construction

are painted in

and the flames of torches

—

suffices to

new

convey the impression of darkness. Naturalism also dictated the inclusion of countless details

beyond the topographical. There

a complete pastoral with

and

a great

of an

iris

number

on

fol.

26

two

is

the "Annunciation to the Shepherds," expanded into

different groups of shepherds,

some

of sheep scattered beneath a darkening sky. v.,

accidentally untouched by the brush

from nature. There

tionally vivid reflex of a study

are,

them

of

There

is

in tattered garments,

the priceless drawing

and thus surviving

above

all,

as the excep-

the remaining illustrations

of the Calendar.

of

The series starts with the January picture (fig. King Janus at table is elaborated into a banquet

who

sits

before a

monumental

fireplace, protected

88) in which the customary representation in the tapestried hall of the

from

its

Due de

Berry,

heat by a circular screen of wicker

work, while the High Steward orders the next course with the words "Approche, approche." In poignant contrast to this opulence, the February picture

huddled in a

which

is

pitifully

inadequate cottage and

a twentieth-century public; and

scape in

all

painting.

The

it is

it

with so

little

at the fire (the

smoke

and the Sainte Chapelle, the

65

we encounter

haymaking

men

of

regard for nice manners that

necessary to purify the picture before presenting

in this miniature that

picture of June shows

encircle the Palais de la Cite

89) shows a group of peasants

warming themselves

clearly visible against the cold, gray sky)

both Verve and Life Magazines thought

(fig.

the

first

snow

outside the walls of Paris cutting the grass and the

it

to

land-

which

women

EARLY NETHERLANDISH PAINTING raking

into a

it

row

of stacks

While the construction

tion.

Eyckian,

let

distance and

whose neat perspective arrangement has always aroused admiraof space

is

far

from being

background which even the Boucicaut Master had not been able

been smoothed out so that a modicum of continuity

plowing scene

istic

— we meet,

March

in the

to

latest

(fig. 90).

Even

more

in the even

natural-

with genuine cast-shadows projected

in Italy this epochal innovation does not

'Tw Riches Heures" itself Limbourg

miniatures entirely executed by the

ber and October.

And

achieved.

cope with, has

to

— painted on the other side of the same double sheet

picture

appear until Masaccio, and in the

be the two

is

lor the first time since Hellenistic antiquity,

by the figures onto the ground to

and consistent according

correct

alone Italian Renaissance, standards, the sharp break between foreground, middle

it

recurs only in

seem

what seem

brothers, the pictures of

to

Decem-

1

Genetically, these justly admired Calendar illustrations can be explained, as hinted in the

High Medieval occupation

preceding chapter, as a fusion of the Early and

new scheme

of Jean Pucelle

who had

aspect of nature rather than by the

expressed the character of each

changing form of human

activity.

pictures with the

month by

The

the changing

very disposition of

the Calendar pages in the "Tres Riches Heures," with the position of the sun indicated in a half-circle

surmounting the scene

descendants,

known

among them

to the

Limbourg

is

modestly anticipated in the "Belleville Breviary" and

the "Petites Heures" and

brothers.

2

However, the

the " Grande s

now

fact that

tween the nobles and the poor, that the farmers and shepherds all

the

work whereas

making,

casts

the Court of the

Due de

all

an entirely different complexion on the whole

entation of labor and leisure, both within the

geneous

Berry does

society,

is

Heures" which were certainly

a sharp distinction

now

is

made

suffer all the cold

be-

and do

the feasting, hunting and love-

cycle.

framework of

its

3

A

purely descriptive pres-

a stratified but basically

homo-

transformed into an antithetical characterization of divergent milieus.

The

actual processes of work and pastime are of secondary interest as compared to the social sphere in

which they unfold. What had been "Janus feasting" or "a youth holding

developed into a scene exemplifying the

now

represents the

life

of the

plowman

life

of the noble;

a flower,"

what had been the

seen through the eyes of those

who do

is

now

act of plowing,

not plow.

And

here

contradictory style the development

of

the fourteenth century to the climax

we touch upon the very roots of the fascinating and which we have been following from the last decades of

of the "Tres Riches Heures."

IV

This

style, a scintillating

interlude between the sober sturdiness of the Bondol generation

and the shining perfection of the great Flemings, Style,"

and not without

that they

from

a

justification.

While

all

4

is

often referred to as the "International

the great historical styles were international in

were practiced in different countries, most of them did

The

Gothic, the Renaissance, the Baroque and

their existence to the genius of

one particular nation or even region and

blend of different national tendencies.

the Rococo

owed

not, in themselves, result

66

THE "INTERNATIONAL STYLE" conquered others by way of unilateral expansion. The formulated on French

style of

around

however, though

1400,

had come into being by the interpenetration and ultimate fusion of

soil,

the Gallic as represented by the French, the Latin as represented by the Italians, and the Anglo-

Germanic

as chiefly represented

to Spain, to

England,

by the Flemings; and

when

Flanders and even back to Italy

to

beginning and steadily growing from

ca.

1370-1380 —

it

— the

did

it

Germany,

spread to reflux

from north

to south

way

of multi-

were, by

so, as it

to Austria,

lateral repatriation.

This process was

by a peculiar

facilitated

between

fluidity in the relationship

The High Medieval

art

produc-

tion

and

tical

patronage, conducive to regionalism, was disintegrating everywhere; the system of

art

consumption.

system of ecclesiastical or

at least semiecclesias-

guild organization, conducive to the development of purely local schools,

Northern countries and began

established in the artists in Italy.

Some major

to the courts of princes,

Thus

there

for export

painters

undermined by the

and book illuminators were attached,

some were engaged

in free enterprise,

was not

as yet firmly

prestige of individual

de chambre,

as varlets

and many of the

were both.

best

was an unprecedented amount of itinerancy on the one hand and of production

on the other; and the

rise of a collector's mentality,

chapter, produced a lively exchange of

middlemen. As a

result,

we

sense

between Master Francke of painter of the Frankfort

—

works of

art

alluded to in the preceding

both from owner to owner and through

differences notwithstanding

all

Hamburg and

— a greater

the Boucicaut Master, between the

stylistic affinity

Upper Rhenish

"Garden of Paradise" and Stefano da Zevio, between Gentile da

Fabriano, the Zavattari or Pisanello and the later

to be

strict

Limbourg

brothers, than

we can some

fifty

between Dirck Bouts and Piero della Francesca, or between Schongauer and

Small wonder that

art historians

years

Botticelli.

tend to shift important works of the "International" period

back and forth between Paris and either Vienna or Prague, between Bourges and Venice, be-

tween France and England, and often

finally agree they are Catalan.

1

All this explains, perhaps, that the style of around 1400 was international.

account for

its

amazing

for those thin, nervous

sophistication

and extravagance

in

manner,

hands and wasplike waists; those choking

"chaperons"; that jagging of

all

edges which combined a

maximum

of comfort; that childlike delight in everything that glitters

ing

little

golden

bells

on

their belts

and

collars

2

and

like these

cannot be explained on a purely rational

an aging society begins to

may remember in

feel the

collars, those

turbanlike

minimum

People took to wear-

and the very horses wore hundreds of medals,

however, that unusual extravagances in manner and fashion tend class of

and appurtenances:

of waste with a

tinkles.

engraved or enameled with images or emblems, every one of which

Phenomena

dress,

does not

It

is

museum piece. 3 We may point out,

now

basis.

to occur

a

whenever the ruling

competition of younger forces rising against

the period of the Counter Reformation, the times of Charles

I

Siena,

major opportunities for "conspicuous waste." Towards

and Pisa had long achieved

1400,

We

and Charles

England, and the half century before the French Revolution which was to abolish

for the males) all

it.

when

II

(at least

Florence,

a bourgeois organization, a fierce rivalry for

power and

which the International

Style arose,

prestige approached a climax in precisely those regions in

67

EARLY NETHERLANDISH PAINTING and, in a lesser degree in those in which aristocracies

had

was most eagerly accepted. Here the old feudal

it

to assert themselves, not so

much

sion of a new, protocapitalistic class of merchants

against the

and

against the actual intru-

rise, as

financiers,

and

what may

this resulted in

be called an inflationary spiral of social overstatement. At the height of the Middle Ages those entitled to bear coats of

so entitled

arms had borne them without much thinking about

had not cared or dared

to

usurp them. In 1417, Henry

V

of

it,

and people not

England had

to issue a

arms were allowed only "to those possessing them by ancestral

special decree to the effect that

heritage or by special grant of a person having sufficient authority thereunto."

!

The High

Medieval orders had been founded for the conquest of the Holy Land or the colonization of the Slavic East.

the Jar, the

group

The

orders founded from about 1350

Broomcod or

selected

from the

the

elite

under the banner of

aristocracy

made

self-conscious by a

mechanism which

— were of

Golden Fleece

Their raison d'etre was, not unlike that of

— the Orders of the Garter, the Porcupine, purely social significance, uniting a

ideals intended to

many modern

maintain

this very elite.

clubs, to be "exclusive." In short,

an

permanent threat of intrusion developed a kind of defense

led to an overstylization equally foreign to the unchallenged feudalism of

the past and to the secure bourgeoisie of the future. But

it

was only natural

nerisms and luxuries of the old nobility were imitated precisely by those

that the

whom

new man-

they were meant

to exclude. The nouveau riche — a type comparatively rare in the High Middle Ages — tried to get

even with the noble and often outdid him in courtly extravagance.

from the

latter half of the

It is

significant that

fourteenth century murals depicting the chivalrous romances of the

Arthurian cycle invaded the

city halls of

Cologne and Liibeck and the

castles

and town houses

of such wealthy financiers as Nicolaus Vintler (Runkelstein Castle) and Jacques Coeur.

2

And

not only the princess or countess but also the wife of a rich banker or wool merchant would

quote from Eustache Deschamps, the sarcastic court poet of Charles V:

say, to

A

Book of Hours, too, must be mine Where subtle workmanship will shine, Of gold and azure, rich and smart, Arranged and painted with great Covered with

And

there

The pages It

was

was indeed

in small objects of

fulfilled: in jewels,

must

art,

brocade of gold;

fine

be, so as to hold

closed,

two golden

enormous

clasps.

3

costliness that this feverish passion for luxury

medals, ivory carvings, cut crystal and mother-of-pearl; and, most

particularly, in those fantastic crossbreeds

between sculpture and goldsmithery, unknown

before about 1400,

which the contemporary inventories describe

garnis de pierrerie.

Made

as joyaulx d'or esmaillies

of chased gold but covered with enamel in such a

manner

that the

metal shows only in such details as hair and ornaments, and lavishly adorned with pearls and objects

may

be said to epitomize the

precious stones, these

little

While most

are lost, for obvious reasons,

Morse"

4

in

of

them

we may

comparison with which Abbot Suger's sardonyx

68

still

taste of the International Style.

admire the famous "Widener

chalice,

on view

in the

same room

THE "INTERNATIONAL STYLE" of the National Gallery at Washington, appears almost simple. Other examples are a triptych formerly in the

du Saint

Gutmann and Mannheimer

Museum, where one

But

of

them

from

of the Resurrected emerges

from Munich where the

a coffin with a lid of pure gold.

Golden Horse," probably executed

"Little

pawn by

Duke

2

of Bavaria (text

1

ills.

27, 28).

It is

Johns —

at Paris in 1403,

has

Charles VI of France with his brother-in-law, the

an image of the Madonna and Child surmounted by a

— in

golden glory and crowned by two angels, with three small children St.

in the

are surpassed by the "Goldenes Rdssel" in Altotting, a pilgrimage church not

strayed after having been left in

and the two

Ordre

Hungary, two smaller

in

Toledo Cathedral, and the "Reliquary of the Holy Thorn"

British

far

Gran

Esprit" in the Louvre, a "Calvary" in the Cathedral of

pieces in the Treasury of

all

Collections, the "Reliquary of the

little

sitting at her feet.

This group

is

Catherine

fact, St.

ensconced in a bower of gold adorned

with finely wrought leaves, enameled roses and a profusion of pearls and gems. In front of a dais engraved with fleurs-de-lys, the

King

is

shown on

reposes his open prayer book), facing a page irascible little dog. easily see

than anything

To

the

(on which

and accompanied by

carries his helmet,

shelters his

mount and

of the showpiece that this "Little Horse,"

brilliant white,

golden medals

who

colonnaded substructure

name

by the

enameled a

A

his knees before a prie-dieu

his

his

groom; and we can

made

of pure gold but

wearing a beautifully ornamented saddle and sparkling with the

we mentioned,

impressed

itself

upon

more

forcibly

flamboyant and incoherent, and

we may

the popular imagination

else.

modern

a

taste,

work

like this

may seem

even prefer the rear view, more delicate and closed in composition, to the somewhat confusing front.

But to the period of around 1400,

this

mixture of

and pseudoreality

artificial glitter

(note the naturalistic coat of the dog or the touchingly detailed feet of the King) meant the perfection of art. Charles d'Orleans, the greatest poet of the International Style, describes the favorite subject of

Le temps

nature-minded poetry, Spring, in terms of jewelry and haute couture: a laissie son

vent, de froidure et de pluye,

Et

s'est

De II

The season has put off its shroud Of wind, of rain, and of cold,

manteau

De

And

vestu de brouderie,

soleil luyant, cler et

Not

n'y a beste, ne oyseau,

Qu'en son jargon ne chant ou

Le temps

dressed

is

crie:

a laissie son manteau!

In

The

tongue that the

season has put off

River and

Portent, en livree

With

jolie,

Drops of

Chascun

s'abille

All to

Le temps

a laissie son

Jan van Eyck

is

due

de nouveau.

it

to his

manteau. 3

must be

said that

The

much

rill

robes

Gouttes d'argent et d'orfaverie;

justice,

in a bright

and bold

a beast nor bird but sings loud

its

Riviere, fontaine et ruisseau

In historical

up

Brocade of sunlight, clear and proud.

beau.

are

be told:

and

filigree gold.

fashion have bowed; its

shroud.

what enchants the eye

attempt to recapture in a different

and meticulous workmanship which must have delighted him

69

may

shroud.

endowed

season has put off

of

its

whose embroideries hold

silver

new

tale

medium some

in the

works of

of that splendor

in the treasuries of his patrons

EARLY NETHERLANDISH PAINTING and

workshops of

in the

work

their patient artisans. In a sense,

and gems. His painting

of goldsmiths in metal

meant

glow of

to recapture that

symbolized

There

"celestial virtues"

however,

is,

is

he duplicated with the brush the

"jewellike" in a quite

and precious stones which

pearls

and seemed

Light Divine.

to reflect the radiance of the

van Eyck and of

in the style of Jan

this difference:

literal sense,

for him, as for Suger,

still

1

the great

all

Flemings, a reconciliation has been effected between the elements which in the International Style

had remained dichotomous. In an "Adoration of the Magi" by Roger van der Weyden or

Hugo van

der Goes

459), the modest but thoroughly self-respecting

(figs. 353,

and

the resplendent Kings' inferior in wealth

important

— in

human

St.

Joseph

Middle Rhenish "Ortenberg altarpiece" of

dignity. In the

is

social standing but neither in scale nor — more

1420

ca.

(which, incidentally, in color and treatment simulates a huge enamel triptych) a patronizing contrast is

is

made between

the slim and gorgeously elegant

presented as a "small man," not only in the

term (text

2 ill.

30).

literal

Magi and the pudgy

in the

menial duty of cooking the soup, a motif which makes

at the

beginning of the International

Hamburg

contemporary instance, Master Francke's the target of

humorous

criticism (text

humble couch, remains Philistine's thrift

Jesus

queen

a

would have

little

of the poor

is

a truism that a

Heures"

and

Rome

rather than in

cases in

which

once

class,

from the Arcady

and cardsharpers; and

formalized the

life

it

of the noble

art precisely

about 1375-1380. In another, nearly

altarpiece of 1424, St. Joseph

husband

is

even

erect

made

on her

an amiable caricature of the

is

safer in the family's traveling chest.

Joseph

spirit that

is

made an

manifests

3

object lesson in the sociology

itself in

the Calendar pictures of

made

conscious of

its

presentation of

that pastoral poetry

who most

own

its

possibilities

opposite.

was born;

it

It

and

was

limitations,

was the marquises and

thoroughly enjoyed Caravaggio's fortune-

was the period of the International

life,

rustique.*

It

in Alexandria

Style which, having

and wealthy into an orgy of ceremonial and ostentation,

covered the charms of the simple

and particularly the genre

St.

artistic

cardinals of the seventeenth century tellers

appearance in

its

a spirit of slightly artificial fondness bred of overcompensation.

group or

derives vicarious pleasure

entirely absorbed

While the Virgin Mary, proudly

would be

and humble reveal the same

the "Tres Riches

29).

is

confiscates the precious gifts for which, he thinks, the Infant

use and which

These and many other

ill.

in disguise, her

and caution and

to say,

is

who

but also in the figurative sense of the

Utterly impervious to the significance of the event, he

Style, that

Joseph

St.

dis-

the quaintness of the lower classes, in short the genre

We

have touched upon the "Annunciation to the Shep-

herds," appearing as a separate miniature in the "Tres Riches

He tires.'"

But

it is

only near the

very end of the fourteenth century that this scene was given an independent place within the

Books of Hours;

it

occupies this independent place in the "Brussels Hours" of ca. 1390-1395

but not as yet in the "Petites Heures' of

ca.

1380-1385. Later on,

it

was

to be elaborated into

an almost entirely secular pastoral, the shepherds and shepherdesses dancing ring-around-therosy or even playing hockey.

A

distinction

art this distinction

had always been made between the various had been taken

for granted

"estates of

and was expressed

70

man"; but

in earlier

in a purely descriptive, en-

THE "INTERNATIONAL STYLE" tircly

unsentimental manner.

interpreted with an nostalgic

— not

for instance, a

Now,

interest — half

unlike that which

charming incident

sympathetic and half amused, half supercilious and half

"summer people"

take in native "characters." There

in the legend of St. Barbara,

pagan father and vanishes behind

the wrath of her highborn

her in miraculous fashion.

the peculiarities of the lower classes were studied and

When

where she attempts a stone wall that

to flee

is,

from

opens up for

two shepherds who have

questioned by the pursuers, one of

observed the miracle refuses to give her hiding place away, whereas the other betrays

it,

with

the result that the flock of the brave shepherd remains intact while that of the wicked one

transformed into grasshoppers. In Master Francke's Helsingfors in

Hamburg

by

about ten years — the

in the sociological sense as scale of the St.

is

may

Barbara

the

St.

shepherds

and picturesque

some of

view

ill.

31). In addition to being

their colleagues in the "Tres Riches

the edges.

at

Heures"

1

preoccupation with social contrasts that

tion as well as the choice of subject. In the "Tres Riches

nobles tended to be

(text

genre figures with disreputable boots and garments not merely coarse

affectively interpreted as

this

that

not only "small"

be accounted for by the master's superficial acquaintance with

perspective) but also conspicuously poor

So strong was

figuring in this scene are

more

linear in design

it

affected the

Heures" we

and more severely

mode

of presenta-

recall, the figures of the

and front

restricted to the profile

— in other words more stylized than the more broadly and freely treated people in

exalted position. But this

Conrad of

is

Soest (probably 1414 rather than 1404), the

characteristic of the International Style, are flat,

less

not an isolated case. In the "Calvary" by the Westphalian painter,

Roman

dignitaries,

accompanied by

whose almost ubiquitous presence

pair of those slim, smooth-coated greyhounds

rendered in

is

Joseph in the Ortenberg altarpiece (whereas the small

described as "shepherds" they are, like

but tattered and frayed

altarpiece — preceding

shown

in profile

is

a

another

and front view and they are

linear fashion, the better to display their pointed shoes

and fanciful costumes,

the patterns of their brocaded coats and mantles, their jewelry and bell-garnished collars (text 2 ill.

33).

The

Thieves, however, are so vigorously foreshortened, so sharply characterized and

powerfully modeled that Conrad, on the strength of these and similar figures, has often been hailed as a naturalist.

He

is

— in a sense and in part. For him and most of his contemporaries,

including the Limbourg brothers, a naturalistic principle of art; as far as

human

mode

of presentation

beings are concerned,

it

was not

as yet a general

almost amounted to a

class distinc-

tion.

However, the

The deep

art of

around 1400 was not

insecurity of the period, with a

all

courtly

breakdown

glamour and precocious naturalism. of social

and economic standards

threatening and a breakdown of religious and philosophical standards nearly completed, expressed

itself in

same lower

what may be

classes that

called the nocturnal aspect of the International Style.

were cherished

in paintings

7*

and book illuminations

revolted,

and

The their

EARLY NETHERLANDISH PAINTING were suppressed with

and the

a violence unparalleled before;

literature of the

time

resounds with bitter accusations, outcries of fear and despair, and sighs of sadness and

disil-

revolts

lusionment.

modern

was

in this literature that the

man

significance. Previously, a

man was to be

It

to be invested

with

its

could be a melancholic in the same sense as another

a "sanguine" or a "choleric," that

is

to say, his character

and physique were supposed

conditioned by one of the "four humors"; or, he could be a "melancholic" in the sense

that he

was stricken with a certain form of insanity held

"black gall" or

bile.

At the end

out of grief" ("Dont par douleur ay

he

is

to be caused

state of

commence

mind

by a disorder of the

word assumed

of the fourteenth century, the

ing of a purely psychological dejection — a

how

word "melancholy" came

its

modern mean-

instead of a disease. In a

book "begun

ce livre") Alain Chartier describes, in 1428,

kept awake by his sad thoughts about the state of his country and

how "Dame

Melancholy," approaching his couch, throws over him "her huge, dark mantle" of suffocating grief, a

symbol of melancholy

far

beyond the reach of

and medical men,

earlier naturalists

1

or,

for that matter, that of contemporary illuminators. The ballades of Eustache Deschamps

are

one prolonged wail:

Time of unending grief and Age of lament, of envy and

Oh

of temptation,

of pain

.

.

.

lying age, so full of pride and envy,

Time without honor, lacking judgment true, Age full of sadness that frustrates our life. 2

And

the

same Charles d'Orleans whose graceful eulogy on spring has

He may

author of the unforgettable line: "Je suy cellui au cueur vestu de noir."

more than one

sense, to the great melancholies in Shakespeare.

been murdered by a close relative

when

His

been quoted

just

sion,

with

France he resigned himself,

with poetry and music

"Dame

as his palliatives,

Merancolie" as his mistress:

made

with nonchaloir, indifference,

so with

me

Que Merancolie

That Melancholy

Me

Will govern me.

Qui m'en gardera?

No

help

Je suis a cela

It's

so with

Que Merancolie

That Melancholy

Me

Will govern me.

Je croy qu'a

Autre ne

me va, ma vie

Till

from

Death

sec:

I

me

life's folly

sets

me

sera.

No

change can

4

It's

so with

Je suis a cela.

72

hardship).

as his refuge,

It's

gouvernera.

and

like Jaques, to a life of pastoral seclu-

3

gouvernera.

prisoner,

much

Je suis a cela

Puis qu'ainsi

had

Charles was very young. After a half-hearted partici-

spent twenty-five years in English captivity (which, however, did not involve his return to

the

be likened in

father, like Hamlet's,

pation in the attempts to revenge the deed, he fought at Agincourt, was

And upon

is

free

me.

be.

and

THE "INTERNATIONAL STYLE" It is

often forgotten that the

first line

of Francois Villon's immortal "Ballade

cours de Blois," "Je meurs de soif aupres de la fontaine,"

who

Charles d'Orleans

proposed

it

wrote in English captivity,

much

to a gathering of poets

proposed to musicians in the eighteenth century.

1

not Villon's own.

is

as

It

du Con-

belongs to

themes of fugues were

In the ballades and rondeaux which he

made doubly charming by

the slight discrepancy that can be

felt

between the English tongue and the Frenchman's sense of rhythm and intonation, we find such lines

as:

In

the

of noyous

forest

The man

forlost that

heavy ness

.

.

.

wot not where he goth, 2

or:

Alone

am

Alone y

And

one of

of Verlaine,

his

y and wille to be alone

liuc,

.

.

rondeaux almost anticipates the mood, the rhythm and, in

who

Puis ca, puis

De

Hither and yon

la,

et jus,

And

plus en plus,

Now

Tout

vient et va.

Tous on

verra

Grans

menus,

et

Puis 9a, puis

Et sus

to

and

fro,

now

fast

slow,

All things pass on.

Every one, Both high and low, Hither and yon

la,

And

et jus.

to

and

fro.

Vieuls temps desja

Old times anon

S'en sont courus,

Have had their show And new ones grow.

Et neufs venus,

Que

What

dea! que dea!

Puis ca, puis

moods

In art these

words

part, the very

very possibly was familiar with him:

Et sus

la.

4

of sadness, disillusionment

came

of the crucified Christ ineffably mild

and

Nostre Seigneur — the

to be replaced

sad,

fun,

what fun

.

.

.

Hither and yon.

in poetry. In representations of the Trinity, as in

now

.

an ofcast creature. 3

now grim

and fear are no

many

by the heart-rending image of the Broken Body,

to the point of

gruesomeness

(fig. 101).

image of the dead Christ supported by one or two

The

was placed upon the contrast between the

Christ and His Passion. In a

German

picture of ca. 1410,

Piete

angels — pierced

the soul of the beholder with a mingled feeling of hope and unbearable guilt (fig. 75); a poignant emphasis

than

less clearly reflected

other contexts, the hieratic symbol

5

and

serene, idyllic Infancy of

where the Infant

Jesus plays

and

reads at the feet of His mother, implacable angels appear with the Cross, the Lance and the

Crown

of Thorns,

Golgotha

(text

and the Virgin Mary knits the coat upon which 6

ill.

32).

In a manuscript of

ca.

1420-1425

we

lots

were

to be cast at

find the Virgin embracing a

sleeping Christ Child twisted into the posture of the dead Christ in a Pieta (fig. 96)

amidst the roses

glitter of the

and chalice of the

Passion (text

ill.

"Goldenes Rdssel" the palm proffered by the little

Evangelist, and the

27).

73

lamb

of the

little

little St.

7 ;

even

Catherine, the

Baptist foreshadow the

:

.

EARLY NETHERLANDISH PAINTING The

fears

and hopes of Christians had always been focused on the

still

more horrid shape

began

of a decaying corpse,

with a basso ostinato. The hectic enjoyment of cupation with death and decay.

growing

man

or

in the

social tensions,

The

found

its

Der Ackcrmann aus Bo/imen, and

was

it

still

more

chillingly, contrasted

with

— their

images

decomposition as in the tomb of Cardinal Lagrange

documented fullness of

for the year 1393,

who

(fig.

and

j

in an

were replaced by in a state of

died in 1402.

and the idea of contrasting the

1

76)

2

—

or,

advanced

This custom

is

first

portrait of the living in the

with such sophisticated court

artists as

Conrad Meit, Ligier

Richier,

and

Pilon.

The most

impressive document of this

mood

is,

perhaps, a miniature by the

promising representative of the International Style (for the Bedford Master, as the

took final shape

with their hideous image in death and decay remained, significantly enough,

life

especially in favor

Germain

of the great

nude corpses

as

it

Dead, the gruesomeness of the

cemetery came to be substituted for the solemnity of a church service

on the tombs

Plow-

epics as Piers

precisely about 1400 that

illustration of the Vigils of the

apotheosis of the macabre the stately effigies

of existence

and low," sharpened by

theme of such challenging

central

was

counterpart in a morbid preoc-

idea of "everyone, both high

was made the

"Dance of Death." In the

life

it

a skeleton or the

accompany the polyphony

to

But

hereafter.

assuming the horrid shape of

that Death,

only from the fourteenth century

uncom-

last

briefly

mentioned

Boucicaut Master's only major competitor in Paris, was to yield to the influence of

Flemish panel painting towards the end of

de Rohan." Not overly refined in

problem of space, but unsurpassed

taste

in

his career)

3

and technique,

power

the Master of the "Grandes Heures

modern

utterly disinterested in the

of imagination

and

feeling, this magnificent bar-

barian galvanized the combined traditions of Jacquemart de Hesdin, the Boucicaut Master,

and the Limbourg brothers into a kind of expressionism receiving additional stimuli from both Italian and Germanic sources. In the great manuscript after which he is

4

is

named, the "Annunciation

to the

Shepherds"

a pagan, bucolic bacchanal, a huge, coarse shepherd wildly dancing to the tune of his

pipe, his wife

milking

the angels (fig. 97)

shown giving up came

5

a goat,

forth of his mother's art,

the

own

to the gloria in excelsis of

In the illustration of the Vigils of the Dead, however, a dying

his soul to

sphere of Northern

and only the dog paying attention

man

is

God as he received it, poor, naked, and alone (fig. 98) "As he womb, naked shall he return to go as he came." 6 Within the :

work

of the

Rohan Master marks

International Style.

74

the climax and the end of the

Ill

SCULPTURE AND PANEL PAINTING

ABOUT

1400;

THE PROBLEM OF BURGUNDY LJ p to this point I have conscientiously avoided books and museum labels, the term "Burgundian." I believe of art produced between ca. 1380

and

ca.

1440,

a term familiar to this term,

when

all

from many

applied to works

always ambiguous and often downright

is

misleading.

Geographically, Burgundy

about twice the size of

Long

the fourteenth century

it

is

Duchy

the old

Island, with

of Bourgogne, a part of Eastern France

Dijon and Beaune in the center; in the middle of

was bounded by the Franche-Comte and Savoy

Berry and Bourbonnais in the west, by the

Champagne

in the north,

in the east,

by the

and by the Dauphine

Crown

and the Lyonnais

in the south. In 1363, this territory, having reverted to the

death of the

Capetian duke, Philippe de Rouvres, was given as an appanage to Philip

last

the Bold, the youngest son of Jean le Bon, Poitiers

when

a

boy of fourteen; and

who had

after Philip's

earned his nickname

after the

at the battle of

marriage to Margaret, daughter of Louis

de Male and heiress of Flanders, the old Duchy began to develop into something

like

an

empire.

Upon

the death of his father-in-law in 1384, Philip the Bold found himself in possession,

not only of Burgundy, but also of what roughly corresponds to the northwestern third of

modern Belgium with

its

three "leading cities," Ghent, Ypres,

tions of

Northern France. While the reign of

in 1404

and was murdered

grandson, Philip the in the

Good

Western World.

He

in 1419,

his son,

John the

and Bruges, plus Fearless,

who

certain sec-

succeeded him

was too short and turbulent for further expansion,

his

(1419-1467), became one of the richest and most powerful princes

acquired Brabant and the Limbourg; Holland, Zeeland and the

Hainaut with Tournai and Valenciennes; and

finally,

Luxembourg.

Philip's son, Charles the

Bold (more correctly: Charles the Rash), added major parts of Alsace and Guelders, including the

County of Zutphen, before he was

killed in battle in 1477

ter

Mary through whose marriage

Maximilian

a part of the

to

Hapsburg monarchy.

75

I

the

and

left his

realm

whole tremendous

to his

territory

daugh-

became

EARLY NETHERLANDISH PAINTING Crown grew

In short, what had been a satellite of the French ethnically

and

was half French and half Germanic, whose

linguistically

Germany and England

gravitated towards

rather than Royal France, and

To mention

focus was steadily shifting to the north. fact:

an empire which

into

an apparently

one of the chief industries of Flanders, the manufacture of

political

interest

whose economic

trifling

but significant

depended upon the

fine cloth,

importation of English wool, while one of the chief resources of the English economy, sheep breeding, depended

upon

the

new Burgundy were

the

murder

the exportation of the wool to Flanders.

drifting apart,

1

In every

way France and

and the two reciprocal murders of 1407 and 1419

of Louis of Orleans, Regent of France, by John the Fearless, then the

John the Fearless by the adherents of his victim, the "Armagnacs" family affairs but bloody symbols of historical destiny.

although he hated to do

so,

was

It

—

first

murder

of

— were not only dynastic

logical that Philip the

Good,

should conclude a formal alliance with the English almost im-

mediately after the murder of his father (1420), and transfer his court from Burgundy to Flanders.

When we

speak of the period after 1384, then, the term "Burgundian" has two different

meanings. Either

we

new Burgundian

refer to the

and

prising diverse countries and nationalities, historical significance

original

Duchy

whatever;

of Bourgogne,

or,

we

empire, a composite political entity com-

term "Burgundian" has no

in this case the

refer to the geographical

and then the

germ

art-

of this entity, the

must ask himself whether he may

art historian

speak of a "Burgundian style" or a "Burgundian school" in the same sense and with the same justification as

he does with reference to the periods of Cluny and Autun, Clairvaux and

Fontenay, the porch of Beaune and Notre-Dame-de-Dijon. In the field of book illumination, to which

no major

activity

Philip the Good.

way

seems to have existed

in

we have

devoted so

was

Fearless acquired or ordered in the

produced in Paris

either

attention thus far,

Burgundy even before Dijon was abandoned by

Whatever Philip the Bold and John the

of illustrated manuscripts

much

(as

were the great Brussels

Bibles,

the Boccace de Philippe le Hardi, the Fleur des Histoires de la Terre d'Orient, the Livre des

Merveilles

Limbourg a

du Monde, brothers

3

the Boccace de Jean Sans Peur or the Terence des Dues)

and

their associates;

4

or, finally, in

charming Book of Hours, written and illuminated

we

shall again turn in the

The

following chapter.

reigns of Philip the Bold

for

Flanders

itself, as

John the Fearless

2 ;

or by the

was the case with

in

Ghent,

to

which

5

and John the Fearless saw, however,

a magnificent efflo-

rescence of sculpture and panel painting; but the question remains as to whether these works,

produced in Burgundy, can rightfully be called "Burgundian."

11

As has been mentioned, Northern up

sculpture was virtually untouched by Italian influence

to the sixteenth century. Nevertheless,

similar to that of painting

its

general development pursued a course surprisingly

and book illumination

76

in

which the

Italian

element had played such

SCULPTURE AND PANEL PAINTING a vital role. In sculpture, as well as in the two-dimensional media, the plastic vigor of the

thirteenth century suffered a certain attenuation in the

Madonna

the

"Vierge Doree" of Amiens

movement which

Dame

la

to the eye presents a curve

Blanche" of

than three so that

ca.

1330 (text

ill.

their axes

shaped

German

34) and the

"Notre-

like a capital "S," the graceful

35) seems to bend and sway in

two dimensions rather

more

true of such

is

adorning the choir of Cologne Cathedral, the

statues as those

Catherine's chapel in Strasbourg, or the

ill.

with a gyratory, three-dimensional

curve resembles, not an "S" but a "C"; and the same

its

or less contemporary St.

on

(ca. 1260) turn

Where

decades of the fourteenth.

first

in the north transept of Notre-Dame in Paris (ca. 1255, text

Holy Sepulchre

in Freiburg.

1

Where

thirteenth-

century figures show a marked differentiation between body and garment, and also between the various parts of the body and the various parts of the garment (with thigh and knees

modeled and the voluminous

distinctly

those of the dress), the forms of

which the

From

"Notre-Dame

is

nearly lost in a

ca. 1360, in the

work

the Parler family in South

la

mantle treated

common

pattern of almost linear curves.

of Beauneveu, Jean de Liege

and Jean de Cambrai

3

Germany and Bohemia, and Master Bertram

for that matter,

Theodoric of Prague

become

Tne

— in

domain

the

style of

The

of painting.

in France,

(text

ill.

36).

The

2

4

at

Hamburg, we

Jean Bondol

—

or,

proportions tend to

but of

interest in linear calligraphy abates, not in favor of articulation,

volume pure and simple parallel the

independent from

Blanche" are hidden beneath a drapery of

can observe in the domain of sculpture what corresponds to the

stouter.

as units

through the mantle so that the difference between outer

thin, tubular folds press

and inner garments

folds of the

next step in the development of sculpture was to

accomplishments of Jacquemart de Hesdin and the Boucicaut Master in integrating

plastic shapes

and

spatial

surroundings into one optical

—

we

or, as

often say, "pictorial"

—

percept.

The

Italians occasionally tried to achieve this

end by simply

fledged Trecento painting and thereby produced a primitive

was

that

to be perfected

by Ghiberti and Donatello. Such

is

inflating, as

it

were, a

form of the perspective

full-

relief

the case, for example, in the

John the Baptist in Florence (between 1367 and 1387) where huge, heavily

silver altar of St.

projecting figures of Giottesque character are set out against fenestrated walls or mountainous

landscapes enlivened by diminutive hill towns and

The Northern drawing or

the

may

in the British

be called a "theatrical"

which with

flat relief

in

which

figures

grisaille (as in the Scepter of

Holy Thorn"

5

They

sculptors tried to create the illusion of space by different means.

either resorted to a very cate

little figures.

they, the sculptors,

plastic materials

Museum)

effect.

Charles

V

in the

or they wrested

to be unified as in a deli-

Louvre or the "Reliquary of

from the Gothic high

relief

what

Instead of presenting to the beholder a perspective image

had managed

which

6

and ground seem

to transpose into a plastic

he, the beholder,

had

medium, they supplied him

to coordinate into a perspective

image.

Instead of inflating a picture, they expanded a high relief into a theater stage, as seen in the

magnificent "Coronation of the Virgin" (ca. 1410) in

went on,

this stage

La Ferte-Milon

was furnished not only with vaulted

77

(text.

ceilings but also

7 ill.

37).

As time

with curtains, side

EARLY NETHERLANDISH PAINTING windows through which

walls and even

subsidiary characters

might look

with the actors offstage, such

an elaborate setting can be studied in

Multschcr's "Karg-Altar" in

Ulm

— has

point of view of the art historian, not unluckily

kind of

later, this

relief

was

ended up

Lawrence's in

at

may

Nuremberg, not

were, in

lost all its figures (text

Hans

from the 1

ill.

Still

39).

Adam

Krafft's

famous Tabernacle

is

And

be closed by windows of real bull's-eye panes.

peep shows as seen in

in such sculptured

it

— though,

blossom out into those elaborate retables where the stage

to

enlarged into a panoramic scenery, or it

vitro, as

Cathedral (1433) which deplorably

on the scene;

in

in St.

mention those Southwest German "Oelberge" or Calvaries

to

which the Passion scenes are re-enacted much

manner

in the

wax works

of

a la

Mme.

Tussaud's.

In

these instances the spectator

all

from the

plastic

is

asked and enabled to construct a quasi-pictorial image

forms provided by the sculptor.

And what

applies to the figures that

move

in

the imaginary space of a relief also applies, at times with even greater force, to the sculptures

round that confront us in

in the

sculptor

demand

experience. is

A

real space as actual objects.

Here, too, the data supplied by the

to be coordinated into a picture that constitutes itself in our subjective optical

playfully exaggerated but

all

the

more

significant application of this principle

staff age in

whose presence contributes

French

— do

in a painting.

gentlemen superciliously looking

much

to the "scenery"

Every

down upon

tourist

town of Miihlhausen

little

in

the visitor

Thuringia the

from the windows

ill.

38)."'

was

Bold

as,

with the same stupefaction that

in the Chartreuse

de

of sculpture

made

a spectacular

the decisive steps were taken.

we

to the

Burgundian dynasty

appearance in France; but

The

his enterprise,

realm.

Of

but too

the

little

importance.

In the

his family as

though

of the spire 3

ill.

40).

endowed by

Philip the

— that the new, "pictorial"

style

was not by Burgundians that

he commissioned "foreigners"

because

when

it

was

a great tradition

Philip the Bold

embarked

who hailed from the northern parts of his we know that he came from Flanders,

first sculptor-in-chief, Jean de Marville,

of his

work can be

What we

the great Flemish Sluter

immense height

lavishly

it

just

tended to be conservative rather than revolutionary, and

upon

that.

great native tradition of sculpture had, of course, persisted

throughout the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. But it

than

earlier

experience (text

Champmol — constructed and

so to speak, the St.-Denis of the

and

Conversely, in Strasbourg Cathedral

up

eight squatting figures, carved about 1400, seem to look

It

much

—

of the mid-fifteenth-

Emperor Charles IV and

effigies of

reliving their enthusiastic reception in 1375 (text

it

is

ladies

on the market square from the balcony of the church

graciously greet the populace

though admiring

that they appear as

as the incidental figures

remembers the stone-carved

century mansion of Jacques Coeur in Bourges. But the idea

as

way

the incorporation of life-sized statues with architecture in such a

living persons

can fully evaluate

wood

from Haarlem

singled out is

from

that of his followers to evaluate fully his

the importance of

carver, Jacques de Baerze,

and the

two

still

slightly

younger masters,

greater stone sculptor, Claus

in Holland.

Jacques de Baerze was active in

Termonde (about

attracted the attention of Philip the Bold by

two carved

78

nineteen miles from Ghent) and had altarpieces,

now

lost, in

the principal

SCULPTURE AND PANEL PAINTING church of

his

commissioned

home town and them

to duplicate

— completed in

in the nearby

Abbey Church

for the Chartreuse

of Byloke (Biloque).

He was

de Champmol, and both these duplicates

and the exterior of one of them embellished by the famous paintings of

1391

— can

1

Museum (text ill. 41). This type of "Schnitzaltar," displaying gilded carvings when open and paintings when closed, appears to be of German origin, one of the earliest known instances being the altarMelchior Broederlam

pieces

be seen in the Dijon

still

from Marienstatt and Oberwesel of

As

rather than a narrative concept.

ca. 1330.

a rule, the

But

tury consist of isolated statuettes neatly arranged in little

and

At times the

niche. it is

statuettes of the

originally

it

embodied an architectonic

major "Schnitzaltare" of the fourteenth cen-

two

stories,

each sheltered by a private

lower storey are replaced by busts containing

only in the Crucifixion, normally placed in the center, that the figures of the crucified

Mary, and

Christ, the Virgin

statuesque self-sufficiency.

many-figured high

reliefs

2

St.

John are necessarily grouped together, yet retain

representing the Adoration of the Magi, the

which

is

Entombment, and,

The most important

figures, carved in the

the stupendously naturalistic Crucifix

and may

Even

now in

in 1391. In

was purloined

Germany,

in the

middle of the nineteenth century

3

then, an altarpiece like Jacques de Baerze's

it

formation of volumetric

was unprecedented. relief

And

as Jacques

such naive attempts

at a

trompe Voeil

lively reliefs in Jacques

effect as the figures in the

Champmol

yet the light of Sluter's genius should not blind our eyes to the fact that in

however

and trumeau

statues

were retained, they tended

portal of

Champmol,

tower of

(text

ill.

42).

to be

Stras-

And Most

monumental jamb

customary in the preceding phase of Gothic, and

if

jamb

figures

reduced to the minor scale of the archevault sculptures, so

and the archevaults merged into continuous channels

as in the

"Frauenkirche" and

Sluter restored the

St.

and drapery arrangement

to the

filled

Lawrence's in Nuremberg. In the

trumeau Madonna and the jamb

figures

by gigantic canopies to their ancestral scale and dignity; in fact the trumeau in posture

de Baerze's

different a spirit, a fundamentally analogous principle.

that the profiles of the embrasure

with small-sized statuary,

4

he applied, on however

of the portals executed in the latter half of the fourteenth century lack the figures

the trans-

with the

statues incorporated

bourg Cathedral, with the majestic portal of the Chartreuse de

and

it

an architectural background.

sounds almost sacrilegious to compare the small and

different a scale

in

space into pictorial stage space, so did Claus Sluter (assisted by

architectural substance into personages acting before

altarpieces, or

would have been exceptional

de Baerze achieved

nephew, Claus de Werve) achieve a transformation of

It

and

hillocks

little

round, are so easily detachable that

be admired in the Art Institute at Chicago.

Burgundy

in

expanded into a complex Calvary and includes more

than twenty figures, several horses, and even such rudiments of scenery as architectures.

their

Jacques de Baerze's "Broederlam" altarpiece, however, consists of

the center, the Crucifixion,

his

relics,

surmounted

Madonna

reverts

"Vierge Doree" of Amiens Cathedral. But he

eliminated the archevault sculptures altogether and showed the donors, Philip the Bold and

Margaret of Flanders, on their knees, no longer enframed by surfaces as

from

a backdrop.

profiles,

but detached from

flat

Donors' portraits in the round and on a monumental scale are

79

EARLY NETHERLANDISH PAINTING of the greatest rarity in themselves; only one earlier instance, of ca. 1370,

famous

seem

tie

Champmol.

known

while the

1

And

never before had full-sized kneeling

been seen in the embrasure of a portal. In permitting two of the jamb figures to kneel

and thus creating an empty space between

their heads

and

their canopies, Sluter

context. Instead of being integral parts of a portal, the statues

became

scene; instead of being a self-sufficient structure, the portal itself

whole composition personages

scheme that fig.

its

is

manifestly patterned

commended

made between Hours,"

emancipated

— and, by implication, the patron saints and the Madonna — from the architectural

the donors

In

is

Berry by Jean de Cambrai, immortalized by Holbein, already

presuppose the portal of

to

statues

Due

statues of the

to the

home

at

became

a stage. In fact, the

upon non-architectural models. Showing

illustrious

Virgin by their patrons, and with no difference in scale being

the donors, the sponsors and the

is

free agents enacting a

Madonna

herself,

in dedication miniatures (such as the

it

title

round

repeats in the

a

pages of the "Brussels

40) and funeral

2

reliefs.

original coat of naturalistic colors, the portal of the Chartreuse of

Champmol was

thus intended to reduce the gap that separates the spheres of art and reality. Like Jacques de Baerze's carvings,

artist

is

derive the experience

deceived, but in that sense that the

appeals to our ability to transmute tangible things into pictorial images.

true,

We

may

provides the elements from which the beholder

— not, of course, in the sense that his eye

of a "tableau"

is

it

And

the

same

perhaps to an even greater extent, of Sluter's other major work, the "Puits de Mo'ise"

understandably and

are, quite

statuary.

But

this

plastic quality of its

and painted, which must have struck the contemporary public much

enormous enlargement,

a "Goldenes Rossel" in

sculpture

with the purely

magnificent statuary appeared within the context of a gigantic showpiece,

originally all gilded

as a gigantic

justifiably, enthralled

work

Huizinga's

or, to repeat

of pastry cooking; one of the prophets

— those

as

less respectful simile,

marvels of truly "lithic"

— was originally equipped with spectacles of copper supplied and paid for in

1402.

3

In contrast to the International Style, where even stone sculptures such as the "Coronation of the Virgin" in

La Ferte-Milon

woodcarvings such

Museum

of Buffalo

Claus Sluter's style

as the so-called 6

is

reflect the

tympanum of Our Lady's Church at Frankfort 4 and 5 Schone Madonnen or a remarkable head of Christ in the

or the

precious delicacy of goldsmith's

monumental. But

it is

monumental

— and

without being controlled and sustained by a purely sculptural, tion.

work and book this let

makes

it

illumination,

doubly great

—

alone architectural, inten-

The peculiarities of his very technique — the emphasis on surface texture, the avoidance

of gyratory

movement

in favor of motionless existence, the multiplication of bulging, deeply

undercut drapery folds

— serve

a pictorial as well as plastic purpose. All earlier medieval

sculpture, even at the height of Gothic in the

middle of the thirteenth century, had permitted

were, to the lines and surfaces presented to

the eye of the beholder to cling, as

it

works force us

as with a surgical probe;

to explore the

forms

we

feel as

it.

Sluter's

though our eye were

sending out rays of vision which penetrate into deep, dark hollows or are stopped short by light-reflecting protuberances. Instead of gliding along the plastic shapes,

draw them

into

itself,

our eye seems to

then project them onto an imaginary picture plane, so that the question

80

;

SCULPTURE AND PANEL PAINTING of whether a figure

compared

to

is

conceived after the pattern of an "S" or a "C" becomes irrelevant as

we may

optical appearance in space. Sluter,

its

say, contains potentially

both

Michelangelo and Bernini.

A

upon proximity

of this influence naturally depended

"Burgundian school of sculpture

A

Burgundy.

place,

in the fifteenth century." Sluter himself

native of Holland, he

emphasis on

treatment,

influence.

had spent

surface

and

But the intensity it is

nothing but

which we mean when we speak of a

his

owes

little

or nothing

youth in the southern parts of the

shown

Netherlands, where sculpture, like painting, had always vigorous

and

in time

the concentrated emanation of Claus Sluter's style

to

enormous

personality such as his could not but exert an

a tendency

toward broad,

and physiognomical individualization.

texture

Throughout the fourteenth century the Royal Family of France had favored Flemish (Jean de Liege, Beauneveu and Jean de Cambrai)

little

on the epitaph

those

traits as

of Jacques Isaak, a

as portraitists,

sculptors

and even such modest por-

Tournai goldsmith, and his wife (1401) are

masterpieces of verisimilitude and penetrating analysis.

1

There

are,

furthermore, distinct

presages of Sluter's individual style in the carved corbels of the "Schepenhuys" in Malines (ca. 1380)

2

and

can be discovered.

Town

Brussels

in Brussels, quite near Malines, that the first traces of his

it is

He

contributed,

it

activity

seems, a set of seated Prophets to the decoration of the

and the magnificent consoles of these

Hall,

own

statues, revealing their earlier

date only by a lesser degree of boldness in undercutting the stone and a

less drastic

sub-

ordination of details to a general pattern, are almost identical in style with those which support the

jamb

prenticeship,

it

figures in the portal of

was

as

Champmol. 3 Wherever he may have

served his ap-

an accomplished master that Sluter appeared in Dijon.

in

As

for the state of affairs in panel painting,

compared

to those

produced

has been said that the style of the works

and John the Fearless was "on the whole

associated with Philip the Bold as

it

at

a little retardataire

Due de Berry." 4 However, of panel paintDue de Berry nothing has come down to us

the court of the

ings demonstrably produced in the circle of the

save a small Crucifixion formerly in the Renders Collection at Bruges, datable about 1380,

which it

is

at first

glance looks like Sienese

work

of about 1330.

5

The

rest

is

book illumination; and

hardly permissible to measure panels by the standards of miniatures. True, the pictures

that can be connected with the

Burgundian court are

all

"painted on gold ground"; but so

is

every other religious picture prior to 1420 (unless the gold be replaced by some other, less

expensive kind of abstract foil).

compared appear "a

little retardataire''

specific school but as It is,

And

if

the paintings produced for Dijon and

to the "Brussels Hours," the "Boucicaut

in other respects as well, they

specimens of a

therefore, not with

less

Champmol,

indigenous and

less

do

so,

not as representatives of a

advanced medium.

book illuminations but with panel paintings produced

centers of France that the pictures executed

as

Hours" or the "Tres Riches Heures,"

in other

under the auspices of Philip the Bold and John

81

EARLY NETHERLANDISH PAINTING compared

die Fearless should be

owing

to the scantiness of a material

ship advances,

"schools"; this

in order to estimate their relative "progressiveness."

'

method

extremely

is

it

to the

works

of artists

whose

to

shrink rather than to increase as scholar-

French panel paintings

difficult to ascribe

somewhat doubtful

in fact,

is,

it

which tends

what extent we

to

were not

activities

However,

are at

as yet

to regional or local

applying

all justified in

organized on a geographical

basis.

At times

it

than to assign

Lady"

in the

may

be easier to connect a given panel with the style of a given book illuminator

to a given "school" of panel painting.

it

National Gallery

Washington

at

We

may

amazingly progressive

hesitate to ascribe to

"it is

byword

St.

Peter of

a native artist or

Legend

from Siena

Collection in Lyons,

on vellum, has

is

justly

we

Of

is

it

the Worcester

still

now

ad-

5

in the

whether they were executed by

a

it

The two Louvre Comtat Venaissin,

Frenchman

or by a

A "Calvary and Noli me tangere" formerly in the Aynard Bolognese. A "Bearing of the Cross" in the Louvre, painted

in doubt.

certainly

"Madonna

do not know whether Italy.

Andrew, which come from Thouzon

of St.

is still

saint of Provence,

4

by an immigrant from North

are so Italianate that the question of

painter

Tr«

not possible to speak, with reference to our period, of an Avignonese or

Luxembourg," the patron

was produced by panels with the

(fig.

one of the Lim-

in art-historical writing,

Provencal school of painting in the proper sense of the term."

with

and, most par-

be specific, to the author of the April picture in the

the "Ecole d'Avignon," formerly a

mitted that

2

92)

3

Riches Heures."

Of

— to

do not

I

(fig.

John the Fearless in the Louvre

profile portrait of

94), an excellent replica of an original which

bourg brothers themselves

which must have

(officially ascribed to Pisanello)

been produced in the closest proximity to the Limbourg brothers ticularly, to the

refer to the "Portrait of a

6

7

been associated with Jacquemart de Hesdin.

8

And

the delightful

"An-

nunciation" in the collection of Mr. Arthur Sachs in Santa Barbara, California, originally published as a product of Avignon and later on ascribed to a Dijon generally accepted as Parisian. However, this revised attribution

opinion and that of other scholars the painting school.

is

atelier, is

is

now more

or less

hardly final either. In

my

an unusually fine product of the Bohemian

9

In fact, the "Paris School of about 1400"

Avignon." Strange though

it

seems,

is

we have

"Parement de Narbonne" and such panels

as

even more problematic than the "School of literally

not a single painting between the

can be connected with the great Parisian

illuminators of the early fifteenth century that can be ascribed to the "School of Paris" with

any amount of certainty, and most of the paintings commonly assigned not even French. fixion

and

origin of a much-debated diptych in Berlin,

a crucified Christ

appeared to

Germanic

The

St.

may perhaps

— probably

Austrian or South Bohemian

— provenance

is

difficult to

of the better-known diptych in the Bargello

on the

left,

it

are probably

which shows the Cruci-

appearing to a Premonstratensian Canon determine, but

Bernard,

to

much

as

He had

once

turn out to be Bavarian.

may

1

"

also be conjectured

which shows the Crucifixion on the

right, and,

the Adoration of the Magi, the latter staged in a distinctly un-French architectural

82

SCULPTURE AND PANEL PAINTING and exhibiting,

setting

in linear

— likewise preserved

movement. And the

in the Bargello

Roman

and likewise

to originate in a region

themselves,

all this is

but not

last

heresy from, a French,

From

the

ever, infer

Jean

le

of the frames

alone Parisian, point of view.

The "Carrand

the

third of the fifteenth century.

it is,

it

is

in reality a product of

2

of panel painting produced in France around 1400

two things: beginning with the

Bon,

ism, and

first

we know

little

shows, true to

its

earliest

known

ratio to the size of the panels.

can,

ultramontane origin, a consistent tendency towards

great illuminators, considerably less progressive than contemporary

and

we

it is

The

how-

example, the Louvre portrait of

exception being made for the few works produced within the

of space are rarely tackled,

over upon the

spill

wondrous elaboration

least, let

and

saints

amazing device of making the

of Golgotha

soil

diptych," the cornerstone of the "Paris School of about 1400,"

Valencia, datable in the

it

angels and saints in the "garden in-

crosses, the

flowery lawn of the garden and the corpse-infested

lower ledges of the frame, and,

in that

remote from Paris in the opposite direction. The

odd arrangement of the

dignitaries, the

(fig.

testifying to the characteristic inclina-

brocaded garments worn by the angels, female

niellolike treatment of the

flat,

more famous "Carrand diptych"

still

Madonna adored by

juxtaposes the Crucifixion with a

— seems

composition

in

supreme joy of the Virgin Mary with her supreme sorrow

tion to contrast the

closed"

an equally un-French overcrowding

1

and overanimation 99)

like the Crucifixion,

book

significant that the interest in

smaller they are, and the

Italian-

direct orbit of the

illustration.

them grows

at

Problems

an inverse

more they thus approximate

the

format and technique of book illumination, the more "progressive" do they appear. It

background that the paintings commissioned by Philip the Bold and

against this

is

John the Fearless must be projected. They,

too, are fairly Italianate and,

"modern" than the illuminations produced

ing, less

Due de

for the

comparatively speak-

Berry.

Within the

limits

of their craft, however, the painters of Dijon can hardly be called retardataire. But neither can

they be called Burgundian. Like the sculptors, they were

with only a few exceptions such

and a much older single

man

work can be

Of

the

than the others

supplied by documents

in the Louvre.

Franche-Comte

native of

One

who

are connected with each other

still

extant, the

"Martyrdom

of

to 1397

those of Philip the Bold

(it

Puits de Moise with

with

4 /4

by 6 /i l

in the feet.

enticed

from the

who between

chapel of the Chartreuse de

services of

1401 and 1403

Denis

4

who had

Queen Isabeau was

into

to embellish the

In 1398 he was commissioned

Champmol. The

subjects are not

document; but the dimensions are stipulated and are given,

The

Brabant (who on

when he was he, by the way,

resplendent coat of gold and colors).

five large pictures for the

mentioned !

its

was

and can St.

of these records refers to the painter Jean Malouel

(Maelweel) from Guelders (uncle and early benefactor of the Limbourg brothers), been active in Paris up

a

3

be associated with an obviously contemporary panel

and His Companions"

who — a

— was recalled from Milan in 1373 and to whom not

ascribed with certainty.

many names

Jean d'Arbois

as that of

Flemings or even Rhinelanders,

all

in

one

case, as

other record informs us that in 1416 the painter Henri Bellechose of

May

23, 14 15,

had been appointed

83

as

Malouel's successor after the

latter's

EARLY NETHERLANDISH PAINTING death on March 12th of that year) "picture of the

and the other is

life

of

St.

Though one

Denis."

documents

of these

to the dimensions and the name of the

as

which

received the colors with

'

a strong presumption that they refer to the

who

artist

same work

is

to "finish" (parfaire) a silent as to the subject,

started the painting, there

— provided

that this

work have

the

dimensions indicated and evince the participation of two different masters. Recent assertions to the contrary notwithstanding,

Louvre

A

(fig. 100)

hold that these conditions are

I

which does depict the Legend of

St.

fulfilled

Denis and measures

curious combination of cult image and historical narrative,

crucified Christ

and God the Father in a glory of

On

angels.

the

it

left,

— which, in order to emphasize — to administer ing or orientalizing style

shown

the

Martyrdom

itself:

general scheme of this

Italo-Byzantine habit of diagonals,

master

is

Christ, clad in the

same

rendered in a faintly Romanizis

St.

archaic composition,

the central motif

Eleutherius awaiting execution. faithful to the Byzantine

still

and

emerge from two symmetrically descending

well in keeping with the date of 1398 and with the presumable style of a mature

who had

spirit in the

2.10 m.~

the Last Sacrament in person; and on the right

on the ground, and

somewhat

making

is

m. by

in the center the

Denis, his head half severed by the "blunted axe," on the

St.

block, St. Rusticus lying beheaded

The

pagan character,

its

1.61

shows

in the

Denis in the Prison de

blue, gold-embroidered pluvial as are the three martyrs, visits St.

Glaucin

by the picture

spent most of his adult

in Paris.

life

There

emphasis on embroidered and brocaded designs,

is

make headway

workshop of the Boucicaut Master

The movements and body of the

many

as well as

in the

— an orientalizing

North about 1400 and

affected the

other schools of European panel painting.

though

it

is

for anatomical insight

in handling the Italian technique of shading flesh with green, this,

inscriptions

3

expression of the Martyrs and the Saviour are gently restrained and the

crucified Christ, remarkable

than vigor. All

areas of bright, clear color,

flat

and undulating borders some of which bear ornamental "Kufic" fad of the Sienese which began to

a decorative, almost heraldic

however,

is

at variance

is

and for

skill

modeled with delicacy rather

with the savage power and naturalistic directness

that can be felt in the upper portions of the picture, especially in the

somber figure of God the

Father, in the magnificent brute of an executioner, and in the fantastic yet amazingly real

group of pagans behind him. Here,

—a

younger

tradition It

man and

one

I

who had

think,

we can

artist

not undergone the mellowing influence of the Paris

and had instead been plunged from

might be objected

indeed discern the hand of another

his native

Brabant into the orbit of Claus

that the stylistic contrast within the

"Martyrdom

Sluter.

of St. Denis" can

be accounted for by the familiar custom, discussed in the preceding chapter, of indicating social or

moral

behind him

inferiority

may

by more naturalistic treatment. The executioner and the onlookers

be thought to differ from the other figures, not because they were painted

by a different hand but because they are evildoers and pagans. There would justification in

making

a stylistic difference

between the

Trinity; and no such difference exists in another picture

executed without the participation of a second

artist.

84

First

be,

however, no

and Second Persons of the

commonly

This picture

is

ascribed to Malouel but

the beautiful tondo, one

;

SCULPTURE AND PANEL PAINTING which

of the earliest panel paintings of circular form, ioi).

1

holds the broken Body

the

and

instead of the Crucifix,

"Martyrdom

of

Denis" in several

St.

even more delicate,

is

much

stylistic

with regard

their difference

He

The

peculiarities.

parallels

it

which the strands of hair

in the tondo,

little earlier

that the latter

Around

Louvre

and

God

as a

the Father. In the

He

woolly mass. In the tondo,

face, sparse

undulating locks, and

are treated in linear fashion.

than the "Martyrdom of

2

two large paintings at least

one

a

number

slightly later.

4

"Martyrdom of

a gentle, sad aristocrat

is

much

less

abundant beard in

Both documentary and

The "Lamentation"

roundels. In the

"Martyrdom

stylistic

evidence

we

date the

pictures

(fig.

in the

itself

of smaller ones have been grouped,

two Louvre panels and

of St. Denis,"

some

Museum

at

Troyes

3

Chalandon Collection

which

102)

is

and a third formerly in in Paris;

5

member

apparently the latest

common

and, finally, a of the

with the "Malouel" tondo in

Louvre and the "Coronation of the Virgin" in Berlin are "Lamentation" in Troyes

in the

hems and trimmings adorned with

depicted in a all

way somewhat

we

also

find, as in the

pseudo-oriental inscriptions.

7

these similarities

do not

reminiscent of "Malouel."

were executed in a workshop located

well

testify,

not so

much

less

to the existence of

under Malouel's influence

demonstrate the hypothesis that the

sufficiently

than follow the "Malouel" tondo and are

may

accept the hypothesis

but one of the six compositions are centered around the figure of the dead Christ

is

Yet

we

Denis" and that

These pictures have indeed many features in

all

St.

These are a "Lamentation" and an "Entombment"

a "Crucifixion" in the

"Coronation of the Virgin" in Berlin

which

St.

another "Lamentation" in the

the Berstl Collection,

And

though Denis."

was finished by Henri Bellechose.

these

slightly earlier

Paris.

St.

between the two paintings, the more striking

thus seem to support the attribution of both pictures to Malouel, provided that

group.

agrees with

looks like a Sluterian prophet with a mighty round skull, ample hair, low fore-

with a long, narrow-browed

in the

first,

childlike, soft-chinned

and the dead Saviour

to the depiction of

head and a thick beard depicted

tondo a

(fig.

which God the Father

in

akin to the crucified Christ in the "Martyrdom of

However, the more convincing these

Denis,"

form

has been attributed to Malouel,

back bears the arms of France and Burgundy, and second, because

its

angels' heads are very similar in both pictures,

is

it

Louvre

also preserved in the

represents the Trinity according to the new, Pieta-Yikc

It

because

is

at

angels in the

is

"Martyrdom

an

St.

we have

little

evidence one

Madonna

way

rather

to

admit that

would have formed which he belonged

their origin cannot be

golden and bejeweled crosses on the diadems of the

Denis," the Troyes and Berstl "Lamentations" and the Berlin

"Coronation of the Virgin," alternately adduced do, in fact, recur in Jan van

"atelier Dijonnais" that

as to the character of the Parisian milieu to

that the

of

them precede

advanced in the rendering of the nude, they

before going to Burgundy. For the time being, established; the sad fact

Dijon. Since most of

six little

as peculiar to either Paris or

Flanders

8

(they

Eyck and Roger van der Weyden) cannot be considered

or the other; they are found, as early as about 1350, in the

of the Archbishop Ernest of Prague,

commonly known

85

as the

as

Bohemian

"Glatz Madonna,"

at

EARLY NETHERLANDISH PAINTING Berlin

and may well originate

'

Ambrogio

in the school of

Lorenzetti. Conceivably, however,

the pictures grouped around the "Malouel" tondo have a better claim to representing the elusive Paris school of about 1400 than

do the other works thus

far ascribed to

it.

IV

Denis" — and, with a of — the Louvre are thus the only panel paintings

The "Martyrdom

in

lesser

St.

degree of certainty, the large tondo

which can be accepted

left

having been

as

executed in Dijon during the reigns of Philip the Bold and John the Fearless; and after the

when

departure of the Court in 1420,

came

things in Dijon

Bellechose had to eke out the family income by selling autre s petites denrees)," not

when

the fifteenth century say,

as

much

is

Henri

and other groceries (du

sel et

salt

heard of painting in Burgundy until the second half of

revived as an offshoot of the schools of Flanders.

it

3

Needless to

Jean Malouel of Guelders and Paris and Henri Bellechose from Brabant must be classified

Franco-Flemish rather than Burgundian

the former that has

and on "Flemish" in

come down

in Dijon at

all,

to us

artists,

with the accent on "Franco" in the case of

that of the latter.

And the most important work of painting Champmol was demonstrably not produced

from the Chartreuse de

but imported from the workshop of a Fleming who, though acquainted with

the style of Jacquemart de Hesdin,

This

artist

preserved — as "peintre

is

— the greatest of

all

had come

chairs

Melchior Broederlam of Ypres, mentioned in the accounts of Philip the Bold

and wooden

"chambrette" or pavilion)

de chambre" from 1387.

as "varlet

late

had completed

his

His patron em-

Hesdin, for the varied tasks which

at

galleries to the decoration of a glittering gloriette

all

covered with gold

two

one were instantly dispatched

work was paid

4

Broederlam

for in 1394, but the

And when

to be

(an ornate

and the preparation of layouts and draw-

leaf,

altarpieces, the quaintly

to

fell

medieval master painter, from the painting of banners (in

ings for tiled floors (ordonnance de carrelages). carver,

as a casual visitor.

pre-Eyckian panel painters insofar as their work has been

monseigneur" from 1391 and

within the province of the oils!),

and Burgundy only

to Paris

ployed him, especially in connection with his castle

the

to such a pass that the wife of

Jacques de Baerze, the

wood

shaped wings of the more sumptuous

adorned with paintings on the exterior;

wings were not

installed until five years later.

Nothing

could speak more loudly for the esteem in which Broederlam was held by his master than the very fact that Philip the Bold had these wings shipped

from Termonde

to

Ypres rather

than either entrusting them to another painter or keeping Broederlam away from his duties

at

home.

Completing the Infancy Cycle, merely adumbrated tion of the Magi,"

de Baerze's carved "Adora-

Broederlam depicted the Annunciation and Visitation on the exterior of

the left-hand shutter,

two double

in Jacques

and the Presentation and Flight

pictures (figs. 104, 105) represent

— so

into

Egypt on

its

counterpart.

And

far as the material has survived

these

— about

the only attempt of a professional Northern panel painter of ca. 1400 to face the basic problems that agitated the

minds of such book illuminators

86

as

Jacquemart de Hesdin and the Boucicaut

SCULPTURE AND PANEL PAINTING Master. Like these two, Broederlam strove for the integration of figures with architectural and natural space, and the fact that he was still

hampered by the conventions

demanded

required the use of gold ground and

queerly shaped, be

Two

with form

filled

— makes

this struggle

of the incidents needed an architectural setting;

had

to

be shifted to the

however

doubly dramatic.

two had

to be staged outdoors.

But

from placing the buildings on the extreme

and the extreme right where they might have served

in the center. Instead, they

medium — which

that every square inch of the area,

the chronology of the narrative prevented the painter left

of his

as coulisses for a landscape prospect

both panels, one of them surmounted

left in

by a triangular, the other by a rectangular, space. Nevertheless a reasonably equilibrated surface pattern left

was achieved by balancing the apparition of God the Father

with a mountain peak, topped off by a fortified

two rectangles

filling the

mountain peak and

in the triangle

castle, in the triangle

on the

on the and by

right;

in the center with approximately analogous motifs, viz., another

a steep tower with angels spreading their aquiline pinions above them.

In an effort to break the spell of two-dimensionality, Broederlam devised architectures projecting and receding with equal energy.

While pushing back the landscape, they

forward the frontal plane; and in contrast to the "Martyrdom of matter, figures

contemporary panel paintings in Northern Europe

all is

well above the lower margin.

much more

Thus

St.

Denis"

— the

also

— and,

push

for that

standing plane of the

the pictorial space, though

much

less

unified and

sharply rising than in the contemporary miniatures in the "Brussels Hours,"

no

longer seems to start behind the backs of the figures but at a comfortable distance in front of

them. a

should also be noted

It

hawk

is

down from

seen swooping

ground had already begun in

to

which not only angels and

The Temple

— a small, but most significant detail — that in the "Visitation"

which may be considered

as

significance,

if

devils but ordinary birds

in the "Presentation"

mind

eyrie; in Broederlam's

its

assume the

is

can

aviate.

one of those spindleshanked hexagonal structures

magnified Gothic baldachins or tabernacles and were particularly

in favor with the Sienese Trecento painters (a slightly later specimen

of the Fleur des Histoires de la Terre

d 'Orient and an

earlier but

1

"Angers Apocalypse" by Jean Bondol). Apart from impeccably constructed

tiled floor

entation" of 1342), this structure

however, ber,

is

the conventional gold

not the appearance, of the natural sky

its

is

found in the

title

page

even more similar one in the

unusually developed interior and

its

(both features reminiscent of Ambrogio Lorenzetti's "Presis

not overly original.

truly remarkable. Several years before, the

were familiar with Broederlam's compositions

The

setting of the "Annunciation,"

Limbourg

brothers

— who, we remem-

— he employed the Italian "exterior type"

2

with a foreshortened portico or oratorio approached by the angel from without; and not only

was Broederlam the a

manner not

first

Northern panel painter

seen before and hardly ever after.

to adopt this scheme,

He

encased the Virgin

he also elaborated

Mary

it

in

in a fanciful, airy

pavilion turned against the frontal plane at an angle of approximately forty-five degrees so that the figures appear arrayed

he adorned

— with

this little

statues of

on

a diagonal; after the fashion of the great Trecento masters

shrine — one cannot help thinking of the gloriette in the

Moses and Isaiah placed on

87

its

corners

much

as

castle of

Ambrogio

Hesdin

Lorenzetti's

EARLY NETHERLANDISH PAINTING "Presentation"

is

surmounted by the

Moses and Joshua; and he enmeshed

statues of

it

in a

complex of other buildings.

The

symbolism of

intricate

rambling and, from

this

a practical point of view, not too 1

convincing architecture will be discussed in one of the following chapters. For the time being

we must

limit ourselves to

admiring Broederlam's performance

as a craftsman.

Not

as yet

with the technique of the van Eycks, he envisaged their aims without

familiar, of course,

possessing their methods.

He

used glazes only on exceptional occasions, and his color

is

reminiscent of the clear, flowery brilliance of contemporary book illuminations and enamels.

But within the limits of

his

medium, he worked wonders. All

essential

forms are modeled with

and

a richness of

nuance unmatched in the fourteenth century, and an equally un-

rivaled breadth

and freedom

— what the Italians

a precision

his trees, his terrain

Our Lady's light

and such

pavilion.

which

— enchants us in his plants,

architectural accessories as the Prophet statues

But the most important thing of

fully justifies the use of the

to those of the

sprezzatura

call

all is

on the corners

of

a sensibility for the diffusion of

term chiaroscuro. Broederlam's

interiors, in contrast

mature Boucicaut Master, are represented from without; we peep into the rooms

instead of entering them. Yet he succeeded in capturing the gradually deepening half light in

the open hall behind the Virgin's tempietto with

its

nail-studded shutters and wonderful tiling

(which, like that of the tower room, reveals his proficiency in the ordonnance de carrelages)

and the prospect through the

grille of this

tower room, with the white-covered

from the gloom of the dimly lighted chamber,

No in

less

many

is

altar

;

emerging

without parallel in pre-Eyckian painting.

remarkable than the deservedly famous "Annunciation," copied or paraphrased

miniatures and occasionally enlarged into monumental tapestries (text

counterpart, the "Flight into Egypt." In

it

2 ill.

51),

is its

Broederlam achieved the most beautiful landscape

prior to the "Boucicaut Hours," perhaps less rich in "motifs" than those of Jacquemart de

Hesdin, but more than their equal in luxuriance.

and luminary

coloristic

variety and,

if I

may

say so, in

He intensified the illusion of depth and at the same time induced a feeling for the man in nature by the device of making the group emerge from behind a diagonal

immersion of

ledge of terrain which conceals the greater part of the in a spirit of delightful

her

left

warmth and

hand, and her mantle,

and immobile. The

Joseph, burdened with blankets and a kettle, drinks water

cates of

ture

which can

still

be seen in France and Belgium

upon the Puy-de-D6me or Yet

this

to the seashore.

amusing and much-imitated

that has been touched

upon

grasps her right elbow with

hiding part of His halo, envelops the Infant Jesus

so tightly that he appears, like a chrysalis, small St.

and he reinterpreted the whole scene

The Virgin Mary

intimacy.

realistically

ass,

detail

when

from

rustic, gloriously

bearded

a little canteen, the dupli-

lower-middle-class families ven-

3

is

more than an example

in the preceding chapter;

it

is

meant

to

of that milieu realism

remind us of the many

wonderful events which, according to the Apocrypha, accompanied the journey into Egypt. In the background

Family

is

seen a pagan idol tumbling from

as described in

Lord rideth upon

Pseudo-Matthew

a swift cloud,

and

shall

its

pedestal at the approach of the

XXI and announced come

to

88

in Isaiah

XIX,

Egypt; and the idols of Egypt

1:

Holy

"Behold, the

shall

be

moved

SCULPTURE AND PANEL PAINTING at

His presence"; and

Joseph quenching his

from which

this allusion to

when

been

the

Matthew XXIII). In support in

filled is

Holy Family was

is

field

and the Bending Tree), and in which

from the miraculous spring

miniature

St.

it

must be the miraculous foun-

in need of water in the wilderness (Pseudo-

we can adduce

a

somewhat

miniature

later

combined with two others (the Miracles of the Corn-

flask

it

assumption that the motif of

beautifully painted well in the foreground

not an ordinary well;

of this interpretation

which the Miracle of the Fountain

Depicting as

justifies the

The

thirst refers to another.

his canteen has

tain that appeared

one miracle

St.

Joseph

is

shown

in the very act of filling his

(fig. 191).

does the Rest on the Flight into Egypt rather than the Flight

— found in a Book of Hours in the Walters Art Gallery

at

Baltimore

!

—

itself, this is

an early

and, at this time, fairly isolated instance of what was to become a favorite subject of Gerard

David and Joachim

Patinir.

Moreover,

it is

our curiosity about those Netherlandish

an indigenous product of Flanders and thus arouses

artists

who,

like

Broederlam but in contrast

to all the

other masters thus far discussed, remained in their native Lowlands instead of emigrating to

France.

89

IV

THE REGIONAL SCHOOLS OF THE

NETHERLANDS AND THEIR IMPORTANCE FOR THE FORMATION OF

THE GREAT MASTERS Jlrior

Burgundian court

to the transmigration of the

to Flanders, the conditions of

production in the Netherlands differed from those in France by the more dominant role of

art

patrons belonging to the bourgeoisie and the clergy rather than to the high nobility. But within the Netherlands themselves a the one hand, the

marked divergence can be

and the North and

Burgundian empire; but the

East,

on the

seat of this

up

to 1433)

life

in the

;

Burgundy, up

to 1417,

empire was I

up

and

still

to 1404,

and the Artois were attached

to

The Hainaut belonged

to

Dijon.

by

William VI, a son-in-law

his son

by the latter's luckless daughter, Jacqueline,

but the interests of this dynasty were centered in Holland. Artistic and intellectual

South and West was thus largely dominated by the big

and Tournai, whereas the North and East abounded France and Burgundy by dynastic and cultural its

between the South and West, on

other. Flanders

the Bavarian dynasty (represented by Albrecht of Philip the Bold of

felt

Bavarian court in

The Hague. The Limbourg

ties,

in princely courts

whose

rulers, linked to

were, so to speak, on the spot. Holland had

(the region around Maastricht, Maastricht

belonging to the Bishopric of Liege) was part of the

Duchy

of Brabant

up

to 1406

when

to

Antoine of Burgundy, the second son of Philip the Bold. Guelders (comprising the

of

Arnheim, Nijmegen, Zutphen and Roermond, the last-named known

was ruled by Renaud IV (died 1423), who was married

woman, Marie de Harcourt

— Adolph Fearless,

Renaud

II,

who

in 1406

et

Ghent

Ypres, Bruges,

cities,

d'Aumale. Cleves,

finally,

as

it

itself

went

districts

"Upper Guelders")

to a highly cultured

belonged to Count

—

French noblelater on,

Duke

had married Mary of Burgundy, the second daughter of John the

and whose daughter, Catherine, became Duchess of Guelders by her marriage IV's successor,

Arnold of Egmond,

to

in 1427.

Consequently, though somewhat paradoxically, a more courtly and,

91

if

one

may

say so,

EARLY NETHERLANDISH PAINTING more

Parisian atmosphere prevailed in certain sections of the

Of panel painting

Holland nothing

in

Germanic north and

east

than

Hainaut and the Artois.

in the bilingual regions of Flanders, the

is

known

to us

between the Antwerp "Calvary of

Hendrik van Rijn" of 1363 (fig. 103) and the engaging but distinctly provincial Hague Portrait of Lisbeth van Duivenvoorde of 1430 (not strictly speaking a panel, but a painting on 1

vellum mounted and framed), except for the rather problematic memorial tablet of the Lords

Rijksmuseum

of Montfoort in the

Amsterdam which may

at

be dated about 1390.

We

2

possess,

however, a number of "pre-Eyckian" panels executed in the Netherlandish-German borderline

zone on the lower Meuse and lower Rhine; and these few panels form a striking contrast to those produced in Flanders and the Hainaut which, by comparison, give the impression of

With

imagerie populaire. lam,

it

was

in

the exception of such court painters in partibus as Melchior Broeder-

Guelders and the Limbourg, the former apparently pervaded by an especially

rarified cultural

atmosphere, rather than in the future centers of the Flemish efflorescence,

that panel painting

came

closest to the aristocratic ideals of the

French and Franco-Flemish

production.

One

of the most accomplished

Eyckian Netherlands

is

Beuningen Collection

at

and sophisticated works of panel painting

a small folding altarpiece of ca.

treasured in the van

3

Vierhouten near Amersfoort

eye by the graceful elaboration of

now

1415,

in the pre-

Opened,

(figs. 106, 107).

it

catches the

very frames, whose outer strips are decorated with a

its

painted ornament of foliated stems and pine cones, while their inner grooves or chamfers are set

with carved

rosettes, originally

and painters

tors

alike.

4

The

an architectural motif that was adopted by

central panel

is

organized by a simulated Gothic architecture

adorned with statues of Prophets, Apostles and angels the

workmanlike naturalism of

its

mighty

ivoiriers, sculp-

piers, its

after the fashion of

Broederlam but in

moldings, capitals, pinnacles and crockets

anticipating the church interiors of Jan van Eyck. Divided into three vertical sections each of

which comprises two the

Man

storeys, the central panel

of Sorrows supported by

shows

two angels and,

in the lower storey of the

in the

upper

storey, the Saviour

Virgin Mary enthroned beneath a gorgeous twin canopy of stone. In the seen, in the

Andrew;

upper

left, St.

in the lower

left,

James the Less and SS. Servatius

St.

in the

look

down from

a kind of balcony in the top piece.

Leonard and Giles surmounted by

the panels being framed by

flat,

St.

unadorned

ing figures; the four Evangelists, led by Denis, Hubert and Vincent, led by

St.

St.

Paul and

St.

lower zone, the

in the

groups of saints while single saints in half length

Agnes, Barbara and Catherine surmounted by dict,

St.

lower right, SS. Martin of

Tongres and Remaclus. The wings, divided only horizontally, show, four Fathers of the Church and, above, two

and the

lateral sections are

Peter; in the upper right,

and Lambert; and

middle section

St.

On

we have

Lawrence; on the

Stephen. ledges.

the left

The

SS.

wings

is

less elaborate,

tier exhibits a series of ten stand-

John the Baptist, on the

Michael, on the right.

Anthony, Bene-

right, SS.

exterior of the

The lower

Magdalen, Dorothy,

left;

The upper

SS.

James the Great,

tier is

occupied by an

elegant and dignified Adoration of the Magi; and the top piece by the Annunciation.

The

style of this altarpiece

has been characterized as "mi-Parisien

92

et

mi-Rhenan,"

6

and

THE REGIONAL SCHOOLS not without reason. While the naturalistic attitude of Netherlandish art asserts

the

itself in

treatment of the architecture and in a careful attention to surface texture, the elegance and poise of the figures recall the Master of 1402

and even the Boucicaut Master. The wide-spaced

alignment of the figures in the Adoration of the Magi and the decorative, linear treatment of

woven

and hair

patterns, ecclesiastical accouterments

are,

however,

German

rather than either

— such, for instance, as the curly-haired, pertly innocent noses — may remind us of the contemporary angels with their small mouths and pointed

French or Flemish; and the

facial types

little

Cologne masters, of Master Francke (active

and most particularly of Conrad of

The environment

in

which

may

Hamburg, but probably

remarkable synthesis of the Flemish, the Parisian and the established

on hagiological grounds. While the

be interpreted as a tribute to Royal France,

all

conspicuously honored are especially connected with the Meuse valley of Liege;

St.

a native of Guelders)

Soest.

this

Germanic was achieved can fortunately be clusion of St. Denis

at

:

in-

the other special saints

Hubert

St.

is

the patron

Martin was the seventh bishop of Tongres, only about twelve miles to the south-

west of Maastricht; and SS. Lambert, Servatius and Remaclus (the first-named, in addition, sharing the patronage of Liege with

St.

Hubert) are

The phrase

"mi-Parisien,

now

four delightful panels

— two of them

in Baltimore (figs. 108, 109).

painted on both sides

seen the Baptism of Christ and

reading from Resurrection.

The two

is,

with some qualifications, to

1

Antwerp

Correctly reconstructed, these four

— constitute a quadriptych.

On

the exterior are

Christopher, each in an elaborate landscape; the interior,

St.

left to right, exhibits

the Annunciation, the Nativity, the Crucifixion and the

pictures in the center,

others, are held together

also be applied,

divided between the Mayer van den Bergh Collection in

and the Walters Art Gallery panels

mi-Rhenan" may

titulary saints of Maastricht itself. It

van Beuningen altarpiece must be sought.

therefore, in or near Maastricht that the origin of the

more symmetrical

in composition than the

two

by the segmented glory that occurs in both; a cross reference from the

extreme right to the extreme

left,

on the other hand,

is

given in that both the "Annunciation"

and the "Resurrection" contain the figure of God the Father displaying

a

book inscribed with

the phrase "Alpha etCO," the First and the Last. Needless to say, the recurrence of this inscription expresses

what has often been

cited as a favorite concept of the period, the contrastive cor-

relation of the Infancy with the Passion, the beginning with the end.

Iconographically, the Baltimore-Antwerp quadriptych original ideas. Sanctioned by Giotto's fresco in the

the Annunciate

is

full of unusual, in part

apparently

Arena Chapel, the submissive gesture

of

— hands crossed before her breast — was very popular in the Italian Trecento

and widely accepted

in Spain

was unusual thus

and the idea of inscribing the Virgin's answer

far,

and Bohemia. In Northwest European painting, however, to the

it

Angelic Salutation

("Ecce ancilla domini") on the pages of a book seems to be derived from one of the

numerous Trecento

The

pictures in

which she reads the prophecy of

Isaiah ("Ecce virgo concipiet").

interpretation of the "Nativity" appears to be unique in that

of his stockings

and seems

a covering for the

to be cutting

nude Infant

it

up with

St.

Joseph has taken off one

a knife, perhaps in order to convert

it

into

Jesus, and the haloed midwife protects her wonderful brocaded

93

EARLY NETHERLANDISH PAINTING dress by an apron. St. Christopher, knee-deep in fish, beckons to the Christ Child

Him

gathering fruit on the far bank of the river) instead of carrying

The

1

thing.

that the

"Crucifixion," finally, differs from

dying Christ, normally represented

mouth proceeds

while from His

that the selection of this

all

as the patient sufferer, pathetically lifts

of despair

was

inspired, not

lama sabatani."

is

was the usual

across as

comparable interpretations of the scene

a scroll inscribed: "Eloy, Eloy,

moment

(Who

in

His head

have no doubt

I

by the Gospels themselves but by

"Vocem

their hauntingly graphic paraphrase in the Revelationes of St. Bridget (IV, 70):

ex

ymo pectoris, erecto capite, oculis in celum directis et lacrymantibus, emisit dicens 'Deus, Deus, lamma sabachthani' " ("Deeply from His breast, raising His head, His weeping eyes turned heavenward, He gave a cry, saying 'My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?' "). Stylistically, the six little pictures

appear to be somewhat earlier than the van Beuningen

altarpiece (say, about 1400-1410); but they are

plex in derivation.

The

be compared to that of the

ment

less

direct or indirect influence of

and expression of the Annunciate,

may

no

and no

exquisite in execution

Broederlam can be sensed

less

in the posture

in the facial type of the St. Joseph in the "Nativity"

Simeon

St.

of foliage and brocaded fabrics

drinking from a jug as Broederlam's

— not to mention the Hermit St.

the architecture of the Virgin's throne,

and

in Broederlam's "Presentation"),

com-

(which

in the treat-

in the Christopher scene,

Joseph drinks from his canteen.

The drapery

motifs,

and the general aura of sophisticated refinement

be-

speak the master's familiarity with the miniature tradition established by Bondol and Beauneveu

and culminating as the

in the earlier

features,

however, such

elongated proportions, the wiry hair of the angels and the Infant Jesus in the Christopher

scene and the unbalanced

man

works of Jacquemart de Hesdin. Other

art;

in paintings

dence

movement

and the segmented

of the Resurrected Christ are again reminiscent of Ger-

glories in the "Nativity"

and "Crucifixion" are

by Conrad of Soest and his school. There

as to the

is,

closely paralleled

unfortunately, no iconographic evi-

provenance of the Baltimore-Antwerp quadriptych. But

its

style

would seem

north of that of the van Beuningen altarpiece, more likely

to indicate a place of origin a little

than not in Guelders.

Even where the is

somewhat

is

the

technical execution of a picture assignable to this general neighborhood

less refined,

we

charming Nativity of

Collection to the Deutsches

sense the spirit of the International Style.

ca.

What

that

its

Museum

at Berlin (fig.

origin has been thought to be

not subscribe to this hypothesis for both that the picture

is

have in mind

1410-1415 which not so very long ago passed from the Figdor

no). In

it,

the

Germanic

quality discernible

both in the van Beuningen altarpiece and the Baltimore-Antwerp quadriptych

marked

I

painted on oak),

I

Upper

stylistic

would

rather than

is

so

much more

Lower Rhenish." While

I

and iconographic reasons (apart from the

canfact

agree that a certain roughness of style, especially

evident in the stringy hair, the graphic treatment of ornamental patterns, and the profusion of gold, suggest a region closer to

Meuse

valley,

such

as,

Germany

for instance,

in the

narrower sense of the word than was the

Northern Guelders or the Duchy of Cleves. Yet there

about the picture a feeling for aristocratic elegance contrasted with quaint and

94

homely

is

detail

'

THE REGIONAL SCHOOLS which permits us temperament of

somewhat

to describe the style of the little masterpiece as court art seen

art populaire.

The Virgin Mary, holding

a

bowl of soup

in her left hand,

by a rustic shed, the thatched roof of which

insufficiently protected

through the

is

is

being repaired

by three angels. Pious shepherds look in over the wattle fence, a very modern Italianism, thus

known to us only from the nearly contemporary Nativity in the "Tres Riches Heures" (fig. 81). The Infant Jesus has escaped from eating His soup and flees to St. Joseph who, seated

far

1

at his

and

workbench, holds out

a kettle of water

is

Him. In

a flower to

the foreground, a midwife prepares His bath,

heated by two angels fanning the

fire

on

brick masonry, a curious contrivance anticipating our open-air rests

upon

a beautifully

a linen-covered pillow

grills.

The

brocaded mattress (placed directly on the ground

Antwerp quadriptych and

a Guelders

book illumination of

ca.

behind her; the Christ Child's bathtub

and most elegant shower curtains

in history,

and the water

is

is

backed by stepped

a hearth

Virgin, however,

as in the Baltimore-

1420-1425).

2

An

angel places

enclosed by one of the earliest

from an ornate

carried by angels

golden fountain.

As

in Broederlam's "Flight into

symbolic significance.

may

predicament,

this

wealth of amusing detail

is

in constant

need of repair; and that the bath water

obviously meant to represent the Fountain of Paradise

belief that the first

bath of the Christ Child

symbolism has taken shape,

this

is

of the roof, so natural in view of the

yet allude to the notion that the structure of the visible

be completed and is

The patching

Egypt"

is

a

is

is

not devoid of

Holy Family's

Church can never

brought from what

certainly a reference to the age-old

symbol of baptism. But the form in which the

combination of genre rustique and

fairy-tale-like splendor,

is

the very signature of the International Style.

11

The few

surviving panel paintings and murals produced in the South and

West

of the

Netherlands about or shortly after 1400 are very different in character. In them, the courtly tradition of

French and Franco-Flemish

art

is

almost entirely disregarded in favor of a resolute

naturalism which at times verges upon caricature, and this tendency toward down-to-earth directness at the expense of refinement can be observed even in the

Broederlam.

The

fine

Madonna

in half-length

from the Beistegui

immediate following of Collection,

Louvre, manifestly influenced by his Dijon altarpiece, retains some of

its

now

qualities

in the

and even

enhances them by an admixture of Sienese prettiness in the rendering of the "Bambino." This Madonna, however, was probably executed in Burgundy rather than in Flanders. The style of

Broederlam's local following

is

exemplified by a series of Infancy scenes (Nativity,

Presentation, Adoration of the Magi, Massacre of the Innocents, in the

Mayer van den Bergh Collection

in

Antwerp

(fig.

of four shutters

which enclosed

upon Broederlam

in general composition as well as details, but

lated into the

a

small statue, these

in).

little

4

and Flight

pictures

show

into

Egypt)

Painted on the exterior are

evidently based

his polished

idiom trans-

language of unassuming simplicity. Landscape and architecture are reduced

95

to

EARLY NETHERLANDISH PAINTING a

minimum. The modeling,

Bondol and Beauneveu were

to Jean

The

implications.

and

figure style

it

somewhat

would

coarse,

throwback

strike us as a

not for the fact that this very broadness has

new

pictorial

pretends to robust characterization rather than elegance; Herod

wicked rather than picturesque. In the "Flight into Egypt," the

his sinister cronies are

idyllic

energetic and

suppressed in favor of the grim and lonely by the elimination of scenery, and the

is

Virgin Mary, huddled upon the donkey, her face entirely veiled, turns away from the beholder.

The

"Nativity"

is

Museum whose

some ways

in

author

similar to the

little

may have borrowed from

Lower Rhenish

picture in the Deutsches

a similar composition the mattress-and-shed

combination, the pious shepherds (here placed behind the Virgin's couch and possibly the earliest representatives of their

kind in Northern

action here being performed by are

St.

Joseph). But in the

no angels, no midwife, no glamorous

of

What

is

Yolande

Belle.

accessories,

at Brussels, in

Joachim and Anne

at the

on the walls of St.-Quentin

d'Histoire et d'Archeologie,

3

chamber

of the Virgin (the Meeting of

of the Virgin, her Coronation

in

2

the compositions lean heavily

now

upon

The

Musee

transferred to the

Italian models.

But these are

figures are stockily built

modeled; design and color are rather heavy; and the

are elaborated with an obvious attempt at

and the Presen-

Like an "Entry into Jerusalem"

Tournai and

interpreted in a spirit of sturdy bourgeois naturalism. energetically

by the

as evidenced

represented by a panel in the

is

which three scenes from the Life

Golden Gate, the Birth

tation of Christ) are arrayed in friezelike sequence (fig. 112).

recently discovered

there

Two decades later,

1

believed to be Brabantine painting of about 1400

Musee Royal

fire (this

Mayer van den Bergh "Nativity"

and no golden fountain.

had degenerated into plain provincialism

in 1420, the school of Ypres

Madonna

and the motif of fanning the

art),

workmanlike

still-life

and

features of the birth

verisimilitude.

significant

It is

that the brass pitcher seen in such Italian representations of the Birth of the Virgin as that by

Paolo di Giovanni Fei in the Accademia

at Siena

4

is

conscientiously replaced by a

handsome

some importance

in a later

piece of indigenous dinanderie which, incidentally, will assume context.

5

The

local style of Bruges, finally,

is

represented by the well-known "Calvary of the Tan-

ners" in St.-Sauveur (fig. 113) which shows the Crucifixion between the fluffy-haired SS.

Catherine and Barbara, both these flanking figures emerging from simplified

from

as did the actors

their St'dnde ("stalls") in the late-medieval

little

mystery plays.

6

buildings

The

guilds

being largely responsible for the mise-en-scene of these sacred performances, the "Calvary of the Tanners"

may

well have borrowed

its

arrangement from the

stage. Fluid

and rough

in

technique, compressing the figures beneath the Cross into two crowded groups, this panel lacks sophistication

and dignity,

"Calvary" such Guelders,

7

as the

especially

mural

in

when compared

Amsterdam, originating from

where even wall painting

— normally

attained a high degree of perfection. But

it is

St.

Walburg's

The motif

at

Zutphen

given to a rather rough-and-ready

style

a

in

—

noteworthy that in the "Calvary of the Tanners"

Flemish naturalism takes a psychological turn. The painter aims not so emotional intensity.

and poise of

to the statuesqueness

much

at

"beauty" as

of the svenimento (the Virgin swooning in the arms of

96

at St.

THE REGIONAL SCHOOLS John)

is

made

Centurion

is

and human by

real

his gesture of

sharply contrasted with a deeply

Expressive though

it is,

holding her hand, and the mild and thoughtful

moved but

the "Calvary of the Tanners"

tame

is

temporary triptych, recently acquired by the Art Institute fixion flanked

by two horizontally divided wings, the

tempted by two she-devils and, below, below,

George.

St.

acterization has

1

St.

grown

The

St.

The

still

more

St.

James the Great and,

"Crucifixion"

drastic char-

packed to the

is

than a saint; and the

tale rather is

addressed by a weirdly carica-

by his shieldlike ear-guards, while two only slightly

sinister

repulsive characters, one with rings in his ears, lurk in the background. tions proposed (Flanders,

Anthony

St.

Christopher with his distorted posture, wide mouth, long

beard and bulbous nose looks like "Rubezahl" in the fairy

made

Chicago, which shows a Cruci-

crowded composition and

Centurion, instead of conversing with the faithful Longinus, tured soldier

as

to a nearly con-

one depicting, above,

left

to truly horrifying proportions.

point of breathlessness.

at

compared

Christopher; the right one,

In this triptych the propensity for

Longinus.

slightly brigandlike

North Brabant and Westphalia) the

Of

the various attribu-

seems preferable to

first

because of the triptych's affinity to book illuminations demonstrably produced in Bruges; the attribution to

North Brabant

is

not ununderstandable. Wherever

its

less

2

me but

place of origin, the

triptych anticipates the horrors of Jerome Bosch.

The

basic difference

which thus can be shown

between the

to exist

northern

style of the

and eastern Netherlands and that of the South and the West does not exclude the existence of equally basic altarpiece

affinities.

True, the genteel refinement of such

Mosan works

and the Baltimore-Antwerp quadriptych has no equivalent

as the

van Beuningen Hainaut

in Flanders, the

or the Artois; but the homely naturalism of the Brussels "Scenes from the Life of the Virgin" is

not entirely foreign to the North and the East.

And

the psychological expressionism of the

"Calvary of the Tanners" or the Chicago triptych has, as will shortly appear, graphic expressionism, relying on a dramatization of linear character,

which we

are

wont

to consider as specifically

movement

its

parallel in a

rather than of

human

3

Germanic. Moreover, throughout the

Netherlands the subsoil of civilization remained bourgeois and provincial; and, in contrast to France, a considerable

amount

rather than secular workshops.

Beuningen

altarpiece

of artistic activity 4

fall

behind the more

pre-Eyckian art was more or

On

this

less alike

(especially in the field of

brilliant

as the

van

and

flexible

media

mural painting which

in fourteenth-

and

fifteenth-

average or sub-average level of taste and proficiency,

throughout the Lowlands; but the fact remains that the

Northeast alone was capable of transcending valley

centered in monastic communities

and the Baltimore-Antwerp quadriptych stand out against the shadow of

century art north of the Alps).

Meuse

still

Thus, even in the North and East such highlights

an average or even sub-average production always tended to

was

this level,

if

only in the exceptional milieu of the

which was the homeland of Jean Malouel, the Limbourg

van Eycks.

97

brothers,

and the

EARLY NETHERLANDISH PAINTING in

More

sculpture and panel painting has been lost in the Netherlands than even in France;

that anything

some

of

is left

Eyckian painting would

rest

mented by drawing on the

our theories

all

and

richer

have fortunately survived in

on

tions, at least

art,

book illumination. Netherlandish manu-

numbers and

fairly large

grounds. Not

and none of them can

more thoroughly drained by

seems, was even

reflecting

many an

archetype forever

virtues as well as

In the

rival the

The

demands

many

— ranging from if

not by inscrip-

of these manuscripts are

"Boucicaut Hours" or the "Tres

supply of

first-rate illuminators,

it

French courts than that of

of the

its

faults

lost in the original,

and

artistic activity that

fulfilled a definite historical function.

decades of the fourteenth and

last

bear witness to an

beginning of the fifteenth century, the

at the

Flemish book illumination was largely rooted in a tradition exemplified by the "Ghent

Missal" of 1366

How

the

provenance

panel painters. Yet these exceptis excipiendis unspectacular manuscripts, apart from

first-rate

style of

their

— can often be determined,

Riches Heures" in sheer perfection of craftsmanship.

its

to the fact that

as to the regional characteristics of pre-

clearer source of

linguistic, heraldic or liturgical

works of

great, inspiring

had

due

solely

on shaky ground could they not be corroborated and supple-

north as Holland to as far west as the Artois

as far

is

escaped from the traditional military and religious battleground of Europe to the

it

comparative safety of Dijon. Thus

scripts

and Broederlam's work

of Jacques de Baerze's

l

22)

(fig.

and, on a higher

level,

this "tradition of the 'sixties," superficially

by Jean Bondol and Andre Beauneveu.

modernized and,

at

the same time,

somewhat

coarsened by the indigenous proclivity for broad, pictorial treatment, was transmitted to the

Northeast

by a Sermones Dominicales most probably produced

illustrated

is

1370, preserved in the

2

Royal Library

Rhymes (now

copy of Jacob van Maerlant's Bible in

which

I

century.

Copenhagen. In Holland

at

in the

it

is

first

Maastricht in

at

represented by a

Royal Academy of Amsterdam)

should like to date towards 1400 rather than in the penultimate decade of the fourteenth 3

This

is

followed by a group of four manuscripts that can be assigned to the

lustrum of the fifteenth century.

First, a gigantic Bible

Hendrik of Arnheim, perhaps illuminated "Nieuwlicht" near Utrecht and

now

first

(completed in 1403 by a scribe named

in the Carthusian

monastery of Bloemendaal or

preserved in the Bibliotheque Royale

at Brussels)

which

contains only one miniature at the beginning of Maccabees, quaintly depicting a septuagenarian

Alexander the Great on 4

114).

his

deathbed

as

he divides his realm

among

his five successors (fig.

Second, three profusely illustrated copies of the Tajel van den Kersten Ghelove ("The

Table of Christian Faith"), an edifying encyclopedia composed by Dire van Delft, the

Dominican court chaplain of Albrecht on December the

Duke on

slightly later

the British

The

12, 1404.

fol.

1

v., is

and no

Museum

The miniatures

best

and

of Holland,

earliest copy,

and completed prior

to the latter's death

showing the

and coat-of-arms of

preserved in the Walters Art Gallery

less richly illustrated

(fig.

in

ones are in the

at

portrait

Baltimore

(fig.

Morgan Library

115)

;

two very

(fig.

116) and in

not

independent

117)/'

these

four

manuscripts

98

—

all

historiatcd

initials,

THE REGIONAL SCHOOLS — have

peintures

especially at the

much

narrative, to

in the illumination of the

genuine pathos.

often a strong sense of the outdoors.

is

beam

liveliness

and

at

one of the most poignant presentations of Christ

is

which the more accomplished illuminator

whole work of Creation into the space of one

assigning special

initial,

more

of plain burnished gold, a feature long obsolete in

The marginal ornament

is

composed

guileless

which

way

in

van Delft" condenses the

of the Baltimore "Dire

islands to the

little

man. The grounds

archetypal images of fruit tree, winged fowl, beast of the earth and

practice.

Winepress,

in the

of the Cross being interpreted as the head of a press the vat of

formed by the sarcophagus. But nothing could be more delightful than the

Flemish

The

times attains

miniature in the London "Dire van Delft," normally referred to as

One

of Sorrows,"

the transverse

Dire

high degree of pictorial freedom. Linear perspec-

though not too smooth, has an engaging naivete and

"The Man

is

at Baltimore, attains a

treated with sovereign neglect, but there

is

broad and energetic and occasionally,

is

hands of one of the two masters who shared

van Delft manuscript tive

common. The modeling

in

consist

progressive French and Franco-

of thick, lazy rinceaux, a typically

Netherlandish simplification of the French ivy leaf which already occurs in the "Ghent Missal" of 1366 as well as in the

Copenhagen Sermones Dominicales

of 1370,

1

and these heavy

rinceaux are playfully supplemented by unsubstantial flowers and feathery pen lines which tend to disintegrate into comma-shaped strokes. Setting aside the anomalous case of the self-taught Cistercian Nicholas of Delft in the

Monastery of Marienberg

calligraphy has the peculiar the further evolution of

up

at Ysselstein

charm

of such

to his death in

"modern

Dutch book illumination was determined by and

of post-Bondol developments in France, the speed

with the

gifts

and inclinations of the individual

artists.

(Paris, Bibliotheque Nationale) does not differ too

except for the fact that

1415),

primitives" as John

its

A

its

4

118).

more

flexible figures

and

draperies,

with hair-thin, skimming rinceaux, treatment

is

in the Walters

historiated initials

still 3

A

real change,

soft

and

and

subtler colors.

now

The

may

more

on

however,

be added, as an

Art Gallery

felt in a

is

the Psalms of 1416

the Dire van Delft manuscripts,

miniatures,

In these a French and Franco-Flemish taste

(fig.

or Louis Vivie,

the gradual assimilation

can be observed in a small group of Utrecht Books of Hours to which

Horae

whose exuberant

Kane

Commentary on

gold ground, show a slight increase in precision and articulation.

exceptionally fine example, a little-known

(active

effectiveness of this process varying

much from

marginal decoration and

2

at

Baltimore

fluent narrative,

borders are lighter,

now

decorated

punctuated by scattered ornaments, and the entire

loose, at times attaining to real delicacy, at times

degenerating into plain

negligence.

among the The London

Chief Hesdin. script

influences that brought about this change

Spieghel der

which once belonged

to the

Maeghden ("Mirror

Convent of Our Lady

well have been illuminated by an art-loving

"Madonna Teaching

nun

the Infant Jesus" (fig. 119)

palpably presupposes the

"Madonna with

5

was

that of Jacquemart de

of Maidens") of ca. 1415 in the

Vineyard

at

Utrecht and

rather than a professional

which

in composition

may

— contains

a

and iconography

the Writing Christ Child" on the

99

— a manu-

first

dedication

EARLY NETHERLANDISH PAINTING page of the "Brussels Hours." In

on the other hand,

style,

miniature

this

is

reminiscent of the

school of Guelders as well as of Jacquemart de Hesdin, especially of the "Calvary" from St.

Walburg

style

at

was most

Zutphen.

was, in

It

fact,

through Guelders that the French and Franco-Flemish

and

effectively transmitted to Utrecht

environments.

its

IV

This assumption, apparently

at variance

with Guelders' situation to the east rather than

to the west of Holland, but not surprising in view of what was said

chapter,

positively

is

were produced

for

at the

beginning of

this

confirmed by two sumptuous and closely interrelated manuscripts which

Renaud IV and

written and illuminated

his wife, Marie, nee

d'Harcourt

— one wholly, the other in part —

in

et

d'Aumale. Both were

Guelders; but three of the four

become the leading

principal artists responsible for their decoration were to

figures in the

subsequent development of book illumination in Utrecht.

The Prayer Book

— not, as often stated, a Breviary — of Mary, Duchess of Guelders, now

preserved in the Staatsbibliothek at Berlin, was executed in the monastery of Marienborn near

Arnheim

(a house of the

was completed

in 1415.

1

Windesheim Congregation

The

now

Breviary of the Duke,

according to Carthusian use and was

commenced

to be his final resting place,

and was

in 1423

When

scripts or the

simple,

in Utrecht

opening one of these volumes "Mirror of Maidens"

wholesome dinner

Berlin Prayer

Book

we

after

feel as

vary, according to the time

initials vie

Arnheim

— not

especially favored by

until about 1440-1445.

having looked

friends. Historiated or

— in

way

2

after a

the case of the

with peintures in rectangular frames.

The

colors

gaiety to dazzling bril-

and

to tessellation, to diaper patterns or rinceaux

ultimately to naturalistic interiors and landscapes.

The margins

types of border not found in the Dire van Delft manuscripts find dense, crisp, sturdy rinceaux in

Renaud

Dire van Delft manu-

at the

and quality of execution, from subdued

liance. In the grounds plain gold gives

arranged

though entering the ballroom of the Ritz

good

in the house of

— foliated

Morgan

and

Life)

is

was, however, unfinished at the time of his death

it

completed — apparently

in the

Common Library,

before 1417. Probably written and in part

illuminated in Monnikhuizen, a Charterhouse near

and destined

of the Brethren of

which the customary

are embellished with three

and

their relatives. First,

ivy leaves are stylized into

we

little

Neptune's tridents, either golden or parti-colored; second, loose, airy arrangements of flowers, trefoils

leaves lightly held together by

and droplet-shaped

pen

ornaments of the Utrecht Books of Hours of 1415 to 1425; pattern

and

third,

an

not unlike the

intricate line-and-leaf

interwoven with "pseudoacanthus palmettes," large cyclamenlike blossoms often

sheltering diminutive elves,

The

lines, in part

first

and

two types of border

3

are

their divergence in style reflects

which they enframe. The

human

little

found

figures, sacred in the Prayer

and profane.

Book

of the Duchess (fig. 120),

an analogous difference in the

crisp rinceaux

style of the

miniatures

with the "Neptune's tridents," the most archaic of

the three systems, occur in the Calendar pages as well as in conjunction with no less than

IOO

THE REGIONAL SCHOOLS eighty-eight miniatures.

whose

superior artist against

Of

these, the eight Passion scenes

Germanic. His

style is distinctly

is

fols.

20-43 v arc executed by a -

two

figures, in all but

cases set out

decorated backgrounds, are large in relation to the frames and tend to be crowded

flat

between the ground and the frontal plane.

into a kind of high relief entirely filling the space

There

on

and the drapery

a certain preference for the pure profile view,

show

folds

a linear

animation which produces a calligraphic and expressive rather than descriptive or

pictorial

effect.

The

sixty-five

miniatures on

146-284

fols.

(most of them representing

v.

saints in

groups

of three) were supplied by assistants. Their style, however, evinces the influence of a second

employed the type of borders

"illuminator-in-chief," easily recognizable by the fact that he

He

described as "loose and airy."

contributed the pictures of the months in the Calendar

(which was originally not intended

and

be illustrated)

to

large miniatures

six

sharply

distinguished from those of the "Passion Master," not only by their marginal decoration but

and by the very

also in style

the

Sudarium on

anticipates the

monumental

fol.

fact that they

15 v.; the remarkable Last

well-known panel from Diest

picture at Cologne;

miniatures in the volume

(fols.

Utrecht Books of Hours, as distinctly

at least

two

may

2

in the Brussels

v.,

475, 476

taste in

of the "Brussels Hours,"

well have been a

however

and

fol.

whose

18 v. 1

Museum and on

fol.

Angel displaying

tall

19 v.;

circumstantiality

Stephan Lochner's

and the

last

three

v.).

ornament

French and Franco-Flemish

cases his borders,

Judgment on

the portrait of the Duchess

467

This second master, whose

is

occupy the entire page: the

is

so similar to that of the

Dutchman by

birth.

as that of the "Passion

contemporary

His approach, however, Master"

is

Germanic. In

different in execution, presuppose the decorative system

with tiny hands, almost diaphanous

his fragile figures

faces,

small pouting mouths and beady eyes almost exaggerate the French and Franco-Flemish taste for svelte, attenuated

elegance. It was,

believe, the

I

Limbourg

brothers'

as

Boucicaut Master's ideal which he attempted to emulate; and as the Duchess

have exchanged presents with the

Due de

some manuscript illuminated by the

A

Berry,

latter's

ne plus ultra of aristocratic elegance

presumptuousness

—

is

3

she

famous

— but

may

easily

well as the is

known

to

have been in possession of

painters.

also, it

must be admitted, of

reached in the portrayal of the donatrix.

aristocratic

The modish headgear and

costume, with long, jagged sleeves and a train defying the limitations of the picture space, leave

no doubt that the figure

is

indeed intended as a likeness of Mary, Duchess of Guelders.

But she receives her Prayer Book from an angel instead of a laid in

what

is

unmistakably the "garden inclosed" of the "Song of Songs"; a second angel

carries a scroll inscribed

gracious Mary")

with the intentionally ambiguous salutation

which may

refer to

Marie de Harcourt

Mother of Christ; and God the Father, short, the

Duchess of Guelders

specifically,

terrestrial servant; the scene is

is

et

personaliter, dispatches the

pictorially identified

with the Annunciate. Perhaps

IOI

Marie" ("O

as well as to

Dove

Mary,

to the scene. In

with the Queen of Heaven, and, more

this extraordinary picture

bolical or allegorical prayer for offspring (which,

"O mild

d'Aumale

was meant

however, failed to be granted).

as a

sym-

EARLY NETHERLANDISH PAINTING The second master a

Dutchman, re-emigrated)

known

it is

Holland where he formed

He

cleric, a

Canon

Monastery of "Nieuwlicht" from 1423.

Book

the illumination of the "Prayer

(or,

number

he was

if

of not overly

manuscripts demonstrably executed

at

name under which he

is

preserved in the Utrecht Library) which

(still

of Utrecht Cathedral 1

from 1412 and

monk

a

in the

This "Moerdrecht Master" participated, not only

Mary

of

two manuscripts. His contributions

the

a considerable

that he has received the

in

and much more exten-

of Guelders" but also,

Renaud IV," thus

"Breviary of

sively, in that of the

have emigrated

to

has been christened the "Master of Otto van Moerdrecht" after

Prophetas by Nicolaus de Lyra

he illuminated for this

many

in

from one of these manuscripts

to art historians.

a Postilla in

to

hand can be recognized

talented pupils. His

Utrecht, and

Book appears

of the Berlin Prayer

constituting a connecting link between

however, distinctly inferior to such attractive

are,

miniatures as the "Last Judgment" or the portrait of the Duchess. In spite of his productivity

— his hand

can be recognized in seven manuscripts

2

— he was

not a

first-rate artist

and

his

development was largely retrogressive. After the promising beginning

in the "Prayer

of the Duchess" his style consistently hardened

and coarsened,

became garish rather

than

downright dumb.

brilliant, his figures puppetlike, his faces

The

inception of this process can be observed in the "Breviary of

manuscript

this

his colors

(figs.

Book

Renaud IV." Within

121-126) the contributions of the Moerdrecht Master are sharply

dis-

tinguished from those of another illuminator who, on account of his refinement and apparent progressiveness,

is

generally considered as the Moerdrecht Master's successor.

however, that his pages look

work

the

of a greater and

less

"primitive" not because they are

more cosmopolitan

Moerdrecht Master, was the leading This third illuminator,

for

as the

whom

And

I

who had shown (now

his mettle in a

remarkable Missal executed for

in the Archaeological

Museum

at

Zwolle),

3 is

"Master of Zweder van Culemborg" after the Bishop of Utrecht (1425 to 1433)

he illuminated a sumptuous Missal,

Bressanone in the Tyrol,

the very beginning

4

now

preserved in the Episcopal Seminary at

and under whose reign he was

to

develop into the leading book

is

demonstrated by the

fact that

he

is

charming donor's

portrait

on

fol.

324,

Renaud IV" from

responsible for the initial page of

"Hours of the Virgin" which bears the Duke's coat-of-arms

(fol.

showing Renaud before

427), as well as for the

examination of the borders. These belong to that third type which intricate line-and-leaf pattern

blossoms and

little

And

Nicholas.

St.

not the "Moerdrecht Master," established the layout of the whole manuscript

like

me,

to

and not the

believe that he,

illuminator of the episcopal metropolis. That he took part in the "Breviary of

the

seems

It

but because they are

spirit in their joint enterprise.

the Teutonic Order as early as 1415

known

artist.

later,

I

is

that he,

shown by an

have described as an

interwoven with "pseudoacanthus palmettes," large cyclamen-

human

figures

—a

type of ornament

still

absent from the "Prayer

Book of Mary of Guelders" and an absolute novelty in North Netherlandish book illumination. It is

impossible that the Moerdrecht Master,

who

Prayer Book, employs an altogether different, of decoration,

would have been

in all his other

less

works, including the Berlin

sophisticated and

much

less

the inventor of this elaborate system that

102

modern kind

makes

its

first

THE REGIONAL SCHOOLS appearance in the Morgan Breviary; and a comparison between a border executed by the

"Zweder Master" (such,

for example, as fols. 427 v. or 428)

by the Moerdrecht Master (such, for example, imitator.

on

fol.

What

260

is

vibrant and graceful on

122); and the same

v. (fig.

These very borders make

is

428

This

is

from

Moerdrecht Master

prior to his activity for

Renaud

what was most

firsthand experience with

his narrative miniatures

archaic;

is

an unskillful

latter as

with the innovations of the Boucicaut and Bedford Masters.

in France, especially also evident

shows the

v.)

121) becomes hesitant, even clumsy,

Zweder Master,

IV and Zweder van Culemborg, must have had

modern

260

(fig.

true throughout the manuscript.

clear that the

it

as fol.

fol.

and an analogous one produced

it

is

instructive to

which the Zweder Master partly repainted

whose

style

examine the

a "Crucifixion"

is

advanced

as

on

picture

little

as that of the v. in

387

fol.

by the Moerdrecht Master, chang-

ing the Crucifix into the Brazen Serpent, replacing the figures of

St.

John and the Virgin

by those of Moses and the Jews (a magnificent group freely repeated in one of the Zweder Master's later works), but merely retouching the cluster of taste in color is light

and

clear,

Roman

soldiers (fig. 123).

1

His

almost subdued in comparison with the Moerdrecht Master's

flamboyancy, his design accurate, his modeling unobtrusive yet carefully detailed, and his

command

of space remarkable.

He makes

skillful use of the

perspective foreshortening with ease (see e.g. the

such landscapes as that in the "Sermon of

St.

"diaphragm arch" and handles

"Judgment of Solomon" on

John the Baptist" on

fol.

fol.

265); and

81 v. (fig. 124)

almost be compared to those of the Boucicaut Master in depth, luminosity and poetry. In his later career

— that

is

to say,

from

ca.

1430

of Eyckian influence as in the "Adoration of the

preserved in the

Bum Collection at Kottbus

in the Walters Art Gallery

4

and, even

Commentary on

to the Paris

— the Zweder Master even shows traces

Magi" 3

(cf. fig. 127),

more

in a

Book

little

5

of

Hours formerly

in the "Betrayal of Christ" in a

which shows the

Horae

added about 1430-1435,

obviously, in a miniature

the Psalms of 1416

might

2

characteristically

Eyckian

motif of a circular, convex mirror. However, these influences did not basically change the nature of a style well formed as early as the beginning of the 'twenties.

In this respect the Zweder Master differs essentially from his chief disciple and follower

who

finally

completed the "Breviary of Renaud IV"

Carthusian Missal in the Walters Art Gallery likewise follower

is

known

(just

as

he completed a beautiful

commenced by

either as the "Master of Catherine of Cleves"

his teacher).

Nordkirchen.

7

for this princess

He was

a

member

from a Book of

and forming part of the Duke of Arenberg's of the

new

This

(Duchess of Guelders from

1427) or as the "Arenberg Master," both these appellations being derived

Hours produced

6

collection at

generation for which the influence of the great

Flemish panel painters had become central instead of peripheral. In his miniatures he emulates the unified lighting and perspective achieved in the panels of the great masters and their

new drapery

style,

the fabric breaking into sharply lighted and deeply shaded angular forms

instead of flowing in softly

291

v., fig.

125)

The kneeling

is

modeled

a free variation

curves.

on the

St.

Apostles in the "Ascension"

The

seated Jonah in the

John in the upper (fol.

103

tier

Morgan

of the

Breviary

Ghent

(fol.

altarpiece.

231) and the "Coronation of the Virgin"

EARLY NETHERLANDISH PAINTING (fol.

404

v.,

are almost literally copied after the

126)

fig.

"Adoration of the Lamb."

Museum

A

The Hague and

at

Book

Hours preserved

of

datable in 1438

128); and the "Arenberg Hours"

(fig.

Flemalle and others

itself

'

two foremost Apostles

in the

Meermanno-Westreenianum

in the

similarly pervaded by Eyckian influence

is

abounds in

literal

copies after the Master of

Impatient in technique and novarum rerum cupidus in

(figs. 129, 130).

outlook, the evolution of the Arenberg Master

is

indicative of a period in

which book

illumi-

nation ceased to be creative. North Netherlandish art was overtaken by the development of

panel painting in Flanders, and the short-lived supremacy of Guelders had

The

negligently painted, multipartite altarpiece from

"Arenberg Hours" but in general arrangement "Passionstafeln,"

2

Roermond, produced

come

to

an end.

time of the

at the

reminiscent of early fifteenth-century

still

almost a sample card of quotations from the great masters of Tournai

is

and Bruges.

standing position in the

and is

book illumination owed much of

appears, then, that the Utrecht school of

It

artistic

found

Book

of

Hours

out-

half of the fifteenth century to an exchange of artistic ideas

first

personalities — with

in a

its

And

that of Guelders.

—

further evidence of this interrelation

in the collection of Sir Sidney Cockerell at

Cambridge, probably

illuminated between 1415 and 1420, which, though written in Dutch and provided with a

Utrecht Calendar, must have received

decoration and illustration in a Guelders workshop.

its

Some

of

Mary

of Guelders," "Neptune's tridents"

its

border rinceaux are nearly identical with those of the Berlin "Prayer Book of

from the Passion and images of

scenes

and

saints

4

and

all;

contains a series of miniatures

it

— so close in

style

and color

to the

Berlin Passion Master (fols. 20-132 v.) that they have been ascribed to the

These miniatures

show

a very different

A

tributed,

are,

series of

though even more "Germanic"

few years

style

and the author of which

Museum

in about 1415,

at

Cambridge, illuminated

at

to the big Latin 5

Utrecht from

ca. 1425.

the collection of the

affinity

Dukes

of Arenberg,

"Lower Rhenish"

6

as

which

is

so

opposed

to

between the two manuscripts can be accounted

by direct workshop tradition.

This specimen

rather than, as

is

a

well-known Book of Hours, presumably of Guelders

is

commonly assumed, about

7

1420.

In

it,

I

origin,

work seems

Morgan Hours" were,

its

to abate,

by degrees,

to the Cockerell

primordial force.

A

as his

which

is

think, about 1405-1410

the linearistic expressionism which

links the Berlin Passion Master to the Master of the Cockerell Infancy scenes

it

But

he had produced a charming Book of Hours, quite recently

preserved in the University Library at Liege and should be dated,

as

constitutes

Hours," he con-

"Dutch" book illumination that the

latter's

which

does the Zweder

intimately related to one of the outstanding specimens of

for only

grisaille

as

Morgan Library from

acquired by the

of the

same illuminator.

Infancy scenes in

under the Zweder Master's leadership, a number of miniatures

few years before,

work

—

after participating in the illustration of the "Cockerell

Bible in the Fitzwilliam a

however, preceded by a

between the school of Utrecht and the school of Guelders

as strong a link

Master.

3

— but

in the

development proceeded from the "Arenberg-

manuscript and hence to the Cambridge Bible strangely violent spirit

104

is

felt in its

— reveals,

very ornamentation.

The

THE REGIONAL SCHOOLS borders of the miniature pages are entirely dominated by a particularly aggressive-looking

which other

version, not unlike an Indian arrowhead, of that schematized, triangular leaf

And

illuminators used only as spices should be used in cookery.

the telltale "Neptune's

tridents" prevailing in the margins of the text pages are noticeably spikier than in the other

manuscripts in which they occur and are connected by lines which look like barbed wire.

The same impassioned billow as

if

sways the miniatures. The folds of the drapery curve and

spirit

animated by a force within themselves. The movement of Christ bearing the

The Angel

Cross can be described only as violent.

Gabriel in the 'Annunciation"

(fig. 131),

resplendently arrayed in dalmatic, stole and cross-embellished diadem, seems suddenly frozen in a pose retaining the

impetus of his

is

dais

on which the

made

placed off axis, the Resurrected are represented in vehement action,

more conspicuous by

seems

figures are placed

Judgment," almost invariably controlled by the principle of symmetry,

to tip over. In the "Last

the Judge

and the

flight,

the fact that their

number

is

limited to three,

the

and the very rinceaux that

decorate the ground contribute by their turbulence to the agitation of the scene. In the "Nativity," of course, a quieter spirit prevails (fig. 132). But even here excitement

by the emphatic stylization of hair and drapery

by the impulsive eagerness of the nursing Infant. attention. St. Joseph fans the fire

Two

on an open-air

rather than

Upper Rhenish

origin;

grill so similar to that

Magi"

other case, the "Adoration of the It

in

it

I

know

on which an angel

corroborates this

and the ends of the front

carved into the likeness of animals' heads. So far as

provided

small iconographic features deserve our

performs the same operation in the "Nativity" in Berlin that

Lower

is

by the gesticulation of the midwife, and

folds,

little

rafters of the

this peculiarity occurs

Master Francke's altarpiece of 1424

panel's

shed are

only in one

(text.

ill.

29).

has been hailed as proof of Master Francke's "Heimatssinn" under the assumption that he

was born

in or near

Hamburg;

it

now

turns out to be another argument for his provenance

from Guelders.

Even the Liege Hours superior to a

somewhat

Breviary in the Teyler

similar but later

Museum

tional Style the influence of tact

with France but

— somewhat

also

at

outre and slightly

and

Haarlem

x

less

—

is

unkempt

in style

though

vastly

exciting series of miniatures inserted into a

by no means out of touch with the Interna-

which reached Guelders and

vicinity not only

through South Netherlandish intermediaries

through direct con-

— to

speak exactly,

through the intermediary of the only Flemish school tradition which had developed within the orbit of Melchior Broederlam

and had thereby transcended the

level of provincialism.

Liege Hours reveals this twofold influence in such iconographic details as the splendid

ments of the Angel Gabriel or the fabulous headgear of one of the

on the one hand, and, on the

other, in the treatment

manuscripts produced

IV" was

at

largely evolved

Ypres.

And

vest-

soldiers in the Pilate scene,

and disposition of the frames and

marginal rinceaux which would seem to derive from what 2

The

we

shall shortly

encounter in

while the border decoration of the "Breviary of Renaud

from Parisian models,

that of the

"Arenberg-Morgan Hours,"

tremely varied and in part extravagant rather than delicate, presupposes the

with certain contemporary developments

at

Ghent.

105

3

artist's

ex-

familiarity

EARLY NETHERLANDISH PAINTING

—

After the lapse of ten or fifteen years

about 1420-1425

say,

— the

linearism of the

Liege Hours could fuse with the pictorialism of the Boucicaut school and produce a Prayer

Book

in the British

Museum

Burgundy.

the Fearless of

The

only as effervescent.

1

possibly

The

made

almost unnoticed manuscript can be described

style of this

borders are

Mary, Duchess of Cleves, the daughter of John

for

peppered with

literally

leaves, little stars, pellets

and

prickled roundels connected with each other by the thinnest of pen lines; and the miniatures,

though

and sketchily done, are

hastily

full of life

and wistful humanity. Several hands may be

and even the technical treatment of perspective

distinguished,

varies

herringbone scheme and the more modern type of convergence. the All Saints picture

on

(fig. 133), retain

30

fol.

the linear, by

between the antiquated

Some

now

miniatures, especially

old-fashioned, style of the

"Liege Hours"; others show isolated Saints and Apostles closely akin to those in the "Bouci-

Rohan" but animated by

caut Hours" and the "Grandes Heures de neighborliness;

still

others, such as the pages

with

St.

Christopher,

Flight into Egypt, and the perfectly charming "Saint Susanna in

a spirit of good-natured St.

John on Patmos, the

Her Bath" on

fol.

31 (fig.

134), exhibit broadly simplified, ultraimpressionistic landscapes, with trees like brushes fields like

blankets spread out on a lawn. Nevertheless these landscapes are evidently derived

from those of the Boucicaut Master, and two of them swan.

and

It is

are even embellished by his beloved

almost symbolic that in this Prayer Book such Lower Rhenish and North-Nether-

landish worthies as

St.

Bavo,

St.

Hubert,

with such eminently Parisian saints as

Low German

scribe that

he

is

St.

St.

Gereon and

Genevieve and

addressed by

"O

"St.

Oncommer"

St. Fiacrius,

appear side by side

the latter so foreign to the

sancte Fratre."

Pre-Eyckian book illumination in the South and West of the Netherlands differs from that in the

North and East

in a

way

Measured by

similar to pre-Eyckian panel painting.

French and Franco-Flemish standards, the "Flemish" production

— for so

it

may

be called for

short in disregard of the finer distinction between Brabant, the Hainaut, the Artois, and

Flanders in the proper sense of the term sents a zenith.

But

it

makes up

— represents a

nadir where that of Guelders repre-

for lack of refinement by sincerity of feeling

and power of

— often nothing but pen, "illuminations" — have qualities which

imagination. Unpretentious to the point of rusticity, these miniatures

brush or pen-and-brush drawings rather than real

may

be likened to those of good hearty peasants' bread.

a sense of reality

which spurns

prettification

They

and looks upon

are pervaded

and illumined by

the lowly, the ugly and even the

grotesque, not as a special stigma of inferiority or wickedness, but as a necessary element in

God's creation.

A

good way of getting the

acquired by the It

feel of this

Morgan Library

in 1935

"realisme prc-Eyclyiar

whose date and

'

is

to

was commissioned by Lubrecht Hauscilt (or Auschilt), Abbot of

Bruges, and presented to

him by the Due de Berry on June

106

examine

a

manuscript

place of origin are firmly established.

7th, 1403.

3

St.

An

Bartholomew's

at

astrological treatise

;

THE REGIONAL SCHOOLS whose authorship

is

reality a translation

fraudulently claimed by one Georgius Zothori Zapari Fenduli,

Middle Ages revered Virgil.

The

Prophet of Christ, considering him the Islamic counterpart of

as a

earliest illustrated

copy of

a

hundred years

original,

now

Italy in the first half of the thirteenth century.

manuscript was copied, in an altogether different

later, this

in the British

3

Museum, was

High Gothic

the basis of the

The

Zodiacal Signs and the so-called "Paranatellonta," stellations that "rise together"

human

characters,

now

faintly

Morgan manuscript he appears

cloaked, busily reading with glasses his bald

head fringed by curly

on mild insanity

(fig. 136).

can thus observe a fascinating

omit the images of the

shall

the constellations and parts of con-

on

emerge

classicistic,

now

stolid,

his classical aspect to a dignified scholar

in the

redaction of the South Italian

4

Mercury, the intellectual of the Greek and

But

viz.,

now

pathetic,

Roman

and musician

as a decrepit,

Moon

is

version to a vigorous

an elderly composer,

Luna

or

Diana

man (which

in the Paris

corresponds to

Germanic

folklore as

masculine in German), roaming the woods by way

of allusion to her age-old connection with vegetation. In the

Morgan manuscript, however,

youthful and dignified figure has assumed the guise of a slouching old peasant,

this relatively

rustic

hood and carrying

a trowel in the pocket of his

hook-nosed, hatchet face slyly evoking the idea of a crescent

might well serve

shabby

(fig. 137). If

were replaced by a "lanthorn,"

vestige of his glorious classical ancestry,

creature

versions.

with an absorption bordering

ancient oriental, as opposed to classical, beliefs and also agrees with

swathed in a

and London

in the Paris

bald-headed professor, hooded and

depicted as the goddess

London

familiar,

as

pantheon, had already been changed

his nose; or, in his "exaltation," as

The Moon,

reflected in the fact that the

the end

in

very comical.

locks, listening to the inner voice

manuscript, was changed in the

still

not

with the Zodiacal Signs in the course of the year), originally

highly conventionalized, stately and

thoroughly

(we

distant planetary divinities

style,

2

Morgan manuscript from which

We

derive in turn three later, utterly unremarkable copies.

double transformation.

manuscript in the Biblio-

this illegitimate fabrication, a

very far to the southwest of Bruges; and this

from

in

the

1

thcque Nationale, was produced in South

About

is

it

whom

from the Arabic of the famous Albumasar (Abu Ma'sar)

to "disfigure or present the person of

coat, his

upturned,

the spear, the last

this strange pathetic

Moonshine" in

A

Midsum-

mer Night's Dream. Saturn,

on the other hand, has

most puissant of the ing

toil,

with

regal

real,

planets, at once a

melancholy dignity

The most unlucky and

symbol of wisdom and sorrow, wealth and unreward-

power and enslavement, he

grief, his

(fig. 135).

is

depicted as a king deposed, his tragic face inclined

dual nature expressed by the contradictory attributes of sceptre and spade. But

the taste for the grotesque again prevails in his "Mansions," especially in the Aquarius

whose

pug-nosed face somewhat resembles that of the musical Mercury.

The

style

and

further groups of

spirit

works

of this manuscript are so distinctive that in Bruges: the colored

gious treatises written in 1410 and

now

it

permits us to locate two

pen drawings inserted in a collection of

preserved in the Archive at Wiesbaden

107

5

(fig.

139)

reli-

and

;

EARLY NETHERLANDISH PAINTING the

charming miniatures,

the Royal Library at Brussels.

humor pervading somewhat of

the

pen and water

also executed in

Morgan

1

color, in a

Somme-le-Roy now

"Treatise on Astrology" and the

Wiesbaden drawings appears

blunted by the civilizing influence of the International Style.

But beneath

good manners we sense the rugged candor of the Morgan manuscript. The vigorous pen-and-brush drawings rather than meticulous miniatures.

still

Duchess of Guelders and the

Vices, while vying with the

"Breviary of

Renaud IV"

little

children

little

who

Moses

attitudes of

(fig. 140).

its

number

of figures

and even Our Lady

at

Bruges

less

a healthy

Prudence are

listen to the prescripts of

satirical, as are

the

or the two fierce fighters separated by a

still

As

consciously satirical but

no

less

bitter re-

intensely

Morgan manuscript;

when

at

Jan van Eyck had been established

book illumination produced such manuscripts

hard-bitten burghers and weatherbeaten, thick-lipped

2

other centers of the Southern and Western Netherlands was

less

the

no more idealized than are the "common people"

late as 1430-1435,

peasants announce Pieter Bruegel. spirit prevailing in

trenchantly caricatured and no

the Aquarius in the

five or ten years, the local school of

London "Chess Book" whose

The

no

herself, are

the foot of the hill (fig. 141).

as the

Virtues anil

that has congregated at the feet of the Saviour, the

Moon and

than the Mercury, the

Apostles,

The

members ranging from quiet thoughtfulness to rapt attention and

morse, contains a

human

The community

fields,

veneer

ladies in the borders of the

characterized with the same straightforwardness, half sympathetic, half

peasants laboring (or not laboring) in the

a

illustrations are

and deportment, have preserved

in elegance of dress

Flemish chubbiness. The pudgy

fiercer

in

In the latter manuscript, dated 1415, the edge of the bitter

less

honest and direct than in Bruges. In a manuscript containing

the works of the great mystic Johannes Ruusbroeck, the illuminators of Groenendael near

where he had

Brussels,

lived,

show

us the master and an assistant in the idyllic setting of a

garden shaded by a perfectly enormous latter

tree,

the former writing

copying on vellum another tablet already inscribed.

3

A

on

little

a

wax

later,

tablet,

and the

about 1410, they

represented his beloved follower, the good cook Jan van Leeuw, dividing his labors between efficient

The

work

in the kitchen

and

literary

composition in his

Artois produced, about 1400, the

cell.*

amazing Pelerinage de Vie Humaitie, preserved

in

the Bibliotheque Royale at Brussels, in

which the events of the Passion and the imagery of the

allegorical descriptions are visualized

with an emphasis on the grotesque and the morbid

even more trenchant than in the astrological

treatise in the

ceivably the spirit of the "realisme pre-Eyckjen"

England. In a slightly

Moraux

later

Morgan Library

(fig.

5

138)

con-

was here exacerbated by an influence from

Artesian manuscript, an edifying tract called Les Examples

or (from the stereotyped beginning of each gloss) the "Ci nous dist" this pungency

has given

way

to

Bondol adapted,

homely

if

simplicity:

one may say

figures, their facial type

so, to

its

thirty-three

somewhat akin

to those in the

Histonalcs in the Bibliotheque de l'Arsenal, their haloes materialized into

little

miniatures

show

the style of Jean

the requirements of the "poor in spirit."

7

move

The dumpy to the Bibles

shyly or abruptly within a narrow frame,

heavy spikes. The narrative

108

Flemish contributions

6

is

simplified to the extreme; even in

THE REGIONAL SCHOOLS number

the "Last Supper" the

man who had

of the

permits

thriftiness

thought

—

of disciples

divided a tree

reduced to eight

is

Our Lord

He

as

spirit of

the Nativity where

Joseph

St.

(fig. 143). It

Christ to His

Mother

this very artist

on

a pathetic, low-slung

(fig.

144).

Nothing could

the customary incidentals are sup-

all

perhaps not by chance that the manuscript contains what seems to

1

(fig. 148).

similar spirit of

of the Riegle et

humble

piety

May,

society are seen in adoration of the style

and unvarnished simplicity permeates the

Dame

Ordenance des Soers del Hostelerie Nostre

ruins of the Tournai Library in

Tournai

But

time and in this environment, a fairly isolated representation of the Appearance of

be, at this

A

is

in the parable

Holy Mother and the embarrassed tenderness

pressed and nothing remains but the love of the of

and

absent.

Nothing could be more

relationships.

enters Jerusalem

donkey, welcomed by a lone citizen awkwardly casting his palm be more moving than the

is

beholder to concentrate on what the

and warmth of human

essential, the strength

touching than the humility of

(fig. 147),

his four sons the tree itself

— the

forces

rather,

or,

among

2

Madonna

(fig.

149)

and

;

miniature

de Tournay, saved from the

where the three leading

1940,

title

ladies of this charitable

example of the

in the chief

towards the end of the fourteenth century, a delightful Book of Hours in black

and white now

in the Bibliotheque Nationale (figs. 145, 146).

events with the same naivete and sincerity as

3

Its

small grisailles present sacred

do the miniatures

in the "Ci nous dist."

The

Saviour approaches the Gates of Hell in almost casual fashion while the devil attempts to get

hold of His

which

cross-staff

is

much

too large in relation to the architecture; and in the

interior of the infernal city a careful distinction

released

pothook.

and those who St.

is

made between

will forever steam in a gigantic cauldron

the believers about to be

hung from an

adjustable

John administers the Baptism with the aid of an earthenware jug even more

than that which has excited

comment

in the Dire

van Delft manuscripts,

4

solid

and the smiling

Christ almost appears to play in the waves of the Jordan. In the borders, finally, the conventional ivy rinceaux, reduced to fragile

pen

lines, are

supplemented not only by palmettelike

motifs but also by sturdily naturalistic oak leaves and acorns.

The

lightness of this marginal

ornament curiously

frames surrounding the miniatures, and In are

this

is

a

contrasts with the solidity of the

phenomenon which

enframed by

profiles

meant

to create the illusion of real

"Ci nous dist" the Brussels Somme-le-Roy, the "Rule of the

wooden

Sisters of

broeck manuscript, these simulated frames consist of plain, beveled so as to give a plastic impression. In the Jan de

much more

conspicuously in our

orately carved "rosette frames" little

attention.

we It

little

Book

of

Leeuw manuscript

ca.

1420

picture frames. In the

Tournai," and the Ruusstrips, carefully

shaded

in Brussels, however,

Hours from Tournai, they duplicate the

which we remember from the van Beuningen

and elab-

altarpiece.

piece of make-believe playfully but eloquently typifies the Flemish respect for the

materiality of things; tion,

some

but one or two cases the Flemish miniatures produced between ca. 1390 and

all

This

deserves

and wherever we encounter a similar

shall be safe in

"rosette

frame" in book illumina-

assuming either Flemish origin or Flemish influence.

must be admitted that the Flemish book illuminations thus

109

far considered can hardly

EARLY NETHERLANDISH PAINTING claim what connoisseurs

immediacy

call "quality";

allied itself to that "linearist

of the Lowlands,

it

but where, by a happy conjecture, their homespun

expressionism" which flourished near the eastern border

could bring forth one of the great manuscripts of

Apocalypse."

As has been pointed out on

a previous occasion,

ticipation of Diirer's "Apocalypse."

2

manuscript

this

Never before had the

;

the only genuine an-

is

entire content of Revelation been

condensed into so small a number of pictures undefiled by the versos)

times, the "Paris

all

1

script (the text

being relegated to

and never before had the multifarious elements of these pictures been organized

into so unified an optical space, invested nevertheless with the phantasmagoric quality of a vision.

Of

course, the

Durer of 1498 and the Netherlandish illuminators

—

matters

it

whether or not the individual miniatures were executed by the leading master's of about 1400 are worlds apart,

technique.

The

and there are differences

is

and

miniatures, appropriately framed by gold and crimson bands of stylized

twenty-two

The number

chapter of the text

—

its

way

carefully arranged in such a

is

Where Durer

of

text

that every

length adapted to the size of the page by deletions or additions

the corresponding miniature.

and the

and while Durer printed the

as against Diirer's fourteen;

without interruption, the "Paris Apocalypse"

pictures

own hand —

in purpose as well as in style

clouds, are smaller (though similar in format) than Diirer's giant woodcuts. illustrations

little

— faces

expected the beholder to absorb the sequence of

text as independent, continuous narratives, the illuminator

thought in

still

terms of individual text-and-picture units.

Yet the internal analogy between the "Paris Apocalypse" and remains. In both cases die visionary effect

and unreality, the rational and the

is

produced by

irrational. Figures

and

dominated by the

and the madness of

rules of perspective (as far as they

and by the antiperspective principles of forms

is

axiality

between

a deliberate contrast objects,

a dream.

The

all

contradicted by an impassioned linearism; and

vacui.

owing

reality

laws of probability,

space

is

simultaneously

were known and understood

and horror

series

taken separately, are invested

with the semblance of real existence; but since their interrelation defies the ensemble has both the sharpness

woodcut

Diirer's

The

time)

at the

plastic solidity of all

to a profusion of white, applied

not only for the purpose of modeling but also for the delineation of contours, the pictures

seem steeped

An

in

an unearthly, pallidly glaring

light.

— — inventiveness prevails

analogous contrast between wild fantasy and a kind of sober posivitism

extent inherent in the text but here exaggerated by

construction of the narrative.

overwhelming by the

The

fact that

artist's

apparition of the Lord in Revelation

His "rainbow in sight

like

predictions

and imprecations of Revelation

amazing corpses and skeletons

rising

from

II

and

III

turn into

their graves,

realities

and of sinners

1

10

turrets of a castle

in the

is

physically sup-

from the back. The dark by the presence of

listening to the devil

or fornicating in bed (fig. 151). In the illustration of Revelation VI, with

horsemen and ghostly Hell Mouth, the door and

some

IV becomes even more

unto an emerald"

ported, as by a caryatid, by a gigantic, peacock-winged angel seen

to

tumble

its

phantomlike

down

in realistic

THE REGIONAL SCHOOLS women

and men and

fashion,

are very literally "hiding themselves in the dens."

and the third part of the moon" (Revelation VIII)

of the third part of the sun

The "smiting drastically

is

indicated by angular holes cut into the surface of these celestial bodies, and the verse "and the

were destroyed" has given

third part of the ships in art (fig. 152).

The

illustrated

picting

St.

by the figure of a

man

John on "the

that

tinent question of

how

ferryman pushing

a

Works

isle

one of the most convincing shipwrecks

God"

merits of the "servants of our

genre scenes representing the

little

rise to

in Revelation VII are exemplified by

Mercy {werken der

of

and

ascending to Heaven by means of a ladder.

away from

their effect

And when

Patmos" the illuminator asks himself the very

called

is

the Saint ever got there, and answers

his boat

gratien),

by adding the

it

is

deper-

lifelike figure of

bank on which he has deposited the visionary

the

(fig. 150).

"To

realize a vision in a

to fulfill

work

of art,"

if I

may

is

On

two seemingly contradictory requirements.

complished master of 'naturalism,' for only where

what

be allowed a self-quotation, "the

known

these laws

laws of Nature can

as the

which

is

the one hand, he

we behold

we become aware

artist

has

must be an

ac-

a world evidently controlled by

of that temporary suspension of

on the other hand, he must be capable of

the essence of a 'miracle';

trans-

placing the miraculous event from the level of factuality to that of an imaginary experience."

1

Diirer accomplished this by subjecting both the particularizing pictorial naturalism of his

master, Michael

Wolgemut, and

the generalizing, plastic naturalism of

to the strict discipline of a severely graphic

woodcut

style

Martin Schongauer. The master of the "Paris Apocalypse"

Mantegna and

developed under the influence of

— and

this

makes

his historical posi-

tion in the Netherlands of ca. 1400 analogous to that of Diirer a century later

similar result by dematerializing, as

the heat of that expressionism

it

Pollaiuolo

— achieved

a

were, the earthy solidity of the "realisme pre-Eyckjcn" in

which swayed the

as in Durer's, the visionary quality resulted

art of

Northern Guelders. In

from the fusion

of

his "Apocalypse,"

two

essentially divergent tradi-

On

the horizon of his field of

tions.

Who vision

this

master was and where he worked

is

not known.

looms the great shadow of Jacquemart de Hesdin

like the

Brocken specter; the

tion of a naturalistic sky for gold ground, tessellation or the like,

angels and Elders as

The

monochromes

substance of his style,

however,

substitu-

and the representation of

in blue or red clearly presuppose the "Brussels Hours." is

partly Flemish

and partly Germanic. The

illusionistic

treatment of landscape features, the workmanlike description of architectural details and the forthright approach to in

human

Wiesbaden and the Astrological Treatise

violence of the design,

memory of Broederlam, the colored drawings in the Morgan Library; whereas the agitated

nature evoke the

from heads thrown back

at a

breakneck angle

"self-propelling" drapery folds, recall the style of the "Liege Hours."

and the Evangelist on stylistic

fol.

to

The

corkscrew hair and figures of the

Lord

5 might be interpolated into this manuscript without creating a

dissonance.

In view of this mixed ancestry the origin of the great master must be sought in a borderline district

between the Southwest and the Northeast of the Netherlands,

III

as likely as not in or

EARLY NETHERLANDISH PAINTING near Liege. to

him

1

But he remains an isolated phenomenon.

No

other manuscript can be ascribed

or to his workshop, and even his color scheme, with the ubiquitous white high lights,

the gray or smoky-red skies

and such rare

temporary book illumination. but as an

One would

mauve and

tints as

like to think of

violet,

him, not

has no analogy in con-

as a professional

normally expressing himself in the more monumental media of tapestry or

artist

panel painting. In fact the closest parallel to the style of the "Paris Apocalypse"

"Weber Triptych," now

the much-debated

which has been Utrecht,* but

enlumineur

shifted

from

might well

be,

Paris to

in the Deutsches

at

"Burgundy," and from "Burgundy"

work

not an earlier

if

Museum

himself, at least of an artist very close to him.

is

found

in

Berlin (fig. 153), to the Diocese of

of the Master of the "Paris Apocalypse"

3

VI

One

family of manuscripts stands out, in style and workmanship, from the rank and

of Flemish

rank and

book illumination

file

same way

in the

that Melchior

portant family

is

A

typical representative

its

decorative system an

Hours from Tournai

in the Bibliotheque

intimately associated with Broederlam's workshop.

Horae

Book

little

"Rouen Hours,"

Nationale. In the

4

Rouen, shows in

in the Library of

unmistakable similarity with the

of

the miniatures are also bordered by illusionistic "rosette

frames" and the marginal rinceaux reduced to thin pen provincial motifs with the conventions of "rosette frames" are accentuated flat,

Broederlam stands out from the

of Flemish panel painters; and, logically enough, this little-known but very im-

of the group, a delightful

with

file

more

stylish

But

lines.

an attempt to fuse these

in

book illumination, the corners

by large quatrefoils such

of the

normally occur in conjunction

as

ornamental bands, and the rinceaux are subtilized into feathery sprays, terminating

and serrated lozenges, which

in golden droplets

issue,

not only from the corners but also from

the sides.

The

pictures themselves are also

much

finer in quality

and emphatically

differ

from the

cuisine bourgeoise of the

little

Horae from Tournai; and when we examine the "Flight

Egypt" on

155)

we

fol.

Egypt"

into

53

v. (fig.

in Broederlam's

perceive that

Dijon

omitted, in return for which the

altarpiece.

spirit

it is

The

from the famous "Flight

directly derived

setting

of the wilderness

simplified and the miracles are

is is

into

stressed

by the addition of two

Hesdinian animals, a bear and a monkey. But the general character of the scenery, with a steep

mountain

lam's picture.

that even transcends the

The

Infant Jesus

is

upper frame,

is

very

much

the

same

as in

Broeder-

muffled in the Virgin's cloak in similar fashion; and the

recurrence of such striking motifs as the overlapping of the main group by a sloping ledge of terrain

and the

Here, then,

same

St.

Joseph drinking water from a canteen speaks for

we have an

atelier

working

6

itself.

in the direct tradition of

time, familiar with that of Jacquemart de Hesdin.

Broederlam and,

The "Annunciation"

(fol.

156) combines an Angel Gabriel not unlike Broederlam's in posture, and holding a

at

the

13, fig.

scroll of

the same curling exuberance, with an Hesdinian Annunciate closely akin to that in the I

12

THE REGIONAL SCHOOLS Hours"

"Brussels

hand

in every respect, only that the prayer

book on which she places her

Even

inscribed with the beginning of the Magnificat.

is

the tiny, almost disembodied

angels that flutter about the borders of the dedication page (fol. 12

Broederlam

as well as

left

v., fig.

154) derive

from

from Jacquemart de Hesdin. The general idea of these angel-inhabited

rinceaux comes from the "Tres-Belles Heures," but the

little

creatures themselves are pat-

terned after Broederlam's. Sharp-pinioned, with the ends of their garments wiggling behind

them

shorthand abbreviations of the angels in the top part

like the tail of a tadpole, they are

of the Dijon altarpiece reduced to silhouettes.

One page

of the

"Rouen Hours"

(fol.

94

158) shows a gigantic

v., fig.

ing above a pretty garden containing an arbor on the

polygonal stone enclosure on the right. this

Here we encounter an almost

Madonna (with between

the throne,

identical

on her

St.

Catherine

Hours preserved

of

at

Carpentras.

1

as a setting for a

lap as in the "Brussels Hours"), enthroned

159); and here the garden, extending well behind

(fig.

densely populated by haloed

is

Book

garden which, however, serves

the writing Christ Child

Agnes and

St.

a

peopled only by two diaphanous, almost

itself,

v.) in a related

55

and

and deserted impression. But these incongruities can

invisible angels, gives a curiously lifeless (fol.

a fenced-in tree in the center,

left,

hard to see the iconographic connection between

It is

garden and the Holy Face; and the garden

be explained by a miniature

Holy Face hover-

little

figures

engaged in making music, pruning

and making wreaths. This composition thus represents a well-known and consistent

trees

program, the Virgo inter virgines in the Garden of Paradise, the beatified souls behaving

poems

exactly as they should according to such edifying

Guillaume de Deguileville.

what

2

The

inference

is

common workshop some confidence may be

inferior in quality, reflects a

"Rouen Hours." Therefore

and

orate architectural frames;

miniature in

since the statues that

the "Carpentras Hours"

(fol.

65

v.)

The

finest

and

is

de

VAme

placed in the plastic details of

adorn the frame of the

St.

established between the

its

elab-

Christopher

affinity to the

Prophets

Rouen and

the

(figs. 163, 164).

manuscript connected with the "Rouen Hours" has come

earliest

by

though some-

prototype more faithfully than does the

show an unmistakable

in Broederlam's "Annunciation," a further link

Carpentras manuscripts and Broederlam

as the Pelerinage

that the Carpentras manuscript,

down

to

us as a mere fragment consisting of three miniatures inserted into an unrelated Prayer Book in

the

senting (fig.

the

Kunstgewerbemuseum St.

161)

at

Frankfort-on-the-Main.

Bernard with a kneeling donor

— have the

same

same unsubstantial

little

"rosette frames"

angels.

a little plot of terrain protruding

donor in the

St.

tiled

As

the Crucifixion

somewhat

earlier

— repre-

and the Annunciation

and the same feathery foliage interspersed with

the donor in the

Rouen dedication page kneels upon

— a Cistercian offering a

picture, so does the

scroll inscribed

with a Flemish

pavement. The "Annunciations" are nearly identical in both

cases, including the decorative elaboration of the angels'

evidently belong to the

These three miniatures

from the lower left-hand corner of the

Bernard miniature

prayer — on a salient of the

(fig. 160),

3

same school

as

scrolls.

The Frankfort

pages, then,

does the "Rouen Hours" but represent this school at a

and fresher phase of

its

development. Their illuminator follows more

;

EARLY NETHERLANDISH PAINTING closely in the footsteps of

Jacquemart de Hesdin in figure and drapery

significant architectural detail

of the

the Annunciation and the

and preserves a into a

meaning-

Commendation

Donor, are surmounted by a dark blue cloud composed of sketchy angels' heads. The

design and simplified, archlike contour of this cloud suggest an architectural derivation,

and the three Frankfort pages show indeed which the clouds

tracery, of

in the

a real arch, elaborated into beautiful Late

"Rouen Hours"

less significant

than the canteen of

not laid out in simple alternation of light and dark in the St.

tiles

St.

"Rouen Hours"; and

this

Joseph; the pavements are

but in definite patterns, large squares

Bernard picture, a swastika or meander pattern in the Annunciation.

the Dijon altarpiece by Broederlam

no

tradition, the Frankfort pages are

intimately connected with Melchior Broederlam than are the

evidenced by a detail no

Gothic

shadow.

are, so to speak, the

on the Hesdin

In spite of their general dependence less is

style,

"Rouen Hours" had degenerated

in the

among them

ornament. Here several scenes,

less

flat

which

only in

It is

— the ordonneur de carrelages — that these patterns occur

previous to the Frankfort miniatures, the large squares in the "Presentation of Christ," the

meander pattern not only once but twice

swastika or

in schools directly or indirectly connected with the

shown

to persist.

"Annunciation"; and

Broederlam tradition that the

manuscripts, for instance: a

Rouen and Carpentras and

Rouen, though not

Book

of

Hours

can be

to the three pages in

Frank-

number

in the Bodleian Library at

as polished in execution (fig. 162)

negligent miniatures, inserted into a later

Book

of

Hours

2

three very small and

inferior

Book

of

Hours preserved

derived from a model very close to the

moved from

Urbana,

Illinois,

Clowes

— a Missal

4

which

two

is,

however,

a little farther re-

in Indianapolis (fig. 165).

at

Ypres. But

it

would seem

mentioned, was not entirely one-sided.

that

its

strike us as

more

easily

may

B

and

a

Book

of

be presumed to have

for example, the "Last

Rouen, Oxford and Carpentras Hours resemble that

norm may

Tournai

relation with the Guelders tradition, already

When,

composition but also in that the figure of Christ

at

6

In view of the pervasive influence of Broederlam this school

the

Rouen and Frankfort;

at

and — these

"Rouen Hours";

orange and chrome yellow

in the Collection of Dr.

been located

Amster-

the original source by an excessive elongation of the figures and a peculiar taste

in color partial to cinnabar,

Hours

at

to

somewhat

in a private collection in

dam, which hold an intermediary position between the manuscripts and rather

of other Flemish

Oxford very similar

3

a small

only

latter

the group here under discussion comprises a considerable

that in

is

it

1

In addition to the manuscripts in fort,

in the

is

in the

Judgments"

in

the

"Liege Hours" not only in general

placed slightly ofr axis, this deviation from

compatible with the Germanic expressionism pervading

the Guelders manuscript than with the quieter spirit prevailing in the Flemish productions.

And when and

the

Rouen "Nativity"

132), transplanted to

what

(fig. is

157) shows our old friend, the open-air grill (figs,

no

manifestly meant to be an interior, the floor elaborately

paved and the Virgin's couch surmounted by sumptuous curtains instead of being sheltered by a rustic shed, the curious utensil looks a

little

1

out of place. In cases like these the Guelders

14

THE REGIONAL SCHOOLS school

other

— indebted, as we have seen, to Broederlam and the Broederlam respects — may well have exerted a retroactive influence on what

tradition in several

we may

tentatively

"School of Ypres."

call the

VII

As

Ypres group, a terminus a quo

to the dates of this

altarpiece (1391-1392

ff.)

am

1400,

the

established by the Broederlam

while a terminus ad quern can be determined only on

grounds and with the aid of datable I

is

Taking

derivatives.

these

two

stylistic

factors into consideration,

inclined to accept the general assumption that the Frankfort pages were executed about

and

to date the

Rouen, Carpentras and Oxford Hours between 1400 and 14 10. At about

same time the "Ypres School" can be seen putting forth new shoots Perhaps the

enough,

in various other centers.

and certainly the most interesting of these offshoots

earliest

is

found, curiously

England. Here the Ypres tradition took root in two different ways.

in

On

the one

hand, imported manuscripts were copied by English illuminators; a Sarum Horae in bridge,

the

1

for example,

most

"Rouen" and "Oxford" Hours.

England on the

in person,

what must have been

faithfully reproduces

On

a sister manuscript of

the other hand, Ypres-trained artists

engaged in many-sided

Cam-

came over

to

and exerted a revolutionizing influence

activities

insular production.

The

style

introduced by these Continental

sharply detaches

artists

itself

from

that of their

native confreres in the fragments of a remarkable Carmelite Missal in the British

written in

London between

1500) of large

and small

toriated initials fall into

position between them.

1387 and 1391.

2

What

remains of

two sharply divergent groups,

The

first

it

is

a great

out by a misguided collector.

initials barbarically cut

a third

Museum,

number (about

The

large, his-

one holding an intermediary

of these groups exhibits the style prevailing in

England

at

the end of the fourteenth century, a style not unlike that of Meister Bertram and his school in

its

plastic rather

than pictorial intent and

its

small interest in space

(fig. 166).

of the second group enframe miniatures distinguished by a delicate pictorial a

command

book illumination

of perspective unparalleled in English

The

initials

modeling and by

at the time.

They

are as

Continental as the others are insular, and an analogous difference can be observed in the decoration of the letters themselves, as well as in the marginal ornament I

quite agree with Miss

M. Rickert

— to

whom

her brilliant reconstruction of the Carmelite Missal of the

new

style,

an illuminator formerly held

as a Continental artist

Charles L.

Kuhn 3

whose

real

in dating the

Miss Rickert. As in so of the Carmelite Missal

many

to be

— in

identifying the greatest

champion

an Englishman named Richard Herman,

name was Herman Scheerre. I agree, however, with Mr. this new style considerably later than does

appearance of

other instances,

e.g.,

must have extended over

a

the "Breviary of

number

would be incomprehensible anachronisms not only they been produced before the

(figs. 167, 169).

the history of art owes a great debt for

first

in

of years;

England but

Renaud IV," the execution its

initials

on the Continent had

also

decade of the fifteenth century.

115

"Hermanesque"

I

also agree

with Mr.

;

EARLY NETHERLANDISH PAINTING Kuhn but

Herman

in considering

Scheerre as a Fleming rather than a

Dutchman

German;

or a

Herman

should venture to say that "the objects which have a more direct connection with

I

no longer "of unknown provenance." As

Scheerre's style" are

will be seen, they can all be as-

sociated with the school of Ypres.

While by

the "Continental" initials in the Carmelite Missal were produced by artists trained

Herman

Scheerre rather than by himself, his

own hand

can be recognized in the following

manuscripts enumerated in a tentative chronological order but slightly different from Mr.

Kuhn's:

A A A

i.

2.

3.

Book

of Hours, executed for an unidentified client, in the British

Book

of

Hours

Book

of

Hours

in the Collection of

Mr. Eric G. Millar in London;

gentleman residing

1405, for a

2

ca. 1405.

1405-1406.

ca.

Oxford (discovered by Mr. Kuhn) which

in the Bodleian Library at

was produced, not before

1

Museum;

in

York and may be

called, to

avoid confusion with the above mentioned "Oxford Hours," the "York Hours";

3

ca.

1406-1407.

The well-known "Chichele

4.

The "Beaufort Hours"

5.

my

Lambeth 5

Museum;

in the British

Palace;

4

ca. 1408.

datable between 1401 and 1411 and, in

opinion, not executed until ca. 1408— 1409.

The

6.

Breviary" in

so-called "Neville

Hours" formerly

in the

A. Chester Beatty Collection

at

London;

6

ca. 1410.

A

7.

Bible in the British

II";

A

8.

7

and Horae

Psalter 8

Museum, executed

Scheerre's collaborators a distinct,

in several pages of the

for

John of Lancaster, Duke of

"York Hours"

dynamic personality

is

recognizable

as well as in the series of Saints in the "Beaufort

which Herman himself contributed only the beautiful dedication page

(fol.

23 v.)

Hours" 9

later,

seems, this "Master of the Beaufort Saints" returned to his native Flanders to play his part

in the Continental I

in the British

after 1414.

Among Herman

it

erroneously referred to as the "Bible of Richard

1410-1412.

ca.

Bedford;

to

Museum, sometimes

development.

believe to be his earliest

personal entries as "I

and

in

no

less

than

known

is

as a

easy for one

rise to

some

for

Herman

manuscript (No.

seven of his

page of the "Beaufort Hours" have given

As

am Herman,

motto that may be regarded laborat" ("All

10

1)

himself, he signed his full ;

in three others he

name

your owne seruant" and "Herman, your meke seruant";

kind of trademark: "Omnia

(fig.

loves; he

who

174) this motto

levia sunt

loves toils not"). is

is

much

Once, in the dedication

followed by the words "de daer" which

discussion and to a futile search for a family

simpler. Since "d" between

two vowels tends

Flemish (as in "moer" for moder, "vaer" for vader,

116

a Latin

amanti; qui amat non

named "de Daer" while

my

other scholars have proposed to interpret the "de" as an abbreviation of Deus. In the solution

what

made such charmingly

works one or more miniatures are inscribed with

who

in

etc.),

Dutch and

to be elided in

the phrase "de daer"

is

opinion

nothing but

;

;

THE REGIONAL SCHOOLS a phonetically spelled de dader,

which means "the doer" or "the author"

— a perfectly reason-

able addition to the artist's favorite sentiment.

To

illustrate

Herman

John the Evangelist

"Hermannus Scheerre me

anonymous Book

in the

itself.

moreover, recurs in nearly identical fashion in the

of the "Beaufort Hours."

4

3

known

in

its

—

Kuhn

as well as that of the

has observed that the

vie

statues. In the

includes the hermit and his

St.

Hours"

(fol. 19 v., fig.

Hours."

'

Thomas

(fig. 167)

is

it

more remotely

De

(fig. 173),

that the

Christophers

—

8

the

Horae

Herman

Herman's London Book

of 13

St.

II

of

As

at all.

ornament composed of "Ypres sprays" is all

the

This, of course,

As we have

is

common

more

al-

"Oxford

reflected in the

"Cambridge

in the Millar Collection,

10

The

9

influence of

such as the

England) u or the

to the little

St.

Martin

St. 12

of those swastika or

Louis

bear as as

Rouen Madonna. And

does the

meander pavements which, at this early date

these patterns occur in the

(fig.

is

prototype of

George in the Rouen dedication page

Hours

5

Scheerre such as the author's

been pointed out, derive from Broederlam's carrelages and

illumination

is

also apparent in the "Carmelite Missal." Figures

found outside the Ypres group

page of the

except that the latter

regimine principum in the British Museum.

Missal contains no less than three examples

exile.

St.

associated with

outspoken a family likeness to the chivalrous

as has

Hours"

6

must be added

(formerly mistaken for King Richard

the St. John in

marginal ornament English blue-

162) and, here with the hermit and his cottage, in the

Occleve's

the Ypres tradition

square-headed triforium,

portraits recall the dedication

"Rosette frames" occur in the "York Hours," in miniatures

its

Christopher miniature in the "York Hours"

house. But

little

— though generally conforming

"Clowes Hours" in Indianapolis.

— the ancestor of a long line of Continental

portrait in

any

in

with "Ypres sprays" terminating in serrated lozenges,

with that in the "Beaufort

literally identical

and even

more

for all his un-Flemish elegance,

reminiscent of Tournai in

is

Broederlamesque Prophets'

rhombic leaves and fern sprouts

"Rouen Hours"

both

pavement on which he

tiled

inscribed with the "Ecce ancilla" as in the

is

and the character and placement of the donors'

most

in the

derivative of the Dijon altarpiece. Continental affiliations are also evident in

to a long-standing English tradition

Mr.

In

The composition of this "Annuncia2 same London manuscript (fig. 170)

Baltimore-Antwerp quadriptych, the architectural framework

bells,

Madonna

little

and even the hairdo of Broederlam's than

other respects. While the Virgin's prayer book

and of Ypres

(fig. 168).

St.

1

and, with but minor variations, in the dedication page

Here the Angel Gabriel,

faithfully retains the facial type, the pose

other

begin with the

the picture of

Museum

a twin brother of the

is

Rouen "Annunciation"

in the "Chichele Breviary" (fig. 175)

fecit,"

in the British

the Annunciation page in the "Rouen Hours" and the

stands repeats that of the tion,"

Hours

of

treatment, type and silhouette the gentle saint initial of

we may

Scheerre's connection with the Ypres school,

very miniature that bears the inscription

company

"new

cannot be

of marginal

style" in

English

Scheerre was nothing but an Ypres

artist in

169), the origin of the

evident.

not to say that

seen, the dedication

together with Continental ones. But

it

Herman

page of the "Beaufort Hours" exhibits insular features reveals the additional influence of the Parisian school

117

EARLY NETHERLANDISH PAINTING

— quite naturally in view of the then close relationship between the London and Paris courts — in the delicately diapered background, the beautifully embroidered cover of the Virgin's and the brocaded cloth of honor with

pric-dtcu is

many

evident in

chamber

birth

known work,

other ways and places, for instance in such enchanting interiors as the

of

Virgin in the "Carmelite Missal";

the

Horae

the "Psalter and

because the owner

shade-filled canopy. Parisian influence

its

is

of the

Duke

to the spell of the Boucicaut Master.

He

title)

2

(fig. 176),

and

in such landscapes as the

"Anointing of David" he even adopts the Boucicaut Master's skies (fig. 177).

3

However, the varied threads

produced a

style

that

went

among

altar of a

one in the

backgrounds and

hilly

Herman

into the fabric of

starry

Scheerre's

on the Continent.

result unparalleled not only in the British Isles but also

Like Holbein and van Dyck he belongs

last

shows the illuminator succumbing

Annunciate praying before the

depicts the

vaulted chapel with a cushion to kneel on

and Herman Scheerre's

Bedford" (which must postdate 1414

of

already addressed by his ducal

1

whose native

those Continental artists

style

attained a smooth, cool, brilliant perfection under the velvet-gloved discipline of the English court. It

was from

this

much

resulted the

Anglicization of both the Flemish and the French traditions

St.

and death that

St.

in 1399;

Herman

Showing

(fig. 181).

Edward and

that also

may be said to medium of panel

debated Wilton diptych in the National Gallery which

transplant the style of

painting

4

as

Edmund,

some

Scheerre and his associates to the exacting it

it

does

King Richard

was and

is

II

commonly

commended

to

Our Lady by

St.

John,

held to antedate the King's deposition

scholars even maintain the impossible date of 1377.

Mr. William A. Shaw and Professor Galbraith are absolutely right

are faced, not with a portrait of the living Richard, but with a

5

It

seems, however,

in thinking that

posthumous memorial

we

glorify-

ing his entry into Paradise (hence the eleven angels, wearing the King's badge and collar of the Broomcod, and the sweet,

welcoming gesture

diptych was commissioned by

Henry

that for his

King

own

father, and, in addition,

believed by

reason that

V who

many

to be

among

Henry V, some time

had

of the Christ Child). In

professed for Richard

the living was in reality dead.

will,

it is

to

It

after his accession in 1413, caused the it

was

for this twofold

body of Richard

was probably

solemn event that the Wilton diptych was ordered.

Westminster

probability the

a strong political motive to stress the fact that a

be translated from King's Langley to Westminster Abbey, and tion of this

all

veneration equal to

II a

6

commemora-

connection with

Its special

be hoped, be expounded by Mr. Francis Wormald.

in

II to

7

VIII

On Little

is

the Continent the mantle of the Ypres tradition descended

known

of

it

between the year

1366,

when

Quaebeke was executed, and the second decade of the ground with

a

and illuminated

charming Book of Hours for

upon the School of Ghent.

the Missal of Arnold, Lord of fifteenth century.

in the Bibliothcque

8

S

and

But we reach firm

Nationale which was written

John the Fearless of Burgundy and must thus antedate I I

Rummen

his violent

death

THE REGIONAL SCHOOLS in 1419.

1

That

was owned by

it

which shows the patron

demonstrated by the miniature on

this prince

is

Burgundy,

St.

saint of

fol.

172 v.

Andrew, accompanied not only by the ducal

coat-of-arms but also by the defiant personal device of John the Fearless, the "plane" with

which he proposed produced in Ghent in the litanies,

interrelated

and

implied by the inclusion of

is

proven by

positively

Books of Hours, preserved

in the

named Daniel Rym, who

Walters Art Gallery

which manifests

itself

into the borders

and

lary,

in the

2

the other

affinity in

temperament

if

decorated with

The

floral

Rym

Joris

Hours"

ancient binding

— a "sweetly sad," soft-spoken gentleness

content of the pictures tends to

Rym

Renaud IV." In

few

the

cases in

form

ornament.

an occasional sky in the Boucicaut manner. In the Nativity page of the

(fig.

6

187)

5

182)

(fig.

we

and

in the SS.

Anthony and Christopher page

St.

And

As evidenced by and

"Hours of John the Fearless"

in the

"Daniel

Rym

Hours."

7

even the "Hours of John the Fearless," the

concise but most impressive "Derision of Christ" (fig. 184)

recurs in very similar

earliest

member art.

of the

And

the

showing the face of Our Lord

unquestionably derived from the "Petites Heures" by Jacquemart de Hesdin.

Fundamentally, however, the its

which

8

group, presupposes a familiarity with fairly recent French and Franco-Flemish

is

with

the appearance of naturalistic skies and line-and-leaf borders enriched by

drolleries,

entirely veiled,

filled

the fantastic border of dragons, lions' heads and ivy rinceaux

Bartholomew

of the

find a perfectly identical degeneration of the conventional

in the Flagellation miniature in the

flowers

which

de Gavere exhibit a very unusual stippling technique whereas the "Daniel

Hours"

surrounds the

over

Hours" include amusing

corner quatrefoils into enormous bulges surrounded by a "border engrailed" and foliate

spill

—

attempted, the "Hours of John the Fearless" as well as the Horae

is

boasts

Rym

its

to ca. 1425, are tied into a close-knit

"Hours of John the Fearless" and the "Daniel

"Hours of John the Fearless" "Daniel

has

still

prominent Ghent

ornament, employ a similar botanical vocabu-

drolleries not unlike those in the "Breviary of

bound by

for a

in the interpretation of the narrative as well as in the choice of color

which,

a naturalistic sky

Pharahildis

3

but also by definite details and idiosyncrasies. 4

St.

Baltimore, both of which

at

One was produced

These three manuscripts, ranging from 1410-1415 group not only by a general

Amelberga and

St.

was

it

kinship with two slightly later and closely

died in 1431;

fashioned by Joris de Gavere in Ghent.

Bavo,

St.

its stylistic

can be assigned to Ghent on direct evidence. patrician

That

to shave the "knotted stick" of his great foe, Louis of Orleans.

style of

our Ghent manuscripts

is

9

Flemish and chief among

sources again, the Ypres tradition. "Rosette frames" — the centers of their corner quatreoften adorned with tiny heads or shields — abound both in the "Daniel Rym Hours" and is,

foils

in the

"Hours of John the

of one;

The

Fearless," occasionally even with

and a meander pavement occurs

in the latter

two

rosette-filled

chamfers instead

manuscript in the "Office of the Dead."

"Presentation of Christ" in the "Hours of John the Fearless"

n

is

10

a quaint but clearly

recognizable variation on two different themes by Broederlam whose "Presentation" provided the

model

for the scene itself

whereas his "Annunciation" supplied the architectural setting

a picturesque tempietto containing

an

altar

and adorned with II 9

statues of the

—

Annunciate and

EARLY NETHERLANDISH PAINTING the

Angel Gabriel

The queer

in lieu of Broederlam's Prophets. 1

in the Pentecost scene

somewhat

repeats in

page of the "Carpentras Hours." The type reflected in the "Oxford" and

St.

saw-tooth contour of the floor

simplified fashion that of the dais in the 2

Christopher

(fig.

183)

derived from the arche-

is

"Cambridge" Hours although the landscape not only

transcends but actually obliterates the right half of the frame and the scene

new

riched by such charming

from

his berthed boat,

details as a

an owl perched on a

de Hesdin fashion, from his cave.

from

stead of frontally. a beturbaned

The

But owing

to the

and an

tree,

inquisitive bear emerging,

Nativity (fig. 182), the

tiles

3

of the

finally,

whose curtain

however, her halo irradiating the white pillow,

practically

is

And

furnished surroundings, the

in the foreground

telltale

is

seen,

open-air grill with

Since the "Hours of John the Fearless" has lost

and the elaboration

draws back, the scene has been

a servant girl

The

its

still

mouth and nose

more incongruous

stepped back.

its

figure of the Virgin,

unchanged, and her features are

of similar cast though blunted into a sweet vacant disk, with eyes, dots.

manifestly developed are set diagonally in-

a three-legged stool,

transformed into an interior both more spacious and more sheltered.

by tiny strokes and

is

pavement

Jacquemart

omission of manger, animals and angels, the presence of

midwife bathing the Christ Child on

of the couch into a real bedstead

fancifully en-

is

second ferryman anxiously observing the miracle

"Rouen Hours," although

that in the

Madonna

indicated

in these well-

4

Annunciation page, which may or may

not have included an owner's portrait, the type of dedication page favored by our

can be studied only in the "Hours of Daniel

atelier

Rym"

(fig. 186)

where we

venerating his patron saint with the prayer "Sanctus Daniel, ora pro nobis." is

snugly ensconced in the

Habakkuk and fondling subject,

lions'

the harmless, lamblike creatures. But in spite of

ornamentation, expression and costume, the composition of

Rym

kneels on a piece of turf, only that this

ground with diminutive Derivative though originality.

of

We

Daniel

Rym

Daniel himself

den, unaware of the compulsory approach of the food-bearing

Ypres tradition. As in the "Rouen Hours" the main scene Daniel

see 5

Ghent

is

is

this

differences in

all

page adheres to the

set in a "rosette

developed into a real

frame," and little

plot of

trees.

it

the style of this

is,

Ghent workshop

have already noted the engaging

John the Fearless" enriched the

St.

details

is

by no means devoid of

by which the Master of the "Hours

Christopher scene and the Nativity; but he shows in6

many other places. In the bas-de-page of the Pentecost page by way of allusion to the marriage of his client's daughter, Mary, to

ventiveness, even audacity, in

he illustrated

Adolph

— perhaps

of Cleves in 1406

he added a

little bell

— the legend

ringer eagerly at

Cygne";

of the "Chevalier au

work

in the tempietto.

And

7

in the "Presentation"

in the All Saints miniature

he boldly transformed the Trinity into an apparently unique Quaternity, enthroning the Virgin Mary between

God

the Father

encircling this unorthodox triad.

The Master capable of droll jects.

of the

and Christ and placing the Dove

"Hours of Daniel Rym,"

humor and

in a

golden ring

8

for all his wistful innocence,

shows himself

then, again, of a surprisingly subtle interpretation of serious sub-

In the border of the "Bearing of the Cross" (fig. 188) a

120

young woman, emerging from

THE REGIONAL SCHOOLS a big flower, brandishes a distaff

The

"Kiss of Judas"

2

(fig. 189),

the traitor gently embracing

Him

and threatens

all

on the other hand,

men is

with a defiant

permeated by a

Our Lord from behind almost

as

by an unusual variety in the decoration of the borders. In addition

modern French

now

singly,

double or

in

Rym"

are distinguished

mentioned

to the types

—

with flowers and drolleries and the

line-and-leaf design interspersed

may

combination (so that a number of pages show what

triple borders), simple,

ambiguity,

3

— we

archaic but fantastically elaborated ivy rinceaux with lions' heads and dragons

now

1

though he were supporting

Virgin Mary in the "Lamentation" by Giovanni da Milano.

as does the

("I thrust").

spirit of tragic

Both the "Hours of John the Fearless" and the "Hours of Daniel

the

dou"

"ic

have,

be described as

undulating rinceaux, English-inspired arrays of shields held

together by a rod like pieces of meat by a skewer, ican oak entwined before a wide, dark band.

designs that enables us to attach to our

4

and heavy

5

It is

leaves not unlike those of

Amer-

the recurrence of these unusual border

Ghent school

five or six slightly later

Three Books of Hours, two in the Morgan Library and one

manuscripts.

in the collection of the

Duke

of

Arenberg, show the extravagant dragon-and-lion rinceaux, and one of the Morgan manuscripts

examples of the overdeveloped corner quatrefoils and of the heavy "oak leaf"

also contains

borders, the latter so literally copied that even the indentations of the contour are repeated 6

(fig. 192).

In a Horae in the John Carter

Brown

Library in Providence,

7

on the other hand, and

these heavy "oak leaf" borders blossom forth into fantastic tropical flowers

and

fruits

intertwine themselves with drolleries while in the miniatures the native tradition yields to the influence of the Boucicaut Master.

The wonderfully decked

out

George

St.

(fig. 193), for

example, clearly descends from that in the "Boucicaut Hours," and the "Vigils of the Dead," the church interior viewed through a tripartite

diaphragm

arch,

is

based upon the same

miniature which has been mentioned in connection with Jan van Eyck's

Church"

—a

in Flanders,

8

and

the end of the local development that set in with the

At the time of

its

book illumination had appeared on the

One

of these

Providence Hours.

this in a style distinctly related to that of the

of John the Fearless."

received his

in a

miniature found in a Boucicaut manuscript that was demonstrably completed

The Providence Hours marks of

"Madonna

production

1430-1435

— two

other schools

scene.

was headed by a master known

name from

— about

"Hours

"Master of Gilbert of Metz,"

as the

who

has

a copy of Gilbert's Description de la Ville de Paris (preserved in a

miscellaneous codex at Brussels) and seems to have been active, from about 1420, either in

Ghent

or in

ductive

Grammont

(twenty miles south of Ghent) where Gilbert

workshop did not

significantly contribute to the general

lived.

His

development;

fairly pro-

its

idiom

is

nothing but the language of the Boucicaut and Bedford Masters translated into a provincial patois.

9

The

other school

background pattern of chosen because

is

commonly

thin, filigreelike gold rinceaux

this pattern

"Gold

referred to as the

Scroll"

on neutral

was by no means unusual, though

therefore less conspicuous in earlier schools. This

121

"Gold

Scroll"

less

foil

group

after

its

favorite

— a name not too well

ubiquitous, less dense, and

group apparently comprised

a

EARLY NETHERLANDISH PAINTING number

workshops which are

of different

the

all

more

difficult to locate as

they extensively

produced for foreign consumption, furnishing manuscripts not only for England, but for places as distant as Portugal Scroll" style

was centered

of Tournai, and that the Ypres School

productions are

had made

it

1

Italy.

in the

it

is,

however, that the "Gold city

Ypres tradition. Like the manuscripts assignable to the "Early School of Ghent," the "Gold Scroll"

call

frames" and those blue angel-head arches which,

we remember,

appearance in the "Rouen" and "Oxford" Hours. They also contain,

Commendatio animarum

peculiar illustration of the

a

Certain

westernmost regions of Flanders, possibly including the

was rooted

full of "rosette

their first

in

in the

and

194)

and what we now may

most invariably,

defunctorum

(fig.

which two angels transport

Heaven

to

or

group of souls

a little

2

al-

Commendatio

in a cloth spread

we recall, was copied from an Ypres manuscript) and in the London Book of Hours by Herman 3 Scheerre, the great representative of the Ypres tradition in England. It is, in fact, in Herman

out like a

Scheerre

hammock,

—

a motif

which appears both

in the

or, rather, in his distinctive collaborator, the

we may touch upon we saw, returned to

the origin of the

"Gold

the Continent after his stay

several inscriptions can be located

Master of the Beaufort Saints

other features characteristic of

Museum) which by

on the western borderline

its

"Gold

Scroll" group.

much

in

common

Scroll" family that

A

Book

hammock motif (and, incidentally, Herman Scheerre and the Ypres tradition)

of

Hours

in the

Grand Seminaire

at

use,

of Flanders.

rinceaux densened and hardened in precisely that fashion which

filigree

is

4

its

Calendar

This Horae

a great

number

first

and

but also shows the

Bruges

(fig.

195) has so

with both the Beaufort Saints and the accepted members of the "Gold it

may

be regarded as a

classic case of "transition."

since his activity in

England did not extend,

so far as

decade of the century, no chronological objection can be raised to

was not

until 1415-1420 that the

The "Gold while

it is

of

characteristic of the

5 I

am, therefore,

clined to consider the Master of the Beaufort Saints as the fons et origo of the elusive Scroll" style;

— that

The Master of the Beaufort Hours, with Herman and here produced his finest

180) not only includes the

(figs. 179,

(which,

Scroll" style.

works, notably a Horae (also preserved in the British

and

Cambridge Hours

Scroll" family

is

"Gold

Scroll" style

made

thus consanguineous, as

it

its

we know, beyond

this

in-

"Gold the

assumption. For

it

appearance on the Continent.

were, to the "Early School of Ghent"

not a blood relation of the Gilbert of Metz family. This, however, facilitated rather

than impeded intermarriage between the two contemporaneous clans. Both flourished until about 1440; they frequently interpenetrated; and as time went on, the "Gold Scroll" workshops gradually absorbed the same Parisian elements which had been inherent in the Gilbert of

Metz

style

from the

outset; the

"Duarte Hours" of 1428-1433

Scroll" manuscript that can be dated by external evidence,

is

in Lisbon, the only

"Gold

strongly and directly influenced

by the Boucicaut Master. In the fourth decade of the fifteenth century, therefore, the aspect of South Netherlandish

book illumination ter,

is

very complex

but with considerably

— and

less success,

increasingly discouraging. Like the Arcnbcrg Mas-

the aging ateliers tried to rejuvenate their style by timid,

122

THE REGIONAL SCHOOLS 1

from the Master of Flemalle. But by 1440 the "Gold

partly indirect borrowings

died of sheer exhaustion, and the practitioners of the Gilbert of

younger masters who, even

not of the

if

first

modern Flemish panel painting

novations of

Metz

Scroll" family

style left the field to

rank, were at least capable of assimilating the inin principle.

IX

To

repeat, the pre-Eyckian schools of painting in the Netherlands,

book illumination from

many

1390 to ca. 1430-1440, did not produce

ca.

and Netherlandish masterpieces. But

they are nevertheless indispensable for the understanding of the period in general, and the great masters of Early Flemish painting in particular.

Owing

to their innate propensities, these regional schools offered a healthy resistance to

the "manneristic" trends in the International Style synthesis of naturalism

and sophistication that was

and thus paved the way

to be achieved

for the great

by Jan van Eyck. With the

curious combination of impressionability and retentiveness characteristic of

all

provincial art,

— most of them of Italian — origin which had been overlooked or even rejected in the leading French and Franco-Flemthey accepted, preserved, developed and disseminated artistic ideas

ish ateliers,

and they contributed

the principal source for the

new

to this diffusion of motifs the art of print

making which came

and, generally speaking, in the same environment. That graphic stitute for

more

into being at the

art,

hand-painted miniatures, extensively drew upon what

effectively as they

were

same time

intended as a cheap sub-

purported to emulate

it

is

not surprising.

To

up the

take

last

point

first:

the oak leaf borders of certain Netherlandish metal cuts

from those

are almost literally copied

in the

and

it is

still

troubling the students of the graphic

only by resorting to Flemish book illumination that

early date

— 1423 — of

the

famous

guished from the rank and

"modernity."

3

his lantern, the

Yet

all its

file

St.

arts.

of contemporary

apparently anachronistic

detail, that in the

"Hours

as the St.

of

an illumination of

illustrate the

of France, (text.

ill.

at the

water and terrain

is

prefigured.

its

is

distin-

surprising

presence of a hermit with

buildings, the emphasis

on

spatial

— can be accounted

little

or, in

depth for by

even greater

animal peeking out of

The woodcut almost

Hours"

is

even

earlier), the date 1423

importance of the Netherlandish schools

same time,

its

literally tran-

as

is

no longer

a mystery.

an international stock ex-

as a storehouse of foreign motifs unacceptable to the great centers

we may begin with

45), the last

features — the

is

kind; and since the "Hours of John the Fearless" certainly ante-

dates 1419 (while the "Beaufort

To

problem that

2

even questioned the

graphic production by

John the Fearless" where even the

this

solve a

at or

Christopher in the "Beaufort Hours"

hole (in this case a rabbit rather than a bear)

change and,

little

naturalistic treatment of

Flemish miniatures such

we can

They have marveled

relatives,

its

Christopher woodcut from Buxheim which

enrichment of the scenery by

and the comparatively

scribes

"Hours of John the Fearless" and

a beautiful

known work

"Man

of Sorrows" in the Kunsthalle at

of Master Francke

123

who,

Hamburg

for all his familiarity with the

EARLY NETHERLANDISH PAINTING developments admitted.

in Paris,

owes more

Lowlands than

to the tradition of his native

generally

is

1

Where

all earlier

Northern representations show the hands of the

Man

of Sorrows either

crossed before the breast, or lifelessly dangling, or carrying a scourge and a whip, or sym-

the balanced gestures of Francke's Christ are expressively dynamic.

metrically upraised,"

With His

right hand,

He

shows the wound

Italian sources as the "Intercession"

poses the

wound

humanity

is

in

its

— a motif apparently adopted from such Pietro Gerini — while the elevated ex-

His side

in

3

by Giovanni

left

palm. Even more unusual

is

the fact that the image of His suffering

invested with the dignity of His divine office in the Last Judgment. Three angels

hold up His white, red-lined robe and spread a cloth of honor behind Him, and this identifica-

Man

tion of the at

Doomsday

of Sorrows with the Judge

Christ will

suffered for you;

"show His

what have you

bitter

wounds

suffered for

other angels carrying the sword and the

— entirely

mankind

to all "

me?'

—

nearly identical in both

from

a

symbols, and to

common it

archetype.

— that

Hamburg

at

4 ill.

that the author of the

Saviour's gesture as one of benediction

derive

what

I

have

two

lily.

akin to a woodcut produced in Flanders about 1460 (text cases — only

saying: 'Behold

further stressed by the addition of

is

has been observed that Francke's painting, produced

It

on doctrinal grounds because

justified

44).

about 1430,

is

closely

Posture and gestures are so

woodcut has misinterpreted the

the two compositions must be supposed to

The woodcut, however,

does not include the eschatological

has been assumed that they were absent from this archetype; they are thought 5

have been added by Francke "as a result of a very personal inspiration."

were correct another composition

(text

46), transmitted through no

ill.

If this

less

than

assumption five prints

of the third quarter of the fifteenth century and duplicating Master Francke's in nearly every respect except that the robe

same angels who carry the picture.

fastened by a morse instead of a ribbon and

is

lily

and the sword,

would

also

we

find a

number

depend on Francke's Hamburg

of closely interrelated miniatures

which the

five prints precisely in those features in

eschatological significance of the identified as "Justitia"

by a flaming cloud,

is

Resurrected emerge.

7

is

latter disagree

ill.

floating

The

with Francke's painting; the

even more explicit in that the angels are expressly

left,

above a globe and a

inference

Man

is

43) and their

which agree with the

and "Misericordia" and that the half-length figure of

archetype which showed the upraising His

image

held up by the

is

However, when we open some of our Flemish manuscripts (text

English derivatives

side,

6

strip of terrain

Christ, supported

from which the heads of the

that there existed, prior to 1430-1435, a Netherlandish

of Sorrows placing His right

clad in the robe of the Judge,

hand upon the wound

and attended by the Angels of

in

His

Justice

and Mercy — an archetype which probably preceded, possibly influenced and certainly did not depend upon the admirable composition by Master Francke.

Now,

Man

since the gesture of

of Sorrows in earlier

the Master of Flemalle in if

showing the

Northern

art,

side

the

wound

is

foreign to the iconography of the

same archetype would seem

whose representations of the Trinity

this gesture

not quite logically, transferred to the dead Christ supported by

1^4

God

to

have influenced

appears effectively,

the Father (figs. 207,

THE REGIONAL SCHOOLS 210).

And

if

were admitted, we should be confronted with

this hypothesis

mitted by and inferable from our modest miniatures, which

ing both in

What

Germany and

left its

— or

demonstrable

at least as

The

case of the Nativity.

mark on major panel

paint-

Flanders.

"Man

remains somewhat conjectural in the case of the

demonstrable

a tradition, trans-

as

of Sorrows as the Judge"

anything can be in the history of

art

"Nativity" in Master Francke's altarpiece of 1424 (text

is

— in the

ill.

is

47)

the only Northern panel painting of the fifteenth century to stage the scene in a cave entirely free

from man-made

Revelationes of

St.

additions,

and

Bridget of Sweden.

not only in this respect that

is

it 1

It is

agrees with the

it

according to her description that Master Francke

depicted the kneeling Virgin clad in a plain, white dress (while her blue mantle

by three

radiant Infant on the ground instead of in the manger. St.

Joseph,

who, according

to the Revelationes,

He

spread out

even went so far as to omit the

had removed himself from the scene "ne partui

and only later joined in the Virgin's prayer.

personaliter interesset"

No

is

angels so as to form an improvised sanctuary) and that he placed the nude,

little

doubt Master Francke had carefully read

can hardly be explained by

Bridget's description, but his composition

St.

A

this description alone.

2

literary source

may modify

but hardly

ever breaks an established representational tradition unless the impact of the written

word

is

reinforced by that of a visual experience. As, according to Spinoza, an emotion cannot be

suppressed or eradicated save by another emotion, so can an image be supplanted only by

another image. In

fact,

the influence of

St.

Bridget's text

was never strong enough

entirely the iconographic traditions prevailing in the various countries. painters,

who

translated her vision into a pictorial formula,

first

cherished figure of

St.

Joseph

but hardly ever omitted

whom

(fig. 38).

they occasionally tucked

The

Nikolai-Kirche structures in

at

Trecento

to discard the

in a separate

little

cave

Conversely, Northern panel painters could never bring

themselves to abandon the familiar shed in favor of the unaccustomed cave; atic painters directly

Italian

were loth

away

to suppress

3

even the Hanse-

influenced by Master Francke's "Nativity" (such as the Master of the

Rostock and the Master of

which natural rocks

St.

Jiirgen at

Wismar) replaced

his cave

combined with roofing and timber work. 4

are fantastically

Master Francke, therefore, would scarcely have so radically departed from the native dition

had he not come in contact with

pictures

by

showing the cave

tra-

in addition to a text merely

known to us from the "Nativity according to St. Bridget," discussed in the Second Chapter, in the "Tres-Belles Hemes de Notre Dame" of 1385-1390 (fig. 37). 5 But this miniature — produced at a time when the Italian influence on Northern art was approaching its climax, and by a master who was a prime

describing

exponent of the only

and

it;

that such pictures existed in the

this influence

— had found

known French example

North

no following

patterned upon

it,

in

is

French and Franco-Flemish

found

in a Bible Moralisee in the Biblio-

theque Nationale, the cave has been absorbed in general scenery. Netherlandish schools that the "Nativity According to developed in of the earliest

all its

scenic

"Gold

St.

6

It

was

commonly dated about I2 5

in the provincial

Bridget" was not only accepted but

and iconographic implications. Beginning with

Scroll" manuscripts,

art; in

a miniature in

1415-1420,

7

one

a solid tradition

EARLY NETHERLANDISH PAINTING and spread

established itself

van Culemborg 2 ill.

(fig. 127).

where the rock

48),

to the

l

The

"Nativity" in a

expanded into

is

Metz group

to the Gilbert of

little

as well as to the

Horae

in the

on which the Annunciation

a saddle-shaped hillside

Shepherds takes place, and where two kneeling angels participate

the Christ Child,

more probable

might be considered

that

—a

Francke

had been inspired by

common

a variation

in the

Adoration of

on Meister Francke's panel were

native of Guelders,

and

in a sense a stranger in

much Germany — it

not

Netherlandish sources.

However, while Master Francke,

in deference to the text, eliminated the figure of St.

Joseph he chose to abandon a significant motif especially stressed in tion, the

Master of Zweder

Walters Art Gallery (text

St.

Bridget's descrip-

motif of the candle. Perhaps in unconscious recollection of texts describing the Birth

which has

of Bacchus (the iconography of

other respects),

St.

also contributed

new symbol

Bridget had introduced a

the Light Divine over the light of nature. She

had brought a lighted candle and placed

it

tells

us

much

how

St.

Joseph, prior to his withdrawal,

and how,

in the cave;

to that of the Nativity in

for the old idea of the ascendancy of

after the birth of the Saviour,

the "divine radiance" {splendor divinus) that emanated from the Christ Child "totally annihilated" {totaliter adnihilaverat) the "material light" {splendor materialis) of the flame.

cordingly, the Italian panels based

on the Revelationes

of rock in the interior of the cave, or,

more

either exhibit a candle placed

frequently, held in

St.

Joseph's hand;

on 4

3

Ac-

a shelf

and

this

second choice was invariably adopted by the Netherlandish illuminators.

Master Francke, then, omitted the

The St.

great Flemings rejected the cave,

Joseph and his candle. Chief

St.

Joseph and his candle, while accepting the cave.

which they replaced by the usual

among

these were the Master of Flemalle

Roger van der Weyden. From the former's Dijon "Nativity" its

way

into the latter's Bladelin, or Middelburg, altarpiece;

and prints

into a host of later pictures

shed, while retaining

all

(fig.

and

his disciple,

201) the candle motif found

and from the Bladelin

over the Continent.

The

altarpiece

Brigittine origin of the

candle was often forgotten; in an attempt to surpass the panel painters in verisimilitude some later illuminators

even replaced

it

by a lantern. But

it

had not been introduced

cation of the fact that the Nativity took place at night.

main

so

— the symbol of a light that

Why

is

French and Franco-Flemish

(significantly,

It

was

difficult to say. St. Bridget's

manic countries and

art objected not

6

only to the cave but also to the candle

a candleless St. Joseph

Revelationes

itself

in Italy than in France;

with hands raised in prayer)

with a tradition of

"Encombre par

and that

this

many

was to

so

is

French and Franco-Flemish

an Eastern setting

art

was averse

St.

taste of

at

variance

Joseph's devotion.

to motifs too Italianate,

— to motifs either too exotic or too emotional or too undignified. But

such motifs which appealed to the

is

perhaps based upon the

centuries and to a motif that interfered with

sa tradition,"

it

enjoyed far greater popularity both in the Ger-

same French conservatism and formalism which objected

were

as a naive indi-

did not always re-

obscured rather than the source of a light that illumines.

1

it

it

even the one and only Franco-Flemish "cave Nativity," that in the "Tres-Belles

Heures de Notre Dame,'' shows

as

— though

it

was

precisely

the provincial schools, especially those of the

126

THE REGIONAL SCHOOLS Netherlands. Here they were eagerly adopted and held in store, so to speak, for the great masters, and

was only

it

these great masters, they

after the lapse of several decades that, sanctioned

were

at last

admitted even to France.

Thus, the faintly exotic gesture of the Annunciate tych (fig. wSb), which

is

by the authority of

in the

Baltimore-Antwerp quadrip-

exceedingly rare in French and Franco-Flemish Annunciations, had

achieved a certain degree of popularity in the Northwestern provinces, and sistence of a

respect,

by the per-

— exemplified by the Zweder Master in Berlin — that we can account for

in the

Ghent

1

2

its

altarpiece (fig. 276).

In another context, that of the Nativity, this gesture of devotion the breast

is

Guelders and Lower Rhenish tradition

and the Cologne painter of the Brenken altarpiece appearance

it

— hands crossed

before

— was taken up by Jacques Daret, a pupil of the Master of Flemalle. In every other

however, his "Nativity,"

now

in the

Thyssen Collection

Lugano

at

(fig.

233),

is

thoroughly dependent upon the Master of Flemalle, particularly in the depiction of a miracle first

to

mentioned

them the

in the

Apocryphal Gospels of Pseudo-James and Pseudo-Matthew. According

birth of Christ

was attended by two midwives, one of

whom — originally

called

Zelomi but going under the name of Zebel or even Rachel — believed in the Virgin's purity whereas the other, originally called Salome, insisted on tangible proof — with the result later

hand withered and was cured only by touching the new-born Saviour. 3 This

that her guilty

incident, not often represented even after the Dijon "Nativity,"

Christian, Byzantine

and Italo-Byzantine renderings; but

where the midwives,

Franco-Flemish

art

sional activities.

They busy themselves with

if

4

had been frequent

hardly ever occurs in French and

it

present, normally limit themselves to their profes-

with no reference made to their convictions.

the Infant or are engaged in preparing His bath, It

was, again, in a peripheral, Germanic milieu

that the old Eastern legend continued to be cherished by artists. pictorial account of

it

Tegernsee's Lied von der

by a Polish-Silesian Virgin's couch.

7

found in a

is

series of

Maget ("Song the

artist

in Early

German

of the Virgin").

two midwives are

The most

circumstantial

miniatures illustrating 6

Wernher

of

In a queer miniature, dated 1406,

antithetically placed

on

either side of the

In one of those Spanish Nativities in which the Virgin adores the Christ

Child with her hands crossed over her breast, the cured and converted Salome joins her in prayer.

8

And

in the

Baltimore-Antwerp quadriptych

halo, perhaps because she

(fig.

was generally confused with

Zebedee's children." Here, then,

we have

108c) she St.

is

even distinguished by a

Mary Salome,

the

"Mother of

another case in which a great Flemish painter drew

from indigenous regional sources rather than from the cosmopolitan French and FrancoFlemish

tradition.

Apart from such

and the Lowlands

specific iconographical motifs,

a general iconographical

we can

observe in the schools of

tendency shared and brought to fruition by the

great Flemings but foreign, even repugnant to the French cultivated

what may be

Germany

and Franco-Flemish

taste.

They

called the humility theme, as paradigmatically formulated in the

Madonna deW Humilta.

127

EARLY NETHERLANDISH PAINTING As Millard Meiss has

shown,

brilliantly

was Simone Martini who had

it

lent visual ex-

pression to Dante's: Vergine Madrc,

Umile ed

figlia del

alta piu

image of the Madonna dignified by the

in the

moon under

"clothed with the sun, and the stars" — yet

humbly

figlio,

her feet and upon her head a crown of twelve

upon

to "sit

Woman —

attributes of the Apocalyptic

upon the ground. 1 The very word humilis,

sitting

from humus, and

bered, derives

tuo

chc crcatura

the ground" can

should be remem-

it

mean

humility as well as

"humiliation": For God's

And

tell

French and Franco-Flemish

sake, let us

sit

upon the ground

sad stories of the death of kings.

was therefore reluctant

art

to subject

Our Lady

to the in-

dignity of this posture, except for the extremity of the Crucifixion and the Lamentation.

"Madonna

of Humility"

was never very popular

significance that the earliest

duced

much

ever, it

at the

up no

very outskirts of the area

in favor in

less

known example 4

England

in France,

and

it

is

perhaps not without

and Flanders.

5

designated as French.

And when

3

The theme

the Master of Flemalle,

(figs. 203,

211)

it

was,

as the

"garden inclosed"

took

think, through Flemish rather than French inter-

I

6

Where

his

of Humility appear in the hortus conclusus, sitting in front of a grass-topped en-

closure of masonry, his connection with the regional type (fig. 154) applies to

Our Lady

more

applies even

lands and the Germanic countries

artists

is

very evident.

to ordinary female saints.

Both

in the

Low-

became almost inordinately fond of placing them

the ground, whether they were assembled in lovely groups (as in the van Beuningen

altarpiece, the

woodcut known

Upper Rhenish "Garden bravely holding relights

it, is

Joris

as the

7

"Vierge de Bruxelles" allegedly of 1418, or the charming 8

of Paradise" in Frankfort)

up her candle which the

de Gavere

we meet

a

Book

of

or represented singly.

devil tries to extinguish while

depicted standing in French manuscripts

tentatively called the "Prayer

by

who

226) or even a

(figs. 198,

mediaries that he became familiar with the corresponding Italian prototypes.

upon

was, how-

than four times, mostly omitted the Apocalyptic attributes and always placed the

domestic interior

What

The

(of ca. 1360-1365) occurs in a manuscript pro-

commonly

Virgin in a naturalistic environment such

Madonnas

2

Mary

10

of Cleves";

St.

Genevieve,

an angel untiringly

but sitting on the ground in what ll

modest ancestress of Jan van Eyck's

"St.

Barbara" of 1437 it still

instead of being carried by her as an attribute (fig. 190).

is,

(fig.

already built

12

So popular was the humility posture in Netherlandish and Northwest

German

art that

was employed even within the context of the Annunciation, that great mystery which by very nature does not readily lend

posed like a

Madonna

itself to

an

idyllic or

informal

delV Humilta are seen, for example, in

Croce, where the Virgin

Mary

is

placed directly on the ground;

128

we

and in the "Ghent Horae" bound

254), squatting instead of standing, and with her tower, small though

upon the ground

9

mode

its

of depiction. Annunciates

Taddeo Gaddi's 13

it

fresco in Santa

in a panel, ascribed to

Simone

THE REGIONAL SCHOOLS Martini,

now

in a picture

by Niccolo

on the throne

2

Buonaccorso where she

di

But

itself.

this

by Conrad of Soest,

4

(fig.

art.

know

I

was accepted, however,

It

In the central panel of his

145).

far as

Merode

a pillow;

*

and

footrest of her throne instead of Italy,

was,

it

seems, posi-

not a single instance occurs in

two much-imitated compositions

in

van Beuningen altarpiece, and in the

in the

5

huddled upon

is

arrangement, not too frequent even in

3

French or Franco-Flemish

on the

sits

French sense of decorum. So

tively offensive to the

Tournai

where she

in the Stocklet Collection at Brussels,

Book

little

of

Hours from

altarpiece (fig. 204) the Master of

Flemalle elaborated the nondescript setting of the Tournai Hours into a comfortably furnished

new appointments

apartment. But in spite of these ornate bench,

curled

is

up

the Virgin, ignoring the comfort of an

than seated upon

in front rather

— here even local — tradition

pendence upon the regional

which makes the

it,

all

picture's de-

more obvious.

the

Moreover, the very idea of staging the scene in a fullfledged bourgeois interior resulted

from

development which

a

pure and simple

— like the "domestic" interpretation of the Madonna of Humility

— had originated

and had been carried on

in Italy

between France and Germany rather than

other hand, from such genuine,

da Milano

"

somewhat

if

and Bernabd da Modena

to develop; but

8

Italian models,

9

a fusion of

richly furnished

and, on the

bare, interiors as those in the panels

by Giovanni

Maria Novella

the Brenken altarpiece just mentioned (text

it is

at

Winterthur (text

ill.

the Master of Flemalle. His Annunciation

ill.

49) and an

two

Upper

50), both probably based on

— or early

may

be said to have resulted

themes, the Annunciate in the guise of the Madonna of Humility

Italian

and the Angelic Salutation in a domestic

and

interior;

had not the concepts of Taddeo Gaddi, Niccolo

di

this fusion

would not have been

pos-

Buonaccorso and Giovanni da Milano,

by the French and Franco-Flemish masters, been able

rejected

from such

6

S.

which give us some idea of the intermediaries between the Trecento

Quattrocento — and

sible

in the borderline districts

that the "realistic interiors" of the Flemish painters

Rhenish picture in the Reinhart Collection

from

It is

house" settings as those in the well-known mural in

"doll's

were

France

in

itself.

to survive in the less rarefied

atmosphere of the provincial schools.

The same, from

all

incidentally,

Heaven

it,

too,

was of

(numerous instances from

Lowlands (where

work

of the

had

12 it

did not

in the

e.g.,

as

it

it,

this motif, too,

too,

was

as

much

"Haarlem Breviary" of

was "popular rather in favor in

ca.

1420

10

and twice

to

until after 1430

succumb

only in scattered fragments and

overestimated, but neither should

it

in the

when French and Franco-Flemish

to influences

from the Northeast.

to the unfortunate depletion of the material, pre-Eyckian painting in the

visible to us

Germany

was avoided in France. Here, setting aside one very

make headway

and tended

and

one of them being the Brenken altarpiece) and in

as early as 1379,

occurs,

lost the initiative

Due is

it

Italian origin;

n Arenberg Master)

dubious example, art

altarpiece

parvulus puer jormatus. Opposed by theologians from the

as a

and formally condemned by Pope Benedict XIV,

than dignified";

the

which distinguishes the Merode

true of another motif

other renderings of the Annunciation scene thus far considered: the Christ Child

bodily descends from outset

is

dim

be minimized.

the seeds for the great Flemings' garden

it

If

reflections. Its

Netherlands

importance should not be

the indigenous tradition did not provide

did provide

129

13

its soil.

"

REALITY AND SYMBOL IN

EARLY FLEMISH PAINTING: "SPIRITUALIA SUB METAPHORIS CORPORALIUM" Vv 104)

discussing the architecture in Melchior Broederlam's "Annunciation" (fig.

hinted at but did not enlarge upon the fact that

I

cance which

As is

hen

in

justifies its intricate

on the

holds in her

left

hand

Apocrypha which

tell

us of the

tions, she

the

complexity.

most contemporary renderings of the

a prayer book, here placed

many

invested with a symbolical signifi-

it is

main

scene, the

attribute of the

Annunciate

lectern before her. But, in contrast to all these representa-

a skein of purple wool. This life

Our Lady

of

is

an unmistakable reference to

prior to the Angelic Salutation. Like

"daughters of kings, prophets and high priests," Mary, "a virgin from the tribe of

David," had been brought up in the temple of Jerusalem until she had reached the marriageable age. But since she wished to preserve her virginity she

Matthew phrases

it,

"given in custody"

— to

was betrothed

the aged Joseph. She and a

—

or, as

number

Pseudoof other

summoned from diverse parts of the Temple. The work of each was

maidens, variously described as living in Joseph's house or the land, were asked by the priests to

determined by

lot,

and

to the

materials, the "true purple."

make

a

new

veil for

humblest of the maidens there was given the most precious of

1

It

was while the Virgin "was working the purple wool with

her fingers" (either in the house of

St.

Joseph or in that of her parents) that she was ap-

proached by "a youth of indescribable beauty saying: 'Be not afraid, Mary, thou hast found grace before God.'

In Early Christian, Byzantine and represented with a spindle.

2

High Medieval

art,

the Annunciate

is,

therefore, often

In the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, however, allusions to

her manual occupation had normally disappeared from renderings of the Annunciation

proper

3

and were

restricted to those of a preliminary scene

marginal picture, the "Virgin

at the

Loom"

more often than not shown

attended by angels.

of the purple wool, then, Broederlam reverted to the

4

in a

In reintroducing the motif

Apocrypha and we may thus assume

that the other unusual features of his composition are also intended to revive the implications

131

"

EARLY NETHERLANDISH PAINTING of the Apocryphal version: the circular structure behind the Virgin's shrine,

"Table before the Lord," must be meant

terior disclosing the

This assumption

between

is

this massive,

to represent the

'new

windows

which

of

are illumined by the gold

The window being

and

so pointedly

windows

opposed

to the

1

Incarnation.

It

this

ground that shines

slitlike

openings of the

opposed to the "darkness" or "blindness"

so prominently, even incongruously, placed

dark apertures

in a building of different style,

one thing: the Trinity, which assumes the form of physical

was on

Temple.

the accepted symbol of illuminating grace and, therefore,

light" (lux nova) of Christian faith as

of Judaism, a triad of

in-

and the transparent Gothic gable

structure

through their tracery and emphatically contrast with the black

of the

gloomy

confirmed by the sharp and doubtless intentional distinction made

domed, oriental-looking

of the adjacent loggia, the

circular edifice.

its

upon can

a cornice

mean only

reality in the very act of Christ's

account that the Virgin Mary could be acclaimed as the "temple

and sanctuary of the Trinity," or more simply, the Templum Trinitatisr Whether or not the three lamps

— as yet unlit — in

the chandelier suspended from the ceiling of her

are a further allusion to the Trinity, this

dare not decide. But certain

I

it is

from the Old Dispensation

The same Isaiah,

idea

is

whose "Behold

And

her right.

to the

impregnation with the Holy

three

windows

marks the

transition

a virgin shall conceive"

men — was a

the locus classicus for the Annunciation,

is

is

Temple and

not allowed to enter.

The tower

— in

recollection of the

famous

fresco in the

3

of the

derivatives).

4

The walled

inter-

at Assisi)

garden, on the other hand,

is

but also with

Guido da Siena

obviously the "garden inclosed"

Song of Songs.

In spite of

all this

evidence

to the architectural features of

ever, the

shows

from any

not only in representations of this

Lower Church

reference to the Annunciation in particular (as in the Princeton panel by its

on

the presence of a walled garden

in a turris a'enea in order to protect her

recognized symbol of chastity,

virtue in general (as in the

and

left,

her unique qualifications are signified by two further characteristic features

Danae who was imprisoned

course with

its

expressed by the two prophets' statues, Moses on the Virgin's

which even the Angel Gabriel of

Spirit

New.

of the setting, the towerlike appearance of the

myth

shrine

that the placement of

shrine between the orientalistic temple and the Gothic hall with

stresses the doctrine that the Virgin's

little

it

might seem hazardous

Broederlam's painting were

beginning of a consistent tradition.

A

to attach so specific a significance it

an

We

marks, how-

miniature from the Boucicaut workshop

practically all the elements discussed except that they are

rearranged into a more rational pattern.

isolated case. It

somewhat modernized and

have the circular tower, here surmounted by a

weather vane; the "garden inclosed"; and, on the other side of the Annunciation chamber, a Christian chapel designated as such

and by an

altar

6

(fig.

74)

tower facade while on the other side its

its

more

definitely Gothic style,

decked out with candlesticks and

from the same workshop

by

by

cupola, the bulbous

domes

of

the is

its

Angel

by a cross on the roof,

a tripartite retable. In another miniature

enters through the door of a Gothic twin-

seen a sanctuary characterized as Jewish and oriental towers, and an altar that bears

132

no candlesticks and

ex-

REALITY AND SYMBOL Law

hibits the Tablets of the

form the contrast between

instead of a triptych. In residual

Gothic tempietto and fancifully non-Gothic tower even survives in an "Annunciation" in

which the

the Prado in of Flemalle.

1

And when Conrad Witz Church and

personifications of the

from those

figures are copied

the

to stage the

Metropolitan

explicit

what the

antithetic

2

of this antithetic mise-en-scene culminates in the last Flemish painting

Annunciation

in or before

domestic interior. This

ecclesiastical or

by the Master

altarpiece

placed the Annunciation scene between two actual

Synagogue he merely made

mise-en-scene of his forerunners had implied.

The development

Merode

in the

Museum

(fig.

an architecture seen from the outside instead of in an is

the much-debated "Friedsam Annunciation" in the

284) which, whether considered as an original by either Hubert

or Jan van Eyck, as a product of Hubert's "circle" or as a trustworthy replica of later date, is

now

3

nearly unanimously accepted as an "Early Eyckian" composition and can thus safely

be exploited for iconographic purposes. In

it,

the contrast between Gothic and vague oriental-

ism has given way to a dichotomy between Gothic and archeologically correct Romanesque;

and instead of a like

and

fantastic

perfectly unified

vertically bisected into

structures of

two

life.

— Gothic

the Virgin's right

and Romanesque

—

is

no

is

orthodox Gothic buttresses; on her

held to bear left,

and a

evil

it

correctly profiled impost block.

is

grow white

kind of

flowers, symbols of purity,

considered as

is

just as

On

the "Gothic" side both the front and side

and the

Out

of the corner buttress

buttress of the portal culminates in that

German and Flemish names of which (Kreuzblume, Kruisbloeme) mean On the "Romanesque" side we have, instead, two columns of jasper or porphyry

clearly allude to the

two famous columns "in the porch of the temple," Jachin and

Kings VII, 21); and

(I

monkey symbolized

Man and was

their clean-cut

Romanesque

bases are supported by a correctly

all

the undesirable qualities thanks to

saw

fittingly,

fit

to associate the

"Eva occidendo

Madonna with

the

obfuit,

monkey

(text

ill.

53).

which Eve brought about the

thus used as a contrastive attribute of Mary, the

blotted out the sin of the "old":

"new Eve," whose

The Fall

perfection

Maria vivificando profuit." Even

monkey, 4 and

that

it

was

especially,

and

connected with the Annunciation scene — the very act in which the curse pronounced

the "old Eve," "in dolore paries

vocabis

is still

does of a simple square pier with a cylindrical

rendered twelfth-century console carved into the likeness of a

upon

the an-

two geographical

finial the

"cross-flower."

Diirer

complex

as the

only one buttress, and this

walls are pierced by windows, again symbols of divine illumination.

of

church,

or "sinister" implications — are seen two

however, there

orthodoxically Romanesque, consisting as

Boaz

workman-

less clearly indicative of

the earlier contrast between

is

— and we should remember that the right side

the "right" side whereas the left

which

a

this little

Western and Oriental.

On

there

Yet

imaginary

stylistically different halves, is just as

between Judaism and Christianity than

spheres,

shaft

we have what seems

church, apparently portrayed from

little

Broederlam and the Boucicaut Master; and the new contrast between two

chronological "periods" tithesis

conglomeration of separate units

nomen

eius

Jesum"

—

is

filios," is

attested

converted into the blessing "et paries filium,

by the well-known panel J

33

at

Aix-en-Provence, pro-

EARLY NETHERLANDISH PAINTING duccd about 1443 by

a Flemish-trained

French master, where the monkey appears

ornament surmounting the Virgin's reading desk.

Even the empty niche above the door unborn Saviour, the

a statue of the

XXI,

42,

which was interpreted

we

salvationis

see

two workmen

advent of Christ,

within the context of the Annunciation.

to this concept

2

and

With

angels, the placing of the keystone appears in the Austrian

kreuz of

ca. 1400;

'

waits, so to speak, for

and reminiscent,

I

22,

and Matthew

it

the

Museum

putting this

actually

was very logical to allude

two workmen replaced by

"Annunciation" from Heiligen-

and, somewhat later (though not fully understood by the

in a beautiful tapestry in the Metropolitan in composition

It

Psalm CXVIII,

"keystone" as well as "headstone of the corner." In manu-

as

in place in order to prefigure the

keystone

not without significance.

lapis in caput anguli of

Speculum humanae

scripts of the

is

as a carved

1

illiterate

weaver),

based upon Broederlam's "Annunciation"

think, of the "Paris Apocalypse" in style (text

4 ill.

51).

In only one respect does the "Friedsam Annunciation" depart from the symbolism en-

countered in the Broederlam painting and the Boucicaut miniature, but even here a terpretation

seed;

superimposed upon an old and familiar motif. The

is

wall has crumbled and

its

the entrance of the

little

Church

The "garden

longer be read.

is

to a

in-

run to

overgrown with vegetation; the very steppingstone before so corroded that

is

inclosed"

is

its

apparently pagan inscription can no

thus transformed into a realm of unregenerate nature

surrounding the structure which symbolizes the eras "under

compared

new

/tortus conclusus has

Law" and "under

Grace."

And

world controlled by the blind forces of growth and decay, the shrine of Judaeo-

Christian religion, divided though

schoolmen put

it

is

Old and the

into the

New

Dispensation (or, as the

the spheres of "imperfect" and "perfect" revelation), appears as one in-

it,

destructible edifice.

11

The "Friedsam Annunciation"

Romanesque form which can be observed

interest in

was

to

"taste."

sweep

over Northern painting

all

Owing

architecture,

Northern

teaches us the important fact that the apparently sudden

is

artists

to the familiarity

not exclusively a matter of esthetic preference or

with the East through

of the fourteenth century had

tained a kind of

Now

it

to

of the thirteenth century,

be thought of as something native and Christian

as

we have

which made

when

sketches, the

style,

seen, to be exploited as a this

new symbol

having

at-

had been taken for as

opposed

to

some-

with the gradual emergence of

a direct appeal to optical experience this stylistic contrast

the Synagogue. However, when late,

And

and

of differences between

had been. Previously the Gothic

monopoly from the middle

came

which often shows non-Gothic

travelers' reports

become more conscious

thing foreign and oriental, whether Saracenic or Jewish. a naturalism

time of the van Eycks and which

to the increasing influence of Italian painting

and

architectural styles than their predecessors

granted.

at the

of the old antithesis between the

had begun,

Church and

naturalism had reached the proportion of a basic postu-

everything presented to the eye was put to the

134

test

of verifiability, so to speak, the

REALITY AND SYMBOL vague orientalism of Broederlam's or the Boucicaut Master's circular towers, cupolas and bulbous domes no longer actual

satisfied the

hunger

for reality.

And

was by looking around

it

environment that the fathers of Flemish fifteenth-century painting made the surprising

discovery that the required contrast to the Gothic style could be found right at curately observable Asia.

in their

They came

monuments

to feel that the style of the eleventh

hundreds of buildings

still

in use but entirely ignored

common

in

Land, and they were quite

right. Massively vaulted or

'

solid

and twelfth

known of the architecture in the Holy domed according to "Roman, Byzantine

and gloomy,

yet richer

and more varied

Gerville proposed the terms

"Romanesque" and "Tart Roman'

and

affinity,

than do the Gothic ones.

actually a

in 1819

more intimate connection, with

was quite

It

in the use of materials

— always called "Byzantine" until Messrs. Gunn and de

structures

more

centuries, surviving in

with what was

and ornament, these ancient

— have

in the ac-

by the Northern painters of the thirteenth

and fourteenth, had much

and Saracen methods,"

hand

of the indigenous past instead of in dubious records of distant

justifiable to substitute

and

1823, respectively

Near East

those of the

"Romanesque"

for "Oriental" 2

buildings wherever the contrast between Christianity and Judaism was intended;

even today

synagogues tend to be "Romanesque" and churches tend to be "Gothic."

Thus

Romanesque

the

style,

qua

which had previously been attached and remained limited

style,

came

many cases this significance was level, as when the city of Jerusalem,

to a purely descriptive or historical

Mount Golgotha, is represented as a surging sea when Roger van der Weyden's Presentation of Christ

Romanesque houses and

of

—a

Jewish Temple

— takes

place in a

significance

to orientalistic forms. In

seen from or

same iconographic

to carry the

Romanesque

Jewish

towers,

performed in the

ritual

More

semi-central-plan church.

frequently,

however, the Romanesque forms were employed on a symbolical plane as in the "Friedsam

Annunciation" and

this

is

especially evident in their application to the familiar

theme of the

"symbolic ruin."

To

express the antithesis of Christianity and Judaism (or paganism) by a contrast between

intactness

and ruination was, we remember, not new in the

1325 Jean Pucelle had demonstrated the birth of the of the synagogue

Church St.

is

new

As

early as about

how

the structure

fifteenth century.

order by showing

gradually wrecked so as to furnish building material for the fabric of the

(fig. 11). Similarly, a Cite

de Dieu manuscript of the

early fourteenth century portrays

Augustine holding a model of the undamaged and undamageable City of

hand, and a model of the crumbling and ruined City of the Earth in his

But in these cases no difference in architectural

style

little

of Christ,

doubt that viz.,

it is

symbolic

the world, each of the

— and

or

in

55).

and

intact

new

era)

and the Adoration of the

interpreted as signifying the acceptance of Christianity

Magi representing one

Roman. But

3 ill.

the above instances

of the continents then

known.

whether the ruin in Gentile da Fabriano's "Adoration of the Magi" of 1423

Romanesque

left (text

— came to be introduced into representations of the Infancy

the Nativity (quite literally the birth of a

Magi which was commonly

in his right

had been made between the

the ruined structure. In the fifteenth century the symbolic ruin leave

God

Northern pictures from

135

ca.

It is

4

is

all

over

hard to

tell

supposed to be

1440 the style of these ruined struc-

EARLY NETHERLANDISH PAINTING tures

(among

almost invariably distinctly Romanesque, and this

is

tinguishes the central panel of

Roger van der Weyden's Bladelin

other things)

(fig.

berg Altarpiece (text

man

ill.

— from

dis-

from

its

201), or the "Berlin

Adoration of the Magi" by the Middle Rhenish Master of the Darmstadt Passion influenced by Jan van Eyck

what

altarpiece (fig. 337)

"Dijon Nativity" by the Master of Flemalle

direct prototype, the

is

l

— strongly

that of his regional forerunner, the Master of the Orten-

30). This kind of setting

remained typical of Flemish

Ger-

as well as

renderings of these two scenes until, under the influence of the Italian Renaissance, the

ruins of

Romanesque buildings were replaced by

those of classical temples and triumphal

arches. It

Romanesque

appears, then, that the use of

features for symbolical purposes

general in the formative phase of early Flemish painting. But

and most particularly

in Jan, that

was

it

assumed the character of

it

in the

New

is

Holy

ficing in the to force

him

199), the contrast

(fig.

— or

— which are not, one may say on the same Miracle of the Rod — with the High Priest Abiathar

The

so,

if

2

—

is

staged in a building which by

columns proclaims

itself to

be the

Temple

its

dome,

its

of Jerusalem.

level sacri-

who

circular plan

The

two

rather,

of Holies and the reluctant Joseph feebly struggling against those

to enter

richly decorated

van Eyck brothers,

expressed by two structures

portions of one and the same structure of morphological accuracy.

fairly

a systematic revival. In the

Master of Flemalle's early "Betrothal of the Virgin" in the Prado

between the Old Dispensation and the

was

try

and

its

reception of the

holy couple, on the other hand, takes place at the entrance of a Gothic narthex of which, as yet,

no more than the doorway

Virgin

is,

as

it

exists (a visual indication of the fact that the Betrothal of the

were, a mere preamble to the story of Redemption). Here, as in Broederlam's

"Annunciation," a deliberate contrast has been

And

architecture.

Temple

if it

made between an

has been said that, since the Miracle of the

as does the Betrothal, "there

that

it is

the

new

first

era;

appearance of the Virgin and not of

and

that,

a Christian church) the eastern part of the Jewish spiritual state of the istic

model

that the

New

Law."

St.

same

3

we must remember

Joseph which announced the approach the western and not (as in

it is

Temple which was supposed

However, while the Gothic

of the

new

to "signify the

narthex

is

so natural-

of the structure can be recognized in a transept facade then in course of

erection/' the style of the old sanctuary

is still

a fantastic

round arches alternate with pointed ones and the

smack of the

takes place in the

two buildings"

according to medieval interpretation,

4

Rod

was no obvious reason why, on symbolical grounds, the

painter should have tried to differentiate the style of the

of the

"old" and a "new" type of

mixture of heterogeneous elements:

reliefs in the

spandrels and on the capitals

early fifteenth rather than the twelfth century. Moreover, the Master of Flemalle

does not seem to have developed this kind of architectural symbolism a la Broederlam in his later

works.

It is

significant that the

from Romanesque

"Annunciation" in

features while these

were

altarpiece (fig. 276) which, as pointed out by

his

Merode

introduced into the

M. de Tolnay, seems

Jan van Eyck, however, almost became an archeologist.

He

churches, chapels and palaces; he studied and used the forms of

136

altarpiece (fig. 204)

is

free

"Annunciation" in the Ghent to be

based upon the former.'

learned to recreate

Romanesque

Romanesque

inscriptions

(from

REALITY AND SYMBOL which he revived the "square C," not very frequent virtually absent

from Gothic epigraphy)

which, were they decades.

we can ing

is

1

I

real,

we

after the

and he imagined Romanesque

;

and

reliefs

say, "to recreate"

and "to imagine" because

be shown to portray a particular place.

Meuse

The

valley,

is

it is

only in very exceptional cases that

an actual monument. Even then

a free transformation rather than a literal record,"

and never can

landscape of the "Rolin

a

whole scenery or

Madonna"

setting

244), though

(fig.

3

of the time

artists

occasionally attempt to portray an actual edifice but often grotesquely distorted

proportions while faithfully reproducing

his render-

so imaginative that scholars have identified the

with equal assurance, as Lyons, Maastricht, Liege and Prague. Minor

its

non-essential details.

so thoroughly "replenished his mind by dint of

was able

frescoes

could assign to definite schools and date within the limits of a few

identify one of his architectural details with

doubtless inspired by the

middle of the twelfth century and

much

4

essential

Jan van Eyck, however, had

would

portraying," as Diirer

and ornaments

to design buildings, sculptures, paintings

its

city,

would

whichever

in

say, that

style

he

he desired

without resorting to individual models. Drawing from the "secret treasure of the heart," he

endow with

could

And

the semblance of utter verisimilitude

imaginary

this

reality

was

what was

in fact utterly imaginary.

controlled to the smallest detail by a preconceived symbolical

program.

Throughout the Middle Ages the ambivalent one.

relation

The Synagogue was both

Jews were considered

the

between Judaism and Christianity had been an

enemy and

the ancestress of the Church; the

as blind and wicked in that they did not recognize the Saviour

when he

appeared, yet as clear-sighted and saintly in that the Old Testament announced His coming on every page.

At Bamberg Cathedral we

see, in

one and the same

portal, the Apostles standing

the shoulders of the Prophets, and a personification of the victorious

Church contrasted with an

image of the blindfolded, vanquished Synagogue beneath which the eyes of out by a devil.

a

are being put

Jew

5

was Jan van Eyck who resolved

It

on

this

ambivalent feeling into a sense of continuity and

ultimate harmony. In the "Annunciation" of the

Ghent

altarpiece,

he not only changed the

Master of Flemalle's bourgeois living room into a more resplendent and complex apartment elevated high above the

ground

but also introduced, as

I

(as

though the Virgin were actually in the "tower of chastity")

have mentioned, the

Romanesque forms. But he did not lished a as

seem

complementary relationship to

style

and

typical

the

align these forms one against the other.

He

in that he reserved the Gothic treatment for such features as bearers of a special signifi-

in the little niche

which paint two pools

of light directly behind the

with laver and water basin, which

is

Annunci-

an indoors substitute for the most

of Songs.

6

In Jan van Eyck's "Annunciation" in the National Gallery at Washington is

rather estab-

symbols of the Virgin's purity, the "fountain of gardens" and "well of living waters" of

Song

scene

and

appears only in the tracery of the two outside windows, the one on the

right admitting the rays of the sun ate;

familiar contrast between Gothic

have been added to an essentially Romanesque interior

The Gothic

cance.

now

laid, for the first

time in panel painting, in the interior of a church. By

137

its

(fig.

238) the

twin columns

EARLY NETHERLANDISH PAINTING this

church suggests the nave of Sens or the choir of Canterbury (which Jan van Eyck during

visited

his stay in

England

in 1428) while

its

square-headed triforium

Tournai Cathedral. Yet we are faced with an imaginary structure. have been

built

from top

Romanesque

Early a little

— in the clerestory with

more advanced

arcades alike

bottom instead of from bottom

to

in the triforium,

show pointed

consistent but profound.

its flat

arches. Empirically, this

The

self-explication of the Trinity

is

window LXVI,

which marks the

in the clerestory,

1,

odd. Symbolically, however,

transition

— even

it is

not only

from the Jewish

windows

in the

to the Christian era,

lower zone. The round-

however, shows the image of the Lord Sabaoth of the Old feet

upon

the earth according

and surmounted by cherubim, four-winged and standing on wheels according

This Godhead, triune in essence but not

to Ezekiel X.

Romanesque

zone where windows and

in the lower

Testament, nimbed with a simple, not cruciform, halo, resting His to Isaiah

seems to

this structure is

picture illustrates, in architectural terms, the self-revelation and

the Trinity being, again, signified by the three Gothic

arched

reminiscent of

and simple, round-arched windows,

ceiling

and early Gothic

And

to top. It

is

may have

and

explicit Trinity in the act of the Incarnation,

as yet in existence, unfolds Itself as the

this act

is

conceived as an emanation proceed-

ing from above to below (both in the Washington picture and the Ghent altarpiece the Annunciate's answer to the angelic salutation

can read

it).

And

descends, the

written upside

down

so that

God

His Heaven

in

downward path of the ray divine on which the Dove of the Holy Spirit downward path from Triune God to Trinity, is mirrored in a downward transithe

from one window

to three and, at the

This basic concept

is

tion

is

same time, from Romanesque

commented upon,

as

to Gothic.

were, in the murals on either side of the Lord

it

— murals apparently of about 1200 and very similar in to specimens recently uncovered in Tournai — and in the would of the pavement which, did they in Sabaoth

style

have

to be

dated somewhat later

Dispensation and the

New,

239). Instead of emphasizing the contrast between the

(fig.

this decoration stresses their continuity.

finding of Moses, prefiguring the reception of Christ by the

Giving of the Ten

Commandments

represent, in chronological order,

Samson Slaying

The murals

community

prefiguring the giving of the

of the faithful,

New

Old

represent the

Covenant.

and the

The

nielli

the Philistines (prefiguring the triumph of

Samson and Delilah (prefiguring

Christ over sin),

reality,

exist

nielli

the

Entombment),

the

Death of Samson

(prefiguring the Crucifixion), and the Victory of David over Goliath (prefiguring Christ's victory over the Devil).

The roundels

that

mark

the intersections of the bands enframing these

scenes exhibit the Signs of the Zodiac,

which proclaim,

cathedrals and abbey churches, that the

King

universe. But the special message.

inferred

do

in the facades of so

many

of kings rules the physical as well as the spiritual

arrangement of these roundels

As can be

as they

from those

is

so unusual that they

seem

to

convey a more

that are exposed to view, the Signs are not ar-

rayed in their customary sequence but in parallel rows running from back to front as also do the

Samson and David

of the Virgin with

astrology had

come

scenes.

As

a result, the position of the

whom Our Lady to interpenetrate

had been

Annunciate coincides with the Sign

identified ever since Hellenistic

with Christian

beliefs.

Assuming

that the

and Arabic

first

occupied a separate row, the Angel would kneel upon the Ram, the sign of March

138

two Signs

when

the

REALITY AND SYMBOL Annunciation took place (March 25), and near the right-hand margin of the picture there appears, next to the 1,

lilies

and the

and many other passages

New

are thus

this

symbolism

is

Romanesque was appropriate not only

is,

Judaism

opposed

as

thus, by implication, to the life in

way

his

so to speak,

works of Jan

of thinking, the

Jerusalem — and thus, by implica-

to the old, terrestrial

to Christianity

To

— but also to the New, or "Heavenly,"

Heaven

as

1

between the Old and

to visualize the antithesis

projected into the future.

LXI,

December and Christmas.

expresses a reconciliation of the present with the past. In other

it

van Eyck, however,

and

employed

to Isaiah

Dispensation, the eras "under law" and "under grace," their symbolism

retrospective;

tion, to

(which may or may not be an allusion

in Scripture), the Capricorn, the sign of

Where Romanesque forms the

footstool

opposed to the

life

on

Jerusalem

earth.

In the dedication page of the "Brussels Hours," the "Wilton Diptych," Claus Sluter's portal of the Chartreuse de

been granted an

way

mitted, by

Champmol, and many funerary monuments, the donor, we recall, had equal to that of the Madonna and the Saints. He had been ad-

artistic status

of anticipation, to the state of ultimate

But

bliss.

this

had been possible only

because the scene was laid in a superterrestrial environment, the figures being ideal

background often

explicitly characterised as

van Eyck's naturalism demanded

set

"Heaven" by an abundance and

an apparently real architectural setting,

out against an of angels. Jan

was

it

for this

reason that this setting had to be an architecture manifestly different from normal experience

— an architecture visibly anticipating the "Heavenly Jerusalem." Therefore, wherever a picture by Jan van Eyck represents a donor admitted to the presence of the Deity and thus proleptically attaining the state of

with marble

ornaments

floors,

"them which

are saved," the setting

is

not only exceedingly sumptuous,

columns of jasper and porphyry, rich furnishings and the profusion of

XXI, XXII, but

as described in Revelation

also invariably

further to distinguish this quasi-celestial architecture, Jan van the

Romanesque ensemble with Gothic elements and even

gestive of

pagan

antiquity.

He

wished

Romanesque.

Eyck was

And

in order

careful to intersperse

liked to include

some

to express the ultimate absorption of the

features sug-

whole present

and the whole past in the fulfillment of the Last Days.

The most conspicuous example 244) presented to

Autun Cathedral by

Good. Here, where

Madonna without this

throne

room

a

human

left,

story of

of Nicholas Rolin" (fig.

the mighty and unscrupulous Chancellor of Philip the

not of this earth. in the center

it

The

was doubly imperative

and abounding in

show Gothic

runs through the

The

tracery,

to designate

beautiful garden seen through a triad

and the Garden of Paradise. The

as crystal" that

generally Romanesque.

of the tripartite arcade,

the

lilies

the /tortus conclusus

is

"Madonna

being has gained admission to the elevated throne room of the

as part of a palace

"pure river of water, clear the architecture

the

is

the benefit of a canonized sponsor,

of openings, with a cluster of

mind both

of this kind

roses

and

glittering

New

irises,

Meuse

Jerusalem.

And

brings to

suggests the the style of

bases of the columns, as well as the spandrels

and the scenes on the

historiated capitals are,

on

examples of sin taken from the Old Testament (the Expulsion from Paradise, the

Cain and Abel, and the Drunkeness of Noah) and, on the

taken from

Roman

history, viz., the Justice of Trajan.

139

2

right,

an example of virtue

EARLY NETHERLANDISH PAINTING In the Dresden triptych, too, the architecture and the stained glass in the clerestory

windows

— again

number —

three in

are

Romanesque

(figs.

240-242). But the bases of the

columns, the blind arcades beneath the windows of the lower storey and the Apostle statues

And

with their consoles and crocketed canopies are Gothic.

here the Expulsion from Paradise

and the Sacrifice of Isaac, displayed on the capitals of the right-hand pier, are contrasted with

Roman

soldiers

on the opposite

hunt which, on the capital in the

lion

more

side and, even

surprisingly, with an almost classicistic

surmounts the figures of

left shutter,

St.

Michael and the

donor. In the

"Madonna

248). But again

(fig.

and

statuettes

little

Biblical incident(

on the

other.

of the

Canon van der

Paele," finally,

upon such Romanesque models

general way,

we

as St.

find Gothic quatrefoils

niches in

principals.

its

on the

And

we have

a setting patterned, in a

Benigne-de-Dijon or Neuvy-St.-Sepulcre

and Gothic

steps of the Virgin's throne

once more the capitals of the piers exhibit a

Abraham and Melchizedek), on

the one side, and a classical hunting scene

1

in

The

use of such apparently naturalistic artifacts as Gothic windows,

hunting

classical

and monkey-shaped consoles

reliefs

bears witness to a type of symbolism virtually

perspective

and non-naturalistic

employ symbols without regard

art,

Romanesque columns,

for purposes of allegorical signification

unknown

High Middle Ages.

to the

A

non-

not recognizing either unity of space or unity of time, can

for empirical probability or even possibility. In

High Medieval

representations, personages of the remote past or the distant future could share the stage of

time

—

or, rather, timelessness

— with characters of the present. Objects accepted

and plainly

recognizable as symbols could mingle with real buildings, plants or implements on the same level of reality

—

or, rather, non-reality.

In the "Crucifixion" of the beautiful Psalter of Yolande de Soissons of for instance,

2

ca. 1275, (fig. 1),

there are assembled beneath the Cross, not only the Virgin Mary,

St.

John and

the Centurion, but also such witnesses to the divinity of Christ as could not have been present

on Mount Golgotha: Moses, the prophet Balaam and Caiaphas, who owes illustrious

company

"unconscious prophecy" in John XI,

to his

should die for the people and the whole nation perish not." In

words according

to

Luke

II,

35,

tree of Life, the Cross

foliated tree,

and on

her young with her of things real

its

top

own

is

is

"one

man

of Simeon's

literal illustration

depicted as a hybrid of artifact and twelve-branched, richly

seen the familiar symbol of Christ's sacrifice, the pelican nursing

blood.

We

can easily see that such a blend of present, past and future,

and things symbolic, proved to be

we remember,

says,

to bring out the identity of the Cross

less

and

with the introduction of perspective, had begun to commit of perspective,

where he

("Yea, a sword shall pierce through thy soul also") a huge

sword protrudes from the bosom of Our Lady. In order with the

50,

his inclusion in this

less

compatible with a

itself to

implies that the painting surface

140

is

naturalism.

style

The

which,

application

understood as a "window"

REALITY AND SYMBOL through which we look out into a section of space. than that pictorial space

less

is

If

taken seriously, this means no more nor

subject to the rules that govern empirical space, that there

must be no obvious contradiction between what we do

— excepting, of

in reality

see in a picture

and what we might

see

Roger

course, the symbolic representation of spiritual events as in

van der Weyden's "Seven Sacraments" and those supernatural phenomena which defy the laws of nature by definition as

On

the case with angels, devils, visions, and miracles.

is

the other hand, the world of art could not at once

meaning. There could be no direct transition from

which

that

"instructs, arouses pious

a picture as

"un coin de

new

reconcile the resulted in

la

St.

become

a

world of things devoid of

Bonaventure's definition of a picture as

emotions and awakens memories"

nature vu a travers un temperament."

A

1

to Zola's definition of

way had

to be

found to

naturalism with a thousand years of Christian tradition; and this attempt

what may be termed concealed or disguised symbolism

opposed to open or obvi-

as

ous symbolism.

When

the illuminator of ca. 1275 wished to represent the Prophets of the

as witnesses to the Crucifixion,

and

suitable attributes

scrolls;

Annunciation he had real tempietto.

Pelican in

When

Her

56)."'

sent

little

When its

when Broederlam wished

to introduce

them under

when

brass

draw

Her

Piety

on top

Flemish

both a

is

ill.

as a

when

a sword;

wished to allude to the same prophecy, he showed

tradition,

in the happiness of her

motherhood, overshadowed by a big

iris

the ancient

name

3

invention of the great Flemings, nor does

its

is,

however, not a

new

application begin with Melchior Broederlam.

concomitant of the perspective interpretation of space, in the Italian Trecento.

In Giotto's "Dance of Salome" in Santa Croce the roof of Herod's palace of pagan divinities interconnected by classicistic garlands.

among

implications of the locale in Duccio's "Christ idols.

5

on the other hand,

The temple is

in

Ambrogio

4

is

Similarly the

topped with statues evil,

anti-Christian

the Doctors" are indicated by four

Lorenzetti's "Presentation" of 1342 (text,

armed ill

16),

adorned with statues of Moses, Joshua and angels, and his "Martyrdom

of the Franciscan Missionaries to of

what

real throne (text.

showing the Mater Dolorosa, her heart transfixed by

principle of disguising symbols under the cloak of real things

and winged

of

the illuminator of ca. 1275 wished to allude to Simeon's prophecy he could repre-

Madonna

emerged,

as witnesses to the

Jan van Eyck wished to do likewise he had to introduce her under the

of which was gladiolus, or "sword-lily."

It

a Pelican in

group surmounting the armrest of an apparently

fulfillment by

The

them

to represent

the guise of statues attached to an apparently

the illuminator of ca. 1275 wished to evoke the ideas associated with the

Diirer, reverent heir to the

the

he simply placed them beneath the Cross and identified them by

Piety he could simply

Cross and a tree; guise of a

Old Testament

Morocco"

is

which opposes Minerva, Mars and Venus

staged in a kind of loggia the crowning statuary

to their Christian counterparts, Justice, Fortitude,

and Temperance. This, however,

Northern is

was a mere beginning, and the further development did take place

art to reach its

in

climax in the great Flemings. In the Trecento, the disguise of symbols

not too difficult to penetrate; they are

all statues

141

or reliefs having a definite and easily recog-

EARLY NETHERLANDISH PAINTING nizablc iconographic significance. In Early Flemish painting, on the other hand, the

man-made

disguised symbolism was applied to each and every object,

or natural.

method

of

was em-

It

ployed as a general principle instead of only occasionally just as was the case with the method

two methods were genuine

of naturalism. In fact, these rejoiced in the discovery

and reproduction of the

feel the

need

to saturate all of

express

new

subtleties

they explore

new

and

the painters

world, the more intensely did they

visible

elements with meaning. Conversely, the harder they strove to

and complexities of thought and imagination, the more eagerly did

areas of reality.

In the end, the allegories";

its

The more

correlates.

it

whole universe "shone"

as

Suger would

say,

"with the radiance of delightful

has justly been said of the "Annunciation" in the Merode altarpiece that

God, no longer present

as a visible figure,

seems to be diffused in

all

the visible objects.

1

The

naturalism of the Master of Flemalle and his fellow painters was not as yet wholly secular.

was

rooted in the conviction that physical objects are, to quote

still

(Summa T heologiae,

I,

qu.

art. 9, c),

I,

sub metaphoris corporalium)

and

;

it

It

Thomas Aquinas

St.

"corporeal metaphors of things spiritual" {spiritualia

was not

until

much, much

later that this conviction

was

rejected or forgotten.

Needless to say, so

total a sanctification of the visible

world confronts the modern beholder

— including the art historian — with a serious problem.

If

every ordinary plant, architectural

detail,

implement, or piece of furniture could be conceived

meant

to

convey a symbolical idea could appear

ments, or pieces of furniture: figuration of nature ends

how

and

Her

Piety even

ordinary plants, architectural

to decide

and where the Pelican

statue,

And where

upon

so

little

in

details,

impletrans-

Prophet remains

a

Her

a

Piety remains the

was not

the principle of disguised symbolism

veloped to perfection, the very awkwardness of the result is

forms

though converted into the knob of an armrest, there can be no doubt

as to the artist's intention.

There

all

where the general, "metaphorical"

symbolism begins? Where

actual, specific

Prophet even though converted into a Pelican in

we

are

as

metaphor, so that

as a

may

help to give us some assurance.

windows perched

practical or "esthetic" justification for those three tracery

them

as a

so obvious an improbability in the combination of temple

and

a cornice in Broederlam's "Annunciation" that

Trinitarian symbol. There

is

we

as yet de-

are simply forced to accept

narthex in the Master of Flemalle's "Betrothal of the Virgin" that

we cannot

help interpreting

this contrast as indicative of a deliberate antithesis.

In the same its

table,

tions

and

we

if

artist's

we

Merode

did not

know

however, the pot of

altarpiece, its

many

view of these

retained

significance as a

its

parallels,

symbol of

we

is,

tempered,

I

if

am

afraid,

chastity; but

possible,

by

no other answer

common

significance of a given motif

is

sense.

to this

We

it

is

more than

a nice

are safe in assuming that the pot of

we have no way

the other objects in the picture, also looking like nice

There

perfectly at ease

upon

symbolical implications from hundreds of other Annuncia-

could not possibly infer from this one picture that

feature. In

lilies is

still-life

of

features,

knowing

may

problem than the use of

to

still-life

lilies

has

what extent

be symbols as well. historical

methods

have to ask ourselves whether or not the symbolical

a matter of established representational tradition (as

142

is

the case

REALITY AND SYMBOL with the

lilies)

whether or not a symbolical interpretation can be

;

justified

by definite

or agrees with ideas demonstrably alive in the period and presumably familiar to is

the case with

New

;

historical position

its artists

(as

those symbols revolving around the relationship between the Old and the

all

Testament)

texts

and

to

what extent such

a symbolical interpretation

is

keeping with the

in

and personal tendencies of the individual master.

In the case of the

Merode

example,

altarpiece, for

the objects other than the pot of

lilies

it is

not easy to determine just which of

— and, of course, the pious books on the Virgin's table —

carry a determinable meaning. Several of

them recur

in an analogous context in other works,

both by the Master himself and by others, and can thus be shown to conform to an established

The

tradition.

and basin have already been mentioned

laver

as

an indoors substitute for the

"fountain of gardens" and "well of living waters," one of the most frequent symbols of the Virgin's purity.

described in

I

The

lions

Kings X,

on the armrests of her bench bring

18

ff.,

and on the other upon the

And

with

its

six steps,"

two

was

also a familiar

Throne of Solomon

and twelve "on the one

which

signifies

side 1

Madonna as Sedes Sapientiae. Christ much as a mother does her

symbol of Our Lady:

Ipsa

features,

the

time-honored simile of the

enim

candelabrum

est

Christus, Mariae

Other

mind

lions "beside the stays"

the candlestick, supporting the candle

child,

to

however, such

filius, est

et

ipsa

est

lucerna

.

.

.

candela accensa. 2

as the fireplace

with

its

screen and the

two wall brackets

(one holding another candle and the other empty), do not so readily lend themselves to a symbolical interpretation, and the Marian symbolism of the candle

by another idea akin

to St. Bridget's notion of physical illumination

by the radiance of the Light Divine:

smoke,

at the

With

3

the Master of Flemalle, then, the principle of disguised symbolism has not as yet

And,

as

he was apt

"Madonna

vious symbolism of an earlier period. In the tion at Brussels (fig. 226)

— the is

Virgin Mary

seen a

bunch

environment; and celestial

"reduced to nothingness"

approach of the angel.

with objects apparently devoid of meaning, so would he

bench

seems to be superseded

the candle on the table has gone out, emitting a wisp of

crystallized into a perfectly consistent system.

copy

itself

at

of

4

— which,

is

though not an

to intermix disguised

at times relapse into the

symbols

open or ob-

of Humility" in the G. Muller Collec-

original, can be accepted as a faithful

placed in a naturalistically rendered garden. But on the grassy

lilies

in an elaborate vase entirely out of tune with the campestral

her feet there

is

a crescent

— a tangible, man-made object rather than a

body, a planted symbol rather than a disguised one.

The Master

of Flemalle's reality,

not as yet completely stabilized and coherent, with tables threatening to tip over, benches ex-

tended to incredible length, interiors

still

combined with

exterior views, could not absorb

symbolical content so completely that there remained no residue of either objectivity without significance or significance without disguise. It

was

in the art of Jan

van Eyck that

this residue

was eliminated. In

the significant objects neither compete with non-significant ones nor

M3

his compositions

do they ever

step before

EARLY NETHERLANDISH PAINTING Madonna"

the footlights. In the "Ince Hall candlestick, a ewer, "still-life features,"

window

intact, suggests it

by

and these are more rather than clear glass illumined

known

to Jan

specifically,

brings to

it

lost

mind

sunbeam through the

the

'

its

we have

a

objects that look like

on the

three pieces of fruit

fruit, beautifully fresh

and

Man

but

through the Fall of

was one of the

the transparent carafe

van Eyck, because he quoted As

two other

by the sun. The

"new Eve." And

were, through Mary, the

243), for instance,

less significant:

gaudia Paradisi

this very intactness the

most frequent Marian symbols; demonstrably

(fig.

a basin. Besides these, there are only

and a carafe of

sill,

regained, as

and

Melbourne

in

a stanza

from

beginning

hymn

a Nativity

another picture:

in

glass

Passeth but not breaketh,

So the Virgin, Virgin

Precisely the

same motifs

— candlestick,

"Lucca Madonna" in Frankfort

(fig.

the armrests of the Virgin's throne.

Madonna the ewer

an outdoor

in

and

basin.

of polished brass,

as she was,

remaineth. 2

still

glass

carafe

— recur

a

setting, throws, as

later

still

panel in Antwerp

(fig.

lions

on

255), Jan's only

were, a retrospective light upon the meaning of

it

These shining objects are here replaced by an exquisite

which

the later

in

augmented only by the now familiar four

252),

And

and

basin, fruit

little

fountain, also

represents, quite literally, the "fountain of gardens."

IV

In Jan van Eyck, then,

way,

all reality is

all

meaning has assumed

saturated with meaning,

detailed analysis of one of his loveliest in the Kaiser Friedrich

No cast

Museum

and

and

I

best

the shape of reality; or, to put

it

the other

shall devote the rest of this chapter to a

known

pictures, the

"Madonna

more

Church"

in a

at Berlin (figs. 236, 237).

donor or other mortal being present, the scene

is

Gothic

laid in a basilica of purely

— though even here a subtle difference suggestive of growth and internal development has

been made between the arcades and triforium of the nave, which show the sturdy, of the thirteenth century, and the chevet,

period

which would be about is

explicitly expressed

a

more

fibrous forms of the vaulting system

hundred years

by the

fact that

of the nave so that the vault of the crossing

is

later; that the chevet dates

its

and the whole

from

which we find

a

more

recent

triforium and clerestory are raised above those

hidden from view by the much lower nave vaults

and we receive the impression of a sanctum sanctorum, miraculously opening up the nave in

plastic style

at the

ourselves. All observers praise the painter's stupendous

suggesting, in a picture "ain't twice the size of a postal card," as Mr. vastness of a light-pervaded cathedral; the profusion telling characterization of all sorts of materials;

Rumbin would

and precision of

end of

power

in

say, the

glittering detail; the

and the superb harmony of the composition.

The soaring chevet enhances the Virgin's head with an architectural crown surmounting the real one; the

luminary accents concentrated on the

144

left

are balanced by

two

spots of sunlight

REALITY AND SYMBOL upon the

cast

floor

on the

right;

and a near

identical pattern of majestic verticals

and graceful

curves appears, in reversed symmetry, both in the Virgin's drapery and in the shafts and vaultribs of the architecture.

However, some

critics

have taken exception to one thing, the "disproportion" that

exists

1

They

between the dimensions of the Madonna and those of the architectural environment. that the figure of the Virgin

feel

by the

much

is

too large in relation to the edifice and are inclined

immaturity.

"Madonna

to

account for

is

probably the earliest of Jan van Eyck's uncontested panel paintings. But even

this flaw

artist's

It is

true that the

in a

Church"

so, it is

the

who had already served great princes work of an accomplished master — a man in his — surprising to encounter would be such an obvious miscalculation in and for several years thirties

it

a picture so astonishingly progressive in perspective

portioning of

all

sional relations

between

incidental figures

church"

as "the

real structure, as

so meticulously accurate in the pro-

master capable of establishing perfectly correct dimen-

scale.

In

size of the

Madonna

Virgin Mary as

The Church";

human form

an embodiment in

not so

much

same

of the

so unreasonably

had

much "a Virgin Mary human being, scaled to a

not so

reality, his picture represents,

expressed, in architectural terms, in the basilica enshrining her. spite of its

windows, furnishings, and

bases, shafts, capitals, colonnettes, arcades,

would hardly have increased the

he intended to draw her to in a

A

the other features.

and

a

spiritual force or entity that is

And

in

doing

so, it follows, in

apparent naturalism, an age-old tradition both in idea and in form.

Ever since the Song of Songs had been interpreted as an allegory by the Fathers, the

Bridegroom was

identified

mystically equated with

with Christ, and the Bride with the Church,

Our Lady. "Everything

Autun whose commentary upon

the

that

is

said of the

who

in turn

was

Church," writes Honorius of

Song of Songs enjoyed unparalleled

authority, "can also

be understood as being said of the Virgin herself, the bride and mother of the Bridegroom."

And

the composition which

we know

as the

Coronation of the Virgin

showing the Sponsus in loving union with the Sponsa. In order to lend

artistic

is

rooted in miniatures

2

expression to this mysterious and many-leveled identity of Virgin 3

and Mother, Mother and Daughter, Daughter and Bride, Queen of Heaven and Church on Earth, an image had been devised as

The Church." The

as a spiritual entity,

figure of the

Mother of God, who

at the

form and abbreviated

same time

in

Mary

in a church

personifies the

and

Church

was meant

to suggest a

ecclesiastical building.

any doubt

as to its

meaning,

is

we

find an

image of

this

kind which,

explained by the following text: "The queen seated

within the sacred edifice (in templo) signifies the Church that

And

Virgin

in structural detail,

In Herrad of Landsberg's Hortus deliciarum of 1181 to dispel

as "the

was framed by an aedicula or tabernacle which, however much diminished

in scale, conventionalized in

complete

which may be described

some other High Medieval miniatures

is

called the Virgin Mother."

this identification

*

assumed such a degree of

concreteness that the figure of the Virgin Mary — with or without the Infant Jesus — could be inscribed with the

name

of an individual church or ecclesiastical community. Between SS.

Ludger and Benedict, there appears

a

Madonna and Child 145

inscribed with the

word "Werthina,"

EARLY NETHERLANDISH PAINTING Westphalian Abbey of Werden where

and thereby

identified with the

produced

the eleventh century (text

—

54).

ill.

'

Receiving

designated as "Spira," the Cathedral of Speyer.

is

manuscript was

from Emperor Henry

gifts

— here, as also in the Hortus deliciarum, without

Agnes, the Virgin Mary

his wife

Jesus

ill

this

2

And how

III

and

the Infant

unquestioningly the

schematized aedicula enclosing the principal figure in such representations

was accepted

as the

abbreviated image of an actual church can be inferred, not only from the inscription in the

Hortus deliciarum, which the fact that the aedicula

ill.

temporary cathedral, repeating

it

as

from open

the change

as a

templum but

also

enframing the well-known early thirteenth-century Madonna

northern transept of Reims (text

With

framing device

explicitly identifies the

52) was fashioned

in the

into the diminutive likeness of a con3

does the architectural system of Chartres.

to disguised

from

—

symbolism these conventionalized aediculae

thus far accepted, so to speak, as hieroglyphs and perpetuated through countless late medieval

book illuminations and

paintings, sculptures,

into apparently real ecclesiastical structures. signify reveal, still

"The Church," and

the

more

But these apparently

new

it

outside chapel or oratory, projecting

does

than

less

However, the painter intended

six feet)

were

little it

call

5

Church. Small though

it is

by empirical standards,

the entire doctrine of redemption. of Christ

to

"Madonna

in a

Church"

his

It is

from

a brick wall

and opening onto

chapel or oratory would be ridiculously

framework

— and yet

an outside chapel, an oratory or a plain niche,

it

had they

supposed to be in scale with the Madonna.

to retain, within the

ditional preponderance of the figure over her shrine

we

clearly

Roger van der Weyden, elaborated the conventional aedicula

a lawn (fig. 306). Realistically interpreted, this

small (clearing as

more

continued to

real structures.

great competitor for immortality, little

naturally converted

real structures

devices skillfully invented, that they

In a painting nearly contemporaneous with Jan van Eyck's

into an exquisite

— were

naturalistic they looked the

by ancient devices, deliberately retained and

meant more than

4

liturgical objects

of a naturalistic style, the tra-

to designate this shrine,

whether

symbolic representation of the

as a

this little structure

adorned with statues and

reliefs

sums up

in

its

imagery

showing the ancestors

and the Prophets of the Old Testament; the Infancy from the Annunciation

to the

Adoration of the Magi; the Resurrection and Pentecost; and, surmounting a "cross-flower," the Coronation of the Virgin. of

which has

by

its

just

On

the side, moreover, grows an

iris,

the passional significance

been mentioned; and on the other a columbine (called ancolie in French and

name and purple

color held to be the flower of melancholy

and sorrow), accepted symbol

of the Sorrows of the Virgin.

Jan van Eyck, more deeply absorbed than Roger in problems of space and light, and

more deeply

with

in love

infinite variety,

of accepting the traditional

forming

this aedicula into a

logical imagery, he

necessary to stress

proportion

scheme of

it

more than

— between

Madonna ensconced

symbol of the Church by

expanded

its

a

decided upon an entirely different solution. Instead

into a

in a small aedicula

naturalistic elaboration

whole cathedral. But

just for this

and

and

rich typo-

reason he found

natural significance by retaining the old proportion

the figure and

its

— or

architectural surroundings. His cathedral, too,

146

trans-

is

it

dis-

not

REALITY AND SYMBOL a

church but

typifies the

Church.

He

gives us, like Roger, the

whole doctrinal system

Madonna

guise of an individual building. In the jube are seen, besides a statue of the the prophets of the

Old Testament, the Annunciation, the Coronation

towering over everything, the Crucifixion. lighted cession

on her

altar, is celebrated

not by

The Missa Beatac Manae

human

of the Virgin and,

Virginis with candles

beings but by angels, and the idea of inter-

expressed by the statue of a saint significantly placed above the transept door that

is

connects the Church with the outside world. But

had he not preserved the dominant

clear

in the herself,

would not have made

all this

scale of the principal figure.

The

meaning

Jan's

very genius of the

Church, the Virgin Mary — both mistress and personification of the edifice — seems to sweep towards us like a gigantic vision.

The

"disproportion" between the figure and the architecture, then,

maturity.

It is,

on the contrary,

a symbol: a deviation

within the framework of a naturalistic

of sunlight

is

found

— especially of

no further discussion

hymn

which,

As

the

at the

sunbeam through

seems to have escaped notice, however, that in also,

though

its

this

light.

a metaphysical idea.

The

windows

original frame

beginning of the

Passeth but not breaketh

naturalism — as

of the fact that this wealth of

symbolical import

— has

so often

fifth,

was inscribed with the

contains the lines:

the glass, .

.

.*

painting by a master so renowned for his

Madonna

conspicuously, in his two other renderings of the

less

been

necessary. Moreover, Millard Meiss has

is

and pointed out that

deliberately retained

dominated by

remarkable treatment of the

in the

recently analyzed Jan's picture

It

is

sunlight streaming through Gothic

stressed in this chapter that

second stanza of the very

makes us aware

and reconstructed,

physical detail, so carefully observed Positive proof of this

style,

from nature which,

not a sign of im-

is

in an ecclesiastical setting, the "Madonna van der Paele" and the Dresden triptych — the sun

shines

from the North.

There

is

in all

Christendom no Gothic church having

radiating chapels that

would

face the

the most observant of painters — and

would be almost

sacrilege to accuse

West and not

him

ecclesiastical customs. If

had

doing

by him

so.

And

this

the East.

mistake in

reason

is,

as the light of day.

and the

— so strong

this illumination

from

left.

The

it

And

the

would take precedence

— was

the positive

ray of divine illumination must

his or her right;

and such

ample, in Jan van Eyck's "Annunciation" in Washington, where a distinction

M7

this light,

laws of symbolism.

that, in case of conflict,

2

which illumines

With Jan van Eyck

to the

other symbolical implications, especially that of North and South

with

it

simply, that the light he depicted was not intended

nature of the right and the negative nature of the strike the person blessed

scale,

he decided to reverse the laws of nature, he must have

God, the Light Divine disguised

strongest of these symbolical laws

with

hazardous to accuse

of a mistake as to the simplest law of nature

though independent of the laws of astronomy, was subject

all

if it is

to be the light of nature but the supernatural or "superessential" light

the City of

over

And

also one of the most erudite — of a

most familiar of a reason for

a fullfledged cathedral choir

is

is

the case, for ex-

made between

EARLY NETHERLANDISH PAINTING the ray divine that

comes from the Virgin's right and the natural

light that

comes from her

left.

In the is

meant

"Madonna

in a

had

to

no such

is

to look, like the natural light of the sun.

natural light to operate, as it

Church" there

come from

distinction.

There

is

only what looks, and

But Jan van Eyck wanted

this

were, as a supernatural radiance emanating from God. Therefore,

it

And

the Virgin's right.

comes conspicuously from the North

anybody believe

lest

this to be

an accident,

— conspicuously because he chose to represent beam

occurrence even with him, as a sharply-defined

fifty-first

degree of latitude

at full

it,

it

also

a rare

pavement with patches of

that paints the

— standing as high in the firmament as would noon — cannot be doubted for a moment. By this very

brightness so that the position of the sun the

apparently

at

it

defiance of the laws of astronomy the apparently natural light reveals

its

truly supernatural

character.

This interpretation

may seem

On

has given us an unmistakable hint. is

embroidered and partly

which recurs to

in the

come from

Ghent

the North:

is

visible the favorite Mariological text of the

altarpiece 2

"Haec

!

and

dom

of

Wisdom

also in

est speciosior sole,

enim

est

super

it

lucis aeternae,

found before

mirror of God's majesty." Here is

it.

it is

likened

is

She

is

compared

"After

cometh

this

is

a text

seems

stellarum dispositionem. sine

macula Dei

dioceses.

3

Taken from

the

stars.

Mary]

is

more

beautiful

Being compared with the

many words

that the radiance of the light to

not only more brilliant than the sun but also independent

omnem

stellarum dispositionem)] and that

to the light of day. For, as the text continues (VII, 30

night, but against

from one end [of the world] be of a light that

light

the brightness of eternal light, and the flawless

said in so

of the natural order of the universe {super

superior as

which the

speculum

in the Virgin

than the sun and above the whole order {dispositio) of the

which Divine Wisdom

in

reads in translation as follows: "It [meaning: Divine Wis-

Church and embodied

as diffused in the Universal

is

omnem

North French and Lower Rhenish

VII, 29 and 26,

[natural] light, she

van Eyck brothers,

two other Madonnas

the Little Chapter for Lauds on the Feast of the Assumption according

to the use of several Flemish,

Book

beholder, but the painter himself

the border of the Virgin's magnificent red robe there

Luci comparata invenitur prior. Candor majestatis." This text

modern

farfetched to the

and VIII,

it is

1):

Wisdom doth not prevail; she reacheth mightily What more convincing pictorial image could there evil

to the other."

above the order of the physical universe, that illumines a day not followed

by night, and that "reacheth from one end of the world to the other," than a sun which shines

from the North and thereby proclaims that

it

can never go

148

down ?

VI

"ARS NOVA"; THE MASTER OF FLEMALLE VV

ith the disaster of Agincourt in 1415, the death of the

the withdrawal of Philip the

come

into

Good

to Flanders, the stage

was

set for

Due de Berry

in 1416

and

Early Flemish painting to

own.

its

Except for such apparently infrequent cases as that of Melchior Broederlam, the most progressive and talented artists of Netherlandish birth

had hitherto been lured

of the great illuminators in Paris or into the service of the French princes.

no longer went

mountain; the mountain had come

to the

employment abroad, the men in

into the orbit

Now

the prophets

to the prophets. Instead of seeking

of genius had every reason to stay in their

homeland and

settle

one of the Flemish emporia where they could enjoy, along with the favors of the Burgundian

Court and

smaller rivals or

its

satellites,

the patronage of the wealthiest

and most cosmopolitan

society in Europe.

Both Jan van Eyck and Roger van der

and wealthy craftsmen

as well as the

Duke

Weyden

of

served bankers, merchants, ecclesiastics

Burgundy and

great artists were not as yet enrolled with local guilds, such others

who

lived

upper middle This

and died

as

from feudal Bourges and Dijon

other.

The

than with persons,

when we

as

Antwerp, or Haarlem. But

made

case with nearly all the

possible, the

to the bourgeois centers of

on the one hand, and

to national consolida-

very fact that even the greatest of painters were identified with estab-

communities and subjected themselves

the formation of local "schools"

or

while these two

master painters in the various towns and mostly worked for an

shift of artistic activity

on the

lished

was the

And

class clientele.

the Netherlands was conducive to local diversity, tion,

his nobles.

which we

to the rules of a strict guild system facilitated

are

still

accustomed

to

connect with places rather

speak of the schools of Tournai, Bruges, or Ghent, of Brussels,

at the

same time the end

of large-scale emigration to France caused,

reunion and self-assertion of those indigenous forces which had been alien-

ated and scattered for

more than

a century. Jean

Bondol and Andre Beauneveu, Jacquemart de

Hesdin and the Boucicaut Master, Jean Malouel and the Limbourg brothers

—

all

these illustri-

ous Franco-Flemings had been expatriates. Their efforts had been swallowed up by the International Style,

and those

provincialism.

who had

stayed in the

Now, with what may

Lowlands had

rarely risen above the level of

be called the repatriation of the Flemish genius, the

149

"

EARLY NETHERLANDISH PAINTING volatile elegance of the International Style refined

and cosmopolitanized the domestic tradition

while the naive strength of the domestic tradition lent stability and substantiality to the International Style.

was from

It

this fusion of sophistication

and truthfulness that the

brilliance

ars

and candor, worldliness and

piety,

nova or nouvellc pratique of Early Flemish painting

arose.

The

expression ars nova

about 1320 but deliberately trans-

later

—

and the expression nouvelle pratique from Martin

le

former a theorist writing about 1475, the art of painting; the masters

whom

latter a

borrowed from Johannes

is

Franc. These authors, the

poet writing about 1440, do not deal with the

they hail as standard-bearers of a "novel style" are two

composers, Guillaume Dufay and Gilles Binchois. of

as

development that took place exactly a century

ferred to a Tinctoris,

— originally coined as early

1

But the

historical position of these "fathers

— both born in the Hainaut about 1400 and both connected with the court of — so surprisingly analogous to that of the "fathers of modern painting" Good

modern music"

Philip the

is

that the appropriation of the terms ars nova and nouvelle pratique by art historians

permissible.

Dufay and Binchois, of

whom

may seem

Tinctoris says that nothing worth listening to

been composed before their time, are to the followers of Guillaume Machaut (died 1377)

van Eyck brothers and the Master of Flemalle are In

fact,

to the

had

as the

Limbourgs and the Boucicaut Master.

the music of such late-fourteenth-century masters as Solages, Trebor, Senleches

and

— some of them serving the same familiar devotees of the International Style as did the French and Franco-Flemish illuminators — can be described in terms nearly identical

Galiot great

with those which have beefr-opplied to the Fleur des Histoires de la Terre d'Orient, the Boccace de Philippe

le

Hardi or mt^Tres Riches Heures." Planning

these little-known compositions

and inviting comment upon

to publish a collection of

their possible relation to con-

W.

temporary paintings and book illuminations, the eminent musicologist, Dr.

enough

to give

me

a succinct characterization of their stylistic criteria;

and

I

Apel, was kind

cannot

the

resist

temptation of freely quoting him:

"Seen

as a

whole, these works give the impression of an overrefined, courtly civilization,

precious and mannered, varied and full of ideas. Their most conspicuous peculiarity extraordinarily complicated system of notation

book on the notation of polyphonic music. of musical notation sharply distinguished

Machot

as well as

rhythmical organization in the

It

which

I

have described

represents a unique

as

'mannered' in

phenomenon

an

my

in the history

from the comparatively simple systems employed by

Dufay.

"Since early notation

found

2

is

is

is

mainly intended

also

marked by

to represent

a complexity

rhythm,

it is

only natural that the

and intricacy the

like of

which

is

not

whole history of music. The most sophisticated syncopations of Stravinsky and

other moderns are child's play by comparison. Both from a rhythmical and a harmonic point of view one

is

inclined to speak of 'filamentization' (Zerfaserungsstil). Yet there are certain

pieces — intended

to give a special, "realistic" effect

attractively exploit natural

sounds such

— which

are simpler in structure

as the call of birds: 'occi, occi, occi, tu-tu-tu.'

150

and

THE MASTER OF FLfcMALLE music — manneristic refinement and overcomplexity That the distinctive qualities of coupled with an unconsummated, fractional longing for nature — exactly parallel those of the this

International Style

which

exists

between the

ars

— a repatriation

dowed with equal character.

And

due not

gifts

we have

cases

one single genius but

to

and striving

more "natural" mode

and produced ian scale by

and

veracity,

common

for a

goal,

however divergent

meant

in painting as well as

music

this

full notes at

to yellows brilliant

and harmony ("with the recognition of thirds and

artistic

The

technique."

painters,

we do

not

use of

oil as a

binding

and Theophilus, both writing burg Manuscript" of as fig juice,

oils

however much indebted

aims were predicated upon what

is

new method was

know who,

there unanimity as to the extent to

called

and began

primary rather than secondary factors of

old belief that this

been discredited, but

The

from deepest

their palette

to take the place of actual gold,

so did the

to think

compo-

pictorial

to the past,

belong to the

times.

These new

is

enough as

1

the illuminators of the International Style, however advanced, belong to the

Middle Ages, the Early Flemish

oil

to simple, strong

each end and restrained rhythmical and polyphonic complexity

and luminary values

Where

modern

way

change in technical procedures. As Dufay and Binchois extended the Guidon-

a

two

and reds

and

a fulfillment of the

consonances music was conceived as a functional progress of chords"),

of coloristic sition.

their taste

en-

change in feeling demanded

van Eyck brothers and the Master of Flemalle increase the range of blues

men

of expression.

in favor of clear-cut contrapuntal contrast sixths as

the analogy

to the efforts of several great

In painting as well as in music, precious or tortured sentiment gave

and uninhibited

is

a "repatriation'of Flemish art to Flemish

in both cases the consequences of this repatriation

nostalgia for a

evident

less

nova of Dufay and Binchois and that of the van Eyck brothers

and the Master of Flemalle. In both soil

And no

too evident to require amplification.

is

which

deserves

its

referred to as the

"new

invented by Jan van Eyck has long

anybody, was really the

if it

commonly

traditional

first to

name.

employ

it.

Nor

2

medium was

in the tenth

ca. 1400, linseed

not unknown to earlier periods. From Heraclius century, down to Cennino Cennini and the "Strass-

and other

oils

were recommended along with such media

egg yolk, egg white, whole egg, or that mixture of egg yolk and water which

is

"tempera" in the narrower sense of the term; and methods were taught by which the

might be thickened,

purified, bleached

and "dried" (boiling with pumice stone or bone

ash and baking in the sun for thickening and purification, an admixture of chalk, ceruse, white copperas, litharge, or, ultimately, sulphate of zinc for dessication). Cennini even stresses the fact that oils

were favored by the "Germans"

— rather than the It

Italians.

would seem, however,

rather than the rule.

that the application of these oil techniques

They were recommended and

rather than for artistic effect (as

armorial shields, and, for

what was

— by which he probably refers

we

to all

Northerners

3

practised, either for reasons of durability 4

is

was the exception 5

6

the case with the coating of walls, columns, statues, doors,

recall, processional

banners

8

); or for specific

called pictura lucid a (small paintings thinly painted

151

7

and unusual purposes:

upon metal

foil so as to

/

simulate

EARLY NETHERLANDISH PAINTING translucent enamel), and for those glazes — either over metal 1

or tempera

foil

which achieved such

special effects as the luster of gold cloth

and

velvet.

2

—

significant that

It is

be the most explicit fourteenth-century source — a passage in the Reductorium what seems morale by the Benedictine Pierre Bersuire (Petrus Berchorius), a friend of Petrarch — refers to

to the oil process solely as a its

means

permanence

of lending

to wall paintings

and therefore bases

moral interpretation upon the concepts of firmitas and tenacitas: "In general, a picture or

image with

is

outlined by contours and finally painted in colors; the colors, however, are tempered they

oil so that

may more

or past are brought to

In like

manner

life,

the righteous

by the painters (that

is,

man may

able to persist in the state of virtue

the dwelling of the righteous."

him

role in their procedure at

— which

fifteenth century

more

oils

means

of

there

easily

is

applied the

oil

and

is

its

surfaces.

is first

outlined

good teaching; then he of mercy so that he

steadfastly. Proverbs 21:

has even been denied that

it

[There

may

is

be

oil in

is]

oils

played a significant

This theory, according to which the Flemish technique of the

all.

did not differ essentially from that of the early sixteenth

nothing but an improved tempera process, goes certainly too far and

with what

actually absent

decorated on

such which distinguished the method of the great

as

their forerunners; 4

is

3

was thus not the use of

Flemings from that of

saints

properly be called an 'image.' For, he

the prelates and preachers) by

colored with virtues; and in composing

It

By such images things

firmly adhere and endure.

and with them the temple of the

obvious to the eye but also with

His Journey

that even firsthand sources such as Durer's Diary of

at variance,

not only

It

cannot be by chance

to the

Netherlands and an-

the literary evidence.

all

is

— was

cient inventories or contracts explicitly speak of "oil paintings" and, by contrast, of pictures

executed "sans huelle"

5

and Diirer himself has

of "good ultramarine" for

be mixed with nut

wooden box with

oil

6

to give

that has been purified as

the bottom a

should be soaked with ultramarine."

which he had

oil

hand

left

us the following recipe for the treatment

from ten

much

an ounce:

by passing

as possible

and painted

thick,

to twelve ducats

it

new

little

ground,

too,

in lower grade (schlecht)

This passage throws some light on what was probably the

procedure of the old masters. Rather than inventing entirely

should

through a

as thinly as possible; the

and the underpainting should be done

"It

real novelty in the

processes, they appear to

have

perfected the traditional ones and thus to have developed a system of stratification, not unlike that

employed

ness of

in later

Limousine enamel work, which permitted them

book illumination with the

substantiality of

to

combine the minute-

tempera painting and the luminosity of

pictura lucida?

The whole

picture

was

built

up from bottom

to

top by superimposing "rich" and

therefore translucent paint (viz., pigments tempered with a fat exclusively, oil)

8

upon "lean" and

with other, aqueous media

therefore

or, possibly,

more or

less

medium, mostly, though not

opaque paint

by applying the translucent colors over an opaque underpainting veru/,

(viz.,

pigments tempered

an emulsion). Lighter and darker tones were produced

"dead color," in Dutch and Flemish

— which I5 2

— significantly called dood-

pre-established the light values and, to

THE MASTER OF FLfcMALLE some extent, the general color; and finer gradation — in certain cases even an optical mixture of two colors — was achieved by applying further films of pigment. As

a result, the light

is

not entirely reflected from the top surface of the picture, where

opaque pigments appear only

in the shape of highlights. Part of the light penetrates the coat

or coats of translucent paint to be reflected from the nearest layer of opaque pigment, and this is

what endows the

pictures of the old masters with their peculiar "depth."

Even the darkest

tones could never turn opaque, and ultimately the whole multiple coat of paint into a hard, enamellike, slightly

below

as well as

would

coalesce

uneven but uniformly luminous substance, irradiated from

from above, excepting only those sporadic whites or

their very contrast to the transparent

light yellows which,

by

depth of the surrounding pigments, assume the character

of "high lights."

This

new

technique enabled the painters not only to improve the gradation of light but

also to revolutionize the distribution of color values.

opaque the

As long

as all the

light intensity of a given color could be increased only

naturally reduced

its

color intensity.

It

with white, that the color intensity was

was therefore

by adding lead white, which

just in the relatively

at its highest; the

pigments had been

dark tones, undiluted

shaded portions of a figure or drapery

— whether the shadows were expressed by the same kind of pigment or by a different one more intense than both the when yellow shaded with orange or crimson — were as

coloristically

is

With

strongly and the moderately lighted portions.

translucent pigments at his

command

the

painter was able to strengthen the light intensity of a given color without an admixture of lead white, simply by using a thinner film of paint,

As

a result,

it

was

and thus

in the moderately lighted portions or

to avoid a reduction of color intensity.

"middle tones"

—

less

thickly painted

than were the shadows yet not loaded with lead white as were the high lights

maximum

of color intensity

was reached.

This not only enhanced the unity and brilliance of the picture but also

By

a

fundamental law of

and a deficiency of

light,

the strongly lighted ones, oil

— that

the

1

optics, the intensity of

any given color

is

its

verisimilitude.

lowered both by an excess

both in the deeply shaded portions, where color turns black, and in

where

it

turns white.

It

was only by the introduction of the "new

technique" that painting could do justice to this law of optics, and

the Italian humanists and cognoscenti were so greatly impressed with "to have been produced, not by the artifice of

human

we can

easily see

what appeared

to

why them

hands, but by all-bearing nature herself."

ii

When

the Italian writers of the Renaissance

drew the

first

genealogy of Early Flemish painting appeared very simple. Bruges, and Jan van Eyck was the master of Roger van der

A

Brugia fu

tra glialtri

El gran Iannes:

Cum

el

Its

153

father

Weyden:

piu lodati

discepul Rugiero

altri di excellentia

outline of a history of art, the

chiar dotati. 2

was Jan van Eyck of

EARLY NETHERLANDISH PAINTING Today

become more complex.

the situation has

of the initial development.

We know

and

who know — at

was

that this different tradition

least there are as

many

them contributed

to the

Ghent

completed by Jan; and what

these circumstances

founder" of the Flemish school.

which had been

altarpiece

unfinished by Hubert and was

left

before.

When

Dr. de Tolnay places the combined crowns of Hubert

and Jan van Eyck upon the head of the Master of Flemalle, leaving only pendence

to the

"gran Iannes," he assumes

cases, transfers the

out

— and

this

known

ones to the

all

wrong

the

unknown

2

Yet he was right

sonality of

Hubert

is still

which remain, however,

too controversial to serve as a basis for discussion.

this master,

named

after three panels in

was observed between

interpreted in various ways.

and

his style

At

that of

therefore,

It is,

with

start.

as

an

artistic individuality, a close

Roger van der Weyden; but

he was thought of

first

upon Jan

Frankfort which are supposed to come

from Flemalle (or Flemael) near Liege, was recognized affinity

three lustra of

last

determined); and that the per-

to be

the Master of Flemalle that our survey of the great Flemings should

Ever since

some

in pointing

that the Master of Flemalle appears to have exerted a certain influence

(the extent and importance of

of inde-

the authenticated or, at least, unanimously

accepted works of Jan van Eyck (which are, however, compressed into the ;

modicum

— that several known paintings

remains a major contribution to our knowledge all

a

quantities to be zero and, in

side of the equation.

by the Master of Flemalle would seem to antedate

his life)

either of

does not seem rewarding to look once more for one "true

it 1

hand we do

the other

Hubert van Eyck; what

them had accomplished

either of

On

opinions about these problems as there are art his-

— what difference in age there was between Jan and

Under

was not the only center

established by the Master of

seems to have been Jan's senior by ten or fifteen years.

Flemalle,

torians

that Bruges

van Eyck had an elder brother named Hubert.

that Jan

Roger van der Weyden, though not uninfluenced by Jan van Eyck, represents

that

a very different tradition,

not

We know

We know

as

this affinity

was

an ingenious follower of Roger.

3

—

Then he was promoted from Roger's disciple to Roger's master and on the basis of documents already known before his "discovery" identified with one Robert Campin, painter of Tour4 nai. Finally his works were ascribed, as products of a youthful phase, to Roger van der Weyden

—

himself.

5

That the shall I

third of these hypotheses

is

untenable will become apparent,

have acquainted ourselves with Roger van der Weyden's

shall limit

myself to showing that

much

assumption that the Master of Flemalle Robert

Campin

is

mentioned

thus seem to have been born citizen in 1410

as a

is

style itself.

identical with Robert

1375.

A

la ville,"

is

to say for the

Campin.

master painter in Tournai

some time about

we

For the time being,

can be said for the second, that

as early as 1406

home owner from

(from which we may conclude that he was not born

"peintre ordinaire de

hope, as soon as

I

in

1408,

Tournai

and would

he became a itself)

and, as

headed an apparently considerable workshop which never lacked

commissions and apprentices. In 1423 he was swept into organized craftsmen against the patriciate.

political

He became Dean

prominence by

a revolt of the

of the painters' guild in this year

and was a member of one of the three City Councils established by the new regime

154

until

it

was

THE MASTER OF FLfiMALLE overthrown

in 1428.

Tournaisian

He

then retired from public

as

for un-

This, however, did not diminish his popularity as an artist and chef

activities.

d atelier and when he had '

and was even mildly prosecuted

life

\

another, quite different conflict with the authorities in 1432, living

he did with a mistress engagingly named Leurence Polette, the sentence imposed upon him

— a pilgrimage to St.-Gilles and banishment from moderate

upon the personal intervention

fine

Bavaria and the Hainaut.

1

He

the city for one year

of the reigning princess, Jacqueline of Holland,

continued to prosper until he died on April 26, 1444, outliving

Hubert van Eyck by nearly eighteen years and Jan van Eyck by nearly In 1427, two young men, both

March

le

Pasture ("Roggie" van der

and Jaquelotte ("Jimmie") Daret on April

5,

12.

Five years

1,

18,

Dean

that the great

Roger van der Weyden was

was commemorated there by

a special

Mass

in fact a native of Tournai,

which the

as late as in the 'forties,

Pasture"

Campin from of Flemalle

who

whose

style

has so

himself believe that

them, the "Rogelet de

le

much

common

in

5

it

Campin was

is

who

seemed very

identical

identical

are faced with a case of fortuitous

Pasture"

that his death in 1464

clear that

he

with the Master

apprenticed himself to Robert

think, identical with one "Maistre Rogier le paintre"

who

with Roger van der

as City Painter of Brussels),

to

Campin in 1427 would Weyden: he was, they

received modest remunerations for

painting shields and regilding the lettering on an epitaph in 1436 and 1437

Campin,

and that

homonymy. According

have been a person entirely different from the great Roger van der

Roger was firmly established

4

with Roger's.

that the Master of Flemalle

we

Luke.

served his apprenticeship with Robert

1427 to 1432; and that, therefore, Robert

However, those who hold

Weyden

le

3

painters' guild participated,

was

with that "Rogelet de

St.

on the very same day. Since we know

he invested money in Tournai securities identical

day of

feast

Pasture

le

2

of the guild

in

both were

Rogier" — de

— now "Maistre — — the Jaquelotte now "Maistre Jaques" on October

Daret, curiously enough, was elected

Weyden) on

later, in 1432,

admitted to the painters' guild as masters: Rogelet

on August

three.

Tournai, began their apprenticeship

described as natives of

with Robert Campin: Rogelet de

(apresure)

— was commuted to a

and he

6

(when

the great

as well as his master,

Robert

engaged

are supposed to have spent all their lives as insignificant craftsmen obscurely

in similar menial tasks.

Some

of the arguments adduced in favor of this view can easily be dismissed. Assertions

to the contrary notwithstanding, the "Maistre

gilded letters in 1436 and 1437

become franc maistre

Campin cannot be painter

at

may

Rogier

easily be identical

Tournai on

May

7

15,

1427.

le

paintre"

who

painted shields and

And

the artistic importance of Robert

professional standards of the later

were very different from ours. Jean Malouel had coated the Puits de Mo'ise; painted chairs and galleries;

9

There remains, however, one le

8

a

modern

Middle Ages

Broederlam had

and even Jan van Eyck and Roger van der Weyden were

polychrome sculptures both in stone and

"Rogelet de

which

contested on the grounds that he accepted commissions

would consider beneath him. The

who had

with one Rogier de Wanebac

brass.

serious difficulty for those

Pasture" with Roger van der

to

10

Weyden 155

who

believe in the identity of

and, consequently, of Robert

Campin

EARLY NETHERLANDISH PAINTING

— three and a half months before "Rogelet Pasture" began his apprenticeship with Robert Campin — "Maistre Rogier de Pasture" On November

with the Master of Flemalle.

de

le

1426

17,

a

le

was presented by the municipality of Tournai with the

so-called vin d'honneur, a gift of

customarily offered to distinguished visitors or, though

less

on special occasions; he even received eight measures

wine

frequently, to meritorious citizens

{lots) instead of the usual four.

1

How

? And how could Weyden of whom we know that, prospective father when "Rogelet" began his

could a "master" so honored in one year become an "apprentice" in the next this

apprentice be identical with the great Roger van der

born about 1400, he was a married apprenticeship

To

:

man and

a

'

we have

resolve this difficulty

to bear in

mind

an apprenticeship de facto and an apprenticeship de

must be made between

that a difference jure. In

Tournai

an

as well as elsewhere

apprentice was not necessarily an indentured boy of fourteen or fifteen; he could be a com-

mature

paratively for

membership

one university,

artist

who wished to work in an established workshop while not being eligible much as a modern scholar, while holding a full professorship in

in the guild,

may

apresure with Robert

teach as a

Campin

mere

in 1427,

"lecturer" in another.

he had been in the

When

Jacques Daret began his nearly nine years,

latter's service for

and was, we remember, elected Dean of the guild on the very day on which he became master. In spite of being referred to as "Jaquelotte," he must have been a full-grown fairly

accomplished painter

when he concluded

sonage

when he began it.

Similarly the great Roger van der

workshop of Robert Campin under the

enter the

a free

man and

and a rather dignified

his "apprenticeship,"

Weyden may have

label of "apprentice"

3

a

per-

decided to

although he was about

twenty-seven years of age and a potential pater familias.

Yet years,

it

appears surprising that this young painter, however famous he was to be in later

should have been designated as "Maistre" and honored with the vin d'honneur even

before he entered Campin's atelier.

It

has been thought that he might have become a free

master in some guild outside Tournai, perhaps even a sculptors' guild, before 1426. This conjecture,

however, cannot be demonstrated and even

entire discussion,

crucial

entries,

it

tinction bestowed

true

would not

settle

the problem. In the

attention has been paid to the fact that the

two

concerning "Rogelet's" apprenticeship and that concerning the

dis-

seems to me, too

that

if

little

upon "Maistre Rogier," occur

in

former in those of the Tournai painters' guild, the

two

entirely different sets of records, the

latter in those of the

Tournai municipality.

In the records of a painters' guild the designation "maistre" would automatically apply to an artist; in

those of a municipality,

position. In fact,

it

when on October

bearing the master's

title

from 1422

was more

likely to apply to a

man

18 of the following year, 1427, the great Jan at the latest, court painter to the

Duke

passing through Tournai as a special envoy of his illustrious master

d'honneur by the to

city

of learning or official

(and only four measures

at that),

the very

of

— was

van Eyck

Burgundy, and offered the vin

same municipal records

refer

him, not as "Maistre Jehan d'Eyck" or "Maistre Johannes," but, almost discourteously,

"Johannes, pointre"

4

From

this

pointed distinction between "Maistre Rogier de

.56

—

le

as

Pasture"

;

THE MASTER OF FLfiMALLE and "Johannes, pointre" we may

infer that the former,

designated as "maistre" in his capacity of

We

two

are thus faced with

whoever he may have been, was not

artist.

possibilities.

Weyden had

Either young Roger van der

quired a master's degree in some university and was honored by his

home town on

ac-

the occasion

of his triumphant return, the double allotment of wine conceivably due to a coincidence of this

event with his marriage. there

all;

is

1

Or,

we

are confronted with a case of "fortuitous

no reason why those who

homonymy"

after

believe in the identity of "Rogelet de le Pasture," the

Weyden,

apprentice of 1427, with Roger van der

the

famous

painter, should not accept the

major premise of their opponents: the non-identity of this "Rogelet" with the "Maistre Rogier" of 1426. If "Maistre Rogier"

demoted

to

is

identified with the great master of Brussels while "Rogelet"

an inferior artisan of Tournai,

why

not identify "Rogelet" with the great master

of Brussels while raising "Maistre Rogier" to the status of a visiting cleric or jurisconsult I

am

is

The

inclined to accept the second of these alternatives.

?

would explain Roger's

first

advanced age when beginning his "apprenticeship" with Robert Campin and harmonize with his

markedly

intellectual turn of

mind but would be

at variance

no other painter of the fifteenth century has, so far as in his youth. to

2

The second would make

assume that he,

we know,

with the customs of the period enjoyed an academic education

Roger's development perfectly normal

Campin's workshop

like Jacques Daret, entered

if

as a fairly

we

are ready

accomplished

painter rather than an "apprentice" in the ordinary sense of the term but, unlike Daret,

had received

his early training outside Tournai.

would account with the le

for the fact that even his earliest

style of

different persons

is

a master cutler of

the

we know

at least that

that as

it

same context

the name.

And

in

Tournai

— possessed

name

Campin

We

familiarity

like the great

Roger van der Weyden,

is

le

Pasture," the gentle-

called "Johannes pointre"

we

own father — Henry van

der

Weyden,

Henry van

3

may, on no account can the identity of Robert Campin with the Master of

And

we know

positive proof of this identity

that he

had spent almost

is

furnished

fifteen years

with

before becoming an independent master, and that he stayed in Tournai, with

very few interruptions, for the rest of his

it

some

a namesake, long confused with him, in

sculptor of Louvain.

by the works of Jacques Daret. Of him

workshop.

to presuppose

which

could very well have been borne by two

fact that Roger's

Flemalle be disproved on documentary grounds.

Robert

he was,

which Jan van Eyck

that this

demonstrated by the

Weyden, master Be

works appear

Tournai and a painter by profession. Of "Maistre Rogier de

man thus styled in know nothing but

der

precisely this assumption

is

it

Jan van Eyck and be entirely in harmony with the documents. Of "Rogelet de

Pasture," the apprentice,

a native of

And

must expect

reflects is the style of the

Our knowledge

his

work

life.

He was

an unadulterated product of Campin's

to reflect the style of his

of Daret

is

based upon four paintings

"Adoration of the Magi" and a "Presentation of Christ" are indisputable.

Now

one and only teacher; and what

Master of Flemalle.

— a "Visitation," a "Nativity," an

— the date and authorship of which

scattered over three different collections, they originally

exterior of a "Schnitzaltar" (its interior

adorned the

showing the Twelve Apostles and the Coronation of

157

EARLY NETHERLANDISH PAINTING the Virgin in the center, surfaces of the wings),

Vaast

at

and nothing but an ornament of

which was commissioned,

in 1434,

many

artists

who had

by Jean du Clercq, Abbot of

St.

1

Arras, and was completed in July, 1435, at the

Like

on azure on the inner

fleurs-de-lys

latest.

the misfortune of being too closely associated with stars of the

— Verrocchio with Leonardo, Wolgemut with Diirer, Lievens with Rembrandt, Holbein the Elder with Holbein the Younger — Daret often referred to in somewhat disparagfirst

magnitude

is

ing terms. But while he was no genius he was a sound, by no means unattractive painter; and

— only

for the early date of 1434

progressive, being

no

two years

advanced

less

in

"graduation"

after his

— his

panels are distinctly

craftsmanship than the works of even his greatest con-

temporaries. This alone precludes the idea that, instead of being a disciple of the Master of

Flemalle and a fellow-student of Roger van der Weyden, he should have been, aptly puts

it,

"the pupil and

companion

of

two duds

In addition, however, there are most definite

works

by the Master of Flemalle,

position by (fig.

3

311).

which

ties

that link three of Daret's panels with

— the "Visitation"

(fig.

reflects

234) repeats, with

(fig.

by the Master of Flemalle transmitted 5

His "Nativity,"

famous "Nativity"

in

Dijon

types and the outlandish costumes.

only in book illuminations before

And

Roger van der Weyden).

Campin

it

finally (fig. 233), (fig. 201). It It

to us

by an apparently

nothing but

is

agrees with

shows the candle

in the

4

it

reliable

copy in

a slightly pedestrian version

in the general setting, the facial

hand

of St. Joseph, a motif

found

it

was adopted by the Master of Flemalle (and,

is

the only panel painting outside the Dijon "Nativity" not it

as a

complete

later on,

little

by

drama.

6

not been identical with the Master of Flemalle, and had Roger van der

association with

account for

reliefs,

reminiscences in certain figures,

literal

only to allude to the story of the two midwives but to unfold

Robert

— with an early com-

the influence of the Master of Flemalle's "Betrothal" in the Prado (fig. 199)

Berlin (fig. 223).

Weyden's

232)

Daret's "Presentation" (fig. 235) shows a circular building, adorned with

a composition

Had

Mr. Davies

Roger van der Weyden which was developed from the same workshop pattern

His "Adoration of the Magi"

of the

and one

in a backwater."

as

2

Tournai been limited

this triangular interrelationship

one day of glory in 1426,

to

how

could

we

?

in That the Dijon "Nativity" must warn us not the Netherlands. painter.

craft, all the

more

includes the two midwives as well as the

to overlook the

He was

He must

'

a

Fleming and,

was

Bridget's candle

Master of Flemalle's connection with the regional schools of

have been steeped so as he

St.

in a

more

exclusive sense than Jan van Eyck, a panel

in the traditions of his native country

a "city painter" rather

and of

than a cosmopolitan court

his special

artist. It

would

be against nature had he based himself so predominantly or even exclusively upon Franco-

Flemish book illumination as has been supposed.

The

influence of Franco-Flemish miniatures, especially of the Italianizing kind, cannot

be denied and

is

extremely important.

The

general composition of the Dijon panel with

158

its

THE MASTER OF FLfiMALLE obliquely placed shed, the triad of angels on the justly

left

and the single angel on the right has and here we

also

motif newly assimilated from Italian sources (though,

we

been derived from the "Nativity" in the "Tres Riches Heures"

—a

find the adoring shepherds

remember, not foreign

(fig.

81)

*

Furthermore, a close similarity has

to the provincial tradition either).

been observed between the Dijon "Nativity" and the miniatures in the "Brussels Hours" by

Jacquemart de Hesdin.

2

With them

shares a taste for cool, pearly colors (purplish brown,

it

white shaded with blue or mauve, and a neutral gray) which merge into an admirable, silvery tone by virtue of the Master's

command

of the nouvelle pratique.

ing roads, luminous bodies of water, bald

surmounted by

hills

The

landscape, with

its

wind-

and mountains

fortified castles,

shaped, Italian fashion, like Phrygian caps, harks back to that in the "Flight into Egypt" in the "Brussels

Hours"

Boucicaut Master

(fig.

44) and further presupposes,

who more

exploring aerial perspective.

than

It is as

all

believe, the refining influence of the

I

the other illuminators had anticipated the Flemings in

though the

Italianate

topography of Jacquemart de Hesdin

and the Limbourg brothers were viewed through the softening haze that vistas of the

Boucicaut Master; even the contrast that

scenery and the metallic gold of the rising sun is

still

exists

— here, as in other

casts itself over the

between

cases, a

this naturalistic

symbol of Christ

—

prefigured in the "Boucicaut Hours."

Nevertheless the style of the Master of Flemalle was firmly rooted in the tradition of panel

and Flemish. The

painting, both Franco-Flemish

beaten the

wood which we admire

"Martyrdom

of

St.

in the

rendering of grained, weather-

illusionistic

Dijon "Nativity" has rightly been compared to that in

Denis" by Jean Malouel and Henri Bellechose

(fig. ioo),

3

and

it is

inter-

esting to note that the crucified Christ in this panel wears a loincloth of that striped material for

which the Master of Flemalle had such marked

wood may be found,

nearer home, in the

little

"Nativity" in Berlin

shadows the Master of Flemalle's broad, viscous technique. their antecedents in a

no) which

also fore-

his chiaroscuro effects

lattice

work has no

The Dijon work

A

in turn has

angels,

is

an early but not the

payments made

may

earliest

to a "mestre Robiert

been identified with Robert Campin. But even

assumptions were correct (as they well

mounted by

seen

wall painting, recently discovered in the Church

of St.-Brice at Tournai, has been connected with a record of

and he

is

grille (fig. 104).

"Nativity," probably executed about 1420-1425,

attributable to the Master of Flemalle.

pointre,"

have

closer parallel in earlier

than in Broederlam's "Annunciation" where the gloomy interior of the Temple

through a strongly lighted

le

And

(fig.

development which had reached an advanced stage in Melchior Broeder-

lam: the dimly illumined stable seen through bright art

But a similar treatment of

predilection.

if

both these

be), this early mural, an "Annunciation" sur-

would not appreciably contribute

to

our knowledge of the Master of

Flemalle. Murals are difficult to compare with panel paintings at best, and this particular one,

though not without grandeur

in concept,

is

so hastily

and roughly done that

only as a decorator's job; in fact the church was pressed for time as well as extensive remodeling of the chevet.

remains of

it

Worse

still,

the painting

is

so badly

has justly been described as "ces vestiges de peinture."

*59

4

it

can be rated

money

damaged

after

that

an

what

EARLY NETHERLANDISH PAINTING came

Shortly after this "Annunciation" was discovered, however, there cent triptych of later but

London,

Seilern in

of the orthodox

1

it

strained by

St.

now la

the earmarks of authen-

all

preserved in the Collection of Count

Entombment

Lamentation a

a

—

bold combination

or, rather, a

"Parement de Narbonne" and Jacque-

Virgin Mary bending deeply over the body of Christ and gently

John the Evangelist.

Only two

dog.

in the center the

Entombment with

The

right

wing shows

the Resurrection, the

left,

empty Cross of Christ and the unfortunately repainted donor with

crucified Thieves, the little

shows

Hesdin — the

mart de

comparatively early date which bears

still

Sold at Christie's in 1942 and

ticity (figs. 196, 197).

to light a magnifi-

sections of the triptych, the

"Entombment" and

the his

the "Resurrection," are

materially (not spatially) connected by a curving wattle fence, and there

ancy in scale and treatment between the

re-

a certain discrep-

is

relieflike concentration in the central panel

and the

perspective depth and scattered looseness of the wings.

Produced triptych

evidently

is

mendous power

more primitive than

of observation and expression (he

employment

he does not

of figures turning their backs

as yet attain the silvery

exotic apparel

and

striped fabrics.

Hesdin

that of Jacquemart de

tombment

scene

— in

is

harmony

The

We

the Dijon "Nativity."

was the

sense the master's tre-

to see the

first

with the back of their hands), his struggle for tangible

their eyes

in the

1415-1420 and painted on heavily tooled gold ground, the Seilern

as early as, say,

weeping people dry

plasticity (especially evident

upon the beholder),

of the Dijon "Nativity"),

his color taste

and

influence of the Boucicaut Master

already

felt

— quite

apart

(though

his predilection for is

still

absent; but

from the iconography of the En-

the organization of the landscapes, the curved receding wattle fences

being especially reminiscent of the "Annunciation to the Shepherds" in the "Brussels Hours."

Such to

details as the

mind

the

little

clump

of trees silhouetted against the gold ground,

"Guelders" Nativity

Netherlandish panel paintings

is

on the other hand, bring

mentioned, and a connection with indigenous

just

also evident in the facial types. Suffice

Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus with the

St.

Simeon and

St.

it

to

compare the

Joseph in Melchior Broeder-

lam's "Presentation" (fig. 105).

Between the Seilern triptych and the Dijon "Nativity" there may be placed the "Madonna of Humility Before a Grassy as

Bench"

in Berlin (fig. 198)

which

I

am

inclined to accept at least

2

shopwork, and the original of the "Adoration of the Magi," already discussed

The

latter

Madonna

composition is

is

authenticated by

closely linked to

it

its

exploitation in Daret's altarpiece,

by such significant

3

(fig.

223).

and the Berlin

details as the lettered borders of the Virgin's

mantle and the plump, baldish Infant revealed rather than concealed by a transparent drapery.

The head Seilern

of the Berlin

Madonna, on

the other hand, closely resembles the angels' heads in the

"Entombment."

The

"Betrothal of the Virgin" in the Prado (fig. 199), the iconography of which has 4

been discussed in the preceding chapter, also appears to be

Though more advanced than

the Seilern triptych,

it

earlier

than the Dijon "Nativity."

seems more primitive, especially in the

handling of perspective, than the Dijon picture and shares the triptych's tendency toward violent contrasts in scale

and composition. The Betrothal scene

160

is

enacted by large-sized figures

THE MASTER OF FLfcMALLE crowded

into a solid mass whereas the Miracle of the

almost a

of the St. Veronica in the Seilern

sister

The

ture contrasted with a square narthex viewed at

we

ness of

many

recall, a similar

architectural setting

angle —

an

anticipated, as

illumination of Bruges.

'

it

panel, too,

if

the weird ugli-

St.

Joseph, has been

should be remembered that

this anticipation

book

2

A special problem posed by the Prado "Betrothal"

is its

purpose.

Its size

and oblong format

{ca.

36" by 30") suggest an independent devotional picture or small retable; but

tion

is

at

we

pre-figured in Broederlam's

is

were, in the "realisme pre-Eycfyen" of ca. 1400, notably in the

it

is

— a circular struc-

symbolical connotation; and

physiognomies, particularly that of the High Priest and the

acclaimed as an anticipation of Jerome Bosch

had been

smaller figures freely scattered

behind the figure of the Virgin Mary

"Entombment." In the Prado

can observe the persistence of regional traditions.

"Annunciation" and bears,

Rod shows

woman emerging from

over space, and the wan-faced

variance with two

a friezelike painting of the later fifteenth century wherein the Miracle of the

assump-

this

there exists in the church of Hoogstraaten near

facts. First,

Antwerp

Rod and

the

Betrothal of the Virgin, freely but unimaginatively copied from the Prado panel, are followed

by other incidents from the

and the Nativity of

two

Christ.

3

of

life

Unless

Rod and

to credit the

originality,

we

by the existence of the

grisailles 5

it,

James the Great, the other

from the Master of Flemalle

St.

Clare of

on

its

back.

From

kind occur for the

first

place other than that (its

And

— in other words, that the

this suspicion

is

strengthened

Jan van Eyck to Rubens sculptures "in stone

were the usual thing on the exterior of folding

we know, on

the Prado panel

Doubt,

author of the Hoogstraaten picture with an unusual blend of

striking contrast with the resplendent interior so far as

St.

the Prado was but one panel within a cycle.

color," as DLirer put

It is,

his

are led to suspect that all the scenes, not only the Miracle of the

the Betrothal, were copied

latter's picture in

Dream, the Repentance of

viz., his

4

we wish

parrotism and

Joseph,

one representing

statues painted in grisaille,

Assisi (fig. 200).

St.

Second, and more important, the back of the Prado panel exhibits

which was not

altarpieces,

visible except

on

forming

a

special occasions.

the reverse of the Prado "Betrothal" that simulated statues of this

time;

6

and

which was

it

would be surprising had they made

to be theirs for

more than two

centuries.

their appearance in a

The

inference

is

that

oblong format comparable to that of the even larger fragments of Conrad

Witz' Geneva altarpiece)

7

may have belonged

to a folding triptych the interior shutters of

which, presumably flanking a "Coronation of the Virgin" or an "Adoration of the Magi,"

would have shown the

ment while

The

the Saints

scenes

from the

life

of

illusionistic imitation of sculpture

complementary

Our Lady and

on the outside were surmounted,

as

St.

Joseph in a two-storey arrange-

was customary, by the Annunciation.

by "stone-colored" paintings

to that illusionistic imitation of living

human

may

be regarded as

beings by sculpture which

we

encountered on the spire of Strasbourg Cathedral and in the house of Jacques Coeur. 8 In both cases the artist indulges in a tour de force;

and in both

playful flourish, a serious alliance between sculpture

cases this tour de force seals,

with a

and painting which had been in the mak-

ing for a long time and was of fundamental importance for the genesis of the ars nova.

161

EARLY NETHERLANDISH PAINTING As Jacques dc Baerze and Claus

Sluter conceived of their sculptured figures as existing in

and Jan van Eyck conceive of

a quasi-pictorial space, so did the Master of Flemalle

And

pictorial space as a locus of quasi-sculptured figures. grisaille

in

their

employing the time-honored

technique for directly "creating" statues instead of merely representing them as integral

Broederlam had done), they not only challenged the sculp-

parts of an architectural setting (as tor in his

own

field

but also acknowledged their indebtedness to him. For their grisailles pre-

sented to the eye of the beholder not so

and on the market square

as

what

much what

the general public could see in churches

painters could see in the

workshops of

sculptors.

Until the very end of the fifteenth century the "color of the stone" was rarely revealed to the ordinary spectator; major statuary was, as a rule, coated with paint it

and often gilded, and

was by the painters that the coating and gilding was done. As has been mentioned, even

Jan van Eyck and Roger van der of Flemalle

we know

that

it

Weyden

did not disdain this kind of work, and of the Master

was a major part of

his activities. In Ste.-Marie

Madeleine

at

Tournai there can be seen a beautiful Annunciation group — unfortunately disfigured by modern whitewash and incongruous heads — which was completed in 1428 by Jean Delemer and "pointe de plusieurs couleurs" by Robert Campin — a group, incidentally, which still

left its

mark on

the imagination of Roger van der

painter and sculptor as

it

2

was bound

to

Weyden.

1

Such

change the outlook of both. Seeing the

between

statues in the nude,

were, the painters could observe the operation of light on form as under laboratory condi-

tions,

and the

grisailles, in

which they recorded

this

experience "in black and white,"

have been instrumental in gradually educating the public the beauty of the the

a continued intimacy

monochrome. Conversely, they learned

men and women

portrayed as real

terms of sculptural weight and volume. of the Master of Flemalle

from

may

well

— and the sculptors — to appreciate

to conceive of their ordinary figures

—

men and women and not as simulated artifacts — in And this is precisely what distinguishes the figure style

that of Broederlam, Jacquemart de

Hesdin and even the Lim-

bourg brothers.

The kneeling woman lin, all

in the Seilern

"Entombment," the "Madonna

the Virgin in the Dijon "Nativity," the officiating these

and other

immersed boids,

figures

seem

to

belong to a

in water, their draperies

now

now

new

High

race.

Priest in the

of Humility" in Ber-

Prado "Betrothal"

Displacing space like blocks of granite

simplified into quasi-stereometric prisms

billowing in large curvilinear folds,

—

now crumpled

and rhom-

into complicated mazes,

now

angularly bent and spread where they are intercepted by the ground, they give the impression of Sluterian sculptures

simulated statues

may

come

to

life.

be described as

be described as statues turned into

And this is, in a sense, what they are: as the painter's human beings turned into stone, so may his human beings

flesh.

162

THE MASTER OF FLfiMALLE IV

The which

cool, silvery tone characteristic of the

may

for this reason alone

Flemalle's activity, the (fig.203).

Dijon "Nativity" also distinguishes a picture

be ascribed to a comparatively early phase of the Master of

"Somzee" or "Salting Madonna"

in the National Gallery at

Clad in a white robe shaded with mauve, offering her breast

hand and

right

figure

sits

der Weyden). fireplace, the

elbow on

resting her left

before rather than "

of Niccolo de Buonaccorsi

like the

The bench,

upon

a

a pillow

beneath

it,

idea of representing the

recall, in Italy

and was,

as

may

this

its

called

low

wall

Virgin Painted by its

St.

Luke

pierced by a

of

Roger van

corner, stands before a

"Tres Riches HeuresT

is

Annunciate

footrest as does the

heat by a circular screen of wicker

The

work not un-

fireplace projects

window, with

Madonna

of

low triangular

a

as

was the Annunciation

moved

to the

Master of Flemalle

in a bourgeois interior,

environment, suggested only by a violently receding

tiled floor, is still

what

an "interior by implication." The wooden bench, adorned with lions of

— though

disclosing only the sky,

and not

and

in the path of established tradition. I

have

brass, is a

bourgeois version of the Throne of Solomon mentioned in the preceding chapter.

window

we

Humility in a domestic setting originated,

be concluded by analogy, transmitted

in elaborating this domestic setting the master also spatial

Child with her

a magnificent city prospect.

through similar provincial intermediaries

The

a

and an open Bible placed in

in the January picture of the

which looks out over

to the Christ

carved cupboard, the enormous, moon-faced

or, for that matter, the

Virgin being protected from

one seen

The

a richly

bench (apparently on

from the rear wall of the room, and stool

London

1

An

open

as yet a landscape or city prospect

—

occurs in several miniatures by the Boucicaut Master (figs. 69, 71) and nail-studded shutters

rendered in bold foreshortening already figure in the "Annunciation" by Melchior Broeder-

lam

(fig. 104).

Yet

all

these elements,

from the

Virgin's robe to the distant hills a

new, uncompromising

mere naturalism. Every circular firescreen

is

spirit

detail

nails of the shutters

and the jewels on the border of the

and buildings seen through the window, are reinterpreted in

which may be defined

as a spirit of materialism rather

seems to be not only real but tangible, and

nothing but a material substitute for a halo

stage of his development, could neither bring himself to retain in

form nor

obvious that the at this

conventional, nonrealistic

only discordant note

is

spirit

later,

of their backs fulfilled a similar function.

The

its

it is

which the master,

two generations Mantegna — a kindred on the — was to devise noble marble thrones in such a way that the headpieces

to discard altogether;

other side of the Alps

3

than of

4

struck by the liturgical chalice

on the Virgin's

out of place in a domestic environment. True, the authenticity of this chalice the right-hand section of the picture, about one sixth of

its

163

is

singularly

questionable:

is

entirely

modern, and

its

entirety

we

width,

mediocre fifteenth-century copy which shows the composition in

left,

in a

see, instead

of

EARLY NETHERLANDISH PAINTING the sumptuous cupboard, a simple

Conceivably

Madonna,"

ing

fancy. But

from

it is

which case the

in

we must

am

I

1

reconstruct the original appearance of the "Salt-

would have indulged

restorer

equally conceivable (and

is

it

copy that

this

cabinet; and, instead of the chalice, a kind of bowl.

little

an irresponsible

in

flight of

inclined to prefer this second alternative) that

the fifteenth-century copyist simplified the composition (as he demonstrably did in other

whereas the modern restorer did

respects),"

original.

A

chalice

text

ill.

27) that

to believe in

its

poor best to repeat a damaged portion of the

— symbol of the future Passion of Christ — occurs so rarely in the context

Madonna composition

of a

his

it is

mind

(the only parallel that comes to

harder to credit

its

the "Goldenes Rossel"

is

invention to a restorer of the nineteenth century than

retention by the Master of Flemalle.

With him, we remember,

"open" instead of "disguised" symbolism were by no means unusual. For spirit

relapses into

innovatory

all his

he represents an early, even preliminary phase in the development of the ars nova. While

many

looking forward to the future he remained, like

committed

revolutionaries, deeply

to

the past.

This Januslike nature of the master's the so-called

"Merode

has been known,

as

it

at

Malines.

It

altarpiece" (fig. 204). it

was

originally

3

particularly evident in his next

is

A

triptych

commissioned by

owned by

the

Merode family

named

a couple

major work, as

long

Inghelbrechts residing

shows, in the center, the famous "Annunciation" the iconography of which has

been discussed in the preceding chapter. a door that leads into the

iconography of

this

On

wing we

the left

see the

donors kneeling outside

Annunciation chamber. The right-hand wing, on the other hand,

gives us a glimpse into the

St.

style

workshop of

apparent genre scene

St. is

Joseph overlooking the market square, and the

no

less

remarkable than that of the principal event.

Joseph has manufactured two mousetraps, one on his work table, the other displayed

on a window

shelf for customers to see,

and

this

has been brilliantly explained by Meyer

Schapiro as an allusion to the then well-known Augustinian doctrine of the muscipula diaboli

according to which the marriage of the Virgin and the Incarnation of Christ were devised by

Providence in order to fool the devil as mice are fooled by

he

is

engaged

in

producing what

I

change in

is

shown

social outlook.

as a carpenter, obvious

The

For the time being, though,

believe to be (on the strength of Vermeer's

the perforated cover of a footstool intended to hold a

very fact that he

bait.

International Style,

though

we

of condescension or mild fun, pathetically

immersed

useful as a substitute cook or nursemaid;

was not

it

warming pan. But be that

recall,

it

"Milkmaid") as

it

may, the

seems, proclaims a fundamental

had

treated St. Joseph as an object

in his worries or trying to

until about 1600 that

make

himself

he was to be glorified

as the

Gemma mundi

From

the beginning of the fifteenth century, however, he began to be extolled as the exponent

of

the

all

homely

and that great gentlemen and even monarchs would be named

virtues, invested

after

him.

with the modest dignity of a good craftsman and bread

winner, usefully and contentedly busy in his

own workshop; Meyer 164

Schapiro has shown that

THE MASTER OF FLfiMALLE was championed by such contemporary theologians

this revaluation if

we

look for visual antecedents of the worktable scene in the

to the little

Guelders "Nativity" in Berlin

As pointed out by Dr. de Tolnay, Jan van Eyck

who may

have seen

is little

on the same theme makes the Flemish naturalism

all

altarpiece

triptych,

way

and

Where

is

to the

on March 23 of the following

the

Merode

as the central

altarpiece

Ghent

and

a preliminary phase of Early

Mary

shows three

is

Merode

to the

distinct units only

through

Ghent

strikes us as

two of which

— the

its little

"Ansteps

form one coherent

an

illusion strengthened

by

And where

being primarily conceived in terms of surface relations 2

the opposite

is

true of

its

revised edition in

The Master of Flemalle embroiders the pictorial surface into a decorative woven that we may speak of horror vacui. Every inch is covered with form.

altarpiece.

however

naturalistically

complicated linear ornament that spreads

itself

arranged and modeled, luxuriate into a

over the picture plane, and there

space between the figures and the lower frame. Jan van Eyck, like

hardly any

is

Henry James' Linda

Pallant,

the value of intervals"; he separated the forms by superbly calculated hiatuses which

suggest the presence of a continuous and solids or interstices.

that their is left

altarpiece as the Cathedral

altarpiece

a quadrupartite glass door;

in terms of space relations,

folds of the draperies,

up by

dis-

kneels before a prie-dieu instead of being curled

which the dividing frames paint on the pavement of the room.

pattern so densely

"knew

276) exploits and

(fig.

wing — are connected by the half-open door with

as

Merode "Annunciation"

and only secondarily

1

panel and the right-hand wing of the Seilern triptych were by the wattle

which we perceive

the cast-shadows

The

year.

a comparison between these variations

fence), the four sections that constitute the upper tier of the

the

the painters'

Cathedral of Laon.

nunciation" and the donors'

the

Luke with

combining Romanesque and Gothic forms in

the floor: Jan van Eyck's "Annunciation"

of Chartres

on

a lasting impression

St.

to rectilinear discipline, that the bourgeois living

into an elevated hall

symbolic contrast, and that the Virgin

interior

made

spent the feast day of

not only that the casual arrangement of the objects, especially noticeable in the

room has been converted

(much

refer

striking.

orderly conduct of the towel, has given

up on

Merode

contrast between a perfected

more

the

we may

no).

revisited this city

Merode

Johannes Gerson. But

altarpiece,

doubt that the "Annunciation" in the Ghent altarpiece

revises the central panel of the

It is

the

when he

when he

guild of Tournai in 1427 or

There

it

(fig.

as

Merode

The

draperies,

primary allegiance belongs

homogeneous expanse, no matter whether though no

less

taken

abundant, are not allowed to forget

to the plastic figure.

in front of the figures so as to detach

it is

And an empty

them from the

picture plane

strip of

foreground

and integrate them

with three-dimensional space.

However, preoccupied though the Flemalle Master was with surface less vitally interested in

the conquest of space, and

it

was by the

conflict

patterns,

he was no

between these two

tendencies that he was compelled to stretch to the utmost the traditional methods of suggesting depth. In the Seilern triptych, the Dijon "Nativity" and the Prado "Betrothal," he revived the

Giottesque device of turning important figures, especially those placed in the foreground,

.65

EARLY NETHERLANDISH PAINTING away from the beholder

so that they face in the

heads for our imaginary advance into depth.

method which

— contrary

to a

same direction

And

in

two

widespread assumption

—

as

cases

is

we

do, thus serving as spear-

he resorted

to a perspective

archaic rather than progressive:

"oblique" or "two point" as opposed to "normal" or "one point" perspective.

When

a

surfaces

its

cubiform body, seen from within or without,

is

("point of sight").

When

a

way

one of

that

converge — no

matter

— toward one point directly opposite the eye of the beholder

cubiform body

placed in such a

is

parallel to the picture plane, the vanishing lines will

exactly or approximately

forming

placed in such a

parallel to the picture plane, the vanishing lines will

whether exactly or approximately

is

is

— towards

two points on

way

converge

that only

— again

one of

its

edges

no matter whether

either side of the "point of sight," thus

(hence perspectwa cornuta, "horned perspective," to quote the

a bicuspid figure

pic-

The shed in the Dijon "Nativity" — not to mention — and the Gothic narthex in the Prado "Betrothal" are both the distant house on the highroad turesque expression of Johannes Viator).

examples of oblique or "two point" perspective.

Already

known

in classical antiquity, the "oblique"

view had been reintroduced by Giotto

and reached the Northern countries toward the end of the fourteenth century. that

it

was vigorously exploited by such

artists as

for psychological reasons explained elsewhere,

it

when

experimentation, that

is

attained a respectable degree of accuracy long

major painting the

is

from Masaccio

to

But

it

practically disappeared again

as

had become

had run

Hugo van

its

it

retardataire

survived only in

and was not

in Jan

more or

to be

course and a third generation had

van Eyck;

resumed

grown 2

less

none

in

tired of in such

der Goes or Dire Bouts; none in the great Italian paint-

Raphael; none in Diirer; and only one

— in Roger van der Weyden.

from

post-Gothic perspective had outgrown the stage of

no instance of "oblique" perspective

masters as Petrus Christus, ers

media

until the century

normal view. There

1

to say, about 1430. After this time,

provincial spheres or in such

have seen

Broederlam and the Limbourg brothers; and,

before the "normal" view was similarly perfected.

both Italian and Flemish painting

We

— and

this in a

most

special case

3

Beginning with the "Salting Madonna" and the Merode

altarpiece, the

Master of Flemalle

himself used only "normal" or "one point" perspective, but this he handled with a particular violence which, in a sense, defeats

its

own

ends. Walls, ceilings

and

the length of a footbridge.

wide-angle

from

seem

to

extend to

general effect resembles that of a photograph taken with a

were mathematically

lens. If the construction

the Master's pictures distortions

The

breakneck

floors recede at

speed. Tables or stools are presented in a kind of bird's-eye view. Benches

a point

commensurate

would disappear and the

exact,

and

if

we were

to the short distance

spatial illusion

would be

able to observe

assumed by him, these

intensified. Since this

is

evidently

impossible, all those too vehemently foreshortened forms seem to be flattened into the picture

plane the more they strain away from strengthen the illusion of depth.

it,

From

and thus contribute

to the surface pattern rather than

a diametrically opposite point of view,

and with

a

diametrically opposite intention, the Master of Flemalle achieved an effect not unlike that aspired to by

Cezanne and van Gogh. Cezanne and van Gogh wished

166

to affirm the plane sur-

THE MASTER OF FLfiMALLE face while

committed

still

to a perspective interpretation of space; the

strove to affirm perspective space while

still

committed

Master of Flemalle

to a decorative interpretation of the

plane surface.

These tensions between the parts and the whole, planar and everywhere

in his

work. The smooth, large surfaces of

softly

spatial values, are

modeled

flesh (in

apparent

which the

lavish

use of lead white tends to produce a certain shininess) are often inscribed with sharp, linear details.

we

Conversely, the wrinkles and veins of a hand

And

almost lose the sense of unity.

arates the objects rather than fuses

may form

so dense

an accumulation that

the lighting, handled as violently as

them.

The

perspective, sep-

is

cast-shadows of the Master of Flemalle are

produced by a hard, concentrated light which duplicates the objects in a clearly recognizable

two where he assumes

silhouette (or even

upon the delineation

of forms

produced by a

diffused light

soft,

numbra; the emphasis style of the

as

opposed

is

on

a double source of illumination)

a shadow-receiving surface. Jan

which

creates

the emphasis

;

is

van Eyck's cast-shadows are

vague patches of darkness fading into pe-

on the unification of forms by an enveloping medium. In

short, the

Master of Flemalle retained, to use Paul Frankl's indispensable terms, an "additive" to a "divisive"

—

or, as

should prefer to

I

call

— character.

"synoptic"

it,

VI

If

the

Tournai, the date

or 1430

it

Merode

altarpiece

was personally inspected by Jan van Eyck on one of

must have been completed, or nearly completed,

which we should assign

to

— the Master of Flemalle

mendous

influence,

still

from the Cross" in the

it

produced a work

On

the left

It is,

much

a small

who

believed that Christ

and clumsy but obviously

this is precisely

little later

— say in 1429

larger and, to judge

wing was seen

Good

the

Thief, a

Roman

from

copy in Liverpool

(fig.

230)

is ;

one of them the

transmitted through

of the original only a

fragment of the right wing, showing the Bad Thief and the busts of the two Romans, served in the Stadelsches Kunstinstitut at Frankfort-on-the-Main (fig. 205).

As we

learn

from

this

its tre-

mourning woman

soldiers,

was the Son of God. The ensemble

reliable

and

or rather was, a huge triptych with a "Descent

and the donor; on the right wing, the Bad Thief and two Centurion

A

for general stylistic reasons.

more renowned.

center.

in 1427-1428,

his visits to

is

pre-

1

fragment, the original was painted on finely tooled gold ground,

here evidently employed, not as a matter of course but with a definite and conscious intention.

The Dijon in

"Nativity" shows the Master of Flemalle perfectly capable of staging his narratives

open landscapes.

It

was

in deference to the

monumentality of the task (open, the

altarpiece

must have measured about 12 by y /2 feet) and to the solemnity of the content that he, the naturalist, bowed to an age-old tradition of ecclesiastical art. Like the best of his followers, for l

instance,

Roger van der Weyden and Geertgen

achieve a special hieratic effect as a

modes when writing

sacred music.

tot Sint Jans,

modern composer such

2

167

he used gold ground in order to

as

Verdi might use the Gregorian

EARLY NETHERLANDISH PAINTING Were

it

not for the fact that the Frankfort fragment was placed on the

ami that the donor appeared

Good

Frankfort Thief as the

wing, one would

in the opposite

rather than the Bad.

1

tempted

feel

and modeling and

so tragically beautiful in

almost seems to defy the limitations of the Gothic

it

this heroic sinner a strange affinity to the Apostles'

style.

it

is

Bad Thief

is

here appears so

movement and

There

of the Cross

to interpret the

For, while the figure of the

normally distinguished by violence of movement and coarseness of type, perfect in structure

left

expression that

in the chiseled features of

heads in the approximately contemporary

"Last Supper" by Castagno, and the pathos of his pose seems to foreshadow the "Dying Slave"

by Michelangelo. master, I

A

direct contact

with

Italy

would seem improbable; but

certain

it is

that the

out of touch with the Italian present, was acting under the spell of the Italianate past.

if

work

quite agree with Winkler's unjustly neglected suggestion that the style of this particular

harks back, not only to earlier panel painting in general, but quite specifically to that most

monumental and most fifteen years before,

prefigured by the

Thief

is

in the

"Martyrdom

to

Italianizing school of panel painting

which had been represented, some

by Jean Malouel and Henri Bellechose.

Dead Body

in the

of St. Denis" (fig. ioo)

;

Louvre tondo

and of

all his

2

The Master

(fig.

of Flemalle's

Bad

101) and the crucified Christ

forerunners Henri Bellechose appears

have been most closely akin to him in personality and temperament. Even in the landscape

there can be felt a kind of

and other pagans by

Tuscan

severity,

and the Sienese

fantastic accoutrements, half oriental

tradition of characterizing

and half

attribute of such exotic types being a favorite motif of the Lorenzetti especially cherished in the circle of the

two masters

of Dijon.

Romans

— the as an brothers — had been

classical

fillet

But the gesture of the believing

Centurion, hand over his heart, and the awe-stricken attitude of his almost believing companion are without precedent or parallel.

The "Descent from replicas

3

the Cross," unfortunately, cannot be admired in the original, but

give us an idea of

its

general aspect and

vidual features.

The Virgin swooning

and acclimated

in

Germany and

wringing her hands before her

blindly groping all

man

arms of

its

indi-

John (a concept originating in

Italy

Germanic Lowlands rather than

breast, the

in France), the

woman

two groups of weeping angels hovering around the

upwards and her arms outstretched

as

though reaching

these motifs were not to be forgotten for a long time. in the striped cloak

feet, for

the place

And

for the

body of Christ

die pattens discarded by the

climbing the ladder, though possibly introduced only in order to lend

verisimilitude to his barefooted ascent, yet bring to

thy

St.

us realize the importance of

and the impassioned Magdalen turning her back upon the beholder, her right foot

Cross,

—

the

in the

make

its

whereon thou standest

is

mind

the verse: "Put off thy shoes from off

holy ground," an idea exploited in this sense

by generations of Early Flemish painters. As a whole, however, the composition

crowded — "gepfropft," unresolved discords of

few years Cross."

Its

of Flemalle

quote Willem Vogelsang's felicitous term rigidity,

— and

trenchant diagonals and

is

somewhat

dissonant with

stiff verticals.

Only

a

may be called a painted critique of this "Descent from the was Roger van der Weyden who, we recall, was associated with the Master

later there

author

to

movement and

4

appeared what

from 1427

to 1432,

and

this

one picture, the famous "Descent from the Cross"

168

lately

THE MASTER OF FLfiMALLE from the Escorial

transferred

two

of the

Prado

to the

from the Cross" he was serving

Campin

after leaving

from

gifted students, not only learned

show

Madonna nursing the

Veronica" Escorial,

is

which

from

Rogerian

the St. Veronica, standing

hangings of Lucchese

flat

silk

on

a

show

a

new

strip of

Compared with

Sudarium,

the works thus

beflowered

detach themselves

turf,

brocade, and this deliberate limitation of space recalls to

The

also his early

restrained,

and

Madonna

backdrop

in the

(fig. 307).

Gemalde-

The

colors,

proportions are pronouncedly slender, and

taste for thin, tubular folds

and movement are deliberately

Frankfort and

being placed before an open landscape, the

narrow

subdued, are warmer and deeper.

the draperies

at

"Descent from the Cross," formerly in the

galerie at Vienna, the latter similarly foiled by a brocaded still

traces of this

the Master of

should like to date about 1430-1432, only

I

mind, not only Roger's "Descent from the Cross" but

though

first

very

"Trinity" originally forming the back of the "St.

as Roger's

relatively Flemallesque. Instead of

Madonna and

the

rising

many

like

Infant, a St. Veronica displaying a transparent

panels — the

— are as relatively

And

and

artist

work from which

Like the "Bad Thief," they are preserved

to us.

doubt that

is little

Roger van der Weyden,

it,

a Trinity depicted as a sculpture in grisaille (figs. 206-208).

far considered, these three

and there

the "Descent

1

this altarpiece, originally a triptych

come down

his,

comparatively mature

as a

think, in the very

I

Flemalle received his art-historical name.

the wings have

many ways

him. In

but also taught his instructor.

retroactive influence can be discovered,

and

to

Tournai while the great triptych was being executed.

of Robert

world fame almost immediately

a standing

homage

more Flemallesque than any other work of

is

his "apprenticeship" in

However, entering the workshop

Of

prove the non-identity

suffice to

painters.

In criticizing the Master of Flemalle, Roger did

to

should

(fig. 314),

flowing in rhythmical curves. Expression

the compositions are pervaded by an un-

all

expectedly tender, an almost lyrical sentiment.

This

is

— except for the fact that the hand of placed upon the wound in His side — reminds us once of Roger's

particularly true of the "Trinity"

the dead Christ

ascribed to Jean Malouel. as

it

redoubled force.

left

later

at

is

"Depositions in Half-Length"

— repressed,

which

And

were, by a

The

picture

2

(transmitted in copies, yet

it is

as

and of the tondo

394, 395)

extraneous to his innate propensities

spirit is

figs.

precisely in this "Trinity" that the master's materialism

harsh in treatment as

it

is

—

asserts itself

with

tender in sentiment. Surpassing

even the simulated statutes on the back of the Prado "Betrothal" in plastic aggressiveness, the

group protrudes from

and the faces,

legs of the

and the Dove

its

niche,

dead Christ sits

and

is

plumb on

is

a cervical

reality

and

muscle

as

(fig. 209).

3

though upon

its

later

fluent, curvilinear

God

the Father

Madonna

and "tough-minded-

in the

Musee Granet

than the panels from Flemalle, drapery

press the figures into a shallow, frontalized relief space;

169

of

a perch.

fantasy, the softer emotions

Probably somewhat

even more "Rogerian" in

The head

double shadows upon the adjacent sur-

sharpened into open conflict in the remarkable

Aix-en-Provence picture

illumined by a hard light.

cast sharply delineated

This latent tension between ness,"

is

had

style

all

and

its

at

this

tendency to com-

the other paintings by the

EARLY NETHERLANDISH PAINTING Master of Flemalle been Roger, St.

if

lost

would be pardonable

it

to ascribe this

moon under

A

her feet."

visionary

theme

"Boucicaut Hours"; and

style of the

naturalistic style of the Renaissance

it

Woman,

— to

hardware rather than

ment can

levitate in mid-air;

would

is

presented a problem susceptible of solution to the trans-

The

so palpably real,

—

if I

may

abuse a philosophical

modeled and emphatically

massive, heavily

a celestial body, that

and the moon under her it is

difficult to see

and the very realism of the

in the absence of solid

to the prenaturalistic

and the Baroque. The Master of Flemalle's materialism,

a "misplaced concretion."

shortened throne of the Virgin

St. Peter,

"clothed with the sun, and the

no problem

like this presented

however, could convey the idea of a miracle only by resorting

they

—

— the enthroned Madonna, surrounded by a gigantic

as the Apocalyptic

wreath of clouds, appears in the sky

piece of

to a close follower of

not to Roger himself. But behind these surprisingly Rogerian figures

Augustine and an Augustinian Abbot

term

work

draperies,

how

fore-

feet so obviously a

the whole arrange-

made

to

hang

freely as

ground, makes us doubly conscious of a contradiction. The

laws of nature are miraculously suspended and conscientiously respected

at the

same time.

VII

The Master

of Flemalle

imposed the principles of

his style

on portraiture

as well as nar-

rative/

During the High Middle Ages there was, autonomous

meant

portrait,

to

as a rule,

as

an independent or

immortalize the appearance of an individual for

means of authentication on

Portraits served as a

no such thing

its

own

sake.

coins or seals, as instruments of salvation in

donor's portraits or funerary effigies, as records of specific events or statements of political

theory in the case of tures.

monuments

The independent

or

or ceremonial representations in ivory plaques and minia-

autonomous

portrait

only in the second half of the fourteenth century

came

into being,

when new

and could come

religious trends

into being,

and an even newer

philosophy, nominalism, asserted the right of the particular against the claims of the universal, the right of the senses

— which are

necessarily limited to the particular

— against

the claims

of the intellect.

From the beginning an earliest known examples in of ca. 1360, already

later.

between two

rival types

may

be observed.

painting are, on the one hand, the Louvre portrait of Jean

adduced

Archduke Rudolf IV 2

interesting contrast

in other connections (fig. 28); and,

of Austria in the Diocesan

Museum

at

on the

le

The Bon

other, the portrait of

Vienna, produced about

five years

Both paintings are bust portraits without hands, the figure tightly confined within the

frame. But the foxy countenance of Jean

le

Bon, delineated in graphic rather than either

plastic

or "painterly" fashion, appears in full profile; whereas the bluff face of the Archduke, painted in a plastic yet broadly pictorial

three-quarter view.

The

latter

manner reminiscent

has

its

ancestors in Northern donor's portraits

quarter view had predominated throughout the

concept as

it is

in style,

is

a

medal

of Theodoric of Prague,

High Middle Ages;

all'antica transposed into painting.

170

is

rendered in

where the

three-

the former, Italianate in

;

THE MASTER OF FLfiMALLE This difference determined the history of the independent portrait for nearly two centuries.

In Italy the profile portrait persisted throughout the Quattrocento and even farther.

In the North

it

had

tremendous vogue for about

a

example

set

by the portrait of Archduke Rudolf)

Italianism, did not outlast the

of

Anjou (died 1417)

three lustra of the fifteenth.

Washington

we remember, would seem

3

Between,

say,

The famous

to reflect a

'

self-

follows the

still

portrait of Louis II

Limbourgesque

the

92) and the Louvre

(fig.

work by one

selves (fig. 94), are the last representatives of their kind.

in Flanders,

Hardi of 1402

but this vogue, a facet of fourteenth-century

in the Bibliotheque Nationale,

in the National Gallery at

which,

first

;

(though the interesting

sixty years

portrait of the paintress Marcia in the Boccace de Philippe le

1

Portrait of a

Portrait of

of the

Lady

John the Fearless

Limbourg

brothers them-

4

1420 and 1500 not a single independent portrait in pure profile can be found

France and Germany. Here the profile view was not revived until the beginning

of the sixteenth century

when

the leaders of the Northern rinascimento, Durer, Massys, Burgk-

mair and Holbein the Younger, resumed

it

the fifteenth century, the Northern painters

form

erably in the

as a classicizing Renaissance device.

5

Throughout

employed exclusively the three-quarter view,

which shows the

of the so-called "kit-cat" portrait

length and includes, however uncomfortably at times, the hands.

not as a quasi-Platonic idea but as a familiar reality

The

(it is, after all,

pref-

en buste or in half-

sitter

individual

is

thought

not very often that

we

of,

ob-

serve our fellow beings in pure profile view), subject to change, integrated with a spatial

environment, and able to

The beginning

make

contact with the beholder.

gundy. His portrait in the Louvre turned

may

of this development

be seen in the circle of John the Fearless of Bur-

shows the face in

still

full profile

though the body

an angle, and the hands, with a piece of table for them to

at

already

is

upon, are included.

rest

6

But in a second portrait of the same prince, transmitted to us through the excellent copy in

Antwerp which seems have the face

is

example of the

first

turned

at the

quarter view.

pure

to originate in the

real "kit-cat" portrait.

same angle

It is as

profile, yet

as the

though the

was unable

workshop of Roger van der Weyden

body though

artist

to evade

approximately forty-five degrees, but

exposed to the beholder

Compared some two or either

three of

are the

still falls

to get

a

little

away from

head

is

face

is

averted

John

the still-fashionable

turned, not at an angle of

from the

the Fearless, the portraits of the

which have come down

tip of the

nose

light so that the side is

shaded.

Master of Flemalle

—

to us in the original while five or six others are

are transmitted only through copies

plasticity, optical verisimilitude

we

short of the three-

an angle only about half that wide, the

The

378)/

hands included but the

illuminated whereas the side partially concealed

to this portrait of

somewhat doubtful or

vanced in

is

aspect

spell entirely; the

almost tangent to the contour of the cheek. fully

its

had attempted

its

at

Not only

(fig.

8

— are

immeasurably ad-

and psychological individualization. In two

respects,

however, they are conservative or even archaic. They are archaic in that the master, with his characteristic horror vacui, again

the contemporary

reduced the space between the figure and the margin (whereas

and otherwise provincial Dutchman who produced the

van Duivenvoorde was bold enough

to represent her in

171

portrait of Lisbeth

almost full-length)

9

they are con-

EARLY NETHERLANDISH PAINTING servativc in that he did not

change the system of illumination. The heads are

averted from

still

the light, and so consistently did the master adhere to this principle that he applied

companion

where man

pieces

and wife are turned toward each other and

illumined from opposite directions

(figs.

even to

it

yet appear to be

217-219).

In both these respects a difference in principle exists between the Master of Flemalle and

The

Jan van Eyck. itself creates

latter

not only re-enlarged the frame in relation to the figure

Instead of being turned

away from

the side exposed to the beholder

method,

earlier

— but also reversed

a sense of free existence in space

is

the light, the face of the sitter

contrast between the

two

lighted instead of being diversified,

system

it

it

cleaves the light

the case in the

Ghent

the earlier tradition piece the light,

because she

is

is

as a

results, of course, in a

whole.

The

it,

so that

and half-shades. The

volume

is

more

forceful

more than

largest surfaces are

and the whole head, plus the headgear,

waves head-on,

altarpiece

is

hit

offset

uniformly

by the light

it

as

were, so that

it

it

seems to project

itself

out of the

only where portraits are integrated with an ensemble as

and the Dresden

triptych,

and here the apparent relapse into

motivated by the postulate of uniform illumination. In the Ghent

coming from the

turned to the

the light comes

directed towards

seems to be pressed back against the ground. According to the Eyckian

depths of space. Jan departed from is

is

sides of the face, but this increase in local

by a comparative flattening of the configuration

broadside-on, so that

the system of illumination.

differentiated by innumerable shades

followed by the Master of Flemalle,

still

— which in

from the

left; in

left

must

right,

strike the face of the donatrix "Flemalle-fashion"

the Dresden triptych the

while he

is

altar-

turned to the right.

same

applies to the

Where

donor because

the Master of Flemalle did

not hesitate to sacrifice optical unity at the altar of a principle, Jan had no scruples about aban-

doning the principle in favor of

optical unity.

VIII

In the sibly at

some

last

phase of the Master of Flemalle's career another "retroactive" influence, pos-

work from

as early as ca. 1427-1428,

extent, the tensions that

influence of Eyckian in the

Hermitage

at

art.

God

to a

to gain

Leningrad.

One

(fig.

of

210)

them x

in the

daction of his favorite theme, the

think, in

two

at

pictures, both preserved is

another

wherein the rigidly frontalized and axialized figure

crown hanging

embroidered with pearls and precious stones, seems

image of the Lord

I

served to resolve, to

Aix-en-Provence: the

— perhaps only an excellent replica —

the Father, the injulae of His tiaralike

the majestic

momentum and

head in the Madonna

This process can be observed,

"Trinity of the Broken Body" of

had come

began

Ghent

Madonna

in motionless

symmetry and

to reveal the master's acquaintance

altarpiece.

The

other

is

a

with

new, much-copied

of Humility in a domestic setting (fig. 211).

2

re-

The

Virgin Mary, her robes bulkier and more crumpled than in the panels from Flemalle and the

Madonna

at

Aix-en-Provence but more elaborately "arranged" and stylized than

172

in the paint-

THE MASTER OF FLfcMALLE ings preceding these two, give a chill to the

sits

on the

Whom

nude Infant

The room and

appointments

its

warming

floor before a fireplace,

she

is

about to swaddle.

recall the

Merode

altarpiece

except that the three-legged stool which figures in the latter brass

— and the perspective distance

earlier interiors.

The

light

is

milder so that a

now

bears a basin and pitcher of

with

soft duskiness, pleasantly contrasting

for once

;

we have

a feeling of

com-

and

parative spaciousness, enhanced by such "intervals" as the uncovered portions of the floor

my

the rear wall of the fireplace. In

new

features

Eyck

— can

even

if

we

— including

set aside

his "Ince Hall

While it is

opinion

for.

only by the influence of Eyckian art that these

the controversial

Madonna"

works ascribed

two

pictures at

fact in the last extant

a triptych executed in 1438 for

from

a

drawing

though of

enthroned, in the

van Eyck's youth

is

lost;

work

2

The

Louvre which reproduces

a Sacra

3

vaulted anteroom

The

St.

appearance

its

The wings

may

be derived

engaged in reading in front of St.

John the

(fig. 212).

Barbara panel, achieving a

maximum

of spaciousness within the

from the Merode

altarpiece, the "Salting

all

Madonna" and

still

prevailing

the symbols of purity the

Madonna

at

the figure identified as

window, she might

be mistaken for

5

pened. Yet closer inspection reveals a

Merode

Roger van der Weyden). The painter took

Mary

to a virginal saint,

and were not

Our Lady

—

as has, in fact, occasionally

hap-

number of significant changes. The Annunciation

lilies

herself

altarpiece have been replaced by irises,

and the

lions transforming ordinary

benches into "Thrones of Solomon" have disappeared. Added, however (and again, transmitted through Roger),

van Eyck's In the

And

"St. left

it

is

of the

Roger van der Weyden

is

Werl

I

believe,

the specifically Eyckian symbol of the glass carafe illumined

should be noticed that the tower

Barbara" of 1437

wing

latter, I

Barbara by the tower that dominates the landscape seen through the

St.

easily

Lenin-

4

the liberty of transferring the attributes of the Virgin

6

a

Baptist, in a barrel-

grad: the vase containing flowers, the towel, and the basin and pitcher of brass (the

by the sun.

The

are preserved in the Prado.

the left one, the donor and his patron saint,

think, appropriated through the intermediary of

seen in the

Co-

Conversazione of about the same time

limitations of a short-distance or wide-angle perspective, exhibits

familiar to us

at the University of

central panel, probably represent-

only an approximate idea of

entirely different format (fig. 23 1).

;

would postdate

of the Master of Flemalle, the

Heinrich von Werl, Professor

right one shows, within a well-appointed interior, St. Barbara fireplace (fig. 213)

it

Leningrad the Eyckian influence remains debatable,

logne and, for a time, Provincial of the Minorite Order.

Madonna

generally dated about 1435, and

is

to Jan

van

to be peculiar to Jan

of 1433.

in the case of the

ing a

which seems

The Leningrad Madonna

an incontestable and uncontested

wings of

it is

the basin-and-pitcher motif

be accounted

—

very different from that of these

is

background and

the sheen of polished brass, develops in the

and the "Salting Madonna"

extremely short, with the usual result of horizontal

is still

surfaces threatening to tip over. Yet the general impression

two

her hand in order not to

1

(fig.

is still

under construction,

just as in

Jan

254).

altarpiece the master's indebtedness to both Jan

even more evident.

From

*73

the

wooden

partition

van Eyck and

which divides the

EARLY NETHERLANDISH PAINTING depth of the room into two nearly equal parts (and through an opening

background, a covered bench with crumpled cushions

closes, far in the

all

blue), there hangs a circular, convex mirror reflecting the left-hand wall with

man and

back of the Baptist, a

boy — presumably

a

bottom

at the

its

window, the

the painter and his small assistant

they enter the room, and the half-open door that conceals the donor.

A

dis-

painted in very dark

—

mirror image of

as

this

depicting in a charmingly distorted miniature the space beyond the limits of the picture

sort,

plane,

was almost

Fazio in the

lost

a sign

One

of Jan van Eyck.

mirror of

"Women's Bath" then owned by Cardinal

London

seen in the

manual

Arnolfini portrait of 1434

Petrus Christus' "St. Eloy" of 1449,

The

respectful quotation.

Baptist,

(fig.

this

Ottaviani;

kind was admired by 1

another can

be

still

work (such

247). In any other painter's

407) the presence of this motif amounts to an explicit,

fig.

on the other hand,

one of the

repeats, as will be seen in

fol-

lowing chapters, a beautiful gesture invented by Roger for an altogether different purpose a gesture of gentle recoil rather

The room But

terpart.

than

than formal presentation.

depicted in the donor's is

it

seen, surprisingly,

wing extends

to

—

2

about the same depth as does

its

coun-

through a "diaphragm arch," and even more surprising

resumption of so obsolete a device

this

as

is

the fact that the general disposition of the latest

triptych by the Master of Flemalle reverts, almost verbatim, to that of one of his earliest, the

Merode

altarpiece.

unified.

A

Even

solid wall cuts off the

The

been fashioned.

the apartment of as

is

the

St.

Barbara must have been

workroom

yet

nowhere near the

St.

Barbara

is

as

of St. Joseph in the

may

be called

the Holy

Merode

completely absorbed in her reading

— as

is

the

St.

altarpiece.

The

is

perspective construc-

to

which

his

own

depend on those

— and thus

as

completely out of contact

Joseph in his carpenter's work.

a great innovator

genius had drawn, and

whom

— his

to the left

nearly identical in both cases, and the

In a sense the Master of Flemalle's development has run full cycle.

came

little

of Holies.

thoroughly separated from the central

as

visual focus of the central panel,

with the central scene

of the circle

may have

this

with the beams of the ceiling approximately converging toward a point far

tion,

was

not completely

anteroom from the central chamber, however

permitted to look into but not to enter what

and

And

is

is

donor, like the Inghelbrechts couple, kneels before a couple of

steps

chamber

in 1438 the spatial content of the three pictures

he had helped

latest years

we can

to form.

He

could not step out

easily conceive that in the

Like many great innovators

were overshadowed by the very

light

end he

— and he

which he had

lit.

IX

With

the exception of a beautiful though unfortunately truncated and partly overpainted

picture in the Pennsylvania

Museum

of Art (fig. 216)

—an

"Intercession of

Our Lady with

Christ" in half-length the iconography of which harks back to the fourteenth century and was to exert a strong later artists

3

—

I

and varied influence on Roger van der Weyden and, through him, a host of have mentioned

all

the works by the Master of Flemalle

4

can accept as authentic. These, however, are a mere fraction of his oeiwre.

174

know and Numerous works,

which

I

THE MASTER OF FLEMALLE known

in part of the first order, are

through copies, and some such copies have

to us only

al-

ready been touched upon in the preceding paragraphs: the Liverpool replica of the Descent

from the Cross

1

Of

sels.

"Adoration of the Magi," the Louvre drawing

triptych, the Berlin

"Madonna

"Sacra Conversazione," and the

Museum,

workshop redaction rather than an 3 ;

York, of

"Mass of

a

4

fig.

227);

St.

Tomyris" and the "Slaying of

respectively)

the early "Virgin in an Apse" (best

violent in every respect

now

in the Dr. E.

from the Speculum humanae

fig. 224,°

Luke Painting

and possibly

a

Museum

at

Lou-

Schwarz Collection

at

New

salvationis (the

"Vengeance

Our Lady's

victory over

Sisera by Jael," both prefigurations of

and, possibly, a "St.

Body with Four

the "Trinity of the Broken

much more

the Devil, transmitted by a picture in Berlin, 6

list:

original invention (best replica in the

Gregory" (best replica

a series of subjects

2

222)

fig.

Angels," not unlike that in Leningrad but

vain)

we may

other compositions thus preserved

replica in the Metropolitan

after a lost

of Humility" in the G. Miiller Collection at Brus-

and a drawing

in

Braunschweig,

fig.

225,

the Virgin" reflected in a picture by that

7

great parasite of the past, Colin de Coter (fig. 228). In addition,

we have

a

number

of portraits:

the Berlin portrait of Robert de Masmines, the brave, fat counselor and general of John the Fearless

sels;

10

his life before

the portraits of

Bouvines in 1430

(fig.

Bartholomew d'Alatruye and

8

220)

the

"Man

his wife at Brus-

and the Portrait of a Princess (supposedly Mary of Savoy, wife of Filippo Maria Sforza)

Dumbarton Oaks Whether such

and

9

Turban," also in Berlin;

in a

at

and Philip the Good who gave

(fig. 221).

copies or replicas are in fact based

what extent they

to

are "faithful"

stances, as in the portrait of

Miiller Collection, they

understandably

n

come

— accepted

is,

as

genuine.

12

an Apse," they have come

down

work

of Jacques Daret. In

to us in so

known to have drawn on common features of these

masters of the sixteenth century accept the

— and

In others, as in the "Adoration of the Magi" at Ber-

"Madonna

many

still

others, as in

replicas, in part

by famous

compositions by the Master of replicas as constants.

uniquely fortunate case, that of the "Descent from the Cross," replicas

In certain in-

so close to the master's personal style that they are widely

the

we can

by the Master of Flemalle

Robert de Masmines and the "Madonna of Humility" in the

they are authenticated by their reflection in the

Flemalle, that

originals

of course, not always easy to decide.

lin,

in

upon

we can compare

a

And

in a

number

of

with a fragment of the original.

Often, however,

we have

to trust the intuitive impression that a given composition

the "spirit" of the master, and in cases of this kind

we must

be very careful.

shows

The Master

of

Flemalle kept a big workshop, and his authority was such that he was arbitrarily exploited as well as faithfully copied. also

an excess of

Not only

must warn us against accepting reality, are It is

as

bona

if

the analogues are found in different originals

—

workshop redactions what,

in

fide copies or authorized

nothing but pastiches.

in this category that

bines figures derived to the

the presence of unconformable or uncongenial elements but

similarity — especially

fall,

in

my

from the Merode

opinion, the "Annunciation" in the Prado which comaltarpiece with

atmosphere in which those figures lived;

13

175

an

ecclesiastical setting entirely foreign

the "Death of the Virgin" in the National

EARLY NETHERLANDISH PAINTING Gallery

London where Flemallesque elements

at

donna Nursing the Infant" by an anonymous Westphalian master which

Sum ma

Flemallianae;

art is

2

which have been adduced

as

Roger van der Weyden and

To make amends

a

"Ma-

constitutes a

little

extremely famous works — the "Crucifixion"

and two

398) and the Calvary triptych

(fig.

in the

1

are intermixed with Goesian ones;

Abegg

Collection in Switzerland

in Berlin

(fig.

399)

—

cogent evidence for the identity of the Master of Flemalle with

will therefore

come up

for these eliminations,

for discussion later.

however,

as to a lost, indubitably authentic "Crucifixion"

I

3

should like to be a

little

more

positive

which can be reconstructed from convergent

sources.

The

large triptych with the "Descent

from the Cross"

was copied, not only

in the center

entirety (as in the copy at Liverpool) but also piecemeal, so to speak.

its

separately used by early engravers,

was

a favorite of

whose author, we

of ca. 1435 at his time.

the

4

and the

central panel, the "Descent

book illuminators. One of these miniatures recall, specialized in

especially the patterns of the

several de-

garments; but in a general way his rendering

sufficiently

same

The Thieves

(fig. 129).

Cross triptych. in the

itself,

and omitted

of the composition

5

Now, on

"Arenberg Hours," we have a many-figured "Crucifixion" that glance

from the Cross"

found in the "Arenberg Hours"

copying Flemish panel paintings renowned

agrees with the other replicas to be called faithful (fig. 130).

first

The Thieves were

Constrained by the format of the book and not overly meticulous as a craftsman,

Dutch illuminator narrowed the proportions

tails,

is

in

The group

of

St.

are obviously derived

John and the Holy

and the group of

altarpiece,

soldiers

strikes us as

from those

Women

on the other

another page of the

Flemallesque

in the Descent

at

from the

not unlike the analogous group

is

side of the Cross not only evinces

the Master of Flemalle's predilection for fantastic, orientalizing apparel but also includes one of his favorite

and most

characteristic motifs, a richly

draped figure seen from the back.

6

Given the illuminator's notorious dependence on well-known Flemish panel paintings, we can

at least infer that a

famous "Crucifixion," agreeing more or

"Arenberg Hours," was in existence prior

less

with the miniature in the

to ca. 1435; the only rub

is

in the

"more or

less."

Fortunately the degree of accuracy with which the Arenberg Master rendered his model and, therefore, the presumable character of this model

itself

independent document, an early picture by Gerard David to

(fig.

229), formerly in the monastery of

preserved in the Thyssen Collection at Lugano, as

is

who

in his

youth was no

is

St.

we may

They

agree,

down

accept as authentic

to the minutest details, in the

Florian in Upper Austria and

we

now

all

that in

which the two

is,

so to

versions

7

group of

soldiers, except for the fact that

Gerard David's painting the cloak of the figure seen from the back plain in the miniatures. Since

prone

manifestly derived from the same archetype

agree and have to assay probabilities wherever they differ.

it is

less

before.

the miniature in the "Arenberg Hours," and the reconstruction of this archetype

speak, a matter of extrapolation:

in

— can be determined by an entirely

draw upon the great Founders than was the Arenberg Master two generations This picture

—

is

gaudily striped while

have seen that the Arenberg Master always neglected

the patterns of textiles (witness his copy after the "Descent

176

from the Cross"), we may accept

THE MASTER OF FLfcMALLE these stripes as authentic and note

well-known

to

in the

1

The group

two

headgear

have been added by the

foreground as well models.

as significant in

versions,

as the landscape,

of

— perhaps

receding diagonals, the group in the painting

lished.

—

in the

Women, on

the other hand, differs considerably

and here the miniature deserves more credence than the painting. Includ-

ing motifs manifestly derived from Roger van der

Geertgen

Gerard David

inspired by Eyckian rather than Flemallesque

is

John and the Holy

St.

out of the picture behind the

a youthful self-portrait of

and the same may be true of the two dogs

latter,

which

view of the Master of Flemalle's

The head looking

partiality for fabrics of this sort.

soldier with the beribboned

would seem

them

tot Sint Jans, to

whom

the picture

Weyden and

pyramidally arranged upon

reflects the influence of

was

attributed before

Gerard David's teacher,

its

authorship was estab-

2

On

the whole, then, the

as adequately as does his

Arenberg Master's "Crucifixion" would seem

to render

its

model

"Descent from the Cross." Apart, of course, from the difference in

quality, the original of the "Crucifixion"

must have looked very much

like the miniature, the

only difference being that the cloak of the figure seen from the back must have been striped

and that the Thieves,

we have

as

is

the case in Gerard David's picture,

seen, the illuminator appropriated

for reasons of space, to display

them

must have been

from the Descent from the Cross

in the "Descent

from the Cross"

itself,

absent. These,

triptych. Unable,

yet unwilling to

leave them unused, he simply inserted them, instead, into his "Crucifixion." But in doing

he unwittingly

—

or,

perhaps, wittingly

were inspired by one and the same

so,

— acknowledged the fact that both these compositions

artist, jortior

eo: the Master of Flemalle.

177

VII

JAN VAN EYCK 1

n telling the story of the van Eyck brothers, whose shadows loom so large over

our previous discussions,

we

to discuss the elder brother,

But of Hubert's

in chronological order.

Ghent

contributions to the

tempt

can unhappily not begin

Jan's.

work unquestionably antedating master's, later style that

Jan van Eyck

we must

x

is first

the

style

Of

Jan,

Ghent

It

would seem natural works

latter's

authenticated example except his if

at all,

only by an

at-

on the other hand, we have no authenticated

altarpiece.

It

is,

therefore,

from

Jan's, the later

our way back.

try to find

heard of

we have no

and these can be determined,

altarpiece

them from

to disentangle

beginning.

at the

Hubert, before the younger, Jan, and to take up the

as painter

and

varlet

de chambre

to

John of Bavaria, the un-

consecrated Bishop of Liege who, after the death of his brother, William

VI

of Holland,

had

usurped the territory of his niece, Jacqueline, and established residence in the Hague.

He

employed Jan

for the decoration of his castle

And

September nth, 1424.

since Jan

is

from October

24, 1422 (at the latest) until at least

already referred to as "master" at the time of his ap-

as to his

may assume that he was born not later than ca. 1390. 2 There is also some doubt birthplace. For many centuries it has been taken for granted that both brothers were

born

"Eyck,"

pointment we

at

Maaseyck, some eighteen miles north of Maastricht. Recently

viz.,

been proposed that they were natives of Maastricht

uncommon as a I am inclined to At

Here he

employment

19,

1425,

he was appointed

to Lille prior to

resided, with

major and minor interruptions,

the end of

that she

Soon

is

not

as yet inconclusive,

3

after,

life in

office of a

would not consider

of

a lady of

was born

whom

in 1406,

nothing

and

is

until

known

and

August 2 of

varlet

that she presented

him with at

this year.

a

minimum

name

of

two

Bruges for good and spent

house "with a stone front" (acquired in 1431 or 1432), combin-

court artist with the normal activities of a bourgeois master painter it

de

1429, having married,

except that her Christian

presumably in 1430, he established himself a stately

to Bruges, but stayed

as painter

Burgundy and moved

the rest of his

ing the

On May

van Eyck repaired

Good

an undetermined date,

children.

in Holland, Jan

to Philip the

was Margaret,

is

has

accept, for the present, the traditional view.

there for only a short time.

at

where the name "van Eyck"

family name. But since the evidence for this hypothesis

the end of his

chambre

itself

it

who

beneath his dignity to accept such commissions as the coloring and gild-

ing of the statues on the facade of the

Town

Hall.

178

He

died on July

4

9, 1441.

JAN VAN EYCK Throughout the Flemish master

sixteen years of their association the

to sign his

works and,

Duke and

we know,

so far as

so inimitably blended with

fidence. Philip the a familiar

and

a

Good

member

which becoming pride

can," in

but also trusted

artist

gentleman. As early as 1426 the painter undertook, in the

nated by death, Philip the lasting

I

not only admired Jan van Eyck as a great

two embassies

of

from early summer

and

"secret voyages,"

of his master,

and during the following years he was

a

Good was

and the

still

without an

to October, 1427

II,

known, another mission was dispatched also

I,

as

two previous marriages, both termi-

daughter of James

daughter of King John

name

him

to the Iberian peninsula. After

named

heir,

(when Jan van Eyck

Tournai on the eighteenth), was undertaken, Isabella of Spain,

Early

first

— lived on terms of mutual esteem and con-

becoming humility

certain confidential pilgrimages

— the

the only one to imitate the nobles in

adopting a personal motto, the famous Als ich chan, "As best is

his painter

of the voyages overseas,

received his vin d'honneur at

seems, in order to negotiate a marriage with

it

Count

first

of Urgel. This having failed for reasons un-

to Portugal in order to obtain the

Isabella.

hand

of the eldest

This time the envoys succeeded, though only

at

the price of two exceedingly rough and dangerous crossings — entailing lengthy stopovers in England on both They started on October 1428, and returned — with the Infanta — trips.

as late as

19,

December, 1429; the marriage took place on January

1

10, 1430.

2

Apart from another "secret mission" in 1436, the Duke of Burgundy honored er

by

at least

one personal

visit to his

payments and an occasional

and

salaries

dozen

silver

workshop, showed him

his favor

exempted him from

gift of silver cups,

cups)

and her children's

when

a child of Jan's

loss";

was baptized sometime before June

Agnes

St.

later, in 1450, his

at

Maasseyck by

one occasion, when the bureaucrats in

Lille

Duke came down upon them with an

gravest displeasure, to honor the claims of Jan van

man

a

widow

He

even

received a sub-

daughter Livina (Lyevine) was en-

a special grant

had made some

from Philip the Good. difficulties

about Jan's

order that has the ring of the Italian

Renaissance rather than of the Northern Middle Ages.

Duke, "would never find

30, 1434.

her husband's services and in commiseration with her

and nine years

abled to enter the Convent of

the

kinds of extra

decreed in 1426, and acted as godfather by proxy (at the sacrifice of another half

stantial gratuity "in consideration of

On

all

a general cutback in jobs

extended his affection beyond the grave. After Jan van Eyck's death his

salary, the

by

his paint-

He

High

enjoined them, under threats of

Eyck without delay or argument;

for he,

equally to his liking nor so outstanding in his art and

science": "nous trouverions point le pareil a nostre gre ne

si

excellent en son art et science."

3

What may be dismissed as humanistic hyperbole in Bartolommeo Fazio, who praises Jan van Eyck as a man of literary culture {litter arum nonnihil doctus), proficient in geometry, and 4 a master of "all arts that may be added to the distinction of painting," is thus borne out by the testimony of Philip the Good. By the very wording of his reprimand (art et science, a phrase not

uncommon

in the early fifteenth century) he implies that the

and particularly those of

his favorite painter,

superior skill but also of superior

This judgment

is

had

knowledge and

to be considered not only as a

artist,

matter of

intelligence.

confirmed by Jan van Eyck's

179

achievement of an

pictures.

Only

a

keen

intellectual curiosity

EARLY NETHERLANDISH PAINTING much

could have devoted so

logical

mind could have

and systematized the principle of "disguised symbolism" that

refined

pressed

"no residue remained of either

it,

without disguise."

Only the

its spirit

in all

its

in his world, as

I

ex-

have rediscovered the indigenous

phases and manifestations.

and disciplined by geometry, the

ination controlled

details,

so thoroughly

without significance or significance

objectivity

instinct of a historian could

Romanesque and recaptured mined

chronograms, astronomical

interest to theological texts,

and even paleography. Only a

cabalistic invocations

"art of

And

only an imag-

measurement," could have deter-

the impeccable proportions of Eyckian architecture.

ii

That Jan was

also

an expert in alchemy,

as Vasari

derived from the belief that he was the inventor of

would have

it, is

of course an assumption

painting. This belief,

oil

we know, can no

longer be maintained. Yet the fact remains that he must have devised certain improvements

unknown

— improvements

before

which enabled him

both in minuteness and in

to surpass

luminosity whatever was achieved by his predecessors, contemporaries and followers.

he

distilled

and

his

new

varnishes, driers

amusing

drying varnish

1

tale of Jan's

might, after

and diluents

— and in this case Vasari's reference to alchemy

innovations having started with the development of a quick-

all,

— or merely applied the processes of

contain a grain of truth

the nouvelle pratique with greater sophistication,

colors — "radiant

the translucency of the

difficult to say.

it is

though not invented by him,

that in his pictures the oil technique, full glory,

Certain

plastic

form.

From

linen, etc.) for

it

is,

revealed

first

2

the sheer sensuous beauty of a genuine Jan van

Eyck there emanates

which we experience when permitting ourselves when looking into deep water. We find it hard to tear

a strange fas-

hypnotized by

to be

ourselves

feel

drawn back by what Magister Gregorius, compelled

again and again although

it

meant

a

walk of more than two

magical persuasion." Whoever has tried to give a other paintings

hung

"just a painting," a

in the

same room

mere semblance

as

than "just a painting."

It

of these claims

is

and painted

that even a

reality,

fact, a picture

a

mere representation

Ghent

so as to simulate

down

Venus

"some kind of

of conscientious attention to

Rubens may

when looked

at

strike

him

with an eye

as

still

by Jan van Eyck claims to be more

— and

a precious object at that

—

of the visible world.

stressed by the very treatment of the frames

provided himself and which have come exceptional case of the

remember

will

away from

to revisit a statue of

miles, described as

amount

claims to be both a real object

and a reconstruction rather than first

fair

opposed to a

carrying the imprint of a Jan van Eyck. In

The

—

(apart, of course,

cination not unlike that

and

itself in its

luminary surface accents rather than the construction of

precious stones or it

however,

by themselves without any varnish"

enhanced by an increasingly economical use of lead white which he employed

from the rendering of

Whether

which he invariably

to us in at least eight instances. Setting aside the

altarpiece, these

frames are elaborated into complex moldings

marble or porphyry. Moreover,

180

this

marbleization

is

carried over

JAN VAN EYCK to the

back of the panel, and carefully lettered inscriptions are seemingly incised into the

By

ficial stone.

may seem

legerdemain, which

this

reprehensible to the purist, Jan van

when

not only showed off his virtuosity (as did the Limbourg brothers

wooden dummy

Berry with the

Book

of a gorgeous

Hours)

of

arti-

Eyck

Due de

they fooled the

but also emphasized and

'

The modern frame is nothing but a device for isolating nature. The Late Medieval frame, exemplified by the van

glorified the materiality of the picture.

the picture space from the space of

Beuningen

altarpiece with

diptych" with

its

carved rosettes

(fig. 107), or,

elaborate gilt tracery (fig. 99),

its

is

more extravagantly, by the "Carrand

an ornamental setting which compasses the

picture as chased metal does a precious stone. Jan van Eyck's frames are, in a sense, both.

subduing them

coloristically,

he stressed the modern idea of the panel as a "picture," that

But

the projection plane of an imaginary space.

in transfiguring

them

into

In

is,

what looks

as

like

marble, he retained the idea of the panel as a tangible piece of luminous matter, united with its

frame into

a

complex objet

The impression

d'art

precious materials.

more

a reconstruction rather

say this: the naturalists of the fifteenth century, avid for observation yet in

many ways

between the

— between the

world

is

difficult to rationalize.

total aspect of a face or

and

total aspect of a piece of fur or fabric

the total aspect of a tree and tirely suppressed,

visible

were plagued by the problem of striking

to convention,

and the particular

skin,

many

tentatively,

committed eral

of

van Eyck confront us with

Very

than a mere representation of the

we may

composed

that paintings by Jan

its

a balance

between the gen-

hand and the wrinkles of the

individual hairs or fibers, between

its

individual leaves. Before Jan van Eyck, these details,

tended to remain distinct from each other

as well as

if

not en-

from the whole and give

the impression either of a whole incompletely differentiated or of a mass of details incompletely unified.

The hand

remains a

totality so that

the polished armlet

London double with the

of the

St.

George

no contradiction

from which

portrait,

in the

it

emerges

smooth though

"Madonna van is felt

between

(fig. 249). it

is,

der Paele," however its

The

seems

detailed,

complexity and the simplicity of

face of the

Giovanni Arnolfini in the

sufficiently rich in detail to

and fur

intricacies of the plaited Italian straw hat

This Eyckian miracle was brought about by what

much

harmonize

collar (fig. 247).

may

be likened to infinitesimal calculus.

The High Renaissance and

the Baroque were to develop a technique so broad that the details

appeared to be submerged,

first

in

wide areas of

light

and shade and

later in the texture of

impasto brushwork. Jan van Eyck evolved a technique so ineffably minute that the number of details comprised by the total

form approaches

infinity.

This technique achieves homoge-

neity in all visible forms as calculus achieves continuity in all numerical quantities. is

tiny in terms of measurable

that

which

magnitude

yet

sizable in terms of measurable

is

is

That which

large as a product of the infinitesimally small;

magnitude

yet

is

small as a fraction of the

infi-

nitely large.

Thus Jan van Eyck's had emerged, world out of

at his time,

his

pigments

style

may

be said to symbolize that structure of the universe which

from the prolonged discussion as nature builds hers out of

skin, or fur, or even the stubble

on an imperfectly shaved

181

of the

"two

infinites";

he builds his

primary matter. The paint that renders face (fig. 262) seems to

assume the

EARLY NETHERLANDISH PAINTING very character of

what

once more, "seem to extend over

minished

and subdued

in size

of articulation as

do the very

scope at the same time

some 175

invented,

And

miles," even the

nearest. Jan

— and

it

to think that

looks

However,

human

as a

years later,

far

down from heaven

number

however much

di-

fullness

microscope and as a

tele-

both these instruments were to be

from the picture and many

but can

to quote Fazio

and the same

in the Netherlands — so that the beholder

we

compelled to

is

oscil-

positions very close to

some

share

1

it.

of the experience of

the hairs of our head.

such perfection had to be bought at a price. Neither a microscope nor a telescope

good instrument with which

duce

objects,

of solidity

van Eyck's eye operates

amusing

is

most distant

same degree

while thus being reminded of the limitations of nature,

Him Who a

fifty

in color, retain the

between a position reasonably

late

is

and when he paints those landscapes which,

depicts;

it

to observe

human

The

emotions.

telescopic

view tends to

re-

beings to those "figures of diminutive size" which people distant landscapes; the

microscopic view tends to magnify their very hands and faces into panoramas. In either case the individual

is

of the natural scenery or

By

nature, Jan van

manded

it

—

as in the

expanded into a small universe.

Eyck was by no means an impassive

animated Genesis scenes on one of the

or in the truly terrifying "Slaying of

any other

artist of his

all those,

that

is,

mere part

apt to be de-emotionalized, whether he be reduced to the status of a

— he could be

time. But in the "classic," unanimously accepted

relegated to the background.

The emphasis

is

this chapter)

on quiet

Madonna"

capitals in the "Rolin

Abel" in the Ghent altarpiece

with which we are concerned in

and where occasion de-

artist,

2

works of

these

as

dramatic as

his maturity (in

dynamic elements

existence rather than action,

are

and with

the significant exception of the Annunciate in the comparatively early picture at Washington,

who

retains, in

much

attenuated form, the emotional contrapposto attitude of her Italianate

predecessors, the principal characters are nearly motionless,

communicating with each other

only by virtue of spiritual consubstantiality. Measured by ordinary standards, the world of the mature Jan van

Eyck

is static.

in

When we "early works,"

exclude, for the time being, the problematic

we

are left with

pictures by Jan van Eyck.

no more than twelve

Four of these

compare with the more complex

on white-grounded wood rather than from 1432

is

altarpiece

or, possibly thirteen

are portraits in half-length

narratives.

death so that his personal contribution

—

Ghent

Three were unfinished

hard

to estimate.

a painting,

One

is

and the contested

— dated or datable

and therefore

at

difficult to

the time of the master's

an elaborate brush drawing

and the dates of

all

these pictures, ranging

to 1441, cover only the last nine years of his activity.

Yet even within

this limited material a definite

development can be discerned.

It

was only

by degrees that Jan's compositions attained that immobility which Dr. de Tolnay has happily described as cristallisation de I'espace and insensibilisation des personnages,

3

and

that his tech-

nique turned from glittering freedom and effervescence to that stony severity which overawes

182

JAN VAN EYCK Madonna." And

us in the "Paclc

end the master's

lessness persisted. In the

warmth and humanity

To

was only

it

for a brief period that this almost

style

came

to be irradiated, as

it

that can be sensed in his "earlier" works.

known

(his secular compositions being

at is

Melbourne

243);

(fig.

through

to us only

questionable copies), the earliest dated picture

though the scene

flaw-

were, by some of the

Ghent

begin, then, with Jan van Eyck's religious paintings other than the

National Gallery

inhuman

'

the face

laid in a bourgeois interior

is,

somewhat

literary descriptions or

the "Ince Hall

is

Madonna"

of 1433,

altarpiece

now

in the

unfortunately, partially repainted. Al-

— the symbolical

implications of which have

already been explained in Chapter Five, as has the iconography of most of the other works

from

to be considered

a stylistic point of view

— the dignity of Our Lady transcends her surMadonna" by

roundings. In significant contrast to the "Salting significant should

it

the Master of Flemalle, doubly

have exerted some influence on the "Ince Hall Madonna," she does not

nestle in a corner, so to speak, but occupies the center of the stage,

of honor

now

proudly erect before a cloth

surmounted by a canopy. The composition thus resulted from

between the

a fusion

domesticity of the Master of Flemalle and the courtly ceremonial of the "Boucicaut Master" (fig. 67). little

But

not, as yet, rigidly formalized.

it is

of the plastic

form beneath,

of the International Style is

conveyed by the

still

a

sits

casually spread out in folds in

is

of the Virgin,

which the

2

revealing

curvilinear fluency

competes with modern angularity, and an impression of airiness

fact that there

her central position, she

The crimson mantle

is

plenty of

room between her head and

the canopy. In spite of

sideways, and in spite of the canopy her seat

little

is

not a regal

throne or even a regular chair, but a mere bench without back and armrests; her pose

A

halfway between that of a Madonna Enthroned and a Madonna of Humility.

human Hours the

intimacy

main group

whole

is felt

in the

way

in

for the Infant Jesus to look at

is

wall

suppressed.

Moreover, while

to turn the pages.

gives an impression of approximate bilateral symmetry, the composition as a

later, in

"Madonna van der

the

The composition

elements, and the

is

slightly shifted off axis so that

is

Madonna group

its

figural

which the work was

destined,

and courteously tipping

his helmet,

smile seems to be frozen on his face.

The

is

more

is

con-

of the

unequal angles.

3

all

and

has crystallized into a compact conical shape.

and the patron and namesake of the Canon van der

his protege

at

Paele" at Bruges (fig. 248),

inexorably symmetrical both in

the titular saint of the church for

faces

Him

exposed to view than of the right and the vanishing lines converge

Three years

statue,

touch of

by no means perfectly axialized. The pattern of the brocaded cloth of honor

is

thus

which the Virgin Mary holds an illuminated Book of

and even allows

spicuously asymmetrical, and the center of vision left

is

movement

is

architectural St.

Donatian,

a magnificent motionless

Paele, St. George, while presenting

seems to be frozen in these very

acts just as the

Infant Jesus and His mother, though turning their

towards the donor, remain immobile and remote.

The Virgin now

occupies a real

throne adorned with symbolic sculptures, and even these, notably the group of Cain Slaying

Abel on the Virgin's

right,

are severely restrained in comparison with the analogous reliefs

The drapery

in the

Ghent

less as

an organic form than

altarpiece.

4

as a

of the

Madonna

kind of stereometric

183

accentuates the

solid not unlike

volume beneath

it,

but

an inverted and truncated

EARLY NETHERLANDISH PAINTING The

pyramid.

fabric

and

altarpiece,

all

is

angularly corrugated almost as in the simulated statues of the Ghent

human

the other surfaces, including

sculptural hardness.

The

and

cut off in front by the lower frame, and

is

is

two

saints

appear almost colossal since the surrounding space

we remember,

though,

this very device "includes" us in the

cut

is

by

is

down

so close to

encompassed

as tightly

by the armrest of the throne, the columns and the canopy as a cult image the

an impression of

hair, give

group seems very large and statuesque, being

principal

the beholder that the carpet

flesh

And minimum —

its

to a

niche.

narrow, circular sanctuary and

thereby produces a sense of nearness both in a material and spiritual sense. It

may

be thought that an informal

Madonna

pared with a Queen of Heaven holding court in what lem. Yet

we can show

that the difference

is

is

ture nearly identical with the "Ince Hall

The

"Madonna van

altarpiece referred to

is

deep, carpeted, tripartite throne

the

little

room

aisles of

triptych in

is

constitute

and formality of the

still

and subject but even more

the

somewhat forbidding

one continuous

setting

Romanesque

a

left,

and

pavement

is

earlier date, say

Madonna enthroned

we

see the

St.

Catherine alone on the right.

common

in the

What

— arrangement — is

is

the "Ince Hall

is

The

indicated).

Madonna"

space envelops the figures less

far back, appears almost tiny.

than two thirds of the

A

generous amount of

interposed between the edge of the carpet and the lower frame, and there

than glows, and

all

the surfaces are alive,

now

as in the fluffy hair of the St.

and friendliness

George

is

Madonna"

in the "Paele

St.

184

is

slivers

Madonna" and

more

soft-

Michael looks almost boy-

homage

in Frankfort (fig. 252),

the "Ince Hall Madonna,"

picture

with the sparkle of the

in the Christ Child's active response to the

Conversely, the so-called "Lucca mestic and unofficial as

St.

much

Catherine — with the hazy

swansdown. The round-cheeked, curly and bejeweled

comparison with the metallic

is

Madonna." The whole

the canopy than even in the "Ince Hall

of glass in a kaleidoscope, now —

vivacity

;

with that of the "Paele Madonna"

and the perfect symmetry of the

about 1430-1431,

and the Madonna, pushed

scintillates rather

ish in

Ma-

by the analogous theme. In every other respect, however, the Dresden triptych

more headroom beneath

ness of

basilica, quite

structure of the "Paele

with comfortable amplitude; the figures of the standing saints occupy available area

Italian

space. In the richly decorated central

even farther removed from the "Madonna van der Paele" than

(so that a

a pic-

found in the Boucicaut Master's Tite Live in the Bib-

Michael with the donor on the

easily explained

is

240-242). * Expanding and varying the idea of a

the composition of this triptych does have in the splendor

On

"Madonna van der

Dresden presumably ordered by an

79)? Jan van Eyck confronts us with

which

Jerusa-

and iconography alone.

the other hand, there

in intention

nave, surmounted by the symbolical triad of windows, side aisles, St.

in purpose

Madonna"; on

Madonna"

(figs.

as

more resplendent than

small but even

donna," the

(fig.

Heavenly

der Paele" in form.

gentleman named Michele Giustiniani

liotheque Nationale

to signify the

a formal altarpiece iconographically similar to the

Paele" but even freer in style than the "Ince Hall

rigid than the

meant

between the "Ince Hall Madonna" and the "Madonna

van der Paele" cannot be accounted for by the difference the one hand, there

com-

in a domestic setting cannot be fairly

3

there

is

much

of the donor.

though

just as do-

rather than less austere and

JAN VAN EYCK hieratic than the

time, perhaps a

"Madonna

trifle later.

Canon van der

of the

may

Paele" and

be dated at about the same

— to such

In spite of the informal setting, symmetry rules supreme

an extent that the window in the left-hand wall has an identical twin in the niche in the

The low bench

has been replaced by a regal chair a la

niscence of the

Madonna

compact and statuesque

headroom beneath

of Humility

in itself,

in

and the drapery

pure

after the

is

it

Antwerp dated 1437

its

the group

is

surroundings, the

The nursing

Infant, rectangularly posed

symbolic apple without a sign of either feeling or consciousness.

this fusion of

The (fig.

1

It is

254).

as a

we

development

this

to soften

without a

loss in

the remarkable

is

Barbara

St.

not a painting but rather a meticulously detailed and brushes on a white-grounded panel, and

finest of

mere preparation.

accepted as typical of Eyckian underdrawings; pictures carried out in color,

began

this rigidity

mellowness and grandeur that characterized Jan van

example of

first

drawing executed with the

have been commenced

fact

Madonna"

in relation to

right.

so that every remi-

the same tendency toward crystalline precision and systematiza-

carved into big prismatic folds.

is

Eyck's ultima maniera.

finished

in the "Paele

monumentalized

"Lucca Madonna," however,

monumentality, and

in

is

profile, clutches the

Soon

it is

Solomon

of

the canopy being severely restricted and the carpet emphatically cut in front.

In surface treatment there tion,

and

As

obliterated.

is

Throne

do not

I

2

believe,

the paint were

if

however, that

it

may

in

can be

removed from Eyckian

could hardly expect to find a similarly detailed drawing under-

neath. Every Early Flemish painting presupposes, of course, a careful but

much more

gener-

alized preparation; such minutiae as the fine lines of the saint's hair, the details of the incidental figures

or the subtleties of the architecture

had the

thinnest coat of paint

have

to

"St.

would have been

obliterated

by even the

first

Barbara" ever been transformed into a real picture.

assume that Jan van Eyck, either of

his

own

and

We

accord or at the suggestion of a discrim-

inating client, decided to elaborate this particular "preparation" into a finished product sui iuris,

and

this

assumption

a real "picture," in

is

corroborated by the very fact that the

an elaborate frame simulating

a beautifully lettered

"IOHES DE EYCK

little

red, black-veined

ME FECIT.

1437."

monochrome

is set,

like

marble and inscribed with

A subsequent attempt at coloring

did not, thank God, proceed beyond some patches of blue in the sky.

That Jan van Eyck resumed the problem cated architecture and teeming with several years

— reveals

the

memory

of the

St.

of the

figures

open landscape contrasting with compli-

—a

problem which he had neglected for

a nostalgia for concreteness, multiplicity

abstraction, uniformity

of an illuminated

little

and systematization. The

facial type

and

and freedom

as

opposed to

fluffy hair of the saint

evokes

Catherine in the Dresden altarpiece while the motif of turning the pages

Book

of

Hours reminds us

of the "Ince Hall

Madonna." The drapery,

too,

resembles the freely spreading forms seen in the picture of 1433 more than the compact and

somewhat schematic arrangement

in the

of 1436. This freedom, however, resulted tion.

lines

Luxuriant though they seem

and

"Lucca Madonna" and the "Madonna van der Paele"

from

a loosening subsequent to systematic organiza-

to be, the folds are

kept in order by a few forcible guiding

clearly divided into three large areas, each functionally significant: the

like folds that spread

on the ground, the big rhombohedron

185

flat,

plowshare-

that encloses the lower part of

EARLY NETHERLANDISH PAINTING the figure, and the concentration of crumpled material that

And

tween the two. ter

the wealth of microscopic

and enchanting

accompaniment of the dominant theme, the

(marked by the

figure

mighty

saint

detail

but the fanciful coun-

and her tower, the

hand) and the central

left

is

transition be-

central

axs

of the

axis of the edifice defining

one

vertical.

The we

can,

and the

face

marks the zone of

idea of a St. Barbara sitting

recall,

on the ground

—a

Barbara of Humility,

be explained by the regional Flemish tradition.

1

were

it

—

is monunew meaning.

But here her attribute

mentalized into a structure of gigantic proportions and invested with an entirely

The symbol

as

of the tower originally referred to the fact that Barbara, like Danae, had been

imprisoned by her pagan father in order to protect her beauty from defilement. But the legend

he discovered her conversion

also relates that

2

to do.

To

to Christianity after she

with three windows instead of a bathhouse with two

to build a chapel

was natural

artists it

had caused as

windows from

to transfer these Trinitarian

his

workmen

he had authorized her the chapel to the

tower of imprisonment. Jan van Eyck, however, transformed the tower of imprisonment into the tower of a cathedral represented in course of erection, depicting the multifarious activities

workmen and

of the

and not without subtle humor, and saying 'par cy

a cane

who, arms akimbo, ever,

is

one of

"Madonna

as

when

the traditionally elegant architect-in-chief, "carrying

according to

promise in the small

at the

ing of the inscription

St.

"IOHES DE EYCK

all

Christians are "God's builders," in-

Day

at

Antwerp

fulfilled in the later

(fig. 255).

of either the one or the other)

"Madonna

at the

which

less rich in plastic possibilities,

the figure

is

not

embedded

is

Mary

and she

is

is

mind

this

the

1439" ("Jan van

may have

in the space of either

blocked by

a cloth of

5

a direct

a "completed"

much

so that a

In contrast to the four

shown standing

a robe of

instead of en-

glowing

red.

Moreover

an interior or an open landscape. The pros-

honor spread out by two angels and by the rose hedge

of the hortus conclusus, with the portentous sword-lily conspicuous

Yet

still

clad in the traditional blue mantle

had been audaciously replaced by

in the other paintings

pect into depth

4

Fountain" looks almost archaic, so

compositions thus far discussed, the Virgin

throned, a theme

and

The unusual word-

"made" by Jan van Eyck was not

misguided scholar has been stirred to correct the "1439" into "1429."

Madonna

3

were acquired by the same patron.

picture; perhaps both panels

glance the

Barbara panel was

of Judgment.

ME FECIT + CPLEVIT ANO

reference to the "St. Barbara" which, though

first

Paul,

Fountain," also preserved

Eyck made and completed me," instead

At

St.

a structure not to be completed until the a

sense of reality

me le taille,' " attempts to make himself understood by his foreman down to him from the top of the tower. The underlying idea, how-

real solemnity;

What remained smaller

yells

working on

cessantly

amazing

the idle curiosity of visiting townspeople with an

on the

right.

apparently spaceless and indeed deliberately archaizing picture which brings to

schema of the "Virgin of Yolande Belle" of 1420 and bears

cidental resemblance to

the clavichord,

where the

To

look

ear,

at

it is

more than 6

ac-

at

Vienna

an experience analogous

to

hearing a performance on

Roger van der Weyden's

of depth and complexity.

a possibly

Madonna

once adjusted

early

to the small

186

volume

(fig.

307),

is

full

of the instrument, perceives

.

JAN VAN EYCK dynamic

more

differences

our range of vision

is

when exposed

acutely than

so limited, the successive planes

grassy bench, the cloth of honor, the figure

accent of the "fountain of gardens"

rical

comparison with which the design exists

is

reduced to

all

to

Just because

and, in the foreground, the boldly asymmet-

itself

— detach themselves from each other with a vigor in

other pictures in the same

our attention

essentials,

more powerful sounds.

— defined by the blue sky, the hedge, the

is

room appear almost

Just because

flat.

held by the contrapuntal relationship that

between the large surfaces and long tubular folds

in the center

and the crumpled and

cascading motifs on either side, and by the even more basic interaction of body and drapery;

never before in Jan's work had the plastic form so eloquently asserted

because the

movement

of the very

in all earlier compositions

—

is

itself

against

hands collected in the center,

Just because the posture of the Virgin, her

ing.

young Christ Child

— much

livelier

is

its

cover-

and

so rigid,

and more babyish than

so ruthlessly forced into the picture plane,

we

are doubly

touched by the inwardness of the Virgin's expression and by the tenderness of the Infant's embrace.

IV

The words "Johannes de Eyck me

fecit et

complevit" proved to be ominous. After 1439,

the year of both the "Virgin at the Fountain" and the portrait of his wife, Jan van

not to "complete" a single painting

come down

has

— except, perhaps, a "Holy Face" produced in

to us in six replicas, the smallest of

Three compositions, however, can claim

was responsible for

The

best

their design and, in

documented and,

most important of these three works ingia

and a Carthusian Donor"

Grandiosely conceived, the spaced arches that

set off

viction; to invert a

The

two

the

is

(fig.

cases,

had begun

St.

at least as

Barbara,

St.

is

Elizabeth of Thur-

Vasari's,

it

seems

2

contrasting with the sweep of wide-

but do not limit a vast panorama, this picture yet

famous dictum of

he

concerned,

in the Robert de Rothschild Collection at Paris (fig. 257) stillness of the figures

1

their execution.

genealogy of Early Flemish painting

"Madonna with

1440 which

256) might be the original.

have been "made" by him, insofar

to

as far as the

which

Eyck was

to

fails to

carry con-

have been "constructed, not born."

proportions of the architecture are subtly out of joint. All the surfaces, especially those

of the porcelainlike faces, are too smooth.

wooden.

St.

Elizabeth's triple

crown

The hands want

lacks the subtlety

in articulation.

The

draperies are

and sparkle of other Eyckian goldsmith's

work. The right-hand half of the landscape somewhat mechanically repeats a number of details

the

seen in the "Rolin

mixed

Madonna"

style of the architecture

3

which

as a

model

for

(Romanesque arches and columns with Gothic

tracery

on

(fig.

244)

the spandrels and bases); and the clumsy tower

bolism of

its

three Gothic

windows and

seems to have served

— apart from

cross-shaped finial

of a statue of Mars — does not seem to detach

landscape behind

also

itself

from

is

the fact that the familiar syminconsistent with the presence

either the figures before or the distant

it.

In view of these weaknesses the "Rothschild

187

Madonna"

has occasionally been doubted.

EARLY NETHERLANDISH PAINTING seemed

Its style

subsequently been confirmed

— with

Most Blessed Mary, Mother of God,

and

lished), 3,

it

Barbara and

St.

identity of the previously

was dedicated by

Vos was

In 1450, Jan

144}.

has

— by documents. According to these, the "image St.

place in the Carthusian monastery of Genadedal, near Bruges.

Vos (whereby the

this attribution

the important qualification that the basic plan of the

composition probably remains Jan van Eyck's of the

1

than Jan van Eyck, and

to suggest Petrus Christus rather

It

Elizabeth" had

was

anonymous Carthusian donor

a visiting Bishop.

Martin of

Mayo

original

firmly estab-

is

in Ireland,

transferred to Nieuwlicht near Utrecht,

its

a gift of the Prior, Jan

on September

which we remember

as

one of the centers of Dutch book illumination, and took the picture with him. "At present," says the

Nieuwlicht chronicler

whom we owe

to

monastery and can be seen on the

said

altar of St. Barbara."

The "Rothschild Madonna," and

cannot have been

it

Madonna"

then,

commenced

"it

belongs to our afore-

By way of compensation, however,

and somewhat abridged

the Prior ordered for Genadedal a free of Thuringia, the so-called "Exeter

our information,

replica,

without

St.

Elizabeth

Berlin (fig. 408).

at

was completed some time before September

March

until after

30,

1441, this being the

1443;

3,

day of the

Hammone. Of these approximately two and onehad elapsed when Jan van Eyck expired on July 9,

death of Jan Vos's predecessor, Guerardus de half years only three

Some

1441.

months and ten days

time, of course,

between the

picture's

ance must also be

must be deducted from the period

completion and

made

its

after Jan's

death for the interval

"benediction" by the Bishop of Mayo.

between the death of Guerardus de

for the interval

But allow-

Hammone

and

Jan Vos's accession, for the interval between his accession and the commissioning of the picture,

and for the

more than

The

of Jan van Eyck. In

last illness

to lay out the

probability, therefore, Jan

all

composition of the "Rothschild

Madonna"

van Eyck could do

in the

little

most general terms.

elaboration of the design, and certainly the actual execution of the picture, must have been

man whom he had trained; who was entitled and able to wind up unfinished business, speak and who had access to whatever was left of personal sketches and workshop draw-

left to a

so to

;

ings (needless to say, painters and

book illuminators

subsequent use and comparison). This

whom

to

have been commissioned too

and

van Eyck's

disciple

closely follows

its

Carthusian Order as evidenced by the

late for

Jan to have carried

Madonna"

composition.

New

York

he did not become a citizen of Bruges until July

lish

workshop

himself as a master in his

The documented 1441,

and September

in the

own

name

right.

out.

He

was, as no one

to replace the Rothschild pic-

He was and

remained in touch with the

Portrait of a Carthusian of 1446.

6,

of the

was

1444,

And though

nothing whatever militates against the

widow

'thirties

and, after the

until such time as he

saw

fit

latter's

to estab-

2

fact that the "Rothschild 3,

it

it

was

that

assumption that he had joined Jan van Eyck some time in the death, conducted the

for

and successor and whose

have been recognized in the "Rothschild Madonna" even before

has ever doubted, the author of the "Exeter ture in 1450

works delivered

can have been none other than Petrus Christus

tradition has always regarded as Jan

stylistic peculiarities

known

man

alike kept copies of

Madonna" was executed between March

30,

1443 lends credibility to the inscribed date, "1442," of another picture

188

JAN VAN EYCK that raises the

problem of Petrus Christus

the Detroit Institute of Arts (fig. 258).

When

this

five years ago,

itated

both

changed

Jan van Eyck: the "St. Jerome in His Study" in

vs.

1

small picture, measuring only

it

was unanimously

8'/4

by 5V4 inches, came to light some twenty-

But

attributed to Petrus Christus.

its

invention, widely im-

home and abroad, was soon recognized as Jan van Eyck's. With the St. Jerome Thomas Aquinas but most of the enchanting paraphernalia retained, the com-

at

to a St.

position recurs, for example, in the "Tres-Belles

served as a model for two

by Ghirlandaio and the

Even

monumental

"St.

frescoes in the

Augustine" by

Botticelli.

Church

oils,

an

in

etui,

we happen

showing a

St.

to

and

would duplicate

a "St. Jerome"

Jerome engaged in study, with at his feet; a

work

a bookcase (armarietto)

of Master John of Bruges."

of the picture revealed the date 1442, diminutively inscribed

Assuming

pearance, represents, like the "1662" plification" (here

meant

frame whose existence

may

is

begun by Jan van Eyck

by Petrus Christus in 1442. the "Rothschild tirely

and ap-

of 1661, a "correction

and am-

on the dark-green marbleized

stated

Jerome";

St.

shortly before his death

4

Its

Madonna," except

and

it

may be

finished,

would

hypothetical history

the "Medici

unbeknownst

documented

parallel the

most of

his robe (which, in addition,

of the strongbox that serves

conscientious but

marked

him

difference in style

shows

as a writing table

somewhat pedestrian

and

history of

was

own

quality.

and the depressed-looking

left

en-

hand.

While the

traces of over-painting), the

style of Petrus Christus, the

Jerome"

St.

to the Medici,

for the fact that, while the latter's execution

Detroit picture shows indeed a

saint's chair,

exciting

irregular in placement

to Petrus Christus, the former would have been partly carried out by Jan's

The

more

upon

proved by remnants of paint on the panel's back), the Detroit picture

be more than a mere copy after the "Medici

itself,

somewhat

that this date,

on Rembrandt's "Syndics"

what was presumably

to rectify

it

of Ognissanti, the "St. Jerome"

the strip of wall between the back of the chair and the curtain of the bookcase, a possibility presented itself.

Florence

in

know, was owned by the Medici: "A small Flemish

containing several books in perspective and a lion

However, when the cleaning

"

3

as a Petrus Christus, therefore, the Detroit painting

by Jan van Eyck which, as picture in

Heures de Notre Dame,"

lion

lower part

show the

upper right-hand sector

— roughly delimited by the outer contour of the curtain and the lower edge of worthy of the greatest of painters. Petrus Christus, notorious for his inexthe tablecloth —

of the picture

is

pressive,

pudgy hands and general tendency toward

simplification, can hardly be credited

with a hand so sensitively inserting slender fingers between the leaves of the big Bible

as if to

hold two passages for comparison; with the unobtrusively effective play of light on shining or translucent objects;

and with the "rich-looking gloom" diffused

in

the recesses of the

armarietto.

A

direct clue not only to the picture's authorship but also to

furnished,

I

its

original destination

is

think, by the microscopic yet perfectly legible superscription of the twice-folded

domino, domino Ieronimo,

letter

on the

tituli

Sancte Crucis in Iherusalem presbytero cardinali" ("To the Most Reverend Father and

Lord

in Christ,

saint's

worktable: "Reuerendissimo in Christo patri

Lord Jerome, Cardinal-Priest

of the

189

Holy Cross

et

of Jerusalem"). Addressing

St.

EARLY NETHERLANDISH PAINTING

— in

Jerome

contradiction to a well-established tradition which either considered

him

as a

cardinal sine tittdo or invested him with the Church of Santa Anastasia — as "Cardinal-Priest of the

Holy Cross of Jerusalem"

salutation assigns to

him

(that

of Santa Croce in

is,

Gerusalemme),

the titular church of the only cardinal

known

sonal contact with Jan van Eyck, the excellent Nicholas Albergati.

compliment,

it

makes

St.

Jerome the

A

1

lineal predecessor of Jan's old

this very

formal

have been in per-

to

graceful, half-humorous

may

patron who, therefore,

be presumed to have commissioned the picture.

The "St.

some extent

Detroit picture thus compensates, to

Jerome" which was admired

description,

must have

had much

at

in

at least, for the loss of that other

Naples by Bartolommeo Fazio

common

2

and, to judge from his

with the painting in Detroit.

makes us

It

realize

that Jan's interpretation of the great translator represents not only a

triumph of genre and

He

transformed the Bouci-

painting but also a

still-life

new

evaluation of intellectual activity.

caut Master's bare "corner" into

what may be

called a "scholastic interior,"

presence of cherished objects and pervaded by an atmosphere of contented

workplace of one

him with

ciating

in 1447,

who

is

warmed by

the

seclusion — the

And there is a particular fitness in assoTommaso Parentucelli who, when elected Pope

both a saint and a humanist.

the fatherly protector of that

assumed the name of Nicholas

V

in

honor of

his late benefactor

and was

become

to

the founder of the Vatican Library.

While the "Rothschild Madonna" and the Detroit because of the intervention of Petrus Christus, the

last

"St.

Jerome" constitute

of Jan van Eyck's

a

problem

posthumous works,

the so-called "Ypres altarpiece," does so because of the non-intervention of Petrus Christus. Instead of being immediately finished by Jan van Eyck's legitimate heir, this altarpiece appears to

have

workshop

left his

in

an unfinished or even rudimentary

state

and assumed

its

final

shape in a long process of supplementation and overpainting.

The "Ypres

— ordered by Nicholas van — Ypres from 1429 to 1445 as large in scale as the two other

altarpiece" (fig. 259)

Maelbeke, Provost of

St.

posthumous panels are

Martin's at

tiny; opened,

3

is

it

a

round-topped triptych

measures about

never touched by Jan van Eyck and their interest

is

1% by

2 meters.

chiefly iconographic.

The wings were

On

the interior,

four Marian symbols are depicted in elaborately naturalistic fashion: the Burning Bush and the story of the

Golden

Fleece,

Aaron's Rod, on the right. the

The

on the

left;

the Shut Gate (according to Ezekiel

exterior, painted in grisaille

Emperor Augustus ("Octauianus") with

and executed

XLIV,

as late as 1550,

2)

and

shows

the Sibyl of Tibur; and, in the upper zone, the

Virgin Mary glorified by three musical angels, both groups represented in three-quarter length and surrounded by mandorlas.

The composition

of the central panel, however,

is,

Our Lady and

Depicting Nicholas van Maelbeke on his knees before

dependent copy drawings of

donna

ca. 1460, the picture

may

of the Chancellor Rolin" with the "Rothschild

Virgin and

qua composition, indubitably Eyckian.

be called a final synthesis of the "Ma-

Madonna." The standing posture of

the general appearance of the Christ Child are features

Rothschild picture.

With

the "Rolin

Madonna," however,

190

authenticated by two in-

it

it

holds in

common

the

with the

shares a prevailing atmosphere

JAN VAN EYCK The

of intimacy.

homely

Virgin, again clothed in a red robe, turns toward the sponsorless donor with

And what

friendliness instead of maintaining a pose of inapproachable frontality.

Madonna," the Ypres

applies to the figures also applies to their setting. Like the "Rolin

But

piece induces a sense of elevation by the lowness of the horizon.

Madonna,"

the landscape

is

framed prospect, but

treated, not as a

as in the

altar-

"Rothschild

as a scenery limitlessly con-

tinuing behind the piers and columns of a structure which, though built like a chevet in a

polygonal apse, gives the impression of an open portico. In execution, however, this latest

no

right to

moved

assume

work

of Jan van

Eyck

far

is

that, after all the accretions of the last three

from

been uncovered

is

less resistant to

have received at the

have re-

(before the recent cleaning the donor had an entirely different face with bald pate and

What

pointed, seventeenth-century beard) a uniformly Eyckian stratum has been reached.

no

We

authentic.

hundred years had been

its

hands of

Sharing

his

merely the stratum of the sixteenth century which

modern cleaning than

that of the fifteenth.

sweet, Leonardesque smile

a painter familiar

with the

The

still

employed a technique

face of the Infant Jesus can

and equally Leonardesque sfumato treatment only Quentin Massys. The group of

style of

Mantle which crowns the sumptuous crozier betrays

an impressionistic sketchiness entirely foreign

to the era of Jan

its

Martin

St.

date, about 1530 or so,

little

confidence as

does his heavy head (which in the copy drawings shows a tonsure), the pudgy hands of

and the robe of the Madonna which

in the

by

van Eyck. The hard, flashy

treatment of the Provost's brocaded and embroidered pluvial inspires as

figures,

has

drawings lacks

its

all

the

bejeweled borders and

reveals the Virgin's left foot.

The

inference

is

in a state at which, for the

is

most

part, the execution

the upper part of the architecture, characteristically

with fourteenth- or even fifteenth-century glossily painted

than most of the

it

In

vault-ribs.

Though

may

not really finished

present state, then, the Ypres altarpiece

rather than to Jan van

Eyck the

have been a glorious finale

painter; but

is

had

a

monument

his

more

is

or second

it

escaped the

time of the master's

at the

to Jan

capitals

thinly and less

indicate that

apparently seemed finished enough to be allowed to stand as

its

first

combining Romanesque

This portion

but just this peculiarity

rest,

attentions of the sixteenth century.

death,

had not proceeded beyond the

Apart, perhaps, from certain sections of the landscape, the most convincing

coat of paint.

portion

van Eyck's workshop

that the central panel of the Ypres altarpiece left Jan

it

was.

van Eyck the composer

hand not been stayed by

fate,

it

would

to his career.

Plotted against the compositions dated or datable between 1433 and 1441, most of the

undated ones

Of earlier

fall

readily into place.

the Dresden triptych (figs. 240-242)

than the "Ince Hall

Madonna"

we have

of 1433,

already seen that

it

must be somewhat

and of the "Lucca Madonna" that

191

it

must be

EARLY NETHERLANDISH PAINTING approximately contemporaneous with,

van

tier

A (fig.

not a

similar date

268) were its

should also assign to the "Stigmatization of

I

not for the fact that

it

1

authenticity.

No

Canon

of the

Thyssen Collection

Lugano

at

in grisaille, thus offering

to Jan 2

(fig.

this

253).

—

have considerable

I

van Eyck's oeuvre, an "Annunciation" in the

This work consists of two separate panels painted

do not display paintings

do they bear the marks

as are the

Eyck himself had decided,

in natural colors or

remnants

of recent bisection as do, for instance, the Frankfort

"Trinity" and "St. Veronica" by the Master of Flemalle.

same way

rank heresy

is

an aspect analogous to that of the Dresden altarpiece when closed.

versos of the panels, however,

thereof, nor

— though

Francis" in Philadelphia

St.

such doubts, however, can arise with regard to the authenticity

and date of the most recent addition

in the

"Madonna

than, the

little later

Paele" of 1436.

doubts as to

The

if

They

marbleized

are, instead, carefully

chamfered frames, from which we may conclude that Jan van

for reasons

unknown,

to convert the exterior shutters of a triptych

into an independent devotional image.

In

fact,

the

two

pictures are so sophisticatedly conceived and, in a sense, so colorful that

they transcend the limitations of ordinary grisailles. status of a self-sufficient diptych

of different grain, different

hue and different

polish.

treated so as to look like gray marble, merge, as

ones; though these are

and

fiction begins.

somewhat

And

They well deserved

which may be described

it

The

promoted

to be

symphony

in

marble

to the

— marble

carved moldings of the actual frames,

were, with the painted moldings of simulated

lighter in color,

it

takes

the simulated frames enclose

dark and so highly polished that they

as a

reflect the

some time

what purports

to tell

where

to be flat

reality

marble

ends

slabs so

backs of the snow-white "statues" in front

of them.

The

statues themselves offer

— in ordinary

grisaille

fluency of design and a certain raising a

an interesting contrast

analogous but

to the

much

earlier ones

— on the exterior of the Dresden altarpiece. Where these show a certain warmth

of expression, the

Angel smiling and the Virgin Mary

demurely welcoming hand, the Thyssen diptych exhibits harder, rockier drapery

forms and juxtaposes an unsmiling Gabriel with an Annunciate immobilized by the miracle. Like the "Madonna of the Canon van der Paele" and the "Lucca Madonna" the Thyssen

"Annunciation" marks the climax of insensibilisation des personnages.

Three other works, on the other hand, would seem

The

first

of these

is

the

to antedate this climax.

famous "Madonna of the Chancellor Rolin"

in the

Louvre

244-246), the iconography of which has been discussed at length in Chapter Five.

3

(figs.

Here we

composition — may add that differences, especially the donor's independence of patronage, notwithstanding — has much in common with the dedication picture in a Book of

Hours from an

unknown

scene

is

workshop of the Boucicaut Master

donatrix

is

presented to

(Paris, Bibliotheque Nationale), in

Our Lady by an

angel

4

(fig. 78).

The room

in

which

which the

laid — an airy hall opened in the rear by a tripartite colonnade — prefigures, in nucleo,

the palatial

As

the

celestial

all

its

chamber of the "Rolin Madonna."

to the date of the picture, external evidence

192

is

lacking.

A

recent attempt to

show

that

JAN VAN EYCK him

Jan van Eyck's "secret mission" of 1436 took

Madonna"

the "Rolin

We

1

futile.

somewhat

impression of this conjectural

reflect the

have thus

to rely

earlier date.

The

and that

to Prague,

on

stylistic

trip,

Madonna" and

Human

altarpiece.

hair, for

example,

between

a pictorial

the bulls-eye

Chancellor Rolin" with those in the left-hand

wavy

downy wings

window

and

a similar contrast

in the

interpre-

"Madonna

Madonna." The

of the "Lucca

and the

little

men

of the glisten-

looking over

fantastically chased

the later works of Jan van Eyck)

all

and :

all

bespeaks joyful exuberance rather than austerity. All things considered, the "Rolin

the Arnolfini portrait in

coinciding with the in

"Madonna

reminiscent of the

luminarism — graphic

windows

of the angel, the stained glass

bejeweled crown (a motif significantly absent from this

still

lines,

ing landscape, the garden alive with flowers and peacocks, the funny the parapet, the

were, halfway between

it

suggested by a diffusion of light and shade

is

the limitations of Eyckian

when we compare

tation can be observed

to indicate a

the angular systematization of the

rather than by a concentration of high-lights in protracted,

and — within

of motifs in

can be demonstrated to be

van der Paele." The surfaces are treated with an attention to texture

Dresden

number

and these would seem

considerations,

folds of the Virgin's crimson robe are, as

the fluid freedom of the "Ince Hall

a

harmony with

sensuous

how he

lips,

he

looked

difference.

at seventy,

is

(fig.

tie

on the

man

With

his

this side of sixty.

with sunken

eyes, a lean,

exterior of the "Last

1433-1434, shortly before

plus ultra in landscape painting apparently

— and a date like

plus ultra in the rendition of the interior

strikes us as a

still

is

well

and

full,

this

relatively youthful face

Nicholas Rolin was born in 1376, and

deeply lined face and bitter mouth, can be

Judgment"

at

Beaune

(fig. 325).

Of

course, this

not by Jan van Eyck but by Roger van der Weyden, which makes a great

But even so

such a change in a If the

London

247) — the

the appearance of the donor.

seen in his portrait later likeness

tie

Madonna" may be dated about

it

would seem

man who was

"Madonna

that

more than nine or ten

years were necessary to

work

to reach the age of eighty-six.

of the Chancellor Rolin,"

though antedating the "Madonna van der

Paele" and the "Lucca Madonna," seems to be later than the "Ince Hall

Madonna"

and, by an

even greater margin, the Dresden altarpiece, both these comparatively early works seem to postdate the 2

238, 239)

two

last

paintings here to be discussed, the

and the "Madonna

in a

Church"

These two pictures are more wonderfully stained glass, jewelry,

in

aglitter

(figs.

3

237)

with ornamental carving,

niello

work,

and brocade than even the Dresden triptych (never before had the

Angel Gabriel been shown and

Washington "Annunciation"

at Berlin (figs. 236,

in a brocaded pluvial, sceptered

and with

a

crown on

his head),

4

both the architectural space soars to even greater height in relation to the figures. Instead

of figures

enframed by architecture, we have architectures inhabited by

moreover, the Washington "Annunciation" and the allegiance to earlier traditions soon to be shaken off

themselves. In both cases, the mantle of

Jan van Eyck

first

Our Lady

is

"Madonna

and form,

figures. In

in a

two

respects,

Church" evince an

so to speak, a

little

group by

blue according to an age-old custom which

broke in the "Ince Hall Madonna" of 1433 and consistently defied ever after

with the exception of the deliberately archaic "Madonna

*93

at the

Fountain" of 1439.

And

in both

EARLY NETHERLANDISH PAINTING cases the center of vision

the perspective in

shifted far to the right, quite near the

the paintings after the "Ince Hall

Madonna"

Hall

in the "Ince

perceptible.

all

is

margin of the

Madonna"

perfectly symmetrical or,

is

so very slightly eccentric that the deviation

itself,

whereas

picture,

scarcely

is

1

In this respect,

we

Church," are variations

recall, the

Washington "Annunciation"

as well as the

"Madonna

— magnificently original variations, to be sure — on themes

by the Boucicaut Master.

2

stated

first

In the "Annunciation," the Boucicaut Master's influence

in a

further

is

evidenced by the very idea of staging the scene in an ecclesiastical setting, an idea emphatically at

variance with the tradition established by the Master of Flemalle, and

Hours"

the unusual attitude of the Virgin

itself that

both hands before her breast

— has

and drapery

color taste, facial types

its

many

in the "Boucicaut

— looking up from her book and raising Quite apart from technique,

closest parallel (fig. 60).

style, so

it is

would alone

retrospective features

dating the two pictures some time before the "Dresden altarpiece."

I

1428-1429 for the Washington "Annunciation" and 1425-1427 for the

justify

should like to propose

"Madonna

in a

Church"

which, more loosely and lushly painted than any other commonly accepted work of Jan van Eyck,

certainly the earliest of

is

known

all.

This work,

if

any, must constitute the link between his

maturity and his conjectural beginnings.

VI

As

a portraitist, Jan

preter of

A

human

portrait

van Eyck

it is

aims by definition

in

which the

and

two

at

distinguishes a portrait

from an "ideal"

out whatever the

has in

him

sitter

common

regardless of place and time;

forming part of a genre painting or

though doubtless retaining the picture because the old lady

is

essential and, in a sense, contradictory qualities: in-

totality, or

sitter differs

wholeness.

from the

himself were he portrayed at a different

in

inter-

nature; his portraits are at once intensely near and infinitely remote.

dividuality, or uniqueness;

whatever

both the most exhaustive and the most tantalizing

is

On

rest of

moment

and

this

narrative.

is

it

seeks to bring out differ

or in a different situation; and this

figure or "type."

with the

the one hand,

humanity and would even

rest of

what

On

the other hand,

it

is

from

what

seeks to bring

humanity and what remains constant distinguishes a portrait

Rembrandt's "Old

distinctive features of the

model,

completely engrossed in a specific

Woman is

from

a figure

Paring Her Nails,"

not a portrait but a genre

activity. Diirer's "St.

Jerome

with a Death's Head," though demonstrably "portraying" an individual old gentleman ninetythree years of age,

image because the to

convey

of a

its

human

who

received three stuivers for die sitting,

is

not a portrait but a religious

saint appears completely absorbed in a specific emotional situation

content to the beholder. In either case

we have

and

tries

individuality but not a revelation

being in his entirety. Conversely, Rigaud's "President Gueidan en Berger Musicien"

and Reynolds' "David Garrick between Tragedy and Comedy" are picture

and

a

not, respectively, a genre

narrative but portraits because the characters, though masquerading as an

Arcadian shepherd or pretending to be torn between conflicting psychological impulses, in

194

fact

JAN VAN EYCK parade their

total personalities.

and costume but

it is

not only by retaining his characteristics in physiognomy

by not permitting his autonomous personality to be submerged by emo-

also

(however violent

tion

And

this

emotion may become in certain Baroque pictures) that the donor

preserves his portrait status in an altarpiece. If carried to

an extreme, these two requirements, individuality and

mutually exclusive.

An

absolutely unique personality would be reduced

— and even then only hie

ticularities exclusively his

human

An

being.

absolutely total personality

and profoundly human that he would cease

which

brandt's latest portraits,

closely

et

nunc

— and

would be reduced

totality,

would be

an infinity of par-

thereby cease to be a total

to basic qualities so universally

an individual;

to be

approximate

to

it

is

no accident

this ultimate totality,

were

that

Rem-

criticized or

even rejected as not being "good likenesses." All portraitists, then, must balance these two postulates, and the

balance

is

speaking,

may

be said that an emphasis on individuality or uniqueness

High Renaissance and

this

static

approach: the

inner

life

characteristic of the

as

— leads

to a descriptive

tends to be depicted as an isolated haecceitas, betraying

sitter

and having,

— characteristic little

and

of his

were, no history. Conversely, an emphasis on totality or wholeness

it

High Renaissance and

work, of Italian rather than Northern

art

of

the Baroque and, within this

chronological framework, of Northern rather than Italian art

—

the Baroque and, within this chronological frame-

— leads

to

an approach interpretive and dynamic:

tends to be depicted as a representative example of humanity in general, full of

sitter

and functionally determined by

vitality

which

in

achieved depends on period, nationality, and personal inclination. Very roughly it

the fifteenth century as opposed to the

the

manner

by

his relation to others as well as

In a general way, Jan van Eyck's portraits

fall

in the first of these

descriptive rather than interpretive. But since with

him

his

two

own

past.

categories: they are

the process of description

amounts

to

reconstruction rather than reproduction, they transcend the limitations of their category and constitute a class by themselves.

It is

certainly difficult,

if

not impossible, to define his personages

in terms of psychological characteristics, to imagine their history or to

and

feelings; they

just this

may even

absence —

not so

much with

the

we

feel

latency — of definable

qualities

endows them with

both tempted and discouraged to explore.

mere appearance of an individual

yet independent of place

their thoughts

strike us as only potentially alive, at least in relation to others.

or, rather,

depth, a depth which

fathom

as

We

But

a peculiar

are face to face,

with his very core or essence, unique

and time, unqualifiable by any agency extraneous to

itself yet utterly

human. There

is,

to be sure, a

marked development

in Jan's interpretation of his subjects;

though a gradual awakening of consciousness were taking place within them. But even end,

we

gloom

it is

as

at the

never get hold of them as "characters." Mysteriously emerging from an undefined

into an

oncoming

light, these

hauntingly real but always enigmatic presences recall a

passage of William James wherein he describes his brother Henry's method of constructing personages: "Their orbits

and then

come out

off they whirl into the

of space and lay themselves for a short time along of ours,

unknown, leaving

195

us with

little

more than an impression

of

EARLY NETHERLANDISH PAINTING and

their reality their being."

The

mystery of the beginning and end of

a feeling of baffled curiosity as to the

'

earliest portrait that bears a

date

— October

the series of Eyckian portraits and, for that matter, in

London,

served in the National Gallery at

it

1432

10,

all

represents a

— holds a unique position within

Northern fifteenth-century

man

art.

of about thirty, his face

Pre-

framed

by the perpendicular lappets of a green headdress effectively contrasting with the red of the

sable-trimmed coat; he holds a rolled right forearm (fig. 261)."

It is

letter in his right

from

which the words

do the

effigies of

LEAL SOVVENIR Roman

and the chips and cracks

LEAL SOVVENIR we

the

made

is

covered by the

that bears an inscription in

to

it is

the only North-

emulate a scheme of com-

from behind a stone parapet, on

appear to have been engraved with a

from behind

chisel, precisely as

their

memorial

in the stone of this parapet, indicative of venerable age,

"Tymotheos" (the mutilated

name

tablets,

make

the

even more obvious. Moreover, above the seemingly incised

find a seemingly painted inscription in

reading, in transliteration,

even then only

is

figure emerges

soldiers or provincial artisans

painter's antiquarian intention

Since this Greek

The

classical antiquity.

his left

"Loyal Remembrance"), and

ern portrait of the fifteenth century in which an attempt position derived

Eyck

the only portrait by Jan van

(LEAL SOVVENIR, which means

French

hand while

somewhat questionable Greek,

last letter originally a

"square Sigma").

does not occur in the Netherlands prior to the Reformation

sporadically — we

are obviously faced with a case of humanistic

— and

metonomy:

name "Timotheos" would seem to designate the sitter by comparing him to a great figure much as the Duke of Burgundy was likened to Alexander or Scipio, and poet Chaucer to Socrates, Seneca and Ovid. And the only classical Timotheos who might

of the classical past,

the

fittingly be

compared

the revolutionary of

to Jan

van Eyck's young

Greek music

at the

client

would seem

to be

Timotheos of Miletus,

time of Plato and Euripides, whose

famous throughout the Middle Ages and grown

name had remained

to semi-legendary proportions in the fifteenth

century.

From renowned all

this

we may conclude

that the

for his bold, innovatory spirit.

the other portraits by Jan van

suppose that

this

were

And

Eyck are

portrait represents a musician,

the fact that

inscribed,

if

it

and

a musician

bears a motto in French, while

at all, in

Latin or Flemish, leads us to

musician was connected with the court of Philip the Good. In short,

"Timotheos" would seem recall,

London

to be identical

jointly credited

with one of the two great Flemish composers who,

we

with having transformed the music of the fourteenth century into

an ars nova, Guillaume Dufay and Gilles Binchois. Either of these could have been rightfully acclaimed as a "new Timotheos," and both were in their early

was constantly abroad from 1428 career,

was firmly entrenched

at

thirties in 1432.

However, Dufay

1437 whereas Binchois, having abandoned a military

to

the Burgundian court in 1430 at the latest; according to tradi-

tion he entered the service of Philip the

Good

as early as 1425, in exactly the

same year

as

Jan van Eyck. It is

therefore with Jan's "opposite

elusive "Timotheos." This hypothesis,

number"

which

in

finds

196

music that we are tempted

some support both

to identify the

in the texts of Binchois'

JAN VAN EYCK chansons and in his portrayal in a miniature of

ca. 1441,

1

has recently been confirmed by the

observation that the humanists of the fifteenth, sixteenth and seventeenth centuries were ac-

customed

Timotheos

to think of the historical

musician of Alexander the

as the favorite court

Great (who in turn was habitually compared to Binchois' princely patron, Philip the Good), 2

and

it

portrait tells us of the subject's per-

His strong, blunt face with square jaw, short pointed nose and prominent cheekbones

might belong

young Flemish peasant; but

to a

forehead, visionary force in the

wide, firm mouth. cult to see in

it

However,

thoughtfulness in the high, wrinkled

is

yet steady eyes, a formidable strength of passion in the

me recommande humblement and

this interpretation of the picture

We

is

away any

secrets.

Owing

to the comparative smallness of the figure in relation to the

"Timotheos" does seem

Looking

everything

volume

like,

unbiased

to the device of the parapet

—

and

surrounding area, the image of along

has

much

in

common

state.

with the Berlin portrait of a

identity has been established by the so-called "Recueil d'Arras,"

men and women

of sixteenth-century copies after portrayals of

He

you

or, if

not only out of contact with the beholder but also with

is

London "Timotheos"

nobleman whose

court of Philip the Good.

is

Baudouin de Lannoy, Governor of

Duke, and senior member of the embassies Sir

—

consciousness submerged in an almost trancelike

Stylistically, the

a

"come

to

Deul angouisseux.

the somber

out of space"; but his "orbit" does not as yet "lay itself

into the void, he

else, his

stern-faced

diffi-

unavoidably tinged by the very assumption

have to admit that to the unguided

eye the picture would not have given

of ours."

not

it is

both the "honest soldier" that Gilles Binchois had been in his youth and the

corroborates.

it

dreamy

there

not an intellectual face, but a pensive and lonely one, and

It is

composer of the touching Je

which

what the London

certainly does not conflict with

sonality.

to

Portugal and Spain

Lille,

connected with the

Chamberlain

260).

(fig.

to the

3

Baldwin's face shows more detail than that of "Timotheos" (which can, however, be

man

accounted for by the riper age of a

shown beneath

his right

born

as early as

which holds the emblem of

1386-1387), and his

left

his courtly office, a white

hand

is

partly

wand. But

in

posture the two portraits are as similar as they are in the proportional relation between figure

and frame

4

and

in psychology. In both pictures the figure

the right-hand contour trifle

and the frame a

sparse within the field; there

upper margin, an interval about

as

is

high

strip of

cut below the chest, and between

is left

which makes the body look

also a considerable interval as the face

appears in the lower left-hand corner and

And

ground

is

is

is

long.

The

clenched into a

a

between the face and the

right hand, carrying an attribute,

fist

seen in similar foreshortening.

the vacant, far-off glance gives an impression of suspended consciousness.

In time, the "Baudouin de Lannoy" would seem to precede the

which seems much tip of the less at

nose

is

Antwerp

freer; the

head

is

almost as close to the contour of the cheek as in the portrait of John the Fear(fig.

378).

The

only question

or only a few months. Baudouin de 1429.

made

is

whether the difference amounts

Lannoy and Jan van Eyck

Both were members of the missions

a cloak

London "Timotheos,"

not as yet turned to a regular three-quarter view, and the

lived in Lille

to the Iberian peninsula,

and

up

Sir

of twelve ells of purple gold brocade (drap d'or violet-cramoisy)

197

to a

few years

to the

end of

Baldwin wears

which he had

EARLY NETHERLANDISH PAINTING from Philip the Good

received as a present

was done not long

portrait

in 1427.

he received

after

It

with the painter up to 1429 than

closely associated

would seem probable,

therefore, that the

he was more

this precious gift, especially since

On

later on.

the other hand, Sir Baldwin

wears the collar of the Golden Fleece of which he was a charter member. This order, however,

was not 10, 1430,

and we happen

November

We

30, 1431.

at the

end of 1431 or the

done

in

analogous

distinction.

I

am

to

know

collar of the

upon

Golden Fleece may well have been the causa

Eyck made one

portrait of a

"Man

in a

alternative, in

Red Turban," completed on October

For the

showed him en

the artist

We

face.

time the

first

feel

sitter

21 of that year, the glance of the

"Man

mentions

in a

is

typical of self-portraits

as a "Ritratto di Gio.

it

The

sitter

where 2

and pupils ex post

Red Turban," an entry

objections to this identification.

facto;

it

Jan's wife, Margaret,

it

(fig.

manu

van Eyck de

sua."

appears older than a

is

3

There

man may

more probably

incline to accept the picture as a self-portrait. Jan

often affected by painters.

"look out of the picture,"

It is

first

more

indeed unavoidable, that the earliest

in the inventory of the Earl of

has been concluded that he

analogy rather than complementarity.

is

wonder

small

about forty or forty-five, and from the rather striking likeness that

I

air of skepti-

compressed corners

slightly

its

observed and scrutinized by a wakeful intelligence.

reference to the

Yet

London

nothing detracts from the magnetism of the

buste, omitting the hands,

unless the painter puts in the irises

at

portrait.

seeks to establish direct contact with the spectator, and since

This "look out of the picture"

ca. 1655,

new

his

case the conferment of the

commission of the

of the great discoveries in portraiture. In the

cism intensified by the expression of the thin mouth with *

had received

turned out of the picture and sharply focused upon the beholder with an

sitter is

262).

which

occasio?jaiis for the

until

was painted

was quite frequently

as

a picture executed before the sitter first

on January

Baldwin

to Sir

alternatives: either the portrait

Golden Fleece was superimposed,

inclined in favor of the

In 1433, Jan van

two

Isabella of Portugal

were not delivered

that the insignia

are thus faced with

cases,

Good and

marriage of Philip the

instituted until the

The "turban"

are,

it is

true,

some

be expected to look

exists

the

Arundel of

between him and

artist's

father-in-law.

van Eyck may have chosen

4

his wife for

gives an impression of studied informality

natural to assume that that important innovation, the

suggested

a painter observing his

itself to

than to a painter facing another person. And, above

all,

own

face in a mirror

the very character of the

Man

in a

Red

Turban, impressionable yet imperturbable, disillusioned yet insatiably curious, agrees with the idea

which Jan van Eyck's pictures convey of Three years

later the

"look out of the picture" recurs in the Vienna portrait of a wealthy

goldsmith named Jan de Leeuw, born on October

rhymed to

inscription

be replaced by a

on the frame, little

maker.

their

a

chronogram

21, 1401 (fig.

in

Flemish

lion because the letters L, V,

and

in

265)? This we learn from the

which the word "Leeuw" had

VV

would have added 65

to the

desired result, 1436.

Somberly clad ground, he a ring,

is

in a dark,

fur-trimmed coat and black cap and foiled by a bluish back-

portrayed en buste as

and part of the

left

is

the

"Man

in a

forearm are included

Red Turban"; but

as in the

198

the right hand, holding

"Timotheos" and the "Baudouin de

JAN VAN EYCK Lannoy." This attempt

at

combining the advantages of the bust

scheme somewhat cramps the composition, but what

cat"

and monumentality. Compared

plastic force

relation to the field (the ratio of

"Man

1:3.5 in the

in a

its

to the earlier portraits the face

of the

may

Canon van der

"Madonna van der

gained in

very large in

1

against

12.7 as

Red Turban"

of portraiture, the

Madonna" and

as the

to

it is

the

"Madonna

the "Baudouin de

"Lucca Madonna" and the

Paele" are to the Dresden altarpiece and the "Ince Hall Madonna."

some

lost

domain

Paele" which was produced in the same year;

Unfortunately the portrait of Jan de shades have

to the center. In the

in a

"kit-

"Timotheos" and the "Baudouin de

1:4 in both the

be said to correspond exactly to the "Lucca

Lannoy," the "Timotheos" and the "Man

is

is

length to the height of the panel being about

Red Turban," and

Lannoy"), and the hands are shifted nearer "Jan de Leeuw"

amplitude

lost in

is

with those of the

portrait

of their depth

Leeuw

and the

has suffered by a previous cleaning so that the

finer

nuances of the modeling are partly gone.

But there remains the impression, not only of acumen and formidable energy but also of a tain self-sufficiency.

makes

And

it is,

among

other things, the absence of this essential quality which

difficult to accept the authenticity of the

it

somewhat analogously composed

but,

say so, pseudo-intensive portrait of another goldsmith preserved at Sibiu (formerly stadt or

As

Nagyszeben)

in

Romania

the portrait of Jan de

17, 1439,

and

still

if I

may

Hermann-

1

(fig. 270).

Leeuw

parallels the "Paele

the portrait of his wife Margaret (fig. 267),

June

cer-

preserved at Bruges,

it

2

Madonna"

"Madonna

the

so does Jan's latest portrait,

at the

Fountain." Completed on

"Madonna

combines, like the

at the

Fountain," an

almost archaic emphasis on symmetry and two-dimensionality with plastic energy and spaciousness.

Cut well below the

in afterwards,

3

dark green

The

sash,

lady

is

at the

its

pleated ruche

Fountain" does against the decorated

tion of a

view which

frontality.

The

face

is

is

half

way between

which we

felt

tried to

attentiveness, reserved

we have

subjected by the

much

flat,

with

a

wide wings of the

as the statuesque figure of the

honor and the

flatness of the cloth of

called

girt

it,

also reveals itself in the selec-

the orthodox three-quarter profile and full-face

averted from the beholder by

very fact places the relation between the

power which

gray fur and

and her forcefully modeled face stands out from the

flowering hedge. This contrapuntal tendency, as

scrutiny to

yet appears to be less limited than in the

gown trimmed with

clad in a scarlet-red

white coif and the calligraphic maze of

"Madonna

which

the figure dominates a sphere

earlier portraits.

hand which was painted

waist, but originally not including the right

sitter

much

less

than forty-five degrees and

and the beholder on a

Man in

a

Red Turban, and

different basis.

this

The frank

the almost aggressive will-

subdue us in the Portrait of Jan de Leeuw, have mellowed into calm

and incurious, expectant rather than

active, and, just for this reason,

not

a little disconcerting.

Even more important, however, picture plane, the space above

it

is

the fact that the face

is

placed

being reduced to about one third of

corresponding ratio had been about

1:2.5

m &c

"J an

de Leeuw," and

its

as

much

much

"Baudouin de Lannoy," the "Timotheos" and the "Man in a Red Turban." the personality of the

sitters, as

they become gradually

199

more conscious

higher in the

length, whereas the as 1:1 in the

It is as

though

of themselves, acquired

EARLY NETHERLANDISH PAINTING a

And

kind of ascendancy over that of the beholder.

for this reason alone

— that

I

for this reason

is

it

already mentioned as the probable

man

and peace

a

kindly ascetic "remote from

serving, preparatory to the peace of Arras of

to the

Kings of France and England and

December in the

8 to 11, 1431.

And

drawing preserved

in the

on white-grounded paper,

in silver point

drawing by Jan van Eyck

which attempts

3

— was a

chief architect, as a Legate

of Burgundy, he visited Bruges

Dresden

from

Jan van Eyck portrayed

(fig. i6^\).

2

him

This drawing, done

of abiding interest, not merely as the only authentic

is

but also because

to capture the

at

passion and

successful diplomatist of the Curia.

this occasion that

Kupferstichkabinett

all

1

almost a saint himself

which he was the

Duke

to the

was probably on

it

now

and the most

integrity,

While

Gerusalemme

of the Detroit "St. Jerome."

thought" and

in his every

wisdom and

of proverbial

owner

first

—

This admirable prince of the Church striving for comfort

not

agree with Millard Meiss in doubting the normally accepted early

date of the Vienna portrait of Nicholas Albergati, Cardinal of Santa Croce in (fig. 263),

— though

it

inscribed with color notes the language of

is

nuances observed by the most sensitive of eyes: geelachtich und

witte blauwachtich ("yellowish

and white-bluish")

lippen zeer witachtich ("the lips very whitish")

rotte purpurachtich ("purplish red")

;

die nase sanguynachtich ("the nose a

;

;

die

little

sanguineous").

Though

other possibilities are not excluded,

drawing was executed during the Cardinal's

it

is

brief stay at Bruges.

follow that the Vienna painting was executed without delay. to start

was

far

may

away and,

It

But

it

took Diirer more than five years

he had twice drawn in 1520,

for all

we know

of his character, not likely to

much

by

itself

grow

cases,

a

believe,

I

4

and a

violently impatient.

within the oeuvre of Jan van Eyck

does the Erasmus engraving within the oeuvre of Diirer. In both cases

working from

does not necessarily

well have happened in the case of Nicholas Albergati who, like Erasmus,

In fact the Albergati portrait stands as as

whom

the engraving of Erasmus of Rotterdam

similar thing

most probable that the Dresden

in fact

drawing without an opportunity

we

sense the

artist's

to refer

attempt mentally to reconstruct, as

appearance after the lapse of several years. In

this,

we

feel the strain of

back to the living model, and in both it

were, the

sitter's

Jan van Eyck was probably more successful

than Diirer whose engraving was received by Erasmus with polite dissatisfaction. But he, too,

endeavored

to

make

his subject appear, not only

more

he does in the drawing. The Cardinal's expression hair

is

thinner, the

crown of

minute pentimento. The

his

result,

head

meant

is

figure

is

it

excels in

monumentality. Clad

in a

seen to the waist rather than en buste.

but also somewhat older than is

more deeply

lined, his

brow has been steepened by

to recapture a reality

which we

D

sterner, his face

higher, and his

lacks the complete integration of details to

Eyck; but

is

dignified

no longer

accessible to the artist,

are accustomed in the

works of Jan van

cappa clausa trimmed with white

The head

rises

a last-

fur, the

above an enormous, rigorously

simplified mass of crimson with a majesty entirely foreign to the earlier portraits,

and the

psychological interpretation by far transcends the possibilities of the "Baudouin de

Lannoy"

and the "Timotheos." The Cardinal's eyes are not focused upon the beholder; but neither do they gaze into the void. Pensive rather than dreamy, almost a

200

little

smiling, Nicholas Albergati

JAN VAN EYCK lives in a

world of supreme

withdrawing from human contact, not for want of aware-

lucidity,

ness but by virtue of, quite literally, "detachment."

As

van Eyck's

far as masculine portraits are concerned, Jan

last

word

is,

believe, the

I

Berlin portrait of Giovanni Arnolfini (fig. 266). * This shrewd financier from Lucca,

and was

established himself at Bruges in 1420

Good,

is

forming the horizontal plinth of

of the hands, that eternal worry of

all portraitists, is

omitted or asymmetrically squeezed in

smallness,

combined with the

itself,

hand

framed on three

above the dark green mass of the

hidden behind the right

and psychological

by a fantastic

that of others.

The Man

for

human

us.

Giovanni Arnolfini,

off into the

in a

and

expression

its

deepened to

is

Red Turban and Jan de Leeuw

his snakelike eyes deliberately avoiding ours,

utterly

more or

Bau-

remote

less forcibly,

seems

literally to

"whirl

unknown."

Comparatively uniform though they a

development

may

appear at

as definite as that of his

glance, the portraits of Jan van

first

more complex compositions. And even

without X-ray examinations, and quite apart from such objections it

inscrutability.

own and

strive,

and lean

contact yet remain enigmatical; and Nicholas Albergati keeps serenely aloof from

Eyck thus show

grounds,

sleeve,

interest sufficiently

scarlet headdress, hovers pale

douin de Lannoy and "Timotheos" lived in a world exclusively their

from

their extraordinary

face.

sides

torso,

picture, they are collected in the

partly

is

a second focus of light

powerful to divert our attention from the face

solved to perfection. Instead of being either

from the lower margin. And

fact that the left

them from forming

time both forearms

first

pyramid, and the problem

a symmetrical

bottom of the

at the

center and placed at a comfortable distance

The

knight and Councillor of Philip the

portrayed in a posture closely approaching frontality. For the

are fully displayed,

prevents

to die as a

who had

would be obvious

that the gesticulating

Museum

the Pink" in the Kaiser Friedrich

and

as

may

be raised on botanical

distinctly non-mysterious

at Berlin (fig. 271)

2

"Man with

has no place within this

development.

VII

The trait in

relatively late date of the Berlin "Arnolfini"

London, mentioned

us with the

same person

3

him

Dated

"Hernoul

Giovanni Arnolfini's identity

but also shows

further confirmed by the double por-

very beginning of our discussions, which doubtless confronts

(fig. 247).

of Austria as representing lishes

at the

is

le

and referred

1434,

to in the inventories of

Fin" or "Arnoult Fin" and his wife,

sleeveless tunic of purple velvet

dress, of

which only the

robe, lined

not only estab-

three or four years younger.

his wife are represented in full length.

and a

Margaret

— and by implication, that of his lady, Jeanne Cenami —

In a comfortably furnished interior, suffused with warm,

and

it

sleeves

and

He

dim

light,

trimmed with

sable; she

is

less austerely attired in a

a small part of the skirt are visible,

and trimmed with ermine, which

Giovanni Arnolfini

wears black coat and hose, a black straw hat,

is

201

blue

and an ample green

fastened around the waist by a pink girdle.

EARLY NETHERLANDISH PAINTING gingerly holds the lady's right hand in his

The husband

of solemn affirmation. Rather

do not look scene

stiffly

left

while raising his right in a gesture

posed and standing as far apart as the action permits, they

each other yet seem to be united by a mysterious bond, and the solemnity of the

at

emphasized by the exact symmetry of the composition,

is

the chandelier with the mirror

on the wall and the

little

a central vertical connecting

griffon terrier in the center of the

foreground.

This prochronistic masterpiece in

Northern painting

because it

it is

personalities of

to

canon law, marriage was concluded by taking an oath, and

actions: that of joining

hands

what we

is

which

a

see in

and Michal

1

depicted,

is

or of Perseus and

rating noble couples.

3

still

numerous representations

marriage ceremony

And

this

evidently

Eyck. Here the fact that a marital oath

is

oath (fides)

retained by our

own

and

of the fourteenth

legal procedure).

fifteenth centuries in

no matter whether they show the marriage of David

Andromeda, 2 is

this

(fides manualis) and, on the part of the groom, that

of raising his forearm (fides levata, a gesture

This

Giovanni Arnolfini and Jeanne Cenami,

sacrament of marriage.

According implied two

— can neither be classified as a "portrait" nor as a "religious composition"

While recording the

both.

glorifies the

— not until Holbein's "Ambassadors" do we find a parallel

as well as

what

taken

on tombs, mostly English, commemo-

takes place in the double portrait by Jan van

further emphasized by the lone candle burn-

is

ing in the chandelier and obviously not serving for a practical purpose because the scene staged in broad daylight. often to

is,

A

burning candle, symbol of the

all-seeing Christ, not only was,

was

What

is

here the case

—

lit

distinguishes the Arnolfini portrait

— apart from left

in the

into

and

one action, preferred

raising his right, whereas

of marriage

is

Two

was not

the

most other

the only one

bestowed by the recipients themselves.

show

to

the participants are quite alone. This, however,

dogma, the sacrament

home

of the newlyweds.

from other representations of marriage

cere-

the fact that Jan van Eyck, confronted with a problem of compressing

two separate moments bride with his

substitute for the classical

church before the bridal procession, or ceremoniously given to the

either carried to

bride by the groom, or — as

monies

and

required for the ceremony of taking an oath in general but also had a special reference

matrimony: the "marriage candle" (Braut\erze), a Christian

taeda,

is

is

groom grasping artists

did the opposite

which

is

clandestine weddings

which had produced extremely awkward

situations in the past

From

and two witnesses; but even today, the

in a

is

Trent condemned such

the partners subsequently denied the fact that a marriage had taken place.

as a dispenser of the sacrament, as

that

people could conclude a perfectly valid marriage

until 1563 that the Council of

of a priest

is

not dispensed by the priest but

and

Church required the presence

—

easily explained. According to Catholic

in complete solitude,

it

hand of the

the

if

one of

then on, the

priest acts not

baptism or confirmation, but merely

as

a testis

qualificatus.

Giovanni Arnolfini and Jeanne Cenami parents

— had

no

close relatives at Bruges.

very private affair and chose to have

it

— he a native of Lucca, she born in Paris of Italian They apparently considered

commemorated

202

in a picture

their

marriage

as a

which shows them taking

JAN VAN EYCK vow

the marital

in the hallowed seclusion of their bridal

double portrait and a marriage

certificate.

signature which has given rise to so

"Jan van Eyck was here."

'

No

much

normally used for legal

script

see

But here the

interest.

him

artist

of art

has

documents

in the mirror entering the

room

is

is

set

fuit hie,"

signed in this peculiar fashion which rather

down

visits

of pilgrims or tourists to places of

his signature

— as a witness rather company

in the

both a

wording of the

this explains that curious

reminds us of the undesirable epigraphs recording the worship or

— a picture that

unnecessary discussion: "Johannes de Eyck

work

other

And

chamber

— lettered

in the flourished

than as a painter. In

of another gentleman

we

fact,

who may

be

interpreted as a second witness.

With

the subject thus identified, not as an ordinary portrait but as the representation of a

sacrament, the atmosphere of mystery and solemnity which seems to pervade the ture takes tangible form.

We

upper-middle-class interior

and often

sanctified

is

It is

pic-

begin to see that what looks like nothing but a well-appointed

chamber, hallowed by sacramental associations

in reality a nuptial

by a special benedictio thalami\ and that

symbolic significance.

London

all

the objects therein bear a

bedroom

not by chance that the scene takes place in a

instead of a

sitting

room, for the matrimonial bed was so sacred that a married couple in bed could be

shown

visited

2

and blessed by the Trinity, and even the scene of the Annunciation had come

to be staged in

what was

officially referred to as

the thalamus Virginis.

The

crystal beads

and

the "spotless mirror" — speculum sine macula, here explicitly characterized as a religious object by frame which adorned with ten diminutive scenes from the Passion — are wellits

is

known symbols

of Maria n

pu rity. The

and "Lucca" Madonnas, the

state of

fruit

on the window

sill

recalls, as in the

innocence before the Fall of Man.

The

little

"Ince Hall" statue of St.

Margaret, surmounting the back of the chair near the bed, invokes the patron saint of child-

The

birth.

And

there

dog, seen on so

many tombs

of ladies,

was an accepted emblem of marital

doubt that the discarded pattens in the lower

is little

left

hand corner

faith.

are here in-

tended, as possibly already in the case of the "Descent from the Cross" by the Master of

Flemalle

(fig.

van der Goes

230) and certainly in the "Nativities" by Petrus Christus (fig.

463), to

remind the beholder

of

what the Lord has

(fig.

said to

402) and

Hugo

Moses on Mount

Sinai.

In the

London

space, light

Arnolfini portrait, then, Jan van Eyck not only achieved a concord of form,

and color which even he was never

principle of disguised "narrative,"

to surpass, but also

demonstrated

how

the

symbolism could abolish the borderline between "portraiture" and

between "profane" and "sacred"

3

art.

To summarize: Jan van Eyck's uncontested oeuvre* — to which would have to be added 5 those many works with which we are acquainted only through more or less reliable copies or 6 literary descriptions — developed, much as Diirer's did by his own testimony, "from the novel and the manifold to the restrained and simple," this latter phase being preceded by the classic final,

balance of the "Rolin

Madonna" and

the

London

contrapuntal synthesis.

203

Arnolfini portrait and followed by a

EARLY NETHERLANDISH PAINTING Heir

remains tury.

to the

to

And

Master of Flemalle and to his brother Hubert, whose possible influence on him

be clarified, Jan van Eyck was independent of the Italianism of the fourteenth cen-

had been too thoroughly absorbed

the earlier regional tradition

predecessors to play a major role in his development.

pose of his

St.

Barbara or

in the gesture of his

remembered the indigenous

past.

And

if

his

ancestresses in the Ghent manuscripts and,

Bruges

(fig. 113),

From

it

may have been

was only

Annunciate

blond-maned still

his brother

the Master of Flemalle, Jan van

It

occasionally, as in the humility 1

that he

"Calvary of the Tanners"

Hubert who acted to

altarpiece,

angels and girl saints have their

earlier, in the

Eyck seems

Ghent

in the

girl

in the style of his

as

at

an intermediary.

have appropriated,

specifically, the

idea of adorning the exterior wings of his altarpieces with simulated sculpture in grisaille; the idea of landscapes or city prospects viewed through

who monumentalized

these

windows

windows

Madonna and

exploited these ideas with sovereign independence and,

in the

modernism

(although

into elaborate colonnades)

interior as a setting for representations of the

reconciling the

2

;

was he himself

it

and the idea of

the Annunciation.

more important, with

of the Master of Flemalle with the refinement

a

domestic

However, he

the intention of

which he admired

works of the Limbourg brothers and the Boucicaut Master.

The

latter,

whose influence had

to be stressed over

and over again,

to

whom

Jan

owed not

only individual motifs and schemes but also such basic concepts as the magic device of eccentric perspective and, as will be seen,

much

of his

method

of organizing distant landscapes,

without question the greatest single force that operated on his mind and formed his

was

style. If

anyone, the Boucicaut Master must be considered as Jan van Eyck's chief forerunner and, in a sense, chief master.

Him

glittering refinement

he greeted both

as the

prophet of a

new

era

and

as the

thaumaturge of

— the same glittering refinement which he admired in the works of the

embroiderers, the goldsmiths, and the enamelists. In contrast to the Master of Flemalle and in a certain opposition to the traditional attitude of the realisme pre-Eyckjen, Jan

courtly aristocrat,

was

in instinctive

sympathy with the International

not by avoiding, but by absorbing and thereby transcending

204

it.

Style.

van Eyck, the

He

overcame

it,

VIII

HUBERT AND /OR JAN VAN EYCK; THE PROBLEMS OF THE GHENT ALTARPIECE

AND THE TURIN-MILAN HOURS know more than of any other Northern painter of the fifteenth Hubert we know very little, so little in fact that he has been called a

V^/f Jan van Eyck we century.

Of

his brother

personnage de legende.

De

Apart from

a very dubious reference of 1413 (a

gentleman named

Visch-van der Capelle bequeathed to his daughter, a nun in the convent of Bourbourg near

Gravelines, a

we

1

"work by Hubert" without revealing

the latter's

surname or place of residence),

have only four meager records preserved in the City Archives of Ghent.

From

learn that in the fiscal year 1424-25 a "meester Luberecht" received six shillings for

which he had made

these

we

two designs

for an altarpiece at the behest of the magistrates; that in the fiscal year

1425-26 the apprentices of a "meester Ubrechts" received, from the same magistrates, a gratuity

on the occasion of

of six groats (viz., half a shilling) presumably

a visit to the master's

work-

shop (which leads us to believe that he had obtained the commission in the meantime and had

begun

to carry out the final design

scildere"

had

on panels)

image of

in his shop an

which one Robert Poortier and

St.

;

that

on March

9,

Hubrechte de

1426, "meester

Anthony and "other works" pertaining

his wife, Avezoet's

Hoeghen, planned

to set

up

in

to

an

altar

Our Lady's

Chapel in St.-Sauveur; and that in the same year inheritance tax was paid on the property left

by "Lubrecht van Heyke."

While

these four records

while his surname

same

is

2

differ as to the spelling of the master's Christian

mentioned only once,

personality, especially since the fourth

Eyck's

lost

it

name, and

can hardly be questioned that they refer to the

and

last

agrees with a statement in Hubert van

epitaph (destroyed in 1578 but transmitted through two independent copies

shortly before) according to

which he died on September

3

18, 1426.

However,

made

that this Hubert,

Ubert or Lubert van Eyck was the brother of the famous Jan, and that he was responsible or coresponsible for the

Ghent

altarpiece

— finally

restored to

205

its

original place in

St.

Bavo's in

EARLY NETHERLANDISH PAINTING

—

1945

on the

is

vouched for only by the partly damaged inscription of the altarpiece

exterior frames of the wings,

reads, to the best of

it

Eyck

"Pictor Hubertus c Inccpit

•

pondus

[Fratcr perfunctus]

Versu sexta mai

"The and

you by

invites

has been done."

from

learn

which Vyt,

a

is

it

No

on the

first,

whom May,

sixth of

that the

was dedicated on May

no one was found, began at the

6,

Mayor

of

and

given in the

is

is

momentous hexameters

is

numerous

Adam

and Eve

in the

Ghent

altarpiece at

all. It

rise to

it

differs

from

and from the unquestioned

the suspicion that Hubert had in fact

has been claimed that his

by the Ghent patriots of the Renaissance

Eyck

it.

panels. This divergence, coupled with the alleged

unseasonableness of the chronogram, has given

no hand

or

with that of the names of the

inscriptions within the paintings themselves

legends on the frames of the

Vyd

credited with having paid Jan van

identical

we

the inscription

Prophets and Sibyls inscribed below their images in the crowning lunettes, but that of the

accepted,

is

last line of

to start

what

finished by Jan;

public-spirited Judocus (Jodocus)

in 1433,

work but not with having commissioned Hubert

lettering of these

work];

to look at [or, possibly, "to protect"]

1432 (the year

Ghent

[this

expense of Judocus

work was begun by Hubert and

third, that the rich

to be elected

for completing the

•

matter whether this or another reconstruction of the text

chronogram);

who was The

this verse,

three things:

it

second, that

'

secundus

having carried through the task

Jan, his brother, second in art,

Vyd,

arte

vos collocat acta tucri."

•

Hubert van Eyck, greater than

painter

belief, as follows:

Judoci Vijd prece fretus

•

Inscribed

maior quo nemo repertus

•

q[uc] Johannes

•

my

itself.

who wished

to

name was

associated with

it

match the glory of Jan van Eyck's

Bruges and Roger van der Weyden's Brussels, and that the hexameters were a forgery of the late sixteenth century,

committed partly

in order to boost Hubert's reputation

and partly

in

order to secure the property rights to the Ghent altarpiece for the collateral descendants of

Jodocus

Vyd

so that

it

might not be handed over

to

Queen Elizabeth

of a debt contracted by the then Protestant municipality of Ghent.

2

of

England

in

payment

However, while there may

have been good reason to inform Queen Elizabeth that the Ghent altarpiece was private and

much point in informing her that the Prophet Micah was Cumean Sibyl was the Cumean Sibyl. That chronograms

not public property, there was not the Prophet

Micah or

that the

were not unusual in the inscribed

wings

on Jan van Eyck's

portrait of Jan de

is

evidenced, for example, by that

3

Leeuw. Even the

fact that the

frames of the

— those of the "corpus" are modern — were restored and repainted in the sixteenth cen-

tury does not of

itself

invalidate the authenticity of the hexameters; they

of an original inscription, Jan,

half of the fifteenth century

first

van Eyck was

and

this

locally credited

good many decades before Elizabeth. In 1495, a

its first

German

assumption

is

doctor

be faithful copies

corroborated by the fact that Hubert, and not

with the Ghent altarpiece, or restoration

may

at least

with

its

inception, a

and three generations before the time of Queen

named Hieronymus Miinzer was shown

the grave of the

"magister tabellae" right in front of the altarpiece while Jan's remains were resting in the

206

HUBERT AND/OR JAN VAN EYCK Church and

of St. Donatian at Bruges;

his party

and on August

work

of painting in Christendom"

from Germany named Robert {de

ago, by a master

been able to finish

it

2

a great painter."

because he died," and that

This

explicable phrase "de la

And

if

which the Ghent

Magna is

Alta decto Roberto,"

admired today

Vyd and

much

And

it

impugned on

— the

As

first

Isabel Borluut

his brother

who had not who was also

from the curious but

easily

ambulatory on the south side

tomb

was not located

at all,

he has recently been

two young Belgian in the

scholars, the

upper choir but in the

underneath the present "chapelle de l'Agneau

in this semi-subterranean chapel, a

is

hundred years

the grounds that the chapel in

in the

ascertained by

crypt, in fact directly

a

exactly agrees with the content of the

incapable of housing any

vindicated by an extraordinary discovery.

enormous lower church or

3

Aragon,

the visitors' estimation

Alta decto Roberto)

was "completed by

it

Miinzer's testimony has been

altarpiece

chapel of Jodocus

Magna

la

— in

— was painted "about

a very explicit account which, apart

is

— forms part of a superstructure

Mystique."

1517, a visiting Cardinal, Louis of

1,

were told by the Canons that the Ghent altarpiece

"the most beautiful

hexameters.

'

narrower and naturally very

little

lower but built on the same plan and lighted from the same direction, that the Ghent

altarpiece

had

its

the iconoclasts.

We

place

Not

from May

until ca. 1587

6,

1432, to

was

it

August

installed in

19, 1566, its

when

it

was removed

present location.

for fear of

4

must, therefore, accept the tenor of the hexameters as basically correct and are thus

faced with the problem of separating the respective contributions of the

problem has been a

baffling

one for many years and

is

a baffling

one

still.

two

A

brothers. This

gallant attempt at

cutting the Gordian knot by a computation of working hours (with the result that Jan van

Eyck would have been unable between September

18,

to execute

1426 and

May

more than one quarter of the Ghent

1432)

6,

is

hardly convincing,

5

and

it

is

altarpiece

characteristic

that similar statistical considerations have led another scholar to exactly the opposite conclusion.

data

and

We

can but try to coordinate and to interpret, according to our

— prodigiously augmented

his associates at the Laboratoire Central des

further developments

work

of late by the brilliant research

which may

entail

Musees

new changes

lights, the available

of Dr. Paul

Coremans

Royaux de Belgique — and wait for

in our hypotheses.

7

11

The traits St.

exterior of the

of Jodocus

Ghent

Vyd and

altarpiece (figs. 274-277) displays, in the lower storey, the por-

his wife, Isabel (or Elizabeth) Borluut,

and between them the two

Johns, the Baptist and the Evangelist, as simulated statues in grisaille.

The upper

storey

is

occupied by the "Annunciation" (the Ecce ancilla, as in the Washington picture, written upside

down), and the

down

look

lunettes

surmounting

it

are elaborated into

little

vaulted chambers

the Prophet Zachariah and the Erythrean Sibyl on the

Micah and the Cumean

Sibyl

on the

left,

from which

matched by the Prophet

right.

Iconographically, this arrangement

is

both consistent and understandable. As the An-

nunciation almost invariably opened the series of miniatures illustrating the Hours of the Virgin, so

its

normal place in a folding

altarpiece

was on the

207

exterior of the

wings where

it

was

either

EARLY NETHERLANDISH PAINTING displayed alone or, piece, fig. 106). scrolls

The

combined with other

if

presence of the Prophets and Sibyls

is

(as in the

van Beuningen

Church

worthy hermit until 1540 and did not become

altarpiece

was dedicated on

May

6,

of St. Bavo's

Christ. St.

John

which was not dedicated

a cathedral until 1559.

the Feast of John the Evangelist's

Latinam, lends some support to the conjecture that he was the

altar-

by the inscriptions on their

justified

which prophesy the glory of the Virgin Mary and the Incarnation of

the Baptist was the original titular saint of the this

on top

subjects,

The

to

fact that the

martyrdom ad portam Jodocus Vyd's

titular saint of

1

family chapel, and the presence of the donors needs no explanation. Aesthetically, too, the exterior of the

Ghent

altarpiece

reasonably coherent.

is

The

scale of

— except for those in the lunettes whose somewhat smaller size justified by their very location — uniform. The natural colors of the donors' portraits, the Annunciation and the figures

is

is

the Prophets and Sibyls are so grisailles"

much subdued

that

we may

the usual contrast with the brilliant spectacle of the interior instead of being painted in a neutral tone.

coming from the

light

speak of these panels as "semi-

which harmonize with the "stone color" of the two

The

whole thus forming

statues, the

where even the frames

illumination

also

is

are gilded

uniform throughout, the

right at an angle of about forty-five degrees (so that the face of Isabel

Borluut, in contrast to Jan's general custom,

is

inconsistency, the pools of sunlight appearing

— presupposing that the sun shines from the

turned away from

it),

and the only apparent

on the right-hand wall behind the Annunciate that

left,

is

to say, in this case,

from the north

can be accounted for by the same symbolical considerations which produced, analogous anomaly in the "Virgin in a Church."

2

The

we

recall,

— an

four niches of the lower storey, finally,

housing the heavy statues and seemingly recessed into a massive wall, provide a logical substructure for the airy Annunciation chamber,

rendering of the

and the architectural plan and perspective notwithstanding, perfectly

latter are, occasional assertions to the contrary

rational.

There are only three features which somewhat disturb the

which

constitutes, in addition, a

unique iconographic anomaly.

round on top whereas the corresponding

structural design

First, the

central panels of the "corpus,"

and one of

upper panels are cut

though painted round,

are actually square; as a result, these central panels and their frames are only partially covered

when

the altarpiece

is

closed

—a

rather disagreeable effect not evident

from even the most

recent reproductions and photographs and therefore schematically indicated in our figure 274.

Second, the dividing frames of the upper storey are not on axis with those of the lower. Third, the Annunciation (fig. 276)

is

painted on four separate panels, the pair in the middle showing

nothing but architectural environment: a Flemallesque Flemallesque

still life

of laver, basin

These discrepancies would seem ago, that the shift

Ghent

altarpiece

and towel, on the to

was not

city prospect

and an equally

on the

left

voiced

some twenty

right.

confirm the suspicion, originally planned as

it

first is

years

but came about by a make-

3

assemblage of disparate elements, and that some of these elements could be incorporated It

has

at the top,

the

only after having been subjected to alterations enforced by purely practical conditions. justly

been pointed out

that,

were not the upper panels of the shutters cut round

208

HUBERT AND/OR JAN VAN EYCK heavy

ribs of the

low chapel

(its

height from floor to keystone amounting to only 5.35 m.)

would prevent the opening and closing be

moved only by

Adam

folding the

of the altarpiece; even as

it is,

the upper wings could

and Eve panels against the panels with the Musical

Angels, which accounts for the traces of hinges in the authentic frames of the former. the altarpiece been designed for

its

place of destination, these difficulties

— and

Had

1

the ensuing

discord between shutters and "corpus"

— would certainly have been avoided by planning the

whole on

The

a slightly less ambitious scale.

lack of coaxiality between the upper and the lower

wings would not have been allowed

sections of the

to disturb the unity of the

And no

been possible to fashion each section of one element rather than two.

mind would have on four

on painting the Annunciation,

insisted

ensemble had

it

artist in his right

two

a subject involving

figures only,

had he not acted under some compulsion.

separate panels

in

Even

so,

Ghent

the exterior of the

altarpiece offers a relatively

neous aspect as compared to the interior even

when

their shutters are

one large panel is

composed

in the center, the

(fig.

of

While other folding

panels,

whole of the Ghent

horizontally divided into two storeys or

The

275).

two

tiers,

of the

altarpiece, shutters

the altar

and unclouded

floats

shows the throngs of the Blessed {chori

and

a

— from

the four

(traditionally juxtaposed with the

possibly, the Gentile "Christians

which, to judge from the

brilliance

(seven of

group of Martyrs clad in red pluvials or chasubles,

among them St. Stephen, the protomartyr, and St. Livin, one To the left of the fountain are "those who believed Minor Prophets

converging

down in a semicircular halo now restored to rainbowlike To the right of the fountain are seen the Twelve Apostles

of Ghent.

the

2

were

Paul, St. Barnabas

St.

in character.

— toward the "Fountain of the Water of Life" and the altar surrounded by two semicircles of angels — eight praying, four carrythe Passion and two censing — and surmounted by the Dove of the it

precision.

them kneeling),

alike,

is

ing the instruments of

Holy Ghost, which

and "corpus"

and these are very different

central panel of the lower tier (fig. 278)

Lamb;

retables of the time,

one on top of the other, always have

beatorum), which constitute the Community of the Saints, corners of the world, as

harmonious and homoge-

of the special patrons of the city in Christ even before

Twelve Apostles), the

He

came":

Patriarchs and,

by desire," including a conspicuously white-robed figure

classical cast of its features

and the

laurel

bough

in

its

hands, can

hardly be identified with anyone but Virgil, the greatest pagan witness to Christ's divinity.

His wreath of

lilies

of the valley, one of the most characteristic Marian flowers,

allude to the famous Isaiah's

"Iamque

redit virgo" of the

"Ecce virgo concipiet"; and

identify the

solemn personage on

and carrying what seems

to be a

it is,

Fourth Eclogue, the

would seem

Roman

parallel to

in fact, with Isaiah rather than Jeremiah that

Virgil's right, clad in a

is

group of Confessors,

all

we may

dark blue mantle and red turban,

myrtle rather than an almond branch.

3

The

altar,

approached from the right by the Holy Virgins and from the

the middle distance,

to

placed in left

by

a

but one of them clad in blue vestments so as to distinguish them from

209

EARLY NETHERLANDISH PAINTING the "purpurati Martyres" in the foreground.

among

identified, but

we

the Virgins

Among

recognize

the Confessors

Ursula with her arrow and,

St.

the procession, the traditional tetrad of SS. Agnes, Barbara, Catherine,

them divided

In the shutters (fig. 279), each of

on the

the donors' portraits and simulated statues continues.

The

Thebes (?),

inner panel of the right-hand

Anthony and

St.

St.

wizened

a

though

lifted

wing shows

the

huge rock; the

by heavy walking shoes,

reversed, as suggested by a sixteenth-century copy at

of Isabel Borluut

panel was

known

is

split in 1893).

l

Holy Hermits

outer, a

Martin (?),

Christ" headed by

St.

names:

I.H.S.

XR. AGLA." The

the "Just Judges."

The

Mary

of

group of Holy Pilgrims

in-

Antwerp,

is

two panels was

originally

impossible because the por-

George and

St.

St.

wing

this

are seen the "Knights of

Sebastian, the latter's silver shield in-

outer picture

— stolen in

1934 and unrecovered thus far

— exhibited

strongly individualized features of the Judges have always invited

from

though by no means

St.

Cucuphat of Barcelona (?) whose forms an almost humorous contrast to

left to

at-

with contemporary or nearly contemporary per-

sonages, the oldest and least credible hypothesis being to the effect that the the Judges (reading

led by St. Paul of

"D[OMINV]S FORTIS ADONAY SABAOT V.. EM[ANV]EL

at identifying the individual figures

tempts

beatorum

have been on the back of the Hermits panel until

to

to

St.

In the inner picture of the left-hand

scribed with sacred

and Dorothy.

exterior, the afflux of the chori

the gigantic, red-robed St. Christopher (that the order of these

trait

the head of

two separate panels corresponding

into

James the Great and the aged, sharp-nosed

figure,

at

Benedict of Nursia (?), the Magdalen and

St.

Egypt bashfully emerging from behind cluding

no individuals can be

first

and fourth of

Hubert and Jan van Eyck; the

right) are self-portraits of

final one, that the four riders in the first

latest

rank represent the Counts of

Flanders from the inception of the Burgundian dynasty: Philip the Bold, Louis de Male, John the Fearless,

and Philip the Good.

These countless all

figures,

2

even the giant

St.

Christopher not

the others considerably shorter, are uniform in scale and

scape. In the central panel the scene

into the

laid in a flowery

is

ground with pines,

its

verdant

hills,

With

this

taller

than two feet and

in a semicontinuous land-

meadow, uninterruptedly extending

clusters of shrubs

and

lateral pictures

trees;

is

screened off

but the admirable back-

visionary buildings, finely etched silhouettes of exotic trees,

and luminous sky continues throughout the

in scale

move

middle distance, whereas the stony foreground of the

from the middle distance by rocks and

much

five panels.

lower zone of the altarpiece the upper disagrees not only in structure but also

and general conception.

Its

wings

exhibit, of course, the

same

axial discrepancy ob-

served on the exterior; but in the central section or "corpus," too, three separate vertical pictures are superimposed

upon

a single

seven above as against five below. as that in the

lower ones

is

small,

pyrean realm above the clouds,

The

oblong one, bringing the

scale of the figures in these

and where we would expect

we

total

number

upper pictures

of panels to is

as colossal

to be transported into

an

Em-

find ourselves standing in a most solid world of tiled

pavements, stone-carved niches and heavy oaken furniture. Moreover the upper pictures, their size

ami weight nearly crushing the paradisial scene beneath, arc incongruous even among

210

1

HUBERT AND/OR JAN VAN EYCK themselves.

The

the Virgin

Mary and

Lord enthroned between

three pictures in the center (fig. 280), depicting the

John the Baptist, constitute a coherent unit (even in that they are

St.

painted on panels about twice as thick as those of the shutters but only about two thirds as thick as that of the "Adoration of the are foiled by brocaded hangings

Laboratoire Central, always other. This unit

is,

— and, — with the agreed

as ascertained

singing, those

over-life-sized,

by the recent examination in the

placement of the pictures in relation to each

however, sharply divided from the adjacent panels

monly but somewhat left

somewhat

figures, all

and concentric moldings of uniform design, and the vanishing

pavement reasonably agree

lines of the

the

1

Lamb"). The

loosely referred to as "the Musical Angels."

Here the

on the right playing the organ, the harp and the

only about two-thirds as large as those in the center, the background

com-

(figs. 281, 282),

on

figures, those

viola

da gamba are y

treated as natural sky,

is

much more elaborate pavement — its tiles adorned with such as the Lamb, the "M" of the Virgin Mary, the "IHS," "0," and "YECYC" of Christ, caballistic "ArAA" (or "AGLA") which we also encountered on the shield of St.

and the perspective of the symbols

and the

Sebastian

—

is

based on the assumption that the two panels are separated by a distance only

about one-third as wide as

under

The

flanking figures of

Adam

and Eve,

finally, are

Musical Angels. They are seen from below ( so that their standing plane

Adam's

right foot, slightly protruding

and are confined

to

above the figure of

beyond the picture plane,

narrow niches surmounted by

Adam

reliefs

proportion in scale exists in

many

at

Beaune,

fig.

is

tiers,

they

326)

2

and

Judgment

may

(especially in

in such altarpieces as

at Villeneuve-les-Avignon.

there are three objections. First, while such parallels

Second, there

sacrifice of

Abel

by pointing out that a similar

representations of the Last

van der Weyden's famous altarpiece

itself.

from underneath),

seen

which represent the

to justify these incongruities

rand Quarton's "Coronation of the Virgin"

and the lower

is

not visible and

is

and the Slaying of Abel above the figure of Eve.

Attempts have been made

the upper

somewhat

thus holding an intermediary position between the central triad and the

size,

life

it is.

3

To

this,

dis-

Roger

Enguerhowever,

account for the discrepancy between

would not explain the incongruities within the upper

tier

an essential difference between a dimensional disparity within an other-

wise unified ensemble and one within a series of separate panels not tied together by any principle of spatial unity; and, to that

in Last

which

is

light,

Judgments

does not so

much

more important, between an

and an oppression of that which

is

ascent

light

as well as in the retable at Villeneuve

from

that

by that which

which is

(which, according to the contract

represent the "Coronation of the Virgin" pure and simple as the whole

it is

cities

of

Jerusalem, "Purgatory" and "Hell") the contrast between large and small figures

brings out an antithesis between divinity and humanity,

ment,

heavy

heavy. Third,

hierarchy of the religious universe, the "Paradise." the "sky," the "world" with the

Rome and

is

to Christ, the

Virgin Mary,

St.

the court of courts, that the large scale

while the small scale gradation in size

is

is

Heaven and

is

associate justices in

reserved as an attribute of supernatural greatness

allotted to the Resurrected. In Quarton's

made between

earth. In a Last Judg-

John the Baptist and the Apostles,

cosmography an elaborate

the "Coronation" group, the saints, the saved souls admitted

21

EARLY NETHERLANDISH PAINTING to

Heaven, and the unfortunate inhabitants of Purgatory and Hell, the last-named being

about half as large as the saved souls and these about half as large as the

however,

altarpiece,

we

and the Lamb, the lower zone

Sanctified by the Fountain of Life

human

saints.

In the Ghent

find ourselves in Paradise in the lower zone as well as in the upper.

Community

beings but by the

peopled, not by ordinary

is

of the Saints, including the very Apostles who, in a

Last Judgment, share the heroic scale of the Judge and the Intercessors. Theologically speaking,

we

between Heaven and earth but with a duality of

are faced, not with a contrast

Heavens, one on top of the other. piece which, in

its

present form,

And

1

is

no

iconography of the Ghent

this brings us to the

less

problematical and contradictory than

is its

altar-

composi-

tional structure.

IV

Seen

as a

beatitude of

the Lord;

The

and

to appropriate a brief

is,

Saints picture).

be said to depict the ultimate

believing souls, Christians, Jews and Gentiles alike, united in the worship of

all

it

may

whole, the interior of the Ghent altarpiece

German

telling

term, an Allerheiligenbild (All

2

— the iconography of which deserves — appears to have been established almost thus far soon

basic type of such Allerheiligenbilder

study than

it

has received

Feast of All Saints

as

(November

i)

was formally

the Biblioteca Capitolare at Udine)

archetypal All Saints picture (text in several zones, the

women on

ill.

which seem

as the

Transmitted through two

instituted in 835.

Sacramentaries of the tenth century (one in the University Library 3

closer

at

Gottingen, the other in

to reflect a Carolingian

prototype, this

65) shows the chori beatorum symmetrically arranged

the left of the Deity, that

to say,

is

on the right-hand

side of

the picture.

In deference to Early Christian symbolism and in accordance with the liturgy of the Vigils

and Feast of All

which

Saints, the basic texts of

are Revelation V, 6-12,

Lamb, His blood pouring

the earliest representations depict the Deity in the guise of the a chalice proffered by the

Church: "And

I

beheld, and,

lo,

the four beasts, and in the midst of the elders, stood a

stantem

man

tamquam occisum)"; and:

could number, of

throne, and before the all

all

"After this

I

and VII, 2-12,

and of

in the midst of the throne,

Lamb

beheld, and,

as

lo,

had been

it

slain

a great multitude

into

{Agnum which no

nations and kindreds, and people, and tongues, stood before the

Lamb, clothed with white

robes,

and palms

in their

hands

.

.

.

the angels stood round about the throne, and about the elders and the four beasts, and

and fell

before the throne on their faces, and worshipped God." But a significant change set in with the thirteenth century, and by the middle of the fourteenth there crystallized called the

"new

style" Allerheiligenbild.

diversified; the scene

Jerusalem — or the Virgin

was

in clouds

Mary and

St.

The group

laid either in a great city

of worshipers

— the

212

were more eloquently

God or the Heavenly made their appearance;

City of

overhanging a landscape; musical angels

John the Baptist were represented

what may be

4

as the leaders of the Blessed, the

HUBERT AND/OR JAN VAN EYCK former further distinguished,

in

many

Deity; and, most important, the Deity rather than forming their either as the

"King

enthroned figure the

Itself

center — was

of kings"

by beinjj awarded a

instances,

no longer depicted

Whose image

or the

on the right of the

— now mostly elevated above the chori beatorum Lamb

in the guise of the

but

expresses the three Persons of the Trinity in one

(two human figures enthroned with

or, ultimately, as the explicit Trinity

Dove between them

seat

"Throne of Mercy"), the Adoration

of the

Lamb

surviving

only in the direct illustration of the Apocalypse and the Commentaries thereon.

The most important

of these developments (which also affected the illustration of Revela-

tion itself) can be accounted for,

I

think, by that vigorous revival of Augustinianism

can be observed from the middle of the thirteenth century and different texts as the penultimate

the

Golden Legend where the

Lamb

liturgy of the Feast of All Saints

by the

left its

Canto of Dante's Paradiso and that well-known chapter of

a colorful vision vouchsafed to the sacristan of St. Peter's at

replacement of the

Rex regum

or the Trinity

is

concretized, as

Rome;

1

and certain

had nothing

to

were, into

it

Lamb —

injunctions restricted to renderings of the Christ Incarnate, primarily the Crucifixion.

demand

manuscripts of the

for illustrations

De

Dei and

Civitate

for the

now

first

time

and continued

to

appear (now

in both places) as a glorification of

the City of

God and

what

new

at the St.

the Perpetual Sabbath" (text

2

It is, in

vernacular versions (the very

and translations of the City of God being a

of the Augustinian revival just mentioned) that the 3

its

that the

it is

do with those time-

honored injunctions which condemn the representation of Christ in the guise of the

fact, in illustrated

which

traces in such widely

symptom

characteristic

type of Allerheiligenbild appeared

beginning of the book,

now

at the

end,

Augustine calls "the Eternal Beatitude of ill.

66).

— a "Cour Celeste" invariably — dominated by either the King of kings or the Trinity enjoyed great popularity in a variety Once formulated,

of contexts.

With

all

this

"new

style"

All Saints picture

kinds of modifications,

Dei and the Golden Legend themselves, the

De

it

served to illustrate, apart

Commune

Sanctorum

from the De

in Breviaries,

4

Civitate

the prayer

pace in Books of Hours/' and the Hours of the Trinity in printed Livres d'Heures;*

appeared as a frontispiece in illuminated Bibles, treatises as

7

and

Guillaume de Deguileville's Pelerinages

dernieres choses.

9

It

shone from painted

of the Saints, arrayed

"from rank

to

8

as

it

an image of Paradise in such moral

or Denis de Ryckel's Traite des quatre

retables. In all these instances the

rank" and led by Our Lady and

whole Community

St.

John the

Baptist,

worships either the Rex regum or the Trinity, and such widely different altarpieces as an

anonymous Spanish

triptych of ca. 1420, preserved in the Metropolitan

Museum, 10 and

Diirer's

"Landauer-Altar" of 151 1 can be labeled with equal justification as Allerheiligenbild, "The Paradise according to

St.

Augustine" and "The Adoration of the Trinity."

In several respects the interior of the

"Augustinian" All Saints pictures:

Being

as

it

Ghent

shares with

them

"new

the interpretation of the

style" or

Supreme

an enthroned figure in papal garb, a type originating and widely used in the French

De Civitate Dei, its first known example being a miniature in a de Dieu manuscript of about 1370; n the prominence accorded to the Virgin Mary and

translations of St. Augustine's

Cite

altarpiece agrees with these

213

EARLY NETHERLANDISH PAINTING the Baptist; and the presence of Musical Angels. If

had

depicting Hell,

a predeila

1

even

it

would have had

this feature

where the beatitude of the Elect

triptych of ca. 1420

were true that the Ghent altarpiece once

is

a parallel in the Spanish

contrasted with the fate of Lucifer and

the rebellious angels transformed into devils and cast into a gigantic Hell-mouth.

we

In other respects, however,

accepted Allerheiligenbild. hair" a

her, a throne

course,

John the Baptist not only wears above

St.

sumptuous green mantle,

Our Lady,

the blue robe of

on the

observe some striking deviations from the then generally

but

bejeweled borders no

its

also granted the

is

Golden Legend, and

place at the head of

resplendent than those adorning

less

unprecedented privilege of occupying,

like

— excepting those, of — either keep influence of the Ghent altarpiece itself

"many

elders

Mary

in this case the Virgin

Lord while the space on His

right of the

"raiment of camel's

side of the Lord. All other All Saints pictures

which were produced under the

to the text of the

his

left

is

enthroned alone on the

remains vacant and the Baptist

and venerable

fathers";

2

or they depart

is

from

Mary and

the influence of the Last Judgment, and in this case the Virgin

relegated to his this text

under

the Baptist are

symmetrically placed on either side of the Lord but are depicted kneeling instead of enthroned.

3

The

figures of the First Parents are not only magnified to nearly the size of the

regum and His companions but

— and

are so ranked in

all

comparable representations

Testament; in Dante's vision (where feet of the

"who

Virgin

The famous Musical

closed

whereas they should be ranked

also raised to their exalted level

Adam

is

4

— among the

not mentioned

and healed the wound

Rex

Eve

at all)

inflicted

personages of the Old

and

left

is

even placed

at

the

open by the other."

Angels, finally, are unique in two respects: instead of fluttering about

the central group or being stationed here

and there among the worshipers, they occupy two

panels quite by themselves, and they lack the distinctive attributes of their celestial nature, the

wings; so far as

I

know, they

are the only wingless angels in

Northern fifteenth-century

painting.

Puzzling though these anomalies of

two

motifs,

and central ones

All Saints pictures at

Where,

all

Dove and

confusing: the

Ghent

as in the

single figure which,

at that,

and thus the

are, they are insignificant as

which do not

make

fit

compared

to the

into the tradition of the

the iconography of the ensemble, as

it

appearance

"new

is,

style"

extremely

Lamb. Supreme Being

altarpiece, the

by definition, expresses

is

represented in the guise of a

the Three Persons of the Trinity, there

all

is,

again by definition, no place for the Dove which supplements the images of the First and

Second Persons

as a

symbol of the Third

;

no Dove appears,

Dieu manuscripts, where, we remember, the Deity was

first

therefore, in

any of those Cite de

represented as a single figure in

papal garb and where this figure was perfectly interchangeable with the explicit, threefold 5

image of the Trinity. The presence of the Dove ambiguity; for here, too, the papal figure as

an image of

life,

the

logical

Lord

is

God

in

is

in the

Ghent

altarpiece thus creates a curious

conceived, and clearly designated by

His complete Trinitarian essence. Depicted

as a

man

its

in the

attributes,

prime of

enthroned before a threefold molding. His cloth of honor shows the Christo-

symbol of the Pelican

in

Her

Piety,

ensconced in grapevines, and the inscription

214

HUBERT AND/OR JAN VAN EYCK IHESUS XPS;

SABAcoT. And

epithet

the similarly embroidered border of his mantle displays in an alter-

nating pattern the very phrases

dominantium") of which

PEX PEFV, ANC ANANXIN

Augustine has written: "In these words neither the Father

St.

of kings and Lord of lords, the Trinity Itself."

horizontally,

— read

speak —

so to

Allerheiligenbild,

its

this

vertically, as

were

it

—

its

meaning: since the Third Person

combination of the First Person with the Second

God

the Father alone.

And

that the latter, less farfetched alternative

dominant and

Ghent

figure of the Diirer's

altarpiece

Diary of 1521.

is

is

Lamb,"

demonstrated by the

Dove may be

it

is

earliest texts in

which

described

— from a doctrinal

as

not for the Dove, the pictures in the lower zone of the Ghent altarpiece,

Dove could be shown

shortly see,

was unanimously

view

as

it

an intrusion. Were

to

have been substituted for something

more than probable on purely

to believe that they

were actually intended

else

And if we shall

by themselves.

— which,

as

— we should have every reason

technical grounds

to constitute

all

an All Saints picture

all

by themselves

All Saints picture, however, which diverges from the contemporary or nearly con-

temporary tradition in that

it

shows the chori beatorum arrayed around rather than beneath

the object of their devotion; in that

and, above

all,

in that

it fails

to include the

Virgin Mary and

represents the Deity in the guise of the

it

kings or the Trinity. In

all

agrees

all

the

Lamb

these respects the composition differs

heiligenbilder developed under the influence of the City of it

or, if the

mentioned by name: the Kronyk^ van Vlaendercn

even the central panel alone, would constitute an All Saints picture

— an

2

— as an appendage. In relation to the "Adoration of well represents — again from a doctrinal a compositional point of view —

as well as a compositional point of

the

is

4

In relation to the three upper figures, then, the

the

Seen in connection with the Dove beneath

suddenly changes

it

accepted in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries

3

— read

included into the combination of images and thereby recognized as the equivalent of

Christ, as

the

John the Baptist

by the Dove, the papal figure can no longer be interpreted as the Trinity

in Its entirety but only as either a

of 1458

St.

sublime image retains, as in the normal "Augustinian"

total Trinitarian significance.

explicitly represented

is

is

'

Seen in connection with the figures of the Virgin Mary and

Lamb

("Rex regum, Dominans

named, nor the Son nor the Holy Ghost, but the blessed and only Potentate, the King

specially

it

Old Testament

the pearl embroidery of His stole, however, spells out the

more palpably with

St.

John the Baptist;

instead of as the

King

from the more recent

God and

the

of

Aller-

Golden Legend; but

the "old style" Allerheiligenbilder (text

ill.

65), directly

derived from the liturgy of the Feast of All Saints and the passages of Revelation

embedded

therein.

By Ghent plified,

the very fact that

it is

an Adoration of the Lamb, the "Adoration of the

altarpiece thus proclaims

we

recall,

the blood of the

dependence upon a

much

earlier

Lamb"

in the

iconography (best exem-

by those old Sacramentaries where even the motif of the chalice receiving

Lamb

or three centuries

its

is

prefigured); and that a representational type which for the

had been

restricted to straightforward illustrations of Revelation

last

two

VII was

suddenly resumed for the purpose of a liturgical All Saints picture would seem to constitute a

215

EARLY NETHERLANDISH PAINTING Such

deliberate revival.

however,

a revival,

not surprising in a family of

is

artists

who, we

remember, took so keen an interest in the productions of the Romanesque style and were accustomed

to associate

In spite of

it

with the idea of the Heavenly Jerusalem.

faithfulness to tradition, the lower zone of the

its

certain elements unparalleled in both the "old style"

Saints picture.

One

of these novel features

—

Allerheiligenbild

is

and

XXI,

6,

and VII,

17,

style" redactions of the All

The image

of the life-giving fountain,

ubiquitous in the Old Testament, occurs in Revela-

Here the "fountain" or "fountains"

mentioned only by

are

of a promise. But they were naturally associated with the "pure river of water of

as crystal,

one

the latter versicle immediately following the sections selected for the

liturgy of the Feast of All Saints.

way

fairly

and "new

altarpiece contains

inclusion of the Fountain of Life into an

not too difficult to explain.

of the oldest symbols of salvation tion

— the

Ghent

proceeding out of the throne of

God and

that this passage, belonging to the description of the

the

Lamb"

in Revelation

clear

life,

XXII,

Heavenly Jerusalem which was

1;

and

in turn

identified with Paradise, was the direct inspiration of Hubert van Eyck — rather, his theological advisers — proved by the fact that the discrepancy between fons and fluvius did not or,

is

prevent

it

from being inscribed upon the fountain

a purely iconographical Life, a

motif

in the

development had paved the way

Ghent

and

nature and the state of grace. Revelation XXII,

archetype of the

1,

2

mark between

Renderings of

and such an

earlier,

this type

much debated "Fountain of Life" in God and the Lamb" according to Baptist,

seen enthroned on the

is

meeting place of

as a

Old Law and the New, the

all

state of

could easily fuse with illustrations of

perhaps pre-Eyckian, fusion

out of the throne of

and not John the

the

Fountain of

early fifteenth-century art, in

an All Saints picture. The fountain had come to be interpreted both the faithful and as a kind of boundary

In addition,

itself.

to the inclusion of the

flourishing or even revived in fourteenth-

still

1

altarpiece

the Prado.

3

is

well exemplified by the

Here the

"river proceeding

Revelation (hence John the Evangelist,

left

of the Lord) flows into an octagonal,

canopied well on either side of which are stationed, not the chori beatorum as in the Ghent altarpiece but representatives of the

Church Triumphant and the vanquished Synagogue

naturalistic dramatization, so to speak, of the debate to take place

The panel

a

between Ecclesia and Synagoga that used

by the Fountain in high medieval representations.

other novelty

be accounted

—

for,

we have

I

— a most

feel,

unusual extension of the traditional chori beatorum

— can

only by the special wishes of the patron or patrons. In the central

only the canonical groups of saints enumerated in the liturgy of the Feast of

All Saints: Patriarchs and Prophets, Apostles, Martyrs, Confessors, and Virgins. panels of the shutters

show

the

Holy Hermits,

who occur, if not in the liturgy Legend). The two groups on the extreme

of Christ

also

itself,

left

mentioned

in the liturgy,

in texts derived

and

right,

however

from

it

— and

The

inner

and the Knights

(such as the Golden

may

this

be the inner

reason for the not unheard-of but most unusual subdivision of the shutters into two separate pictures

4

— constitute an exception. Even the Holy Pilgrims do not, so far

accepted category within the

Community

of the Saints; they

would seem

as

to

I

know, form an

have been singled

out as an independent group only in order to balance the Just Judges on the opposite end.

216

HUBERT AND/OR JAN VAN EYCK And

these Just Judges pose a real problem.

Ghent

identifiable saint.

They

They have no

hagiological status at

all,

and in the

in contrast even to that of the Pilgrims, not a single

group includes,

altarpiece their

represent, in fact, a class of persons often prayed for or against in

Christian churches (a special mass, for instance, was occasionally said contra injustos judices)

but never to

my

knowledge prayed

to.

Considering that they occupy the place on the extreme

donors and, further, that the term judices

left traditionally allotted to

with the term exercitus in liturgical acclamations juxtaposed in the

members

left

high-ranking civilian

of the judiciary in particular, as

military) in general,

1

we cannot

beatorum in the same sense

as

coupled

Judges and Knights are visually

as the

altarpiece — commonly designated,

Ghent

shutter of the

much

— constantly

officials

not so

much

opposed to the

(as

but conclude that our Just Judges do not constitute a chorus

do the Martyrs, Confessors, Virgins or Holy Hermits. They

are

admitted to the hierarchies of the Blessed, not as an accepted category of saints but as the ideal representatives of a specific

When we of a

payment

who hoped

one of the few documents referring

recall that

for

group of living dignitaries

to be included

Hubert van Eyck

to

"two designs (bewerpen) which he had made

the behest of the magistrates {scepenen)" in 1425,

we

for

an altarpiece

much tempted

are

with the

Elect.

the record

is

(taeffele) at

to identify these

magistrates — who shortly after visited Hubert's workshop and gave a gratuity to his appren— with that specific group of dignitaries symbolized by the Just Judges; and, therefore, 2

tices

to identify their taeffele

with what

program would announce, within

is

now

the lower storey of the

a purely religious context

Ghent

altarpiece. If so,

and in a mood of serene

its

confi-

dence, those "Justice Pictures" which, more and more secularized in subject matter and more

and more

pessimistic in spirit,

Germany: our ancestors of

murder but

God

;

if

so

many town

halls

both in the Lowlands and in

proleptically admitted to Paradise,

of Dire Bouts'

on atoning

for

has been said

it

later

it;

Emperor

be accepted as a

Otto, involuntarily committing a judicial

work

will be apparent that the

of art executed according to plan.

was composed of

I

Ghent

altarpiece, as

expense of Jodocus

Vyd who, wealthy and

and splendor but not too

can hardly

who

hold

behind by Hubert van Eyck

influential as

The

it is,

cannot but side with those

originally unrelated elements left

Hubert's original clients to cede their rights to him. size

remorse-

justice

and, finally, of Gerard David's corrupt and terribly pun-

various stages of noncompletion, and subsequently adapted, supplemented at the

would be the

3

From what it

adorn

Roger van der Weyden's Trajan and Herkinbald, administering

ished Sisamnes.

that

to

Justi Judices, hopefully

but vindicated by

lessly

were

final

in

and finished by Jan

he was, could

easily

persuade

result — a rich man's dream in

satisfactory in design — can be accounted for only by a

series of

hypotheses. (1)

What

altarpiece,

is

now

the lower storey

was

originally intended as an independent All Saints

probably ordered by the Echevins of Ghent in 1425 and conceivably destined for

217

EARLY NETHERLANDISH PAINTING their chapel in the

Town

Hall rather than for the Cathedral, in which the archaic idea of

representing the Beatitude of Paradise as an Adoration of the of the

Rex regum or

Lamb, and not

as

an Adoration

was both revived from ancient archetypes and modified

the Trinity,

ac-

cording to individual specifications. (a)

Several scholars, including myself, have entertained the theory that this All Saints

retablc, prior to

as

incorporation in the present ensemble, possessed projecting top pieces such

its

can be seen in countless triptychs of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, that of the central

panel providing the space for an image of the Deity. This theory has been exploded by the recent examination in the Laboratoire Central.

combined with the conclusions

tion,

analysis, enables us,

I

that

two

However, another

may

more

think, to propose a

observed, beneath the present surface,

1

examina-

be drawn from the foregoing iconographic

Some twenty

viable theory.

years ago, there

was

rays converging toward a point about 2 cm. higher

now emanating from

than the focus of the rays

result of this very

the Dove.

The

recent investigation has

demonstrated that these two "subjacent rays" are remnants of a complete system (apparently erased, for the

most

sottile

pigments was put on)

part, before the present coat of

and,

;

more im-

were not produced with the brush but raised by the application of gesso

portant, that they

and gilded (an operation normally performed

and before the painting process proper began.

2

as

soon

as the

This pencil of

design had been established

must have been

rays, then,

emitted by a glory subsequently superseded by the iconographically incongruous Dove glory which

we have

image of God

in half-length but just as often

are very frequent in late fourteenth-

and

image or served

now

XXII,

From

so that

unadorned with any

4

and no more

fitting

its

symbol of that "God-given"

citizens

light

— the curve of

a compositional point of view, the effect of such a glory

Lamb" had been

a little taller in

the possibility that the central panel

had not

is

— provided

format than

it is

now.

is,

now

in fact,

some reason

considerably

less

it

was taken

fairly limited areas.

And

a

at a

if

left

its

circum-

which has

the "Adoration

while the technical investi-

does not,

was indeed trimmed by

that this action

beyond

as yet progressed

There panel

bottom

on the

— would have been even more satisfactory

gation has effectively disposed of the conjectural top piece,

at the

which illumines the

5).

turned out to be a later addition

and

motif could have

"need no candle, neither light of the sun" (Reve-

ference pleasantly echoed by a skyline not as yet broken by the tower

of the

figural design,

by the Dove, whether the golden semicircle displayed the divine

as a direct visual

Heavenly Jerusalem lation

filled

this type, often

early fifteenth-century art (the "Boucicaut Hours," for

example, contain magnificent specimens of both kinds) occupied the space

—a

every reason to imagine as a pendent semicircle having about the same

diameter as the Dove's halo but wholly or partly overlaid with gold. Glories of encircling an

3

I

believe, entirely exclude

few centimeters both time

when

at the

top

the actual painting

5

for suspecting such a curtailment: the height of the central

than that of the wings {ca. 138 cm. as against

ca. 149 cm., in-

cluding the unpainted edges concealed by the frames), which in a Flemish altarpiece of about 1

1430

is

a distinct

anomaly;' the central panel,

as

218

it

is

now, appears unpleasantly wide

(ca.

HUBERT AND/OR JAN VAN EYCK 243 cm., again including the unpainted edge) in relation to

been

11

cm. higher,

its

proportions would have been

own

its

more normal,

height whereas, had

concordant

in fact exactly

with the golden section; and the "subjacent rays" converge, as mentioned before, slightly but perceptibly higher

seemed advisable

to trim the

the ensemble resulting

now visible on the Lamb" is easy

than do the rays

"Adoration of

from the superimposition of

a second

the surface.

Why

to imagine.

The

row

of pictures

it

at a point

would have height of

total

upon the

original

All Saints altarpiece was limited, to the last inch, by the exiguous height of the chapel.

would, therefore, have been imperative to make sible;

but

— or

keep

would have been equally imperative, both

it

strengthen —

or, at least,

— the

for artistic

storey,

it

of

lower

the

to

reduce the

to

to the load

and

stress of the

unpainted edges, the width of

only

B storey

of

Ghent

the

altarpiece

panel was shortened by 11 cm. as indicated by broken

B

and technical reasons,

much narrower than it is now. The "Adoration of the Lamb" in height.

A Reconstruction

tier as short as pos-

could not be permitted to be

would have been

solution, then,

It

not to weaken — the frame of the central panel. Surrounding what

had become the nucleus of a much larger structure and subjected added upper

lower

it

all

lines.

A

frames in Alternative

would vary between

based

on

the

hypothesis

that

the

central

cm. are allowed for the would be uniquely determined at 5% cm. In If

approximately

1.5

cm. (the width of the ledge dividing the shutters equaling that of the frames) and 17 cm. (the width of this ledge equaling zero). The letters a, b, c, and d indicate the boards of which the central panel is composed.

Alternative

it

8.5

(b) While this curtailment of the central panel remains conjectural,

we

can be sure that

each of the shutters was always — and, believe, mainly for the iconographic reasons forth above — divided into two separate panels. Even as an independent altarpiece, then, the lower set

I

1

storey

must have been

looked precisely as

it

a pentaptych which,

does

now; and,

if its

if its

central panel

central panel

was not cut down, must have

was cut down, can only have offered

one of the two aspects sketched in the subjoined diagram. Assuming that the were treated 11

as entirely separate units (Alternative

cm. would have made

it

possible to double the

219

lateral panels

A), the shortening of the central panel by width of

its

then narrow frame

(5% cm.)

EARLY NETHERLANDISH PAINTING without increasing the

height of the pentaptych. Assuming, as seems rather improbable,

total

that each pair of the lateral panels

was

wide

set into a fairly

frame subdivided by

over-all

rower ledge (Alternative B), the shortening of the central panel would have made to retain a

frame about

as

wide

as

now,

is

it

yet to reduce

it

a nar-

possible

height of the pentaptych

the total

by the amount by which the central panel was trimmed. In neither

however, would

case,

it

have been necessary to shorten the shutters; and to preserve their original height would have

seemed the more desirable

as the tall, large-scaled pictures that

them

have

tend, even as

it is,

Turning now

(2)

to

to the

a

somewhat oppressive

we remember,

superimposed upon

to be

effect.

upper storey of the Ghent

central triad of pictures which,

were

we must

altarpiece,

begin with the

constitute a coherent unit in treatment as well

as in scale.

The

(a)

as seen in renderings of the Last

been seen, not

in "that

Mary, absorbed

Heaven with

we may

subject of this "upper triptych," as

referred to as a "Deesis" (viz. the Intercession of

form

in

in reading,

the

is

Judgment) without

He

which

is

call

Our Lady and

the Son of

St.

John the Baptist with Christ

reservations.

Man"

for short, should not be

it

The Lord

but as the triune God; the Virgin

'

not represented as the Maria Mediatrix but as the

"crown of twelve

stars

upon her head";

2

and the

hand

encomium

in a

inscribed

manner

didactic rather than suppliant or indicatory.

on the back of

his throne

but omitting precisely those epithets which praecursor Christi,

let

stress his

from

a

precursorship

thing, totius

medius

Trinitatis:

4

Lamb

of

praying

of God,"

As evidenced by

the

sermon of Peter Chrysologus 3

— he

alone as praeco judicis, but in his capacity of Dei

which means the same

title

— culled

Queen

Baptist, instead of

or pointing with the incisive gesture associated with the words "Behold the raises his

appears, as has

does not appear as

testis or, to

as the revealer

use another

and mediator of

the whole Trinity.

The "upper

would thus be

triptych"

which the

posite Allerheiligenbild as

were

it

not for the

fact,

that the Baptist, arrayed in

ties as

as

head of the Blessed,

Ghent

is

God

that

com-

altarpiece presents itself today is

now

—

determined, by the

the Father rather than of the "whole Trinity" and

garments more resplendent than

usual even where he appears

is

elevated to the rank of "Synthronos." These iconographic singulari-

well as the discrepancy in scale suggest that the "upper triptych" was originally designed

an independent

retable,

probably specifically honoring

remembered, was the patron 1540).

interior of the

already mentioned, that the dominant figure

addition of the Dove, as an image of

at the

crowning feature of

entirely appropriate as a

An

image of the Deity

Trinity — flanked by two

saint of

St.

Ghent Cathedral up

John the Baptist (who, to

its

dedication to

as will

be

Bavo

in

St.

— no matter whether depicted as the Rex regum or the explicit

saints,

or by the Virgin

Mary and one

of the

two

St.

Johns,

is

unex-

ceptionable as the subject of an altarpiece from an iconographic point of view (in fact one of the oldest painted retables, the of

famous "Soester Altar"

Mercy between the Virgin and

raised

would

refer to

"upper triptych"

St.

shows nothing but the Throne

John the Evangelist). The only objection that might be

form rather than content.

in structure

at Berlin,

— retables, that

is,

It

is

quite true that retables resembling the

which have no

220

shutters

and display only three

HUBERT AND/OR JAN VAN EYCK nichelike compartments — were not in fashion in the

sacred images in century.

They

do, however, occur in painted renderings of ecclesiastical interiors;

tend to carry a special connotation of venerable, either in legendary scenes

Mass

Northern

Mass of

of St. Hubert, the

Two

by Moses Between

from the remote St.

Gregory)

or,

which

we

a miracle occurs before

with the Lord Between

Prophets, in the Presentation of Christ.

1

may

It

Two

fifteenth century appealed to that sense of the hieratic

find

an

them

altar (the

Saints replaced

well be that the very

flavor of oldness and solemnity which seems to have surrounded triptychs of

of Eyckian

and then they

times pre-Christian, antiquity:

at

past in

fifteenth

and the archaic which

is

this type in the

so characteristic

art.

(b) That the "Musical Angels" flanking the "upper triptych" differ from

in scale

it

and

perspective has already been mentioned. But even in the measurements of the panels on which

they are painted there

is

cm. shorter and 3 cm. narrower than the adjacent ones) which leads

had

to

Angels are

a slight but jarring discrepancy (the panels of the

to the conclusion that they

be "cut to measure" after the fact and under adverse circumstances

which quite

possibly included a

rounding

off of their tops.

Angels" represent an element originally unrelated Saints altarpiece beneath

it.

nothing but musical angels

And as

since

it is

it is

to the

The

inference

as well as the All

unusual for altarpieces to have shutters exhibiting

as

for angels, musical or otherwise, to have

governed by the rules of religious iconography than a retable: they or,

operation

that the "Musical

is

"upper triptych"

— an

no wings, we may

conjecture that the "Musical Angels" had originally been intended for a context

an ambry,

just 4

may have been

less strictly

destined for

perhaps more probably, for an organ. Organ shutters, organ cases and the para-

were traditionally and appropriately decorated with music-making

pets of organ lofts

figures,

or groups of figures, occupying individual panels; and these, though frequently appearing as

orthodox angels

as in

Gonesse and Santa Maria

depicted as wingless beings

la

Real at Najera, were no

— musical genii, so to speak, or actual musicians — as 2

Grand Andely, Nonancourt and Augsburg. The musical "angels" would seem, were

less

originally conceived as the northern cousins of

in the

Luca

Ghent

is

frequently the case at

altarpiece,

it

della Robbia's glorified

choristers at the Cantoria of Florence Cathedral.

(c)

Adam

There remain the two outermost panels of the upper

and Eve.

If

our analysis

is

correct they,

storey

showing the

figures of

and they alone, would be ad hoc additions

elements already extant before the Ghent altarpiece received

its

to

present form, and this agrees

with the uncontested fact that they stand out from their surroundings by a quality of palpable existence

which

relates

them

to the exterior rather

than the other interior pictures.

Their proportions were of course determined, on the one hand, by the difference in width

between the "Musical Angels" and the lower shutters and, on the other hand, by the height

and shape of the panel representing the Lord. But seldom has dire a necessity.

By turning the two nudes

in favor of height, the painter

managed

at

been made of so

an angle of 45 degrees, thus minimizing width

to squeeze into the

smaller in scale than the central triad yet very

so great a virtue

much

narrow space two

figures

larger than the Musical Angels.

somewhat

By

encas-

ing these figures in deep, shadowy niches and adding to the effect of drastic foreshortening

221

EARLY NETHERLANDISH PAINTING an unusually strong

that of

that they arc nearer to

light,

he invested them with a

which makes us

plastic solidity

our eye than are the Musical Angels, and

this

impression

is

feel

enormously

strengthened by the use, often remarked upon, of an emphatic di sotto in su or "worm's eye" perspective.

1

Adam

Since the figures of

and Eve are placed above the eye

on which they stand remaining

the surface

invisible

they seem to approach or even to transcend the picture plane. the Musical Angels passes unnoticed or, rather,

By

As

a result, the smaller size of

subconsciously accounted for by the illusion

removed from the eye than both the

that they are further

the "upper triptych." their vigorous

is

level of the beholder,

and Adam's right foot seen from below,

First Parents

and the giant figures of

virtue of this optical device, lending an almost aggressive energy to

modeling, the figures of

Adam

and Eve thus serve

to soften,

the dimensional disparity between the central triad and the Musical Angels.

master stroke of the

first

not to conceal,

if

They

represent a

order; but this master stroke entailed the promotion of the First

Parents to a position of undeserved sublimity and, in the "Annunciation" on the exterior, the interpolation of those

two extra panels which, having no

raison d'etre

from

a narrative point of

view, were filled with motifs gratefully accepted from the Master of Flemalle. Jan,

it

would

seem, welcomed the mise-en-scene of the Merode altarpiece with what amounts to a sigh of relief.

There

is

good evidence

show

to

that he originally planned to treat the upper storey of

same fashion

the exterior in precisely the

as the lower, that

niches, valanced by trefoil arches, analogous to those statues of the

paint;

2

two Saint Johns. These arches

are

which

still

is

to say, to divide

it

into simulated

shelter the donor's figures

and the

preserved beneath the present coat of

but since there would have been six of them (one in each central panel, two in each

of the lateral ones), they

would have

conflicted with the four units of the lower tier even

more

sharply than does the Flemallesque interior now.

VI

From

Ghent

the inscription of the

altarpiece

who "completed" it. much more than the

we know

that

it

was Hubert van Eyck who

"began" and Jan, his brother,

If

would have amounted

carrying out of a well-defined project: Jan

to

would have taken over no -

destination,

them

into

'

what may be

Be that terior of the

less

and — "Judoci

as

it

with the simulated

prece fretus"

— not

only finished them but also combined

it

altarpiece in reliefs

is

its

that Jan,

and Jan alone, was responsible

surmounting them. That the exterior a

is

Jan's

to

and not Hubert's

nearly general agreement has been reached."

Vyd who had no known connection with Hubert, and it

for, first, the ex-

entirety; and, second, for the figures of the First Parents

program, entirely coherent from an iconographical point of view,

every way. Suffice

completion

called a super-retable.

one of the few propositions on which

Jodocus

this

than three unfinished works quite different in character and

Vyd

may, certain

Ghent

our hypotheses are correct,

compare the donors'

portraits with the

drapery of the Annunciate with that of the "Ince Hall

222

its

glorifies

style agrees

is

1

Its

the person of

with Jan's in

"Timotheos" of 1432 or the

Madonna"

of die following year

—

HUBERT AND/OR JAN VAN EYCK comparisons which, incidentally, corroborate the natural assumption that the exterior pictures

were tackled only

The

remodeling of the interior had been completed.

after the

1

Eve

faced, slightly slit-eyed

is

The way

which the

in

foot

and the donors'

portraits; as

seen in "worm's eye perspective," so are the books of the Prophets above the

is

And

"Annunciation."

Jan van Eyck's consummate naturalism

evident from the difference,

is

Adam's body

indicating the use of a living model, that exists between the pale complexion of

and the tan of

as

emerge from the darkness

figures

of their deep niches resembles the effect of the grisaille statues

Adam's

much

the robuster ancestress of the Annunciate in style as

of view of doctrine.

from the point

The round-

Parents" evidently agrees with that of the exterior.

style of the "First

his hands.

Hubert's contribution to the Ghent altarpiece can thus be looked for only in the interior exclusive of the clearly.

The

Adam

and Eve panels; and even here

no

than

less

cannot be expected to stand out very

damage and,

altarpiece has suffered considerable

the Laboratoire Central, undergone

it

prior to

its

five restorations, the earliest

portant one performed by Jan van Scorel and Lancelot Blondeel in 1550.

was respected to be

for the sake of

economy and out

obscured in the course of execution.

actual painting Jan

X-rays — and,

some

in

possible to decide

and, even

if

cases, the

whether

naked

the latter, whether

it

harmonize

eye — reveal

signifies

is

Much

of Hubert's if

his design

was bound

Hubert's work had proceeded to the stage of

tried to

this stratification

and most im-

of veneration for the dead master,

Where

would naturally have

2

and underpainting which, even

limited to underdrawing

work must have been

recent treatment in

due

with his own. Where the

it

a definite stratification

it

is

not always

to the restoration of 1550 or antedates

an alteration or a pentimento

it;

— a change imposed

by Jan on Hubert or on himself. In spite of

all

these difficulties,

that the final report of the Labora-

and with the reservation

not as yet been published,

toire Central has

I

the most noticeable of these has already been recognized by the very

who

ever attempted to solve the problem in critical fashion.

stylistic

dichotomy

exists

within the "Adoration of the

3

and

rise,

and the fountain

itself is

first

scholar,

Max

As pointed out by him,

Lamb"

seen in a kind of semi-bird's-eye view which produces an in depth

(fig.

effect

278).

Its

sight,

shows

An

and the

a less violent yet

more

at the

who seem

foreground

Lamb, constructed with

meadow

a different point of

effective foreshortening.

and

St.

apex of the Apostles group and his bald-headed counterpart on the Prophets to play

an intermediate

role in style as well as in placement, the kneeling

more

archaic than the

again, of the Master of Flemalle in his earlier works, they give as glyptic rather

is

rendered in a primitive wide-angle perspective not

altar of the

figures nearest to the fountain strike us as

entirety

a distinct

analogous difference can be observed in the figures. Except for the tonsured

Barnabas side,

easily

Dvorak,

halfway between recession

unlike that in the earlier works of the Flemalle Master; whereas, farther back, the

seems to recede more

and that

believe that differences are discernible

than

plastic.

leaves a core of

The modeling

an

rest.

effect

Somewhat

reminiscent,

which may be described

does not seem to penetrate the substance in

its

unorganized mass beneath a network of hard, scooped-out drapery.

223

EARLY NETHERLANDISH PAINTING And, emphatic though pressed between

this

modeling

is,

the figures give the strange impression of being com-

frontal planes rather than freely developed in three-dimensional space

two

an impression accentuated by a preponderance of the pure profile view (employed in no than seven Apostles and as the fifteenth century.

many

Prophets) which was

The costumes

of the Prophets

all

show

—

less

but obsolete in the third decade of

which

that fairy-tale-like orientalism

market! the productions of the International Style and vigorously survived in the earlier phase of the Flemalle Master,

and the somber, long-haired and long-bearded Apostles

conform

are pronouncedly Italianate. Physiognomically, they

283^)

(fig.

Tuscan

to a type current in all

trecento painting, especially to the

Old Testament

Chapel, and

turned toward the beholder, invite comparison with the

Taddeo

Disciples in

The

their postures, soles di Bartolo's

"Death of the Virgin"

angels encircling the altar of the

Lamb and

background, on the other hand, are fully elaborated

more emphatically

as well as

Apostles and Prophets

more

not.

is

The

Madonna," and the

the "Ince Hall

are almost sisters to

Our Lady

more

in the Palazzo Pubblico at Siena.

the processions approaching

as three-dimensional entities

style

is

as

is

from the

and modeled

compatible with Jan's as that of the

leaders of the

Holy

still

"Madonna

work on

at

Virgins,

St.

in a

Though

their collective organization.

Catherine and

Church"

the interior of the

(fig.

Ghent

which

noteworthy than the treatment of the single elements of

composed

it

1

draperies of the Angels are not too different from that of

as she appears in the

probably executed while Jan was

are

Their

softly.

Arena

characters in Giotto's frescoes in the

St.

Dorothy,

236), a picture

altarpiece.

these

Even

two processions

the individual figures are perfectly de-

tached from one another, they seem to merge into one compact, space-displacing body; the

heads of the Virgins in particular add up to a receding horizontal surface as do, so

homely

ripples

on

a simile, the cobblestones of a

Lamb" from

We

be more poetic, the

little

waves and

right,

the rest

I

think, in dissociating the foreground section of the "Adoration of the

— only that

this dissociation

cannot be expressed by a clear-cut dividing

have, instead, between the figures in the foreground and the Virgins and Confessors

what may be

ment

or, to

use

a sheet of water.

Dvorak was

line.

pavement,

may

if I

called a transitional

of the hilly ledges

the foreground

itself

to reveal the style of

zone where even the naked eye

is

able to detect a rearrange-

which form the locus standi of the various groups; and even within

only the fountain and the kneeling figures in

its

immediate

vicinity

seem

Hubert in comparatively undiluted form. The processions of Confessors

and Virgins are simon-pure Jan, and the same

where the

aerial

panoramas

in the "Rolin

perspective

is

true of the

more

distant parts of the scenery

and the very topography, while anticipating the luminous

Madonna" and

Jan's hero, the Boucicaut Master; his

the "St. Barbara," hark back to the landscapes of

humble

houses, village churches and windmills

from behind wooded mountain ranges and rounded hillocks

in

much

the

same way

as

emerge

do the

fabulous architectures in the background of the "Adoration of the Lamb." Everything else

would seem

to represent all possible degrees of supersedure.

The

altar of the

Lamb and

the

surrounding angels, for example, were evidently so far from completion that the work of the older master

is

almost entirely supplanted by that of the younger; whereas the figures arrayed

224

HUBERT AND/OR JAN VAN EYCK behind the Apostles and the Prophets, sional groups than are the Virgins

less

convincingly integrated into unified, three-dimen-

and Confessors

more minutely

yet

a state advanced

enough

to require extensive

and

differentiated

vidualized than the Apostles and Prophets themselves, appear to have been

left

indi-

by Hubert in

retouching but not complete remodeling.

This somewhat disappointing result agrees, however, with the general habit of painters to begin the final execution of their pictures in at the is

1

margins;

and

if

we

are right in

identical with the taeffele

interest rather

than

start

assuming that the lower storey of the Ghent altarpiece

commissioned by the

project drawings in 1424-1425

maximum

an area of

— Hubert

city magistrates

could have spent on

— and

in the state of

utmost, one year, a

at the

it,

still

goodly part of which would have been consumed in preliminary work. In addition to what he was able to carry out in color, however, he must naturally be credited with the general design of the central panel and, in particular, with the application of those raised

and gilded rays from which we concluded the existence of

a glory

now

super-

seded by the Dove. Since these rays underlie the blue of the sky and the green of the turf and shrubbery, they must antedate the final execution of the whole upper half of the picture. to ascribe

— as

them

and would never have stooped

"subjacent rays" participation of to

him cannot

scenery.

Where

suffices, I believe, to

prove,

to use metallic gold.

— to

Jan

is

clearly

im-

include the magnificent the skyline of this

palm

trees

lying forms shine through

other, that,

panorama which

very existence of these

that

constitutes the

upper ranges of the

panorama was subsequently enlivened by such Mediterranean

and umbrella pines

— we may, therefore,

to speak, after his trips to Spain

The

we cannot eliminate the whatever we may decide to assign

on the one hand,

Hubert altogether; and, on the

plants as cypresses,

tion.

a composition subsequently altered

he would never have resorted to the archaic method of raising decorative

possible because details in relief

remnants of

And

— in part so thinly painted that the under-

assume that Jan improved upon himself, so

and Portugal had made him familiar with southern vegeta-

2

In other places, however, ditions for

we

are unquestionably faced with repaintings, repairs

which neither of the two brothers can be held

responsible.

The Tower

and ad-

of Utrecht

Cathedral ("Domtoren"), proudly soaring near the center of the composition, has been correctly ascribed to Jan Scorel

of Utrecht in Holland, 3

Flemish painting. The

who may have

inserted

had been deemed worthy

Lamb was

in slightly embarrassed fashion,

repainted at a period

with an extra pair of

painted buildings directly opposite to the Utrecht of

Cologne and sharply contrasting

precise

and compact

in style

structures devised

The

altarpiece.

in order to

show

that he, the citizen

unknown and now

ears.

4

And most

faces the beholder,

of the grayish, fuzzily

Tower — partly inspired by the

city prospect

and color with the imaginary but wonderfully

and executed by Jan himself

the repairs necessitated by a conflagration in 1822

upon the

it

to restore the greatest masterpiece of Early

which had

spilt

— owe their existence to

hot cinders and molten lead

5

panels flanking the "Adoration of the

Lamb"

differ

from

it

in that the space seems to

recede by stages rather than continuously, the groups in the foreground being screened off from

225

EARLY NETHERLANDISH PAINTING the

more

distant parts of the scenery

ground

that the

by coulisses of shrubbery and rocks; and, furthermore,

and

consists of earth

rock — though

strewn with precious stones

in

— rather

than grass. These differences do not, however, warrant the conclusion that Hubert had no part at all in

them,

and execution,

their design

as

an ex post facto addition,

but shutterless retable.

let

to

alone the more radical hypothesis that Jan had appended

what Hubert had planned and executed

as a two-storeyed

1

That the Hermits, Pilgrims, Knights, and Judges walk on hard ground, and not on a

meadow, would seem to the

"rough ways" on which mankind must

to express the

And

"green pastures" of salvation.

concerned,

we happen

more thoroughly tion has

shown

to

know

as far as the difference in the

that the landscape

background of the

altered than that of the "Adoration of the

that the scenery

not only in the distance (as

is

was intended

now

Lamb":

to be continuous

on

its

soft

road

treatment of space

lateral panels

is

was even

the recent X-ray examina-

throughout the pentaptych,

the case) but also in the middle plane.

The

terrain above

showing the Knights of

the Prophets and Patriarchs originally continued into the panel Christ; the rocks behind the Hermits

travel

and the exotic orange grove behind the Pilgrims super-

sede a grassy hillside and a domestic tree with short, thick trunk and radiating branches. of course, possible to interpret these changes as self-emendations rather than a remodeling

It is,

and umbrella pine "transitional zone"

from such obvious afterthoughts

palm

trees

in the far distance not only technically but also in that they affect the

same

of Hubert's work. But they differ

which

different personalities;

in the central panel

and the original

tree

seemed

now

to reveal

as the cypresses,

an encounter between two

covered by Jan's orange grove belongs to a

type apparently foreign to his vocabulary whereas rather similar trees occur in the "Friedsam

Annunciation" least, after

(fig.

284), a picture

now

almost generally accepted as a work by

—

or, at

— Hubert and certainly not attributable to Jan. more

In regard to the scenery the two shutters have clearly

in

common

with each other

than either has with the central panel. In regard to the figural compostion, the situation reversed: in this respect, the right-hand shutter has

than with right

its

counterpart on the

left.

and arrayed on the same base

The line

more

in

serried ranks of

— can

easily

common

is

with the central panel

Hermits and Pilgrims

— bolt up-

be read as continuations of the dense

throngs of Martyrs and Apostles in the "Adoration of the Lamb." In facial type and psychological expression, too, they

belong to the same, somber

Apostles contrast, in style and

spirit,

And

race.

as the austerely

unkempt

with the Holy Virgins, so do the Hermits with their

Mary

who

can be shown to

lovely feminine companions, St.

Magdalen and

have been added

group when the landscape background was changed.

to the original

St.

short, the panels of the right-hand shutter exhibit,

of

even more

Egypt

clearly, a stylistic

as

"Hubertian"; those farther back

— the two

in the

female anchorites appear-

ing in the same "transitional zone" as do the angels surrounding the fountain In the groups of Knights and Judges, on the other hand,

In

dichotomy

analogous to that which can be observed in the "Adoration of the Lamb": the figures

foreground strike us

2

all traces

— as "Janesque."

of Hubert's style have

been obliterated. Complex, animated and loosely constructed rather than simple, calm and

226

HUBERT AND/OR JAN VAN EYCK compact, they move in different planes (the foremost Knight, farther

St.

George, being considerably

removed from the picture plane than the foremost Judge), and

two panels

is

yet the content of the

fused into a unified, interlocking pattern. In spite of the continuous landscape,

The Knights

the Hermits and Pilgrims are, as groups, confined to separate sections of space.

and Judges, however, form one cavalcade not interrupted the dividing frames its

off

by, but apparently proceeding behind,

which overlap the croup of the horse of

George

St.

hind leg extends into the adjacent panel. With regard

tional zone": for reasons

which we can only surmise

manner

to the left shutter, then,

conclude that Jan went further than to repaint the scenery and '

in such a

make

that

we may

additions in the "transi-

he must have completely redesigned the

figural composition.

The upper part even

much

storey of the interior confronts us with problems in part

more complex than does

the lower.

That the

simpler and in

"First Parents" are by Jan in concept as

well as execution has already been mentioned, and the "Musical Angels," though probably

designed by Hubert, would also seem to be Jan's as far as the actual painting

While the

ment

spaceless composition of these

of pearls

and precious

characteristic of Jan as

is

the

stones,

two

concerned.

is

pictures strikes us as distinctly archaic, the treat-

brocaded fabrics and hair, wood and fayence

somewhat

strained expression of the faces;

it

tiles is as

has also rightly been

stressed that the selection of colors appears to presuppose the existence of the panels under-

neath."

The

colors of the

and the

vivid reds, blues

to the bright, variegated

Knights and Judges whereas the dark, purplish-brown brocade of the organist

harpist,

browns and

and greens of the singers correspond

overshadowing the crimson of the viola da gamba player, echoes the drab

olive greens,

broken only by

St.

Christopher's red mantle, of the Hermits and

Pilgrims.

The for

real difficulty

an independent

exist in the absolute,

is

presented by the "upper triptych." Intended, as

is

believed

enveloped in a

altarpiece, the three majestic figures, each

remote from contact with that which

I

them

to be,

veil of solitude,

beneath and beside them. As they

stand by themselves within the compositional context, so do they stand by themselves with

regard to

style.

When we

observe the surface treatment and, quite particularly, the palaeog-

raphy of the inscriptions with their profusion of "square C's," panels were thoroughly gone over by Jan. But

from epidermis

to structure, so to speak,

Jan's exclusive authorship

were forced

that the three

turn from accident to substance,

what even those who

we cannot

fail to see

to admit:

that they are

authenticated or universally accepted works.

In spite of vigorous modeling and

when we

we cannot doubt

believe in

hard to reconcile with his

3

— in the figures of Our Lady and

St.

John the Baptist

— foreshortening, the figures seem to be developed in two dimensions instead of in three. The drapery

is

"scooped out" to such an extent that the general impression

rather than convexity.

The

in languorous, calligraphical curves (Wolfflin

which have no

is

one of concavity

contours of the gold-embroidered and jewel-studded borders

might have spoken of a "cantilena of

parallel in Jan's stereographic style.

The hands

are

move line")

enormous and powerfully

compact; in comparison with the fleshy hands of the Baptist and the large-boned right of the

227

EARLY NETHERLANDISH PAINTING I,

Adam

even the hands of the rustic

And

appear almost elegant.

the physiognomies

— differ decisively

excepting that of the Lord, which must have been entirely repainted by Jan

from h^ customary

The

types.

Virgin's face

and the almost Giottesque

feline,

beautifully statuesque rather than prettily

is

John nearly duplicates, as far as the facial type

St.

—

is

con-

cerned, the "St. Paul of Thebes" in the Hermits panel. All differences in scale, intent and

execution notwithstanding, the giant images of the "upper triptych" are easier to associate

with the Apostles and Prophets than with the First Parents, the figures on the exterior or even the Musical Angels.

While

panels representing the Lord,

Jan's, the

remodeled by Jan, remained

may

by what

though probably designed by Hubert, became

these,

Our Lady and

And

essentially Hubert's.

St.

John the

Baptist,

this conclusion

essentially

though certainly

seems to be confirmed

be considered as the most spectacular result of the recent examination in the Lab-

oratoire Central.

This examination has revealed,

pavement itself,

earlier

in these three panels

the color of

that the gold lines

a puzzling stratification (see diagram).

on the footpace

of His throne,

the

same

The

.

.

)

is

Lord

at the feet of the

are different.

.

bright and dark

as

it

is

and

it is

form

all

because the tiling

representing what

(D).

And

it is

may

is

the

form of the

— presents

as well as the contours of

ground (B)

letters

Lord

text

;

so

is

the inscription

(VITA SINE

MORTE

and the distribution of words

(C) contains the original pavement with of the original inscription

rubbed

carried

be called a

this sheet

pavement

of the

— painted

its

alternately

in heavy, black

from

left to

"first state" of

inscrip-

crown can never have been executed

the

off,

an

and even more

tiles; third,

image

its

red, supersedes

— but no trace of the crown; and while most of the

tion seems to have been intentionally

color at

lines of the

possible to ascertain that

some fragments

tiles,

The

— the

are scratched into the

now whereas

coat of paint

first

letters of rather unattractive

foil

and dull

one which showed a vivid alternation of bright and dark

crown placed

the joints of the

were added in the sixteenth century; second, that the pavement

important, that the bottom section of the central panel

a

now marking

fluctuating between dark olive green

tiles

its

first,

in

right without interruption. This stratum,

the picture,

is

covered by a sheet of silver

which forms the foundation of the coat of paint now

containing the present, dark-tinted pavement, the present inscription

visible (£),

— lettered in brown and

agreeing with the inscriptions on the semicircular moldings not only in color but also in palaeographical character (note the "square C's" in

SENECTVTE

SECVRITAS)

and

and the crown. 1 This unexpected discovery has led the experts to the conclusion that sented by stratum

E and

the changes repre-

all

constituting a "second state" of the picture, were effected in the six-

teenth century, presumably by Scorel and Blondeel in 1550, and that the {ajoutce) at this time.

Though

this

conclusion

is

supported by the fact that the somewhat lax

and pulpy technique of the crown compares unfavorably with the

which the gold, at

pearls

variance with two

and precious stones are rendered facts. First,

brilliance

it

is

and precision with

in other areas of the

while the treatment of the crown

example, the morse and the node of the scepter,

228

crown was added

is

same

picture,

it is

inferior to that of, for

admittedly identical with that of the

HUBERT AND/OR JAN VAN EYCK scepter's top as well as the tiara;

1

and

"added" but

since these latter details cannot have been

may be assumed of the crown. Thomas Aquinas would call a demonstratio ex necessitate as an argumentum probabile, we know from an unimpeachable source, the Kronyl{

can only have been repainted in the sixteenth century, the same Second, and this represents what

opposed

to

van Vlaenderen already quoted, that the crown was in evidence in 1458

hundred years before the recorded piece

was

as

good

as

new.

We

2

activities of Scorel

at the latest,

nearly a

and Blondeel and when the Ghent

altar-

can hardly avoid the conclusion that both the crown and the

present inscription, though obviously repainted in the sixteenth century, are Eyckian and not

post-Eyckian; and that

was Jan who,

it

after

having rubbed

covered the bottom zone of the picture with

would smooth out the

that

of the "first state"

silver foil,

irregularities of the surface

off

most of the

presumably

as a

earlier inscription,

means

and prevent the very

of insulation

substantial paint

from growing through.

A. Wood.

ground containing scratched-in oudincs crown and the original inscription on the front of the dais. C. Coat of paint containing the original pavement and fragments of the original inscription but no traces of the crown. D. Silver foil. B. Gesso

of the pavement, the

E.

Coat of paint containing the pavement, the inscription and the crown as now apparent

This leaves us with only two alternatives: Jan either corrected himself or Hubert. these alternatives, the "first"

and the "second

enjoying the

first is difficult to

full

ground) and tion.

state" of the picture,

freedom of

crown (which, we reinstated

Moreover,

is

recall, it

after

was responsible

And

of

for both the

should be forced to believe that he, though

once but twice: he would have discarded

completing the uninterrupted pavement and the

first inscrip-

be forced to ascribe to him, that wonderful epigraphist, a type of

evident both from the scratched-in contours in stratum

Assuming, however, that the reason,

we

that Jan

was planned when the design was scratched into the gesso

characters preserved in stratum C,

some

Assuming

action, reversed himself not

we should

lettering which, as

accept.

is

B and

the black

plainly incompatible with his sophisticated writing style.

"first state"

can be credited to Hubert and that

had departed from the original project

in carrying

it

was he who,

for

through the pavement and

omitting the crown, Jan would have had compelling reasons to restore the status quo. Once

it

superimpose the "upper triptych" upon the "Adoration of the Lamb,"

it

had been decided

to

229

EARLY NETHERLANDISH PAINTING would have seemed advisable expanse between the

feet of the

sary to rearrange the

crown,

more subdued and

favor of a

Interpreted in this

would then have been on

neces-

either side of the

to eliminate the conspicuous alternation of light

neutral color scheme

now, between the

palatable even

It

inscription so as to appear, again,

lettering according to the standards set in the inscriptions of the

its

And

semicircular moldings.

connecting link bridging the empty

as a

Lord and the Dove underneath.

words of the

as well as to revise

crown

to reinstate the

would have served

and dark

tiles in

to lessen the discord, un-

pavement above and the diaphanous landscape below.

solid

manner (and

accordance with the fact that the crown was dem-

in

onstrably in evidence throughout the fifteenth century), the most tangible alteration observed

Ghent

in the

altarpiece

would seem

triptych" contains a greater

work but

also the

to corroborate, not only the

amount

assumption that the "upper

of Hubertian substance than any other portion of the

more general hypothesis

that the present ensemble resulted

from an ingenious

combination of heterogeneous elements rather than from a predesigned uniform plan.

VII

From

this

emerges as an

admittedly conjectural analysis of the Ghent altarpiece, Hubert van Eyck artist less

modern, cosmopolitan and polished than

his brother Jan, yet less

bourgeois, provincial and "tough-minded" than the Master of Flemalle

know,

his senior

district.

we may

and space and an allegiance

ment and

was, for

mode

sense a certain tension between the will to conquer

to the

of expression

more graphic tendencies

is still

somewhat

at

foiling

we

volume

of the past. In his draperies the

odds with decorative linearism. His

of linear perspective, exemplified by the lower section of the "Adoration of the

by the fountain, tends to be archaically overemphatic.

especially

all

by several years and, in addition, a native of Flanders rather than the Meuse

In Hubert, too,

novel, plastic

who

He

treat-

Lamb,"

conceives of space as a

background rather than an all-enveloping medium and has not

entirely cast off the

spell of fourteenth-century Italianism.

These

characteristics are present in

two

Hubert rather than Jan van Eyck the "Three Marys :

Collection at

Richmond

to the

recent cleaning of the van

ous doubts as pencil of rays,

from

to its quality

coming

in

and

early date; but

a figure of the resurrected Christ,

a triptych or, in

my

at

be ascribed to

it

Tomb,"

transferred

from the Cook

at

Vierhouten near Rotterdam; and

Museum.

Beuningen picture

from the right

contiguous to an "Ascension"

at the

van Beuningen Collection

the "Friedsam Annunciation" in the Metropolitan

The

may

pictures which, therefore,

(figs. 285,

has also posed a

an angle of

compels us

ca.

to

286)

'

has dispelled

number

of

new

all

previ-

problems.

A

45 degrees and obviously emanating

assume that the scene was originally

— which means that the picture

is

either the left-hand

wing

of

opinion more probably, the fragment of a friezelike composition as

exemplified by the pre-Eyckian "Life of the Virgin" in the Brussels the upper left-hand corner are completely overpainted.

And

Museum. 2 The rocks

while the picture as a whole

uniformly conceived and executed, certain details reveal, perhaps even more clearly than

230

in is

in

HUBERT AND/OR JAN VAN EYCK the

Ghent

has

much

supervening hand of Jan.

altarpiece, the in

common

On

the whole, the van

Beuningen picture

with the foreground section of the "Adoration of the Lamb"; compare,

for example, the face of the kneeling

Magdalen, seen

in full profile,

with that of the foremost

Prophet, or the drapery of the huddled soldier on the right with that of the second Apostle in

The

the front row.

more

perspective of the sarcophagus with

Ghent

archaic than that of the fountain in the

enormously elongated

its

altarpiece.

lid is

The magnificent

even

landscape

Lamb"

agrees with the foreground and middle plane of the scenery in the "Adoration of the

rather than with the distant panorama, and the architectures are rendered with a topographical

accuracy entirely foreign to Jan.

adding such characteristic

1

But Jan,

it

would seem, repainted the sky and the

skyline,

touches as a flight of birds, some snow-capped mountains and

little

an umbrella pine; and he must also have remodeled the two impressive figures in the center: the brutish soldier with the halberd

who

fluffy-haired angel

and the dragon helmet and, above

from the other

differs

the white-robed,

as does, in the

Ghent

Angel Gabriel from the Apostles.

altarpiece, the

Behind the rocks on the

the sun

left

is

about to

Nativity" by the Master of Flemalle. But here the sun metallic gold whereas, in the "Three

upon

casts a rosy light

by

same way

figures in the

all,

Mark XVI,

("And

2

Marys

the city of Jerusalem.

very early in the

the sepulchre at the rising of the sun")

;

at the

is

visible,

Tomb,"

The motif

it

first

is little

to

mind

the "Dijon

even concretized into a disc of

merely incandesces the sky and

was evidently suggested

of the rising sun

morning the but there

which brings

rise,

day of the week, they came unto

doubt that the painter was no

less

aware of symbolic implications — here, in one of Diirer's woodcuts, signifying the rebirth rather than the birth of Christ — than was the Master of Flemalle. He even seems to have as

its

accentuated these implications by creating a curious conflict,

advertence in so accomplished an scape from the

manner same

left

and the undefined

quite different

spirit,

he seems

from

to

character of a light super

While

artist,

that

nunciation"

Chapter. Here

I

foreground from the right. In a

light illumining the

employed by Jan

in the

"Madonna

in a Church," yet in the

have defied the laws of nature in order to affirm the supernatural

omnem

stellarum dispositionem.

was

deliberately,

284) the iconography of

(fig.

explain by sheer in-

between the sunbeams irradiating the distant land-

the validity of this interpretation

of "disguised symbolism"

difficult to

may

be questioned, certain

it is

that the principle

even spectacularly, applied in the "Friedsam An-

which has been discussed

should like to add that the similarity which

I

at

length in the Fifth

always believed to

exist

between

— unfortunately much damaged and apparently cut down the top, which would explain the virtual absence of sky — and the "Three Marys" in the van Beuningen Collection this

panel

at

has become even

more apparent

position as well as at the

door of a

interior — an

its

little

after the latter picture has

style place it in the orbit of

been cleaned;

Hubert rather than

Jan.

2

and that

The

scene

its is

com-

staged

building approached by the Angel from the outside, and not within an

arrangement

still

reminiscent of Broederlam and the Limbourg brothers and

never found in Flemish panel painting after 1430; the composition but also

its

it

demonstrates, not only the early date of

allegiance to an Italianism

231

which Jan van Eyck had thoroughly

EARLY NETHERLANDISH PAINTING outgrown. The oblique perspective of the building,

remember, even the Master

of

is

it

The Angel

throughout.

Gabriel

represented in pure

is

The

again a feature equally foreign to Jan as to the host of later Flemish painters.

voluminous drapery, give the impression of being

figures, in spite of their

picture plane rather than being crystallized around an interior axis.

northern vegetation

"Adoration of the Lamb," and the intriguing

tree

flattened against the

The

closely akin to that in the lower rather than the

is

we

both archaic and Italianate; as

Flcmalle did not employ two-point perspective after the "Dijon

Nativity," and Jan van Eyck avoided profile,

too,

rich but purely

upper ranges of the

emerging from behind the decaying wall

is

reminiscent, as has been mentioned before, of that concealed beneath Jan's orange grove in the

"Holy Pilgrims."

VIII

The Ghent

question of "Hubert and/or Jan"

and debated,

altarpiece

The

if

works of great

early

possible,

1

also enters a

problem

as difficult as that of the

with even greater heat: the problem of their juvenilia.

artists are a

source of constant trouble to art historians. Rarely

authenticated by documentary evidence, they are attributed exclusively on

and

to

works ascribed

whether they were in

to

fact

him

as "early" originals are

produced by him before

form or have the appearance of

nized, canonical

great man's mature style involuntarily retranslated

bound

his style

to give rise to a controversy as

had

crystallized into

it

miniatures added to the "Tres-Belles Heures de Notre

de Berry, bartered

it

in

It

will be

into a less developed idiom.

Dame"

the complicated history of

remembered

that

two

sections

one of which passed into the ownership of the

it

into

first

Robinet d'Etampes; that

his familiars,

part of this section

(which was divided once more

and that the second, then owned by the Principe Trivulzio of Milan,

When call

it

it

left

is

at

now

Turin in 1904;

preserved in the

the possession of Robinet d'Etampes, this "Turin-Milan Hours," as

up

to the

particular problems.

at

2

for the sake of brevity, lacked a considerable

at various dates

Due

one of

an unknown date) was destroyed in the conflagration of the Royal Library

Turin.

which

original owner, the

its

of

state to

Holland-Bavaria dynasty; that the

at

number

an unfinished

Robinet d'Etampes divided

Museo Civico

recog-

its

"earliness" only because an imitator of the

In the case of the van Eyck's the controversial juvenilia are centered around a

has been summarized in Chapter One.

grounds;

tremendous influence on

since the productions of a great innovator inevitably exerted a

others, the

stylistic

number

middle of the fifteenth century. The

They

of miniatures latest of these

we may

which were added do not present any

are typical productions of Flemish illuminators, probably active at

Bruges, who, after the fashion of their period, largely resorted to the imitation of well-known

panel paintings and in selecting their models displayed a laudibly catholic

taste.

A

copy

after

the "Descent from the Cross" by the Master of Flemalle hobnobs with a variation on the Jan

van Eyck-Petrus Christus

"St.

Jerome"

at

Detroit (here superficially transformed into a

232

St.

HUBERT AND/OR JAN VAN EYCK again with a "Rearing of the Cross" derived from a prototype to

Thomas Aquinas), and this which we shall revert in the There

course of this Chapter.

however, in the "Turin-Milan Hours" two

are,

"Eyckian" character which appear so

much

1

them

surpass

series of

miniatures of obviously

to antedate these manifestations of a belated eclecticism

in quality that

it

seemed

justifiable to

and

acclaim them as early works of

the van Eycks themselves.

The

first

two

of these

series

— designated

"Hand H" by Hulin de Loo who

as

pronounced both groups authentic works of the van Eyck brothers miniatures, one initial and i)

The Lord Enthroned

two

in a

The Agony

Ceremonial Tent, Worshiped by Angels

3)

"Hand H"). In The Pieta with

Garden

in the

(fig.

Queen

setting foot

on

According

Helena, and

ture,

4)

fish

to

No

and was thus compelled

to

lift

her skirts

when

Tree of Life from

be fashioned, so that she was considered as the typus of

her presence in our bas-de-page which, like the main minia4

historiated initial. In the bas-de-page: the Sacrifice of Isaac (not

six bas-de-pages.

Betrayal of Christ 39,

Derision of Christ.

(fig.

298). In the initial: the

and Mark XIV,

35.

Agony

in the Garden, according to

In the bas-de-page: the Denial of

St.

Peter and the

6

and His Wife Ferrying Christ over the Mouth of a River

St.

Julian

St.

Julian Killing his Parents (not by

"Hand G").

Stag (not by

that

to the effect that she believed the

— "Hand G" according to Hulin de Loo — consists of seven large minia-

and

Matthew XXVI,

2)

worked magic

5

other series

tures, five initials

The

290).

oriental legend that gave rise to the

to this Christian version, she recognized the

this explains

(fig.

by "Hand H").

1)

same

belongs to an "Oraison de la Vraie Croix"

The Calvary The

feet,

with

alive

which the Cross of Christ was St.

No

the River

:

body of water it.

(fig. 289).

Wading through

Pedauque on Early Gothic cathedrals Solomon, suspecting

Queen had misshapen

to be a

of Sheba

miniature, surprisingly similar in iconography to Persian book illumina-

little

curious statues of the Reine

ground

"Hand H"). 3

John the Evangelist, the Magdalen and Mary Cleophas

tions, represents the Christian version of the

the beautiful

287). In the initial:

2

288). In the initial: the Flagellation of Christ (not by

historiated initial. In the bas-de-page: the

Cedron. This

(fig.

and making music.

the bas-de-page: the Bearing of the Cross (not by St.

four large

bas-de-pages.

a donor. In the bas-de-page: seven angels praying

2)

— comprises

first

St.

Julian

"Hand G").

and

St.

(fig. 296).

In the bas-de-page:

St.

Julian

initial:

and the

Martha, patron saints of the Hospitalers, are

invoked in one prayer because both were venerated, as stated in the prayer et hospitatores Christi, St.

In the

Martha by reason of Luke X,

38,

itself,

and John XI,

as pastores

20, St. Julian

by reason of his legend. In order to atone for the unwitting slaying of his parents, he and his wife devoted their lives to ferrying strangers over

them

in every

way

the legend, a leper

until

whom

St.

dangerous waters and befriending

— according to the best-known version of Julian took in his own bed — revealed himself Christ. The

one of

their passengers

as

233

EARLY NETHERLANDISH PAINTING woman

general assumption that the of her tact,

name

and

in the

in the prayer.

in the ship

But the two

saints

analogous representations,

in all

Bibliothcque Nationale,

it is

always

is

Martha

St.

is

were never held

e.g. in

based only on the occurrence to

have been in personal con-

and a

the "Heures de Savoie"

St. Julian's

legend according to which a stag pursued by the youthful

"How

who

St.

refers to the

Julian addressed

art destined to slay

thy

own

him with father and

'

mother." 3)

darest thou pursue me, thou

Horae

wife who, dressed as in our miniature,

accompanies him and the Lord on their voyage. The scene in the bas-dc-page

the words:

later

The Virgo

inter Virgines (fig. 294). In the initial: St. Ursula (not

bas-dc-pagc: a throng of the earliest

member

by "Hand G"). In the

Holy Virgins worshiping the Lamb. This page would seem

of the

"Hand G"

series, for

it

is

to be

only here that the original border

decoration of the fourteenth century was painstakingly erased and replaced by up-to-date

acanthus rinceaux with drolleries never repeated. 4)

The

Prayer on the Shore

and welcomed by classes, offers

(fig.

risky

297)

:

a prince

a great lady, her retinue

God

prayers to

Blessing and the the

—a

and time-consuming experiment which was

2

Dove

of the

a

and an old

accompanied by

man who may

appears in a glory. In the

God

marshy landscape enlivened by

initial:

inspect the destroyed original, the banner

cattle, three ladies

who had

The

Birth of

St.

John the Baptist

(fig.

6)

though

occasion to

299). In the initial:

God

3

the Father enthroned. In

God

the bas-de-page: the Baptism of Christ, supplemented by the figure of the

as

showed the arms of Holland, Bavaria and the

Hainaut, reversed on account of the banner's being turned about. 5)

Christ

the Father in

(one of them kneeling), and two knights on horseback scanning the horizon looking out for the prince and his party. According to the authorities

his cortege

represent the lower

supplementing the figure of

Spirit,

main miniature. In the bas-de-page:

a white charger,

Who

the Father

Holy

on

the Father in

4

initial.

The Mass

of the

Dead

(fig.

Benediction of the Grave.

300). In the initial: the Last Judgment. In the bas-de-page: the

The

chapelle ardente displays the arms of Holland and the

Hainaut.**

7)

The Finding

of the

"Hand G").

In the bas-de-page: Proof of the True Cross according to Paulinus of Nola

(assistant of

The quality,

True Cross

(fig.

295). In the initial: the Crucified Christ (assistant of

"Hand G").°

miniatures of the

"H"

and more important

is

series are

admittedly inferior to those of the

the fact that they are less

work, the choice of color and such Morellian

criteria as the

homogeneous

"G"

in style.

series in

The brush

treatment of faces, hands, hair, and

even rocks clearly indicate one and the same hand; but this hand was employed in the service of different

modes

of expression

and imagination. The sharpest

"Lord Enthroned," the "Pietb" and the "Agony

in the

distinction exists

between the

Garden," on the one hand, and the

"Calvary," on the other. In the three former miniatures, the foreground

is

densely

filled

with

massive forms, the figures are stockily robust, and the over-abundant garments break into 2 34

angular, crumpled

HUBERT AND/OR JAN VAN EYCK folds the profusion of which exaggerates — and therefore Merode

the drapery style of the

altarpiece

The

overlooking the Hausermeer of Jerusalem; the figures

— the Virgin

St.

scene

is

laid

wide tableland motionless,

— are

and

tall

Holy Virgins

in the

altarpiece. this

"Calvary"

that

may

it

is

in a class

The "Agony

not homogeneous either.

Eyck

a

John, in spite of his contorted face and twisted hands, nobly restrained

However, while is

on

Mary almost

slender; the folds of their robes are as daintily sculptured as those of the

Ghent

—

and the "Rolin Madonna." The "Calvary," on the

contrary, induces a sense of spaciousness and delicacy.

the

presupposes

by

itself,

the style of the three other miniatures

Garden" depends

in the

well be a copy of a lost original.

The

style of the

on Jan van

so exclusively

"Lord Enthroned" and the

"Pieta" however, derives from two different sources: here Eyckian features commingle

with

elements as distinctly Flemallesque as the angels and the tent in the "Lord Enthroned" (compare the "Seilern triptych," the Leningrad "Trinity" and the Sacra Conversazione drawing in the Louvre) or the St. John supporting

Our Lady

in the "Pieth" a figure anticipated in the

Master of Flemalle's "Descent from the Cross" and paralleled in several compositions from the

Roger van der Weyden.

circle of

The only

possible conclusion

evidence, were produced by an artist essentially a follower of Jan

who

"Lamentation" (not to the

sure

is

Turin "Pieta,"

is

who was an

van Eyck, was

answers

to

"Hand H"

also

imitator rather than an inventor;

open

this description very well

different date.

and

That

who, while

who was

in his Metropolitan

difficult to

prove and not too probable.

earlier

Garden"

in the

is

1

The only

a close

not

was

this artist

mention a somewhat doubtful "Pieta" in the Louvre) comes

more famous and considerably

"Agony

Tournaisian influences;

to

that the "Calvary" in the "Turin-Milan Hours"

cluding the

miniatures, not datable by external

and who exploited models of

active until ca. 1440-1445;

Petrus Christus,

that the

is

thing

Museum

fairly close

we know

for

copy of an Eyckian original

than are the models of the three other miniatures, in-

— an original which seems

to

have been exported to

Italy

not later than ca. 1430 and courted imitation abroad as well as at home. In addition to our

was

copied in a Flemish painting in the

miniature,

it

and

Italian panel preserved in the

an

in

literally

Mantegnesque master, allegedly Nicola

Accademia early as

(fig.

292)^ and

between 1428 and

its

Museo Civico

at

Ca d'Oro

Padua.

It

was

at

Venice

(fig.

291)

freely adapted

by a

di Maestro Antonio, in a picture in the Venice

magnificent cityscape seems to have exerted some influence, as

1435,

upon

a fresco by Masolino

3 da Panicale.

In contrast to the somewhat heavy-handed, heterogeneous and derivative style of the series,

the

"Hand G"

important, sovereign originality; none of of

them ever

the

charm

will be.

— and

"H"

miniatures give the impression of sophistication, consistency and, most

The problem which

remain subject

to the

them has thus they present

far

lies

been exposed

as a copy,

and none

in their very perfection; they preserve

limitations — of the International

Style while appar-

ently transcending the possibilities of even the van Eycks.

The

slim, graceful figures

rather than bulky, retain

much

"weigh

little

on the

earth." Their draperies, soft

and clinging

of the curvilinear fluency so characteristic of the period about

235

EARUJ NETHERLANDISH PAINTING MOO. The perspective, though is

and

efficacious

distinctly primitive, as can be seen, ior

from exaggerations a

free

example,

John" where the vanish-

in the "Birth of St.

And

ing lines of the ceiling converge while those of the chest and table do not.

modern "Mass

of the otherwise so

illuminations,

multiplicity, color

the architecture

projects, after the fashion of so

light — the

and

many

earlier

in spite of these retrospective

miniatures convey an experience of space in

and

limitation, unity

and

Dead"

beyond the upper margin of the miniature. But

"Hand G"

features, the

of the

Master of Flemalle,

la

aspects

all its

— expanse

which cannot be derived

like of

from anything before the seventeenth century. Except even

if

is

"Virgo inter Virgines" and the "Finding of the True Cross," the

occupying the foreground, are small in relation to their surroundings,

environment instead of the environment being scaled down

them.

The

the horse of the

speak of a "landscape with

on the

its

than a scene

staffage" rather

river. Reflections

surroundings

of furniture:

all this is

plastic vol-

as a flat patch of

— so tiny

we

that

white;

are tempted to

— are silhouetted against the blinding

on quiet waters, the choppy waves of an estuary and the long

breakers on the ocean beach, highlights on shining

objects

and the penumbra beneath

And where

studied with a contagious joie de peindre.

and the "Crucifixion"

in the "Tres Riches

coin this phrase), that

is

at all,

down

scaled

when

or when, conversely, the figures in the "Baptism of Christ"

1

if

to

prince in the "Prayer on the Shore" stands out from

light

as

figures,

minimized in favor of chiaroscuro effects and tonal contrasts as

to their

ume

in the

the "Betrayal"

Heures" had been "nocturnes negative"

Hours"

is

may

(if I

by virtue of having no color

to say, pictures giving the effect of night

the "Betrayal" in the "Turin-Milan

a piece

a "nocturne positive," giving the effect of

night by virtue of having colors different from those of day.

The

prospect through three consecutive rooms in the "Birth of

hailed as an anticipation of Pieter de

Hooch, while the "Mass

with equal right, to the vast church interiors by

may

Emmanuel de

be extended even to the use of figures (accompanied by

In the works of the Master of Flemalle such figures are

"spearheading" as

Dead,"

as in the

I

expressed

it,

justly

been

Dead" has been compared,

Witte,

2

comparison which

a

dogs) seen from the back.

little

dynamic rather than contemplative,

"the beholder's advance into depth"; in the "Mass of the

de Witte paintings, they invite us

absorption in a visual experience. to

of the

John" has

St.

And

if

the

two

to share their

sea pieces in the

mood

of quiet,

overawed

"Turin-Milan Hours" seem

foreshadow the marine pictures of Simon de Vlieger or Jan van de Capelle, such bas-de-pages

as the

"Benediction of the Grave" and the "Watch on the Marshes," their figures towering

above a low horizon the only true

The

flat

at

which, quite

literally,

"earth and sky appear to meet,"

be considered

landscapes before the times of Philips de Koninck and Hercules Seghers.

style of the

"Hand G"

miniatures, then,

is

at

once more deeply committed to the past

and more prophetic of the future than any other phenomenon nothing like them

commonly

may

in fifteenth-century painting except for a

ascribed to

"Hand G"

in the history of art.

number

There

is

of other compositions

itself.

Setting aside a "Crucifixion" (fig. 293) in the Kaiser Fricdrich

Museum (which

I

still

consider as a pastiche based on the archetype that underlies the "Calvary" in the "Turin-Milan

236

HUBERT AND/OR JAN VAN EYCK presumably panel paintings like the relatives), two of these compositions — Hours" and — believe, authentic but have not come down to us in the original. original "Calvary" 1

all

its

are,

One

is

a

I

many-figured "Bearing of the Cross" precariously reconstructible from one of the

miniatures in the "Turin-Milan Hours," one or two drawings and a

upon

304, 305)." Based

number

the grand, epic tradition of the Trecento,

imaginations of Schongauer, Diirer and Raphael.

4

The

other

is

3 it

later

of paintings (figs.

was

to stimulate the

an "Adoration of the Magi"

transmitted primarily through a pen drawing on vellum in the Kupferstichkabinett at Berlin (fig.

302) which gives the impression of a careful workshop record rather than either an

ordinary copy or a preliminary study;

5

miniatures, the earliest by the Master of

by the Arenberg Master

(fig. 128),

and, secondarily, through no

less

than

— datable 1438 —

Zweder van Culemborg, the second

the last by an

five provincial

anonymous Dutch illuminator

of ca. 1465.

6

This "Adoration of the Magi" draws from the same French and Franco-Flemish sources

which were exploited by the German

representatives of the International Style, especially

Master Francke. The composition was established, in nuclear form, in the 7

bourg brothers; recalls the

trimmed, as 1402.

8

its

Lim-

elaboration into a dramatic contrast between gorgeousness and rusticity

"Tres Riches Heures"; and the impressive figure of the young King clad in a fur-

trailing

But

gown and

to feature the

seen from the back in three-quarter view occurs in France as early

animals as

co-stars, as

it

were, to develop the shed into an enormous

repoussoir in front of a wide, hilly landscape, and to

deep gorge

circle of the

is

as original as

it is

make

the Magi's retinue emerge

from

a

"modern." All these enchanting novelties were significantly

omitted by the imitators, and so was the key idea of the composition, not to be fully understood until

Hugo van

der Goes, the idea of moving the entire central group well back into the picture

space and thus to build the whole configuration around a void. It is

tempting

united with two

a stupendous "Last

ing

their

to

tall

original

assume that the painting reproduced in the Berlin drawing was once

panels in the Metropolitan

Judgment" frames

(figs. 301, 303).

inscribed

9

doubted in view of such striking analogies in the

a richly orchestrated "Calvary"

Transferred from

wood

with long quotations from

Deuteronomy, they have long been attributed

and the Christ

Museum,

to

as exist

"Hand G" and

and

to canvas but retain-

Isaiah,

Revelation

this attribution

and

cannot be

between the Christ in the "Last Judgment"

Turin "Betrayal," between the interceding Virgin Mary and the

saint

with a prayer book in the Virgo inter Virgines miniature, between the sea that "gives up the

dead which were in of

St. Julian."

York

pictures

it"

In 1841,

and the waves and

when

still

surf in the "Prayer

belonging

to a

were inspected by one of the most distinguished

David Passavant, and Tatistcheff

on the Shore" and the "Crossing

Russian count

told his guest that they

named

Tatistchefr, the

art historians of the time,

New

Johann

were the wings of a triptych the central

panel of which represented the Adoration of the Magi but had unfortunately been stolen by a servant

some time before Passavant's

very "Adoration"?

Its

visit.

Could

it

be that the Berlin drawing

reflects this

proportions (14.7 cm. by 12 cm.) correspond exactly to those of the

missing central panel, which must have measured 56.5 cm. by 46 cm., and

approximately continuous with that of the

New

its

skyline

would be

York "Calvary" and "Last Judgment."

2 37

10

EARLY NETHERLANDISH PAINTING may

Attractive though this theory

Monographic grounds. The

Last

open

on

to question

esthetic as well as

"Adoration of the Magi" seems somewhat

style of the

scale of

its

figures

is

earlier

than

considerably larger. But

is

the fact that

other triptych showing the Calvary and the

Judgment on

either side of

an Adoration of the Magi, a combination conflicting with the

chronology of the scenes and hardly

do know and

is

it

Museum panels and the we know of no

that of the Metropolitan

more important

appear,

justifiable

and the Last Judgment were often represented

that the Calvary

was

that a diptych of this description

that TatistchefFs account a later insertion,

made

was

time

at a

that as

it

consummation of

its

crosses

tall

and

iconographic conventions.

ing Virgin comforted by

St.

easily I

have been

am, therefore,

panels were conceived as a diptych from the

Due de

Berry, directly contrasted the Sacrifice

crowd of

is

a "Calvary" which,

sharply divided into two zones

callous soldiers

and

— the

upper

dignitaries, the lower the griev-

John, the two other Marys, the Magdalen wringing her hands and

the lone figure of an elderly

accounted for shortly

Even assuming

purpose.

and narrow panel,

a dense

1

may

may, the juxtaposition of the "Last Judgment" with

painted on an equally

showing the

Museum

which, like that owned by the

of Christ with the

Be

"Adoration of the Magi"

less sensitive to

we

in direct juxtaposition,

by the Due de Berry in 1416.

left

correct, the stolen

inclined to believe that the Metropolitan outset," a diptych

even by symbolical considerations; whereas

woman

in semi-oriental dress

whose enigmatic presence

will be

— entailed a number of peculiar deviations from customary iconography.

Instead of being based

upon

and

a division according to right

left,

the composition

is

here

based upon a division according to above and below; so that the words "Venite benedicti patris

mei" appear twice on either

side of Christ while the "Ite vos maledicti in

similarly repeated in the lower zone. Instead of being segregated

same

level,

the great majority of the Elect

Twelve Apostles on the twelve

"the

is

already admitted to

seats of their glory."

With

ignem eternum"

from the Damned on the

Heaven and grouped around

the

Community

of the Saints,

including the First Parents, nearly assembled, and the Virgin Martyrs marching

between the

aisle

seats of the Apostles, the

bild rather than the top section of a

not only the twenty-first chapter of

Judgment, but of the City of

:

also the twenty-second

God and

down

the

upper part of the picture constitutes an Allerheiligen-

normal Last Judgment the whole St.

is

Augustine's

which,

De

Civitate Dei,

we remember,

illustrates, so to speak,

which

deals with the Last

describes the "Eternal Beatitude

the Perpetual Sabbath."

This Tabernaculum Dei

cum homimbus,

to quote

from the

inscription

on the frame,

is

poised like an enchanting vision above a spectacle as horrifying as any canto in Dante or

Milton. St.

A

barren earth and an angry sea give up their dead.

Michael, sword

that seems to rush less eyes. Its bat

drawn and

A

youthful, brilliantly armored

legs astraddle, controls the Specter of Death, a giant skeleton

toward the beholder

in

head-on foreshortening and

wings, inscribed with the words

CHAOS MAGNV

stares at us

and

with sight-

VMBRA MORTIS

are stretched throughout the width of the picture so as to separate, most literally, the realm of light

from the "mist

pit to fall

of darkness,"

prey to hideous

and the droves of the Damned plummet headlong

demons who merge with

238

their victims in a

into the

seething mass of tortured

:

HUBERT AND/OR JAN VAN EYCK To compare this evocation of the Abyss with the phantasmagorias of Jerome Bosch too much and too little; conceived by a mind profoundly sane and optimistic, its

confusion. is

saying

horrors are not dreamt but seen. Bosch's Paradise has fundamentally the same weird, night-

marish quality as his Hell. In the each within

New

York "Last Judgment," both Hell and Paradise

are,

sphere, supremely real.

its

IX

Given the "Eyckian" character of both the "Hand

H"

and the "Hand G" group, and given

the latter's relation, established by heraldic evidence, to the dynasty of Holland-Bavaria and

the Hainaut, three hypotheses have been proposed

"Hand G"

First:

Jan.

And

since the "Prayer

William VI

come

of

supposed to be identical with Hubert van Eyck and

is

which was hailed

over the Frisians in 1398

Second:

on the Shore" seems

— either his perilous journey from

to refer to

England

to

as a miracle or, alternatively, his

"Hand H" with

an important event in the

Holland

and

in 1416, the

is

of

his father's, Albrecht's, victory

— both groups are held to antedate William's death on May

"Hand G"

life

happy out1

31, 1417.

supposed to be identical with Jan, not Hubert, van Eyck, and

"Hand H" with a disciple or imitator of Jan, possibly but not necessarily Petrus Christus. 2 Third: "Hand G" is supposed to be identical with a Dutch artist active in the early 'thirties (the terminus ante quern being established by the extinction of the dynasty with the death of

William VI's daughter, Jacqueline, on October identical with a follower of either

Of

these hypotheses the

first

"Hand H" with Jan van Eyck

is

Hubert

1436) whereas

9,

or, preferably,

"Hand H"

Jan van Eyck.

thought

is

to

be

3

has already been disposed of as far as the identification of

concerned.

We have

seen that the

"Hand H"

miniatures can-

not possibly be dated prior to ca. 1440-1445 and cannot possibly be assigned to a master of the first

And if Jan is not responsible for the inferior productions of "Hand H" there is no why Hubert rather than he should be credited with the superior achievements

rank.

earthly reason

"Hand G." As far as is known, Hubert van Eyck had no contact with either William VI or any other member of the Holland-Bavaria family whereas Jan, we remember, served William's of

wicked brother, John, from

at least 1422 to 1424.

And

all

the concrete "motifs," however

irrelevant, by which the history of art establishes "connections" between

link

"Hand G"

to

its

objects turn out to

works of Jan and not of Hubert.

All differences in style notwithstanding, the group of maidens in the bas-de-page of the

Virgo inter Virgines altarpiece as

is

is

as closely

akin to the Virgin Martyrs adoring the

on the Shore"

the charger in the "Prayer

panel which hardly anyone attributes to Hubert.

Dead"

as

unmistakably resembles, again

"Madonna

in a

Church"

of the Arnolfinis.

5

The

as does the

St.

all

in the

Ghent

to the white horse in the Just Judges

The Gothic

basilica in the

"Mass of the

differences in style notwithstanding, that in the

bedroom

Michael in the

4

Lamb

in the "Birth of St.

New

John" the nuptial chamber

York "Last Judgment" looks

brother of his namesake in the Dresden triptych, and his buckler

239

is

like a

younger

inscribed with similar

EARLY NETHERLANDISH PAINTING cabalistic inscriptions,

the

Ghent

altarpiece.

among them ADONAY and AGLA, as is the shield The hitherto unexplained woman on the extreme

1

York "Calvary,*

of

St.

right of the

New

Mary with

observing the grief-stricken group around the Virgin

finally,

Sebastian in

a

compassionate yet mysteriously knowing expression and joining her hands in a gesture of meditation, wears the same soberly exotic costume (a white turban with a long veil in back,

completed by a black woolen scarf knotted 1

piece, the

Erythrean Sibyl. In

to play a solo part in art,

fact,

she

is

at the throat) as does,

the Erythrean

on the mystery stage and

Sibyl, for

in liturgy.

again in the Ghent

many

centuries the only one

Recognized by

Augustine

St.

author of the Versus de die judicii ("Judicii signum tellus sudore madescit

as the

altar-

.

."),

.

the

"nobilissima Eryctea" not only kept her place in the Dies irae which, from the end of the fourteenth century, supplanted this Versus in the Requiem, but also remained the heroine of the

pseudo-Augustinian sermon "Vos, inquam, convenite, o Judaei" which once formed part of

And

the Christmas service. fact

which

justifies

assumption that to

she owes her privileged status in this long tradition to the same

her appearance in the

was always intended

it

to

New

York diptych (and,

be a diptych)

:

incidentally, confirms the

her prophecy, and hers alone, refers

both the Life and Passion of Christ and the Last Judgment.

2

There remain, then, the second and the third hypotheses which constitute the case of the youthful Jan van Eyck

vs. a

Dutchman

active about 1430-1435.

And some

aspects of this case

— which naturally hinges upon the date of the "Hand G"

miniatures and, more specifically,

upon

altarpiece

a

their priority or posteriority in relation to the

manner

Ghent

that invites presentation according to the scholastic

— have been debated in

scheme of proposition, objection

and reply: Videtur quod, Sed contra and Respondeo dicendum. Videtur quod: the "Prayer

Shore" commemorates either William VI's youthful

at the

exploits in the battle against the Frisians or his miraculous escape

from shipwreck and therefore

antedates his death in 14 17. Sed contra: the miniature, illustrating the "prayer of a sovereign prince," does not refer to any historical event but merely interprets rates the prayer itself

various dangers,

God

on the

basis of

among them

with thanksgiving"

if

and

naturalistically elabo-

Psalm LXVIII (LXIX) which asks

the "waterflood" and "deep waters,"

this request

3

for deliverance

and promises "to magnify

be granted. Respondeo dicendum

:

it

seems too

a coincidence that an illuminator confronted with the task of illustrating a prayer in specific

mention

is

made

from

of the dangers of the sea should have hit

upon the

much

of

which no

Sixty-eighth

Psalm, and have derived therefrom a scene of thanksgiving and welcome on the shore, had he not remembered a definite watery incident from actual history. But

prove that

this incident

this,

of course, does not

must have been the wonderful preservation of William VI;

that the miniature

must antedate

have been ordered

as a

his death.

memorial,

as

it

Even

if it

does refer to his preservation,

it

nor,

may

if so,

well

were, by his brother or daughter.

Videtur quod: William's beautiful white horse

is

a direct ancestor,

still

showing the

gracile

elegance of the International Style, of the mighty animal in the Just Judges panel of the Ghent altarpiece. in the

Sed contra: the illuminator was already familiar with but misinterpreted the rider

Ghent

altarpiece because he

showed the horse

240

beautifully collected although the hands of

:

HUBERT AND/OR JAN VAN EYCK and neither of them

the prince are joined in prayer

dicendum: the carriage of reins which,

if

the dragon,

St.

the rider uses both hands (as

crucified Christ), are either

his

dropped on the withers or fastened

whereas the But while

snaffle,

as, for

example, that of

—

altarpiece in Treviglio Cathedral

reduced

this equestrian analysis refutes the objection

Shore" presupposes the "Just Judges,"

Respondeo

George fighting

his lance into the side of the

pommel

to the

of the saddle.

Martin's horse in Butinone's

St.

obviously fastened in this

is

curving behind the curb,

to a thin line

1

legs rather than the

in countless representations of St.

mantle or Longinus thrusting

In the present case, the curb — as taut

and Zenale's well-known

free to hold the bridle.

and should be controlled by the

a horse can

Martin dividing

is

allowed to hang

is

way

loose.

2

according to which the "Prayer on the

does not necessarily prove the proposition.

it

Videtur quod: the bas-de-page of the Virgo inter Virgines page precedes and anticipates the

Ghent

altarpiece because the

— not Martyrs but palms — proceed in

maidens

fore carrying prayer books instead of

forming what

members Ghent in the

are

I

still

Sanctae Virgines and there-

an isocephalic

file

instead of

its

individual

have termed a "compact, space-displacing body" and because

still

and Limbourgesque. Sed contra: the miniature depends upon the

ethereal

altarpiece because the

Ghent

just

altarpiece,

He

Lamb

illogically turns

His back upon the worshippers whereas, 3

is

symmetrically placed between two groups. Respondeo dicendum

Hours" may

the bas-de-page in the "Turin-Milan

derive, not

from the Ghent

altarpiece but

from earlier prototypes such as the "old style" All Saints pictures repeatedly referred to above or, as the

tion

the

Lamb

XIV,

women,

to the

placed on a hill instead of an altar, from the numerous illustrations of Revela-

("I looked and, lo, a

i

Lamb, and

is

Lamb

Mount

stood on

Sion"). In representations of this kind

present, are always relegated to the "sinister" side, facing the rear part of the

if

the

little

procession in our bas-de-page, illustrating a prayer exclusively addressed

Holy Virgins, may

just as well

be a partial copy, thoroughly modernized, of a Gothic

or even pre-Gothic miniature as a partial copy, retranslated into a

"Adoration of the

Lamb"

in the

Ghent

altarpiece.

5

shippers in front of

Him ?

In turning His back

this

is

upon

is, it

Lamb

seems to me, by no means

Lamb

the Virgins, the

archaic idiom, of the

while eliminating the wor-

as certain as

has been assumed.

turns His head toward the

the Virgins

is

Ursula in the

even more important, in appearing behind rather than in front of the

form

a procession that

circumstantially described in a

And

seems to have followed Him.

Pearl, "I

was suddenly aware of with virgins,

filled

all

Lamb

perfect joy."

ture or the

It is,

Ghent

.

in state

was no crowding among them, but mild 8

The noble

a procession.

unsummoned

them. Before them walked the

a procession like

famous late-fourteenth-century poem the

has justly been compared to that of Eyckian art: "In wondrous manner,"

denly

St.

which, as in the case of the "Baptism," demands to be read together with the bas-de-page.

In addition, and this

Lamb,

This

more

But would not the illuminator have been

guilty, in either case, of thoughtlessness in not reversing the

initial

4

.

city of glory

Hard was

.

.

.

.

as gentle

it

spirit

we

of

which

read in

The

and splendor was sud-

to find the gladdest face

among

and, though great was their number, there

maidens

at

Mass

so

walked they forth

in

therefore, not possible to prove or disprove the priority of either the miniaaltarpiece

on grounds of

logical consistency.

24

I

EARLY NETHERLANDISH PAINTING This scholastic discussion could be prolonged ad infinitum without achieving conclusive results,

and the margin between the

earliest

and the

question on the external evidence of costumes and armor.

"Hand G"

the attribution of the

for dating them in the

before 1417,

and

died, nor even before 1424,

least of all in

'thirties, as

is

that there

when

to

comparable to them

Jan

left

employ of

the

nothing remotely comparable

is

to

them

Holland.

has become apparent over and over again, book illumination had

— so

impetus everywhere. Dutch book illumination in particular

its

fundamental objection

really

that there exists nothing remotely

is

William's brother, John. But the trouble

In the

The

too close to decide the

is

miniatures to the youthful Jan van Eyck, and the basic reason

'thirties,

when William VI

after 1424 either,

date

latest possible

major surprises can hardly be expected

lost

carefully studied that

— had either sunk to the level of stereotyped repetition

or else resorted to the imitation of Flemish panel painting, as did precisely the most progressive illuminators, the Master of

Zweder van Culemborg and the Arenberg Master. Their works, Eyckian

significantly exploiting Flemallesque as well as

Dutch illumination

originals, represent the

in the fourth decade of the fifteenth century,

the

"Hand G" group must

may

be Dutch because

the copying of Flemish models

Dutch repercussions about of

its

of, say,

argumentum ex

be called the

had become

it

a general practice in

of Guelders" (fig. 126)

2

sion

"Birth of

St.

on the mature Roger van der Weyden,

The them

sad fact

is

lost

— they genius — who,

4

the

altarpiece in the "Breviary

3

It

should also be noted

New

a

profound impres-

York "Last Judgment" was

New

410), and that the influence of the

freely

York

works of "Hand G" are parachronistic no matter whether we date

Even when dated

we

terminus ante quern,

in the 'thirties as

—

repeat, being the death of

or, rather, just

works of

van Ouwater,

this identification

is

when

a great genius.

same time, supposedly "misunderstood" the Ghent

identified with Albert

But since

ca. 1435,

5

would be understandable only at the

Ghent

(figs. 129, 130).

that the

(fig.

as early or as late as possible (their

'thirties

Holland from

1

"Bearing of the Cross" reached as far as Valencia.

that the

Jacqueline in 1436).

been said that

in Holland.

John" in the "Turin-Milan Hours" made

copied by Petrus Christus as late as 1452

"Calvary" and the

prove,

or those of the Master of Flemalle's "Descent from the

Cross" and "Crucifixion" in the "Arenberg Hours" that, conversely, the

They

Magi" by "Hand G" do not prove any more

place of origin than do the repercussions of, say, the

Renaud IV

effectu. It has

was extensively imitated

the "Adoration of the

of

and not for a moment could

they be mistaken for anticipations rather than derivatives of their Flemish models.

moreover, the fallacy of what

optimum

And

dated in the if

altarpiece

this great

— has been

inadmissible on purely historical

grounds. matter of record that Ouwater was the founder of the School of Haarlem anil

we

have no reason to doubt that he excelled in the domain of landscape painting.' But the

as-

It is

sumption

a

that this school flourished as early as about 1430-1435 has

no

basis in fact. In the field

of book illumination, production was largely centered in Utrecht, and nothing artistic activities at

Haarlem except

that,

up

to

is

known

[439, even the polychroming of carved

pieces bad to be taken care of by artisans called in

242

from

Brussels.

8

The

of

altar-

existence of a progressive

HUBERT AND/OR JAN VAN EYCK school of painting at

Haarlem

by Carel van Mander, and

prior to the second half of the century

his trustworthiness

"Dutch Vasari" frankly admits

Haarlem

his beloved

Ouwater was

a

man who had Sint Jans,

and

as

was

it

his intention to prove that

contemporary of Jan van Eyck, basing heard from a

was no longer

still

if

Writing

end

this

mind, he claims that

in

claim upon the

woman

or a

had been

nun her

1

We

know, however, by reason of

must have extended up

father

would not have taken care

this is indirectly

as to

now

with a picture

2

Ouwater's

he

to the latter; (if

and life-

known

is

she had been

of the funeral) as late as

3

contemporary but belonged to a younger generation, and

confirmed by van Mander himself. For, he attributes to Ouwater a "Raising

which he

of Lazarus"

Jan's

van Eyck.

stylistic

to at least 1485;

van Mander's conclusions

correct,

1467, twenty-six years after the death of Jan

Ouwater, then, was not

an old gentle-

tale of

have buried a daughter of unrecorded but apparently not too advanced age

a married

in 1604, the

painting was as old in

oil

time would be invalidated by the only authentic document referring to

vouched for exclusively

older gentleman that Ouwater's famous pupil, Geertgen tot

alive as early as ca. 1474.

the old gentlemen

this

is

suspect.

modern

Bruges or Brussels. With

in

historical evidence, that Geertgen's activity

even

more than

is

describes at great length

and which

preserved in the Kaiser Friedrich

agrees,

Museum

down

to the minutest detail,

at Berlin (fig.

435)

which cannot possibly antedate the middle of the century and has nothing whatever with the works of

"Hand G." Those

bent on identifying

— a picture in

common

"Hand G" with Ouwater must

either

claim that Ouwater was not the author of the "Raising of Lazarus" described by van Mander;

Mander

"Raising of Lazarus" described by van

or, that the

not identical with the picture

is

preserved at Berlin. But both these theories are hardly tenable. There

Mander's chronology while rejecting his attribution; needless to

is

no reason

van

to adopt

say, a patriotic

biographer

can more safely be trusted with the identification of a local picture which he describes with meticulous accuracy than with the wishful dating of a local

tempted

to

make

described by van ter,

as early as possible.

Mander

4

is

And

more than

the composition itemized by van

presumed

to

Mander

genius I

to us

blamed

many

they, too,

to be linked to the accepted

would have no

fifteenth century.

them

that

to

Chap-

no two pictures of the same kind can be

5

artists.

thus narrows

for backing the latter.

respects; they, too,

young

We

would seem

at-

and unique a departure from

down

to a race

Had

Diirer's

between an unknown

Jan van Eyck; and no one,

"Apocalypse" and

its

relatives

come

undated and unsigned, we should be faced with an analogous dilemma. They,

would appear in

will be demonstrated in the last

— presumably a genius Flemish rather than Dutch — and

think, can be

down

"Hand G"

he admittedly

and Albert van Ouwater eliminated in the running,

disqualified at the start

the contest for the laurels of

As

represents so bold

theme

have been produced by different

With Hubert

whom

the existence of another picture "similar" to that

unlikely.

the accepted interpretation of the Lazarus

artist

too,

oeuvre of a great master yet strike us as "different"

to

be incredibly advanced and yet

parallel in the entire

domain

of

German woodcut

should be forced either to postulate a Great

Diirer.

2 43

somehow

archaic;

production in the

Anonym — or

to ascribe

I

ARLY NETHERLANDISH PAINTING x

As

on

lias

been pointed out by Miss Bella Martens, the celebrated white horse in the "Prayer

and conformation from an animal

the Shore" derives in gait

merveilles

from the Boucicaut workshop

"Hand G." The Gothic

throughout the works of

and embellished by

"eccentric" perspective tical interiors (fig.

in a

3

(fig. 71 ).

a

and similar connections can be observed "Mass of the Dead," seen

basilica in the

meander pavement,

derives

little suites

The woman

tradition."

"

The domestic

which can be seen

in the

would seem

which, in addition, ford Master and It is,

in the "Vision of St.

to

have served

may have been

his associates.

to the art of the recent past.

artist of

as a

4

John on Patmos" in

model

for that in the

New

and the perspective this

famous manuscript

York "Last Judgment"

influenced by the eschatological scenes devised by the Bed-

Some

of the

century — can

most amazing

qualities of the

artist prior to ca.

1430 —

"Hand G" hark back

which

is

"Turin-Milan Hours,"

or, for that matter,

be interpreted as a climactic and, as

development of tendencies inherent in the International Style but that classic equilibrium

ar-

5

seem beyond the reach of any

the fifteenth

John"

Boucicaut Master's Bourges Lectionary

however, not only in such individual motifs that the works of

qualities that

"Madonna

at the foot of the bed, seen from the back, might have been inspired

rangement of the Elders 83)

in

ecclesias-

setting of the "Birth of St.

by the shepherdess in the July picture of the "Tres Riches Heures,"

(fig.

from such

70) as have been mentioned in connection with Jan van Eyck's

Church" plus the "Ypres

stems from those

(fig. 77), '

Livre des

like that in the

later

it

any

were, one-sided

subdued

in favor of

the signature of full-fledged Early Flemish naturalism.

The

miniatures of the Boucicaut Master often show the same almost impressionistic looseness and luminosity of treatment which strikes us as so "modern" in the works of

"Hand G." Some

of

the figures in the Calendar pictures of the "Tres Riches Heures" are even smaller in relation to their surroundings than those in the "Birth of St. John."

which seem

And

those

amazing bas-de-pages

to anticipate the flat landscapes of the seventeenth century are not inexplicable

if

considered, not in the general context of "landscape painting" but in the specific context of

"bas-de-page decoration."

At the beginning

of the fourteenth century, the figures in a bas-de-page

upon the bottom rinceaux, and even

had been arrayed

after the introduction of perspective their standing plane

continued to be conceived as a mere adjunct or extension of these bottom rinceaux, that say, as a

is

to

receding but extremely narrow strip of terrain permitting the figures to stand out

against the vellum ground. itself offer a

number

The

earlier miniatures in the

of telling examples (fig. 39).

It is

"Tres Belles Heures de Notre

Dame"

only by a daring yet perfectly logical

— the vellum ground transformed into natural sky and the horizon moved back without being appreciably raised — that miracles such as

extension of this principle of the standing plane

the "Benediction of the Grave" and the

What

"Watch on

the Marshes"

came

into being.

applies to the apparent modernity of the bas-de-pages, applies mutatis mutandis to

the large miniatures.

Compared with

the

London

244

Arnolfini portrait, the "Birth of

St.

John"

HUBERT AND/OR JAN VAN EYCK and volume are

gives the impression of modernity only because size

spaciousness

— because

the artist

was

down

fully developing the figures while cutting

the space on

an even greater degree, of the "Mass of the Dead"

While

these

two

as

and the same

all sides;

compared

to the

"Madonna

Dead"

but

also, significantly, different in style.

not only simpler in concept

(its

is

in a

true, to

Church."

church in the "Mass of

ecclesiastical interiors are generally similar, the

the

is

sacrificed at the altar of

unable to combine pictorialism and plasticity by

as yet

apse lacking a triforium as well as an ambulatory)

Where

the

"Madonna

in a

Church"

exhibits in the ar-

cades and triforium of the nave those sturdy, plastic thirteenth-century forms which go so well with the voluminousness of the huge figure, the church in the "Mass of the built

throughout in the

And where

than clustered colonnettes.

"Madonna

the

an interior which ideally transcends the frame arrests us in front of a structure

margin,

is

— that

1

still

Under

the pretext

the building

lacking

the church in the "Mass of the

by the apparently incomplete interior,

and

Dead"

state of the building,

is

— perhaps suggested

under construction, the

spite of its deceptively

nothing but a most original and,

is

well-motivated version of the good old

tremendous triumphal arch

its

into

"Mass of the

transept (note the unfinished vaults

its

and the raw brick of the western transept wall). In

modern appearance, house"

Church" transports the beholder

as well as the picture plane, the

entirely contained within the pictorial space.

illuminator places us in front of a basilica

"doll's

in a

and shade rather

which, though materially projecting beyond the upper

by miniatures in the "Tres Riches Heures"

of the crossing

is

thin, fibrous style of the late fourteenth or early fifteenth century; so

that the capital-less piers give the impression of clustered streaks of light

Dead"

Dead"

nothing but a "diaphragm" in

is

naturalistic disguise. It is

thus easier to conceive of the "Birth of

and of the "Mass of "Birth of

St.

As

"Madonna

trait, so

was the

John"

as a

"Madonna

was

at

in a

Church," than to imagine the

and the "Mass of the Dead"

this applies, incidentally, to

home, St.

prelude to the Arnolfini portrait,

the "Hand G" we know from the

miniatures

in representations

Madonna.

to the

may

home

well be interpreted as a preliminary

authenticated works of Jan van Eyck.

Even

in these,

could observe a development from intimacy and liveliness to austere solemnity, from

sparking variety to geometric simplicity, from spaciousness to plastic concentration. of

as well

John and was subsequently transferred to a por-

was subsequently transferred

fine, the style of

iconography

as a

so to speak, in representations of such subjects

ecclesiastical interior, seen in eccentric perspective, at

phase of that which

we

And

Church."

Virgin or the Birth of

of the Funeral Offices and

In

in a

the domestic interior

as the Birth of the

St.

as a prelude to the

as a postscript to the Arnolfini portrait

John"

postscript to the as to style.

the Dead"

"Hand

G" — which,

if

by Jan, would seem

John of Holland, viz., between 1422 or thetical activity

than do the style of his

under William VI

"Madonna

in a

2

to date

somewhat

— carry

from

earlier

his

and

The works

documented employment by

1424, rather than

from

a

hypo-

the tendencies of his youth to greater lengths

Church" and the Dresden

altarpiece; but they contradict the

maturity no more than does Diirer's "Apocalypse" the "Melencolia

I."

They may

be said to represent the fluid out of which the solid form of Jan's accepted works was to 2 45

EARLY NETHERLANDISH PAINTING crystallize.

And

if

the grief of the St. John in the lost "Calvary" and the convulsions of mental

anguish and physical suffering that horrify us in the patible with the tranquil quillity resulted

temper of

from the rigorous

to bitter concentration, the

New

York "Last Judgment" seem incom-

we

should bear in mind that this tran-

Jan's later years,

control,

and not from the absence, of

emotional intensity of the

St.

John

still

passion.

Toned down

smoulders in the faces of the

Martyrs in the "Adoration of the Lamb," and the amazing Abel in the Ghent altarpiece posed like an antique

Endymion

modeling and expression

'

—

or an Early Christian Jonah but almost Mantegnesque in

— screams no

less

horribly than

"Last Judgment."

246

do the Damned

in the

New

York

IX

ROGER VAN DER WEYDEN 1

Weyden was

we recall, at Tournai in 1399 or 1400, the son of a master cutler named Henry. Nothing is known of his boyhood and early youth except that he was not at Tournai on March 18, 1426, when the house of his father, recently deceased, was XVoger van

der

sold without his participation. In the that his too,

would seem

from

Brussels.

named

a son

first child,

born,

same year he married

Corneille,

(as can be

concluded from the

was eight years old in 1435), and

fact

this marriage,

have taken place outside Tournai: his bride, Elizabeth GofTaerts, hailed

to

Her mother, Cathelyne, however, bore

the same family name, van Stockem, as

did the long-suffering wife of Robert Campin, and this very fact lends further support to the

assumption that

on March

Where it is,

1427,

5,

the

and

latter, alias

left as

the Master of Flemalle,

"Maistre Rogier" on August

young master turned immediately upon

whose workshop Roger entered

1432.

1,

his "graduation"

however, that he was most successful from the outset and ultimately

city of his wife.

in

was the

it

Tournai

As

early as October 20, 1435,

and on

securities,

May

unknown. Certain

is

settled in the native

he was able to invest a considerable sum of money not to

20, 1436, the city fathers of Brussels resolved

fill

the

position of City Painter ("Portrater der stad van Brussel" or "der stad scildere") after Roger's

death

2

— a resolution

infer that

it

had been

from which we learn especially created for

for the express purpose of supplying the Justice" that

were

that this position

him not long

courtroom of the

to delight eight generations of travelers

that these four celebrated panels are not

was not completed

until 1439.

3

It

mentioned

was about

this

wearing the same particolored cloak {derdendeel) of Brussels.

may

time and

his at the

Whether he was appointed

Town

Hall with the "Examples of

is

not known. Certain

until 144 1,

and that the

time that he was as did the

it is,

first

however,

pair of

them

granted the privilege of

"geswoerene knapen" of the

city

4

Internationally ties

was

before.

famed and

financially prosperous (further purchases of

are recorded for 1436-1437, 1442

who wished

to enter the

and

1445,

and

in 1449 he gave 400

Charterhouse of Herinnes), Roger van der

Tournai

securi-

crowns to Corneille

Weyden

represents, per-

haps even more paradigmatically than Jan van Eyck, the novel type of bourgeois genius.

Though honored by uneventful

life

of a

princes

good

and

dignitaries at

home and

abroad, he lived the dignified and

citizen charitable to the poor, generous to religious institutions, intent

247

EARLY NETHERLANDISH PAINTING upon

the welfare of his

community, and

solicitously

He

providing for his wife and children. 1

received splendid commissions from Spain and Italy, yet did not disdain to polychrome

emblazon

a stone relief in the Minorites' 3

brass statuettes.

And

have interrupted

to

his quiet, laborious life until

ended on

it

18, 1464.

Of Roger's unselfishness. a

or to attend to the coloring of twenty-four

"

except for occasional business trips and a pilgrimage to Italy in the Holy

Year of 1450, nothing seems June

Church

and

we know

personality

It

was

to

him

4

On May

when

integrity

and rare

a dispute arose

between

1463, the Duchess of Milan, Bianca Visconti,

7,

which he had shown

the unstinting generosity with art."

was a man of

thanked her "noble and beloved master Roger of Tournai, painter

the courtesy and kindness

5

that he

that people turned as an arbitrator

fellow painter and his clients.

effusively

more than

little

And

in 1459 the

young

to her

le

which he had instructed him "in everything he knew about

Abbot of St.-Aubert

bien de l'oeure."

not quite usual at a time greatest

when

were paid according

and

protege, Zanetto Bugatto,

at

Cambrai noted with

gratification that

had improved and considerably enlarged the stipulated dimensions of an sioned in 1455 "pour

in Brussels" for

to

°

altarpiece

These are small things, perhaps,

painters

were

secretive about their

working hours and the

his

Roger

commis-

in themselves, but

methods and even the

cost of materials used.

Happily such scanty records are supplemented, and corroborated, by two portraits which,

however inadequately, inform us of Roger's physical appearance. His features are known, first,

from an inscribed drawing

self-portrait in

tapestry to

one of the "Examples of Justice" which

which we

drawing and the

from

in the "Recueil d'Arras" (fig. 389); and, second,

transmitted to us through the Berne

is

shall shortly turn (fig. 388). In spite of the indifferent quality of the

woven

inevitable distortion of die

presence of greatness, and this impression

is

we

copy,

feel at

borne out by no

Nicolaus Cusanus. In an attempt to describe the

way

his

once that

less illustrious a

which God looks

in

we

Arras

are in the

witness than

at the

world, the

Cardinal refers to "that face of the outstanding painter Roger in the most precious picture preserved in the

Town

Hall

at Brussels" {facies ilia

preciosissima tabula quae in praetorio habetur). face seems to pursue the beholder with

its

.

.

Bruxellis rogeri

.

Though

glance wherever he goes as does the eye of is

fixed

activity.

stirred

of his readers to that

which

is

But he might not have chosen

by

divine by

with deep,

visionary, indeed inescapable eyes.

"as

had

his

bitter folds

God

though on him

of a similitudo taken

this particular simile

this thoughtful, deadly-serious face

mouth and enormous,

means

on him

Cusanus endeavored

alone." After an established custom of medieval scholasticism,

mind

pictoris in

a motionless image, he says, this

which observes the human being "wherever he may be" and

the

maximi

to carry

from human

imagination not been

around

a wide, generous

7

11

"Jan van Eyck," der

Weyden was an

Max

J.

Friedlander once aptly remarked, "was an explorer; Roger van

inventor."

8

Not

that

Roger was unable

248

to

do

justice to

what may be

called

ROGER VAN DER WEYDEN the surface blandishments of the visible world. pictures,

and

in sensibility to color

it is

lilac-rose, pale gray-blue,

true that

Roger substituted

animorum

life.

varietas,

Lowlands by an

One

which inanimate nature and man-made

and Carel van Mander praised him

increase in

movement

Thus Roger's world

tions

is

at

and

The The

foreboding.

art of the

and, most particularly, by the "characterization of emo-

was required by the

*

subject."

once physically barer and spiritually richer than Jan van Eyck's.

sensations — mostly of a

bitter

Madonnas

smile of his

objects

sensuum atque

having improved the

for

Jan observed things that no painter had ever observed, Roger

captured.

its

man, and the outward appearance of man

of his contemporaries admired his paintings for

tions such as sorrow, anger or joy as

Where

Beaune or Philadelphia

visitor to

van Eyck's pantheistic acceptance of the universe in

for Jan

are less important than animals, animals less than

than his inner

of his

flaming vermilion, drab gray, and gold in his "Calvary." But

entirety a principle of selection according to

less

No

he was second to none.

many

details in

modulations of blue in Roger's "Last Judgment" or the polyphony of

will ever forget the

warm

There are enchanting

at

is

felt

and expressed emo-

or bittersweet nature — that no painter had ever

once evocative of motherly affection and

expression of his donors

full of

re-

sad

not merely collected but deeply pious. Even his

is

who

discovered

how much

the pathos of a Crucifixion might be intensified by contrasting the rigidity of the

Body with

design

is

expressive rather than descriptive;

the undulating

movement

often designed to create

it

new emotional

situations.

He

point of view."

which the

2

may

contemporary personages into

He combined

sitter is

represented in prayer.

And

foot of his faithful lion.

When we central panel of

Columba

St.

in

as

Columba

Madonnas

who

if

artistic

into diptychs

not invented, at least

Jerome compassionately extracting the thorn

3

Cologne which was

home from

its

The "Madonna van

figures, receding

from the

4

1493)

der Paele"

is

we

strictly

crystallizations of light itself. Its style

and the Magi,

a sharply delineated pattern;

all its

group

is

called after the

what seems

perceive

central plane as well as

altarpiece (fig. 353) the central

figures of St. Joseph

form

seems to be he

Roger van der Weyden's "Columba altarpiece" (so

though they were

the

beholder

and pleasing from an

compare, for example, Jan van Eyck's "Madonna van der Paele" with the

reconcilable contrast.

immobilized

St.

it

Biblical narratives

say, "attract the eyes of the

perfect

half-length portraits with half-length

reformulated and popularized the subject of

from the

more

contain other figures

symmetrical, and

from each

is static,

of

an

ir-

to be its

weighty,

other, are painted

spatial

shifted to the left

Church

and

and the

pictorial.

slender, supple

is

dynamic, planar and if

linear. Roger's

composition

not the thirteenth century, and he has

often been said to represent a kind of Gothic counterrevolution against Jan van Eyck.

we

while

call

it is

true that Roger's style has

High Gothic and

In

in action, are pressed against the picture plane so as to

style

looks almost like a throwback to the fourteenth,

ever,

were

permitted donors directly to participate

dramatis personae who, as Leone Battista Alberti would

even though the picture

in

he, for instance,

of a billowing loincloth. His iconographic innovations, too,

in sacred events and, conversely, introduced as

was

that he revived a

fundamental characteristics in

number

249

of motifs

common

How-

with what

and devices nearly forgotten

for

EARLY NETHERLANDISH PAINTING half a century or more, he

was

not, as has occasionally

been

said, a "reactionary."

!

He

arrived

apparently archaic solutions not only from an entirely "modern" starting point but also

at his

for a very

"modern" purpose:

far

from simply opposing

van Eyck and the

to the ideals of Jan

Master of Flemalle those of an earlier period, he attempted to break

new ground by

the old

device of reader pour mieux sauter.

much

Jan van Eyck had not so

resolved as negated the problems posed by the great painter

had eliminated the tensions and contradictions

of Tournai; he

manner by abolishing

Where,

their very raison d'etre.

characteristic of the latter's

as in Jan's

mature

style, all

physical

conflict

between

and emotional action was absorbed into pure existence there could be no

movement and

Where

rest.

surface relations were transposed into space relations there could

all

be no conflict between two-dimensional design and composition in depth.

were perfectly integrated with

mode

linear

form there could be no

conflict

Roger van der Weyden, however,

of presentation.

and calligraphical

total

possibilities

set

Where

between

all details

a pictorial

and a

out to develop the expressive

inherent in the style of the Master of Flemalle without forfeiting

the consistency and purity attained by Jan van Eyck.

While Roger's

figures are

more dynamic than

Jan's their

and more controlled than the Master of Flemalle's.

more

diversified than in

an Eyckian composition

in a Flemallesque one.

It is as

— a chain

links

plane ation.

in

And

the

whose

component

it is

And less

movements

while their grouping

rhythm

though conjoined by

distinct

parts of every figure,

it.

denser and

artful repetition

body and garments

alike, are

and

vari-

both articulated

short,

Roger van der

be said to have introduced into Flemish fifteenth-century art the principle of

— definable

as that

by which movement

is

articulated

loss of continuity.

This rhythm unfolds within a kind of foreground

behind

fluent

though a living chain of figures were thrown across the picture remain

in contradistinction to meter

without a

is

more

crowded and more coordinated than

form and function and unified by an uninterrupted flow of energy. In

Weyden may

are both

But both foreground

relief neatly

divorced from the space

and background space are what

relief

I

should like to

"stratified" into a series of planes deliberately frontalized yet interconnected in depth.

entire picture space

is

thus

made

to

obey a

common

organization of figure movement: articulation In the central panel of the particularly

Columba

is

call

The

principle analogous to the "rhythmical"

accomplished without destroying continuity.

altarpiece this system of interlocking frontal planes

is

evident, not only in the general disposition of the figures, the succession of piers,

arches and posts in the building, and the stratification of the landscape but even in incon-

spicuous details. of the

St.

The donor on

the extreme left looks

Joseph and the pillar behind him.

The

on from

little

a plane located

between that

greyhound on the extreme right

at-

taches the figure of his master to the very front plane (the hat in front of the oldest king, incidentally, fulfills a similar function)

Mary

and the

rigidly frontalized animals behind the Virgin

obligingly bend their heads into the planes in front of them.

As

the principle of

rhythm overcomes the tension between movement and

rest in the be-

havior of the figures, and between surface and depth in the organization of space, so does

250

it

ROGER VAN DER WEYDEN overcome the tension between the as such; all

and

this,

believe,

I

pictorial

and the graphic

in the presentation of plastic

the very essence of Roger van der

is

form

Weyden's "linearism." As

Early Flemish painting, his lines are not abstract contours separating two areas of

in

color,

flat

but represent a condensation or concentration of light or shade caused by the shape and texture of the objects.

However,

in Roger's paintings these

forms assume a linear quality without

relinquishing their luminary significance. Eyebrows or eyelids, the bridge of a nose, the edge of the

by

lips,

lines

garment

strands of hair, or, for that matter, the borders and folds of a

are indicated

designed with the precision of an engineering drawing yet innervated by a

that sharpens their angles plastic shapes

and color

and

intensifies their curvature.

vital force

While never disrupting the unity

areas, they achieve a purely graphic

of

beauty and expressiveness.

in That Roger van der Weyden, though was well acquainted with Eyckian

art

is

undeniable.

1

But since

we know

going too

from admitting

far,

seems to me, to

re-

to entering the

that he

workshop

may have been

in con-

with Jan van Eyck during his absence. In fact a touch of Eyckianism can be observed in

even the

earliest

referred to

306), I

works

attributable to

him: the Vienna "Madonna Standing"

on two previous occasions;

2

examined from an iconographic point do not

hesitate to date these

two small

to say a kind of junior partner — of the

of Robert

Campin; and

this

might

of view in Chapter Five.

"shopwork"

4

is

307) briefly (fig.

3

pictures as early as ca. 1430-1432. still

fertile collective enterprise that

Though executed that a member

—

was the workshop

also explain the disquieting fact that a "St. Catherine" (fig.

308) of exactly the same dimensions as the Vienna

somewhat incongruous diptych,

(fig.

and the Thyssen "Madonna in an Aedicula"

by Roger, they would seem to have been produced by him while he was is

it

actual "pupil" of the "gran

that he was away from Tournai prior

of the Master of Flemalle, nothing prevents us tact

It is

which he was an

vive the old Italian tradition according to

Iannes."

Master of Flemalle,

essentially a "follower" of the

much

Madonna, now combined with

inferior to the

Madonna

into a

Rightly considered as

itself.

own

yet apparently preceding the establishment of Roger's

it

atelier, its

short-

comings may be explained by the participation of a fellow "apprentice."

While the wide, ovoid, moonlike from Roger's

later types, are

still

faces of the

Thyssen and Vienna Madonnas, so different

decidedly Flemallesque, the

the elegant design of their draperies, which,

I

harmony

believe, exerted a retroactive influence

Master of Flemalle, and the flattening of the picture space into a kind of

Vienna panel by

a

of their proportions,

relief

on the

(delimited in the

brocaded cloth of honor in back and a delicate curtain of tracery in front)

are already unmistakably Rogerian.

But in the

pictorial treatment, especially the softly unifying

we sense an Eyckian point of view. The Vienna Madonna also brings "Madonna in a Church" in that Our Lady wears a crown a motif foreign to

play of light and shade, to

mind

Jan's

—

the Master of Flemalle fashion, one corner

— and the Infant emerges from a swaddling cloth arranged in similar

hanging loose from beneath the Virgin's

251

left

hand.

5

EARLY NETHERLANDISH PAINTING This shadow of Eyckian influence takes tangible shape in three important compositions

which mark Roger's emergence

known

as a

major

"Madonna Embraced by

as the

number

to us only through a

can say about

it

"Annunciation"

is

that

the Christ Child,"

"Madonna on

the

artist sui juris:

which has unfortunately come down

of fairly free or incomplete replicas (fig. 386), so that

all

must be approximately contemporaneous with the two others;

it

Louvre subsequently expanded (though,

in the

a Porch," also

in

my

'

we the

opinion, not by Roger

himself) into a triptych with a "Visitation" on the right and a donor's portrait on the left (figs,

$09,

310);

replicas, the best of

that

"

and

a "St.

Luke Painting

which, preserved

Boston

in the

Mary" transmitted through

the Virgin

Museum

has been accepted as an original by several authorities

it

tions clearly postdate the

to the

Sternburg Collection with Jacques Daret.'

at

3

(fig.

— except,

Liitzschena

(fig.

merit

less clearly

antedating

all

perhaps, for the original of the right-hand

Speck von

in the

311) which has already been mentioned in connection

4

outgrown the

the Louvre "Annunciation" have

as yet decisively subordinating space

And

much

These three composi-

Louvre "Annunciation," the beautiful "Visitation"

In intensity of expression, grace of posture and fluency of

ment.

313).

Vienna and Thyssen Madonnas while no

other works by Roger van der Weyden

wing appended

of Fine Arts, has so

several

line,

two

limitations of the

and volume

Luke" and

the Boston "St. early

Madonnas without

and rhythmical move-

to relieflike design

the faces, the eyeballs delicately modeled within their sockets and the lips and

eyelids tenderly contoured, approach Roger's ideal of structured beauty without as yet attaining

which characterizes

that etched precision

mature and

his

continued influence of the Master of Flemalle sits,

Madonna, on

like the Salting

evident.

is

not

Merode

altarpiece.

overlong — bench,

On

Such features

Madonna"

as the fireplace

two

pictures are

known work by Roger van

"Bathing Scene" which Fazio saw

at

der

is

The

from the

St.

little

as

altarpiece.

in

Madonna,"

a

The cham-

— though

The

from

that lost

his description

Jan's

spirit

and the

"Feminae c

space, by Roger's standards

—

as in the

charming

— produces remarkable chiaroscuro

The Angel

significantly absent

Gabriel wears a shimmering

the Washington "Annunciation" and the "Musical

The chamber

of the Annunciate

eminently Eyckian objects as the glass carafe and

and

from

pavements exhibits rich and complicated patterns

do the Gabriel

Angels" in the Ghent

portrait

5

Luke

for themselves.

(apart, of course,

to judge

library

religious pictures of the Master of Flemalle.

brocaded pluvial

its seat.

sconce, the long

must have been derived from

Luke's faithful ox and

tiling of the

the "Ince Hall

its

pervaded by a mild, diffused light which here and there

corner occupied by effects.

with

Weyden

balneo exeuntes" in the collection of Cardinal Ottaviano). fairly deep,

on

St.

more deeply imbued with an Eyckian

Genoa and which,

strangely non-Rogerian choice of subject,

details the

and, in an even higher

and the nail-studded window shutters speak

the whole, however, the

than any other

The

many

Virgin portrayecT^by

the footrest of her throne rather than

ber of the Annunciate presupposes the same "Salting degree, the

works. In

later

fruit

which made

is

embellished with such

their first appearance in

bed and chandelier decidedly reminiscent of the London Arnolfini

a brass medallion,

gleaming from the penumbra of the deep-red

2C2

tester, that

takes

;

ROGER VAN DER WEYDEN And

the place of the Arnolfinis' historical mirror.

—

Our Lady

the throne of

surmounted by

honor and canopy but

even the two

Perhaps

Luke"

"St.

ally painted at Bruges.

According

Brussels painters' guild

and

stuivers for

having

just

Diirer

admired

saw

it

— both executed,

several other

works by Roger

mean

Kapelle can only

we

believe, about 1434-1435

— were actu-

Luke" was painted

for the

with a picture inspected there by Diirer in 1520. But

at

Bruges,

3

fit

Town

(and had

at Brussels it

had

Pala

representations, see p. 127; for that of the prayer

inscribed with the Ecce Ancilla, p. 117.

representing

1.

>

The

on opposite banks of the

book

the Panel Painting before Bosch," Miscellanea

idea of

river (only that Christ beck-

Institute of Arts 2.

pref.,

Cf.

Cock

too general a nature to permit definite conclusions.

The

in the Detroit

Vienna, 1930, First Part,

type of the crucified Christ, for example, occurs

in very similar

(no. 43.57).

Die Sammlung Figdor, M.

J.

Friedlander

vol. Ill, no. 34, pi.

form

in the entire school of

Soest as well as in the

Museum

XXI

at Berlin

Weber

(our

fig.

("Netherlandish"). For the recent attribution to the

2.

See p. 106

G. F. Hartlaub, Das Para-

3.

Cf. pp. 101, 104.

von einem oberrheinischen Maler (Der

4.

For the controversy

Upper Rhenish diesesgartlein

school, see

Leo van

Puyvelde, Brussels, 1949, p. 49 ff., locates the triptych in Holland; however, the similarities adduced are of

ons to the former instead of vice versa) recurs in a curious picture ascribed to Jan de

In-

Chicago, Bulletin, XLII, 1948, p. 18 ff. C. de Tolnay, "An Early Dutch Panel: A Contribution to

Christopher and the youthful Christ

St.

H. Huth, "A Mediaeval Painting," The Art

stitute of

395

Conrad

of

triptych in the Deutsches

153).

ff.

as to

whether the production

NOTES book illuminations

of

Carthusian

Utrecht was centered in the

at

monastery

Nicuwlicht

oi

workshops, see Hoogewertf,

I,

376

p.

or

mentioned but not

(briefly

secular

in

cit.,

the rather rustic style of

rinccaux,

131,

p.

10.37,

pi.

VIII,

HoogcwerfT,

I,

82

p.

ff.,

Gaspar and Lyna, op.

of

Sciences,

The manuscript

5.

123,

XCVII

Gallery, XII, 1949, p. 79

L)

seems to have been produced

in

Min.

Sept.,

Wilson, Census,

same book though the weaker

nators

who

closely

akin in

the

illustrated

Walters

the one

to

style

miniatures of the

two

of the

are:

werff,

I,

p.

142

is

M.

ff.,

fig.

18392

Hooge-

58). Stockholm, Royal Library,

Baltimore,

Walters Art Gallery,

Catalogue,

1949, p. 46, no.

der

=

Sept., p. 151, pi. XII, fig. 27;

ms. A. 226 (Byvanck, Min. Sept., figs. 71-74; Hoogewerff, p. 356

responsible for the

L.

Oxford, Bodleian Library, ms. Clarke 30

(Byvanck, Min.

illumi-

Morgan manuscript. Recently

p. 998).

3. Paris, Bibliotheque Nationale, ms. lat. 432. See Byvanck, Min. Sept., p. 153, pi. XI, figs. 22-25. 4. Chief among these early Utrecht Books of Hours

the

manuscript

I,

Copenhagen, Royal Library, mss. Thott 2 and 3, 2 °. See Byvanck, Min. Sept., p. 130, pi. XIV. figs. 30, 31; Hoogewerff, I, p. 112 ff., figs. 43-47; Stockholm Catalogue, No. 129. 2.

Walters and Morgan manuscripts are not portions of the

dated 1382 and Channel regions England (De Ricciis

in the

of the Continent rather than in

ff.

Contrary to the statement

17.

See also a Breviary in the Harvard University

1.

Library, ms. Norton 2001, which

For the London manuscript (British Museum, ms. Add. 22288), see Byvanck, Min. Sept., p. 146, pi. X, figs. 18, 19, and Hoogewerff, p. 106 ff., figs. 38, 39; for the Morgan manuscript (ms. 691, Morgan Catalogue, 1934, no. 96, pi. 75), Byvanck, Min. Sept., p. 150, pi. IX, figs. 16 and 17, and HoogewerfT, p. 109 ff., figs. 41, 42. For all three manuscripts, cf. A. W. Byvanck, De middeleeuwsche Boe\illustratie in de noordelifke Ncderlanden, Antwerp, 1943 (henceforth to be referred to as "Byvanck, Boefcllustratie"), p.

ff.

Page 99

is

mentioned in Byvanck, Min. Sept., p. 21, and HoogewerfT, I, p. 583, note, and was more circumstantially described in Byvanck, "Kroniek der Noordnederlandsche Miniaturen, III," Oudheid/^undig JaarIX, 1940, p. 29

M.

Walters Collection (ms.

briefly

ser. 4,

his lifetime, viz., before

gratified to note that Miss

van den Kersten Ghelove," Journal of the Walters Art

15;

b.

171, Walters Catalogue, 1949, p. 45, no. 119, pi.

boe\,

am

nated Manuscripts of Meester Dire van Delft's Tafel

1.

fig.

I

when

1951,

VIII,

pi.

12, 1404.

which, though dated 1949, did not appear until this note was completed: "The Illumi-

article

118, pi. VIII, fig.

p. 418, pi.

in the

was executed during

it

Rickert has arrived at exactly the same result in an

ms.

figs. 30, 31.

p.

cit., I,

that

14; Stock-

fig.

Brussels, Bibliotheque Royale, ms. 205 A, fol.

Cf. Byvanck, Min. Sept.,

coat-of-arms, nothing militates against the assumption

December

holm Catalogue, no. 128. Amsterdam, Royal Academy 3. XVIII. CI Byvanck, Min. Sept., p. 4.

illumination, including the

Morgan manuscripts. The Walters manuscript must, therefore, antedate 1407, and since it shows the portrait of Albrecht of Holland with his

Copenhagen, Royal Library, ms. Thott, no. 70,2°. Cf. A. W. Byvanck, La Miniature dans les Pays-Bas septentrionaux (hereafter quoted as "Byvanck, Mitl.

20;

its

manifestly derived from that represented

is

by the Walters and

See p. 36.

2.

Sept."), Paris,

MCCCVII, an MCCCCVII, and

dated

is

obvious and very frequent error for

f.

Page 98 1

illustrated in Daniels, op.

66). This manuscript

p.

Noordnederlandsche

120;

XXVII,

155, pi.

p.

figs.

ff.,

ms.

178).

177,

(Walters

185

Byvanck, "Kroniek

Miniaturen,

III").

And

a

grounds and comes to the conclusion that the Walters manuscript postdates 1442 because it allegedly pre-

Horae in the collection of Sir Sidney Cockcrell at Cambridge (England) which is, somewhat confusingly, referred to as "Cockerell B" in Byvanck (Min. at least Sept., p. 126, pi. XXXIII, figs. 95-98), and as "Cockerell A" in Hoogewerff (p. by implication 138 ff., figs. 55-57); for the other Book of Hours in Sir

supposes the textual redaction of Brussels, Bibliotheque

Sidney's collection, see p. 104.

Daniels, Meester Dire van Delft, O. P., Taj el van den

Kersten Ghelove, Antwerp and Utrecht,

1939, pp.

I,

79 ff., 92 ff., has discussed the interrelation of the various Dire van Delft manuscripts on philological 72

ff.,

Royale, Paris,

ms. 21974

1945, p.

119,

(Caspar and Lyna, op. pi.

CXLI

b) which

cit.,

(ca. 1425) are the

II,

ms. 131

dated in

is

This conclusion, not very convincing even from a philological point of view, is, however, en-

this year.

tirely

unacceptable for

stylistic

reasons and

76.

and

G

3

(Byvanck, Min.

Museum,

(Byvanck, Min.

script,

The Hague, Royal

—

in the

Library, ms. 133

F

8,

fol.

6

5.

396

London,

date

XXVIII, tigs. 7s. and the North Nether-

rather than early,

also note 122 *).

representing the Trinity

later

Krakow,

manu-

initial

slightly

Sept., pi.

Boehjllustratie, p. 44);

invalidated by a comparison with the lone miniature

— an

Of

Horae, The Hague, Royal Library,

landish miniatures, sloppy

Horae,

further

is

—

—

Czartoryski

in

ms.

the

2943

Sept.. p. 131, pi. XIII, figs. 28, 29; see

British

Museum,

ins.

Add. ^=527,

fol.

NOTES

1

98 -102

4

Duchess; an amusing compromise, where, as on the

90 v. See Byvanck, Min. Sept., p. 146, pi. XII, fig. 26; Hoogewerff, I, p. 122 ff., fig. 48; Parkhurst, op. cit.,

Calendar pages, the former's top and bottom rinceaux were supplemented with lateral ornament supplied

p. 297, fig. 22.

by the

latter.

Page

01

Page 100 Byvanck, Min.

Sept., p. 120

Boekjllustratic, p. 18

A

67-72.

found

is

der

der

zu Berlin, V, 1928,

ff.,

"Die

Stange, op.

Ill,

cit.,

A

"Guelders and Utrecht; quisition

pi.

To

114

p.

is

more

closely

1938,

p.

Anmerkungen zu neueren ZeichnungspubDie Griphischen Kiinste, new ser., II,

assistants rather than to

nators

I

146-284

werff,

op.

one of the two main illumi-

follow Byvanck.

3.

New

Sept., p. 149, pis.

XIX, XX, XLVII, XLVIII;

Boekjllustratie, p. 22

ff.;

Hoogewerff,

I,

p.

444

231; Panofsky, "Guelders and Utrecht." For the

—

—

See

identified

by

Miss

am

deeply indebted for generously informing

owner

this discovery as well as of the

me

p.

Min.

of

Museum, Unnumbered. 161, pis. XXXVIII,

p.

104-106;

figs. I,

127

p.

heidkjundig ]aarboe\,

ff.,

,

Boekjllustratie, p. 22;

figs.

51-53. For the interfol. 322 (not Byvanck, "Aanteeken-

ser. 3,

V, 1925,

p.

208

ff.),

cf.

Panofsky, "Guelders and Utrecht." 4.

Bressanone (Brixen), Episcopal Seminary, ms.

C 20 (no. 62). See XXXIV, XXXV;

of

Hoogewerff,

17, 18;

Portrait

Sept.,

ingen over Handschriften met Miniaturen, IV," Oud-

manuscript's probable

master's

9020-23,

CXXXIII) which was com-

pi.

Zwolle, Archaeological

Byvanck,

with Hoogewerff

second

ff.,

9018—19,

XXIII—XXV; Hooge-

198-203; Gaspar and Lyna,

figs.

ff.,

70

quite correctly interpreted in

and terminus ante quern (established hymn "Gloria tibi Domine" from the Office of the Feast of Corpus Christi, fols. 250-253 v.. which was adopted by the Carthusian Order in 14 1 7); she also called my attention to the donors portrait on fol. 324. The participation of the Master of Zweder van Culemborg was, so far as I know, first stressed by Hoogewerff, p. 444. 3. A dramatic encounter between the two systems of marginal decoration is seen on fols. 19 v. and 20 (our fig. 120) where the Passion Master's "Betrayal of the

(ms.

Brussels

at

place of origin

faces

Moerdrecht Master

"Master of the Seraph"

calls the

Sept., p. 123, pis.

by the absence of the

Christ"

I,

pretation of the leonine hexameters on

fig.

Jentjens, Reinald IV, der zweite

I

401

II,

Hoogewerff,

Meta Harrsen see R. und letzte Regent in den vereinigten Herzogthumern Geldern und Jiilich (1402-1423), Miinster i. W., 1913. To Miss Harrsen first

p.

cit.,

XXXIX,

,

ff.,

By-

pleted in 1431.

York, Morgan Library, ms. 87 {Morgan Catalogue, 1934, no. 97, pi. 75). Cf. Byvanck, Min. 2.

Library

Byvanck, Min.

to

v.

385 ff., fig. 186. 2. For further works of the

Royal

connection with the style of the Limbourg brothers. fols.

Cf.

252.

XVIII; Hoogewerff,

ticipated in the illumination of the big Bible in the

thus confirming the Prayer Book's

miniatures on

Library, ms.

156, pi.

p.

,

likationen, I,"

the

258, note 410.

on account of the principal miniature in Utrecht, ms. 252, fol. 43 v.), see Byvanck, Min. Sept., p. 24 ff.; "Kroniek der Noordnederlandsche Miniaturen, III," and Boekjllustratie, pp. 19, 40 ff. I believe, however (with Hoogewerff, p. 404 ff.), that he also par-

related to the portrait

of Guelders in the Berlin Prayer Book, fol. 19

ascribing

cit., p.

University

(whom Hoogewerff

Utrecht Life of the Virgin (as proposed by O. Benesch,

In

Utrecht,

1.

vanck, Min. Sept.,

Stockholm,"

Mary

ff.),

cit.,

Page 102

p.

than to the works of the Westphalian Master of the

14

Glaser, op.

e.g.,

Winkler, Altdeutsche Tafelmalerei,

01, or

H.

v.

1937, p.

1

Cf. Martens, op.

3.

der

of

"Kritische

ca. 1430),

.

pp. 62, 63.

be

Konsthistoris\ Tidskjijt, XXII, 1953, no. 2-3, p. 90 ff. I believe, like Stange, that the drawing at Uppsala (his fig. 151)

than

8

Frequently illustrated. See,

2.

Footnote on a Recent Acat

this painting (hardly earlier

242

p. 151, fig.

E. Panofsky,

ff.';

For

1.

Staats-

IV.

Jahrbuch, X,

Nationalmuseum

the

of

ff.,

Buchmalerei

Niederrheinische

Wallraj-Richartz

Spatgotik,"

Preussischen 136

p.

1

see note

figs.

bibliography given in Min. Sept.:

to the

Jerchel,

ff.;

162

p.

I,

good color reproduction of fols. 19 v. and 20 H. Wegener, Beschrcibendcs Verzeichnis

Miniaturhandschrijten

added

XV-XVIII; idem,

pis.

ff.,

Hoogewerff,

ff.;

42. See

in

bibliothek^

65

germ, quart.

Berlin, Staatsbibliothck, ms.

1.

Byvanck, Min. ,

I,

p.

Sept., p. 122, pis.

Boekjllustratie, p. 27, figs.

430

ff.,

figs.

220-225.

I

agree

in assigning the great "Crucifixion"

(Min. Sept., pi. XXXIV) to a different hand. For further works by the Zweder Master (christened "Meester Pancratius" by Hoogewerff) and his workshop, see Byvanck, Min. Sept., p. 47

ff.,

and Hooge-

To

be added: (1) a manuscript in the Nationalbibliothek at Vienna, cod. Vind. 1199werff, pp. 421-468.

1202 (K. Holter, "Eine Wiener Handschrift aus der

Werkstatt des Meisters des Zweder van Culemborg,"

Oudheidkundig ]aarboe\,

ser. 4, VII, 1938, p. 55 ff.); (2) three manuscripts in the Walters Art Gallery at

the

397

NOTES Noordncdcrlandschcn illustratie,

(Book

27

p.

Byvanck

with by

Baltimore, dealt

(ca. 1430)

ms. 168

(a)

p.

65

p.

456

ff.;

figs.

Min.

Illustrated in Byvanck, Min. Sept., pi. XIX, fig. and Boekjllustratie, fig. 12 (as a work of the Moerdrecht Master and without reference to the fact that the "Miracle of the Brazen Serpent" had origi-

vol.

fol.

I,

72

Boekjllustratie,

421

figs.

ff.,

New

2.

illustrated

p.

York, Morgan Library, ms.

Hoogewerff,

in

Byvanck, Boekjllustratie, Byvanck, Min.

440

ff.,

4.

figs.

228, 229; Martens, op.

203,

cit., p.

Byvanck, Boekjllustratie,

3

), fol.

2

illustrated in

v.,

lat.

illus-

For the "Arenberg Hours,"

"Un

see

XLV, XLVI;

Hoogewerff,

125,

I,

p.

,

230).

89—94;

>

p.

I,

particularly p. 115

XXXI,

fig.

87,

ff.,

fig. 72.

ff.;

,

and XXXII,

Boekjllustratie, p. 20

172

trefoil leaf

f.,

figs. 8, 9;

The marginal

decora-

found, for example, in the Dire

van Delft manuscripts;

what the heralds

Sept.,

.

to the bibliography

Beissel,

pis.

Sept., p.

still

others, a leaf resembling

a "cross crosslet,"

call

particolored

"Neptune's tridents."

7.

33

ff.,

Min.

common

432 (see

4

See note 102

added

schriften, IX," p. 93

casionally

6.

f.;

(fig.

was apparently completed before the second illuminator added his Infancy scenes in grisaille. 4. Other pages of "Cockerell A" show the more

fig. 56.

Byvanck, Min.

in

And

its

same way

the

the

as

recurrence

arms

oc-

are

the

of

these

Byvanck, Min.

"cross crosslets," together with the stylistic affinity of

Boekjllustratie,

the

To

miniatures,

permits attaching

the

to

group

of

be

447 given in Min. Sept.: E. (S.)

Guelders manuscripts a copy of the Sachsenspiegel

due

curiously enough, was once in the possession of a gen-

ff.,

figs.

232-237.

Livre d'Heures appartenant a

S.

A.

le

(the

well-known thirteenth-century law book) which,

d'Arenberg a Bruxclles; Etude iconographique," Revue de r Art Chretien, XV, 1904, p. 436 ff.; and K. de Wit,

tleman named Zweder and referring to himself

"Das Horarium der Katharina von Kleve

ms. germ.

als

"residing

Quelle

fur die Geschichte der sudniederlandischcn Tafelmalerci

it

reminis-

less

tion

p.

fig. 21.

ms.

no

—

Hoogewerff,

XXXVII.

Sept., p. 117, pis. p.

illustrated in

Hoogewerff,

24;

is

—

v.,

figs.

23,

the other hand,

"Descent from the Cross" by the

in the

3.

XLII, XLIII;

117, pis.

and variations

replicas

On

For this Book of Hours "Cockerell A" according to Byvanck, "Cockerell B" according to Hoogewerff see Byvanck, "Aanteekeningen over Hand-

p.

11.

Paris, Bibliotheque Nationale,

note 99 pi.

figs.

is

be added that

(fig.

Master of Flemalle

particularly

Baltimore, Walters Art Gallery, ms. 168,

trated, e.g., in 5.

fig.

87, fol. 81

The

363

fol.

Sept., p.

Boekjllustratie,

,

230.

fig.

through various

ogous figure

215, 216.

Boucicautlike "Visitation" on

3.

I,

p.

Jacques

of

Christus

,

13-16; Hoogewerff,

25, figs.

may

it

I,

Daret (fig. 233) than of Petrus 409), and that the woman seen from the back in the Presentation is derived from the anal-

cent

at

126;

the Annunciation;

should be noted that the Nativity

in

p.

Byvanck,

12). See

XLIX; Hoogewerff,

(see p. 235; figs. 290, 291).

later version of the

manuscript, see Byvanck, Min. Sept.,

upon

transmitted

the famous Latin Bible in Cambridge (Unnumbered), (illustrated in Min. Sept., pi. XXXI,

v.

(formerly 12

1

the Crucifixion also reflects an Eyckian composition

79). For further information about this important

fig.

E

10

Sept., p. 141, pi.

piece

1.

found

Museum Meermanno-Westreeni-

Hague,

458 ff., 240-244; our fig. 128. 2. Cf. Hoogewerff, I, p. 177 ff., figs. 75, 76. Hoogewerff correctly stresses the influence of the Ghent altar-

41,

Museum

The

1.

Page 103

is

Hoogewerff,

ff.;

Page 104

and Panofsky, "Guelders and Utrecht."

Moses group

Boekjllustratie, p. 33

,

ff.

anum, ms.

the Fitzwilliam

Brevi-

Pelagius" by Hoogewerff), see Byvanck, Min. Sept.,

"Un Livre d'Heures d'Utrecht Ml Muscc National a Stockholm," Nordisk Tids^rift for Bo^-och Bibliote\svdsen, XXXVIII, 1951, p. 156 ff.,

The

Morgan

piece

B), sec K. Bostrom,

nally been a "Crucifixion").

his denial of the

in the

was unaware of the borrowings from the Ghent altarwhich occur in this manuscript. For further works of the Arenberg Master (christened "Meester

(Hook of Hours, Walters Catalogue, no. 122, shopwork), (c) ms. 174 (Missal, completed by the Arenberg Master, Walters Catalogue, no. 128, pi. XLIX). For a small Book of Hours connected with both the Zwcder and the Moerdrecht Masters and containing an exceptionally good miniature by a third personality (Stockholm, Nationalmuscum, ms. 1646 iSS

ins.

and

certainly too early,

ary, ms. 87, can be explained only by the fact that he

of Hours, Walters Catalogue, 11)49, no. lax, pi.

L), (b)

is

Arenberg Master's participation

III,"

19-22, to wit

rigs.

tl.,

"Kroniek der and BoeJ^-

in

Miniaturcn,

und der nordniederlandischcn Miniaturcn,"

pi.

VIII,

at

Culemborg"

fol.

may have been

]ahr-

880);

fig. 21,

and

cf.

(Berlin,

Byvanck, Min.

Jerchel, op.

the chronicler

as

Staatsbibliothck,

cit., p.

Sept., p.

65.

119,

The owner

Zweder van Culemborg

1494) as well as the Bishop of Utrecht. This manuscript, in turn, appears to be related to a re-

buch der Preussischen Kunstsammlungen, LVIII, 1937, p. 114 ff. De Wit's dating of the "Arenberg Hours"

(died

398

NOTES markably beautiful "Biblia Pauperum"

Museum

103 -106 1

English Illumination of the Early Fifteenth Century,"

schede,

my

finally,

is

held by a Bible

quoted as being owned by the Reverend E.

S.

For the Cambridge Bible,

5.

the participation of another

see note

103

For

.

Lower Rhenish Master

ms. 9018—19, 9020-23, see note 102 schmidt,

"Hollandische

2

der

a"us

1923, p. 22

III,

New

6.

York, Morgan Library, ms. 866;

from

dating

about

it

which no one has ever dated

no

p.

ff.;

later

than

150-152); second, the

figs.

decoration

which the

in

system of such Ypres manuscripts as the fragment at

Frankfort

(Museum

fur

Kunsthandwerk, ms. Linel

n, see p. 113 f. and figs. 160, 161, ca. 1400) and the Book of Hours at Rouen (Bibliotheque de la Ville,

ersten

ms. 3024, see p. 112 f. and figs. 154-158, between 1400 and 1410) appears interpreted in the spirit of the

see also

Bibliotheque

the

3,

(cf.

character of the marginal

ff.

Illuminated Manuscripts

1400

ca.

Halfte des I5 ten Jahrhunderts," Oudheid\undig Jaarboe\,

for

"Apocalypse," Paris, Bibliotheque Nationale,

ms. neerl.

see A. Gold-

),

Miniaturen

known

in

another Utrecht Bible (Brussels, Bibliotheque Royale,

reasons

1405-1410 rather than about 1420 are the following: First, its undeniable stylistic affinity with the well-

last

l

(a publication

My

Utrecht Calendar.

Dewick

{Burlington Fine Arts Club, Exhibition of Illuminated Manuscripts, London, 1908, no. 146, pi. 101).

het

in

December 1950

but could not be considered in other contexts), no. 14, also locates the manuscript in Guclders in spite of its

Art Bulletin, XXII, 1940, p. 138 ff., p. 144, fig. 34). An intermediary position between this "Biblia Pauperum"

and "Cockerell A,"

Rij^smuseum

Twenthc-Enwhich came to attention through the kindness of Miss Harrsen

Tentoonstelling

in the British

London, ms. Kings 5 (cf. H. Cornell, Biblia Pauperum, Stockholm, 1925, no. 52, pp. in, 168 f., 229, pi. 70; C. Kuhn, "Herman Scheerre and at

1

of

decorated frames instead of

fourteenth century

(flat,

illusionistic "rosette

frames") rather than further elab-

Their Highnesses the Dulles d'Arenberg, Jacques Selig-

orated; third, the fact that, wherever the "Arenberg-

mann & Co., New York, 1952, no. 79 (three illustrations). The connection of this manuscript with the

Liege Hours in such small points as can be used to

Liege Hours (see following note)

establish priority, the balance

from the

style

—

especially

is

Morgan Hours"

evident, not only

— but

headgear of

Hours down

Pilate's

earlier

—

—

on

fol.

shown

to

unknown even

The

Page 105 1. Haarlem, Teyler Stichting, ms. 76. Cf. Byvanck, Min. Sept., p. 60; Hoogewerff, p. 176, fig. 74. To be added to the bibliography given in Min. Sept.; Stange,

date

more

in

France before

op.

and

XV,

(fols. 14

and 64). For

all

14), interlace-

op. I

cit., Ill, p.

am

glad to notice that

W.

cit., p.

agree with

in the belief that the miniatures

text, which was writand antedate it by about a dozen years. painted on separate, "tipped-in" pages, and

are

all

full-page pictures without

See p. 112 ff.; note 104 See p. 118 ff.; note 104 6

2.

3.

7 .

.

Page 106

be

1.

far as

London, I know,

attention

74.

Vogelsang, Noord-Ncder-

landse Handschriften, 1300— 1500,

I

on either the recto or the verso would be most unusual in a Breviary of that period.

Sept.: Stange,

82, figs. 155, 156; Jerchel, op.

p. 80.

text

Liege, University Library, ms. 35. Cf. Byvanck,

To

ff.)

the very fact that they are

these motifs,

fig. 73.

1931, p. 23

They

appearing in the "Hours of John the Fearless" of

Min. Sept., p. 60; Hoogewerff, I, p. 175, added to the bibliography given in Min.

cit.,

in Bulletin de la Societe

ten in 1433,

1410-1415 (Paris, Bibliotheque Nationale, ms. Nouv. Acqu. lat. 3055), see p. 118 ff.; figs. 182-193. 7.

82; Jerchel, op.

did not originally belong to the

ments of animals with lions' and dragons' heads (fol. 79), and wide, rectangular borders filled with a heavy "acanthus" foliage which resembles the leaves of the

American oak

Ill, p.

Francaise de Reproductions de Manuscrits a Peintures,

have been developed, in the second decade

sized corner quatrefoils (fols. 13 v.

cit.,

Hoogewerff (and Byvanck

clearly,

of the fifteenth century, in the school of Ghent: out-

first

Judgment" the

St.

pects the intrusion of a "Crucifixion."

from certain the marginal decoration which can

194; and, even

Mary and

John in such a manner (standing instead of kneeling) that one sus-

"Arenberg-Morgan Hours" ca. 1415 but not follows from the appearance of close-knit

extravagances in be

figures of the Virgin

entourage and the setting (includ-

line-and-leaf rinceaux,

1400,

the shed while adding to the "Last

to such details as the

ing the "open-air grill") of the Nativity. of the

Morgan manuscript

omits the animals' heads adorning the front rafters of

also

from the iconography; no less than four scenes (the Annunciation on fol. 13 v., the Nativity on fol. 33 v., Christ before Pilate on fol. 66, and the Last Judgment on fol. 78 v.) agree with the corresponding compositions in the Liege

from the

in favor of the latter.

is

In the "Nativity," for example, the

the facial types and the

nearly identical feeling for drapery curves

(see preceding note) differs

British this

by Dr.

Museum, ms. Egerton

859. So

manuscript, kindly brought to

Hanns Swarzenski,

is

my

mentioned

only briefly in connection with a single leaf without

Catalogus van de

text

399

— apparently

intended as a devotional image like

NOTES the one

in

Petrus Christus portrait in London,

the

— which

referred to in note 47

l

Kuprerstichkabinett

Berlin

at

and

is

literally

alisme," p.

und

Einzelblatter des

binctti der Staatlichen 165,

p.

no.

Museen

That the Prayer Book

8517.

Rhenish rather than "Dutch"

is

is

(after

1931,

Lower

burg

in that year);

which may

ing considerations.

on

trait

fol.

As we

from the owner's por-

learn

Matthias, patron of Treves and possibly rates a

7334 Johannes

bequeathed

to

M. Smith-Lesouef,

by

end of the

fifteenth

Missals, one preserved

226 fL), the

et les Missels, II, p.

other in St.-Sauveur in Bruges, the style of the Bruges

commemo-

was

school

67

originally rooted in the "tradition of the

The Virgin Mary

'sixties."

Book was owned by a lady. Now, the two pages fols. 2 v. and 3. facing each other and representing St. Oncommer (also called "Kiimmernis," "Liberata" and "Wilgetortis") and St. Hubert, show the coats-of-arms of France and Burgundy, which seems to indicate that the lady in question was one of the two daughters of John the Fearless who were married to Germanviz.,

7331

lat.

printed at Augs-

first

also be dated in the

Les Sacrementaires

St.

pilgrimage to the "Holy Coat"), the Prayer

Netherlandish princes,

lat.

Bibliotheque Nationale, ms. 860 (Leroquais,

the

in

ms.

after

a manuscript,

As can be learned from two

based upon the follow-

36 (which shows her kneeling before

magnum,

and

Nationale

Bibliotheque

the

century.

is

J.

contains copies

it

Angelus' Astrolabium

evident, not only from

between Middle Dutch and German, agrees with the Lower Rhine. The conjecture that it may have been of Cleves

J.

Bibliotheque Nationale, ms.

since

1488,

of the text which, holding an intermediary position

Mary

Cf. Lyna, "Le ReRorimer and M. B.

785.

10;

(ca. 1460); Paris, Bibliotheque Nationale,

the style of the miniatures but also from the dialect

executed for

pi.

f.,

later ones: Paris,

Kupferstichf^a-

Berlin, Leipzig,

M.

Library,

113

Freeman, "The Nine Heroes Tapestries," pp. 258, 259. This manuscript served as a prototype for three

repeats the

Bavo" of the EgertOfl Prayer Hook, fol. 1 v.: P. Wescher, Beschreibendes I'crzcichnis der Miniaturcn, "St.

Ilandschrijten

Morgan

3.

preserved in the

of the Paris Missal

v.,

may

than 1382 and

most

the

in

— which

page,

must be

fol.

earlier

be dated about 1370-1375

—

al-

"Calvary of Hendrik

literally repeats that in the

van Rijn," and

Canon

(toward

in the Missal of St.-Sauveur

1400) the former's style survives in somewhat petrified form. About the same time, however, a more "caricaturing" spirit asserted

Tanners"

either Margaret, wife of

William VI of Holland, or Mary, wife of Adolph II (see p. 91); and since the style and language of the manuscript are Lower Rhenish rather than Dutch, the second of these alternatives is preferable. This assumption is further corroborated by the unusual prominence given to St. Oncommer or

(fig.

the "Calvary of the

itself in

113).

Page ioy

of Cleves

The best-known

1.

instance

Westphalian paint-

a

is

ing oi ca. 1370 (Berlin, Deutsches

Museum) where

the

Wilgefortis

"Throne of Solomon," flanked by Virgil, displaying the "Jamque redit is virgo" from the Fourth Eclogue, and "Albumasar,"

others, except that of St. Bavo,

carrying a scroll inscribed with his "prophecy"

Madonna, enthroned upon

whose image takes precedence over all and is distinguished by the arms of Royal France. As conclusively shown by G. Schnurer and J. M. Ritz, San\t Kiimmernis und Volto Santo (Forschungen zur Volkskunde, 13-15), Diisseldorf, 1934, the cult of this spurious saint,

the

lived, in fact, in the ninth century

facie virginis ascendet virgo

nutriet

who

(he

A.D.): "In prima

pulcherrima

puerum quern quaedam gens

.

.

.

et

.

.

.

vocat Jesum."

See K. Rathe, "Ein unbeschriebener Einblattdruk

und

der 'Aehrenmadonna,' " Mitteilungen der

Thema

owes her existence to the misinterpretation of Crucifixes derived from the "Volto Santo" at Lucca, originated in the Germanic Netherlands. The earliest known representations, not listed in Schnurer and Ritz, arc found in the "Liege Hours," fol. 13 v., and in "Cockerell A" (according to Byvanck), fol. 191 (illustrated in Byvanck, Min. Sept., pi. XXXII, fig. 191); and the earliest altar dedicated to "sunte Wilgifortis der h. jonfrouwen geheiten sunte Unkommer" was founded, on May 20, 1419, by none other than Adolph II of Cleves, the husband of Mary of Burgundy

London, British Museum, ms. Sloane 3983. See 3. Warburg, op. cit., figs. 168, 170, 171; F. Boll, Sternglaube und Sterndeutung, }rd ed., W. Gundel, ed.,

(Schnurer and Ritz, op.

Leipzig, 1926,

2.

I.

Dit'

et

C946-X947,

le

p.

realisme

Die Graphischen Kiinste), XLV, 1922, p. 1 ft.; W. Voge, forg Syrlin der Aeltere und seine Bildwer\e, II

(Stoff{reis

109, 2.

169

f.,

4.

Scriptorium,

106 fL, hereafter quoted as "Lyna,

5.

cincr

4OO

Berlin,

cit.,

Mi

1950, pp. 26,

44.

II,

p.

p.

14=;

ft-.

lat.

7330. See

War-

632.

f..

See Warburg, op.

pp. SS ft-

Realisme.'

und Gestaltung),

fig.

Bibliotheque Nationale, ms.

burg, op.

19).

Preeyckien,"

Kunst (supplement

Gesellschajt fur vervieljaltigende of

Cf. F. Lyna, "Les Miniatures d'un ms. du 'Ci

Nous 'Le

cit., p.

das

figs. 8, 21, 33, 34. cit.,

p.

631

ft.;

Boll, op.

cit.,

145 A-

Wiesbaden, Staatsarchiv. See D. Heubach, Aus nicdcrliindischcn

Bilderhandschrijt

vom

]ahre

NOTES und Federzeichnungen der

1410; Grisaillen

Schule,

ischen

Strasbourg,

Vlaamsche Miniatuur van 1200 n.d.

("Hand

p.

Paris, Bibliotheque Nationale,

3.

,

Leroquais, Les Lit/res

III"

"Annunciation,"

codex contains a number of

somewhat a number

earlier date

of grisailles

pen drawings but

stylistically

somewhat

once

is

somewhat

Royale,

ms.

81).

is its

related

affinity

to

the

at

1922,

Liitzschena (F. Becker,

Museum, ms. Add.

London,

Brussels, Bibliotheque Royale, ms. 19295-19297.

British

minator,

See Gaspar and Lyna, op.

cit.,

I,

p. 389, pi.

10290.

LXXXIX

Gaspar and Lyna, op. 5.

See

cit., I, p.

163, pi.

138.

II,

LXXXIX

Page

cit.,

I,

p.

379

ff.,

p.

the author of

7-10

fols.

fols.

1

p.

55

pi.

No

1.

dialect

Scriptorium,

(fol.

1

drawn from

52

ff.

of the

either the

title

of the

"Apocalipsis in dietsche") or

v.:

text

The word

Flemish."

which

dietsch

said

is

may to

to

denote

be "West

"Nether-

"Latin" as well as

"Northeast Netherlandish" ("Dutch") in contradistinction to

9.

op.

Page iog Brussels, Bibliotheque Royale, ms.

p.

valid conclusions as to the provenance of the

illuminator can be

pi.

Flemish or Brabantine (Verwijs and Verdam,

cit., II,

And 1.

I,

Page 112

b.

landish" in contradistinction

ff.,

inclined to

superior to

f.

Lyna, "Le Realisme," and L. Morin, "Le Manuscrit 1946-1947, p. 75 See p. 53. 7.

am

in Ibidem,

the

I,

I

much

1-23 but not identical with the

6. Brussels, Bibliotheque Royale, ms. II, 7831 (formerly Brussels, Colbert de Beaulieu Collection). Cf.

Dit,' "

1-4,

1—6.

manuscript

Nous

(with complete

ff.

to a third artist

LXXXVII.

Colbert de Beaulieu du 'Ci

289

See

Brussels, Bibliotheque Royale, ms. 10176-10178.

Gaspar and Lyna, op.

M. Hontoy,

generally accepted that the

is

Panofsky, Albrecht Durer,

2.

1.

Brussels, Bibliotheque Royale, ms.

first

into

the author of fols.

a.

4.

fall

viz.,

master of

3.

1946-1947,

I,

ascribe fols.

Zeitschrijt fur Kunstgeschichte,

2.

This

prising fols. I— II,

1)

Quo Nemo Repertus," XV, 1952, p. 46 ff.).

3.

two groups, a superior one comand an inferior one comprising fols. 11-23 (end). Even within the first group, however, considerable differences exist. Fols. 5 and 6 differ from fols. 1-4 by the use of a more translucent red and a more highly burnished gold in the marginal bands of clouds, and by an even more linear stylization of the hair and the drapery folds. Fols. 7-10 show a taste for darker colors (in some of the marginal cloud bands black is used instead of gold) and a distinctly pictorial treatment (the hair is rendered as a coherent mass instead of a pattern of linear curves). While fols. 5 and 6 are well within the range of the principal illuminiatures

alter Meister in

pi.

ms. need.

Vogelsang, Hollandische Minia-

set of illustrations). It

Privatsammlungen, which represents a group of Jews defeated by the Church and fragmentary reflects the archetype that underlies the much-debated and still enigmatical "Fountain of Life" in the Prado 4 (see p. 216; note 203 ). This pen drawing must therefore be considered as a Flemish (Bruges or Ghent) product of ca. 1415-1420, and not as either "Burgundian" (Becker) or South German (Winkler as reported in P. Post, "Pictor Hubertus d Eyck, Major Leipzig,

W.

by

Scriptorium,

Apocalypse,

with a colored pen drawing in the Speck

Handzeichnungen

For the

"Les Miniatures de l'Apocalypse flamande de Paris,"

the

von Sternburg Collection

1364. See

ff.

p. 109.

I,

care but without spectacular results, by

Library, ms. 133 pi.

lat.

177

turen des spateren Mittelalters, Strasbourg, 1899, p. 31 ff., pis. Ill— VII, has recently been studied, with great

See

11041.

Due de Berry, in the Morgan {Morgan Catalogue, 1934, no. 115, But even closer, and much more important,

owned by

by

129.

Paris, Bibliotheque Nationale,

1.

Lyna, "Lc Realisme," p. 114, pi. 11; E. Panofsky, "Zwei Durerprobleme," Miinchner Jahrbuch der Bildenden Kunst, new ser., VIII, 1931, p. 5., fig. 2. This manuscript

ms. p.

I,

noble manuscript, the importance of which was

II").

Bibliotheque

The

attention

no

Page

related to the

Page 108 Brussels,

ms. 24.

II," ca.

recognized

1.

d'H cures,

fol. 25, see p.

Hoogewerff,

4.

1390-1400) and contemporary with the colored

("Hand

"Liege Hours"

drawings of

silver point

("Hand

my

Dr. Harry Bober.

pi. 10.

f.,

la Ville,

manuscript was kindly brought to

Brussels,

1530,

1

Tournai, Bibliotheque de

2.

De

"Le Realisme," 72, fig. 22; Along with the colored pen drawings according to Heubach) the Wiesbaden

[1933],

114

p.

tot

altflam-

Lyna,

F.

1925;

106"-! 12

1889, p. 182

f.;

see also below, note

the dialect of the text

would

207

3 ).

indicate the origin

of the scribe but not that of the illuminator. So far II,

7831,

as

fol.

I

know

partially

44.

4OI

the only scholar thus far to emphasize the

Germanic quality

of the miniatures

and

to

NOTES point out, however briefly, their connection with the

"Liege Hours" and the "Passion Master's" contributions to the "Breviary of

op. at., pp. 74, This triptych 2.

— was L

Bouchot,

ascribed

of Guelders"

alleged,

without

"Paris

to the

active

atelier

1905, pi. VII;

Dijon" by Fierens-

at

Histoire de la peinture flamande,

iert,

H.

by

Exposition des primitifs francais; la pein-

"Flemish

a

Champ-

School"

turc en France sous les Valois, Paris, to

shred

a

the Chartreuse de

the

to

Jcrchel,

is

"Burgundian school" by

pi.

XXII;

Die

altnie-

I,

F. Winkler,

derlandische Malerei, Berlin, 1924, p. 29, fig. 6, Dupont, Les Primitifs francais, p. 15, and Evans, Art in

Mediaeval France, landish old

fig.

143;

and

North Nether-

to the

G. Ludwig, "Giovanni Bellinis sogenannte See," Jahrbuch der Koniglich Preussischen Kunstsammlungen, XXIII, 1902, p. 163 ff., and Cf.

Madonna am

F.

XXXII,

letin,

I,

102,

p.

truth

generously permitted

me

Rouen, Bibliotheque de

make

to la

Ville,

use of

it.

ms. 3024. See

Catalogue general des manuscrits des Bibliotheques Publiques de France,

II,

Paris, 1888, p. 73 (here dated

in the fourteenth century); Exposition d'art religieux

Musee de Peinture, Rouen, May-June, 1931, Rouen, 1932. The use could not be determined by the late Chanoine Leroquais; the Calendar agrees with ancien,

the western regions of Flanders.

The

fine old

inscribed: "Bi der gracie gods heift

my

binding

ghebonde

Jacob van de berghe, priester" ("By the grace of

God

was bound by Jacob van den Berghe, priest"); P. Verheyden, De Gulden Passer, Antwerp, 1937, La Reliure en Brabant, Antwerp, 1935, 33; I

,

cf.

5.

It is

interesting that the "Flight into

Franco-Flemish manuscript of

Gallery, ms. 265, 88, pi.

XXXV,

p.

LIX; C. Kuhn,

op.

p.

148

LVIII,

pis.

ff.,

146, fig. 36.

fol.

Egypt"

(see below, note 114 c ), fols. 10

28

18

v.,

v.,

20

v.,

59 v.; (2) in the "Hours of John the Fearless" in the Bibliotheque Nationale (see p. 118 f.), fol. 204 v.; (3) in one of the eight miniav.,

30

v.,

42

v.,

v.,

The Hague, Royal LiManu-

tures prefixed to the Horae,

brary, ms. 131

D

14 (Byvanck, Les Principaux

a la Haye, p. 34), fol. 9 v. Later on, the motif was appropriated in the dedication page of the

scrits

.

.

.

"Arenberg Hours" (HoogewerfT, I, fig. 232), in the much-debated "Mass of the Dead" in the "TurinMilan Hours" (our fig. 300), and, through it, in the St.

John's altarpiece by Roger van der

Weydcn

(sec

Oxford, Bodleian Library, ms. Canonici Liturg.

my

Hanns Swarzenski. The manuscript ment.

in

Its

Calendar

is

attention by Dr. is

a

mere

frag-

as closely related to that of the

"Rouen Hours" as is the style of its miniatures. Amsterdam, W. A. van Leer Collection. Cf. 3. A. W. Byvanck and G. J. HoogewerfT, La Miniature hollandaise, The Hague, 1922-1926, pi. 3; Kuhn, op. cit., p. 147. While Byvanck has rightly excluded this manuscript from La Miniature dans les Pays-Bas

1415 (Walters Art 90, Walters Catalogue, 1949, no. ca.

erroneously captioned no. 80) shows

ms. 76 (Kuhn, op.

nance of

septentrionaux, HoogewerfT, assign

it

I,

p. 139,

to the Utrecht school

is still

inclined to

and even extends

this

opinion to the somewhat later Horae, Morgan Library,

this latter

the so-called

Page ill

Gold

cit.,

fig.

37).

The Flemish

manuscript and Scroll

group

its

prove-

connection with

(see note 122

1

)

were

already recognized by Byvanck, "Aanteekeningen over

Carpentras,

Bibliotheque

(kindly brought to See

my

de

32.

Catalogue general des

The

use

is

Ville,

la

attention by Dr.

Bibliotheques Publiques de France, 1901,

cit.,

in Frankfurter Besitz,

p.

1. Apart from the "Carmelite Missal" (p. 115 f.), I have observed meander pavements (1) in the "Clowes

original painting.

p.

1929,

Page 114

from the canteen form more closely akin to the miniature in the "Rouen Hours" than to Broederlam's painting, from which we may conclude that the motif was transmitted through illuminations or illuminators' pattern drawings rather than through drawings after the

zenski).

fur

118 (19263), kindly brought to

a

1.

especially p. 138.

ff.,

und der Renaissance

Mittelalters

2.

p.

the motif of the St. Joseph drinking

in

The

p. 280; fig. 345).

143 (erroneously dating the binding in the middle of the fourteenth century).

a

Museum

Frankfort-on-the-Main,

22

is

Paradisi:

Kunsthandwerk, ms. n. Cf. G. Swarzenski and R. Schilling, Die illumimerten Handschriften und Emzelminiaturen des

Hours"

4.

Medio

in

Linel

who

37.

Vitac

1950, p. 115

Frankfort,

3.

would seem to lie almost exactly between Bouchot and HoogewerfT. 3. This observation was made by Dr. Harry Bober, fig.

"Lignum

Hartt,

Stanza d'Eliodoro and the Sistine Ceiling," Art Bul-

"perhaps within the borders of the

school,

Diocese of Utrecht," by HoogewerfT,

The

20. 2.

— often

come from

of evidence, to

mol

Mary

with the western regions of France. The dedication fol. 55 v. is illustrated in Parkhurst, op. cit., fig.

page

Roman;

ms.

Handschriften met Miniaturen, IX," Oudheidkundig

57

Hanns Swar-

Jaarboel{,

manuscrits des

XXXIV,

1,

also

,

iaturen, II,"

Paris,

the Calendar agrees

p. 10

402

ft.

3, X, 1930, p. 93 fT., figs. 13, 14; cf. "Kronick der Noord-Nederlandschc Min-

ser.

Oudheidkundig ]aarboe\,

ser. 4,

IV, 1935,

NOTES Urbana, University of

4.

MEC

ropean Culture), ms. Census,

This

(Museum

of

Eu-

very

Horae

small

Roman

for

fig.

and very negligent manner. Tournai, Grand Seminairc, no signature. 5. 6. Indianapolis, Ind., Dr. G. H. A. Clowes Collection, apparently undescribed. This manuscript, which contains 21 full-page miniatures with at least two

"Dit

of particular interest, not only because

is is

Mater Dolorosa

None: Alma

in

virgo;

London,

7.

72, pi. 85;

passim,

cit.,

figs.

A

XVIII.

cit.,

passim.

2

Collection.

10.

fig.

Museum, Royal ms.

British

cit.,

E

1

IX. See

69, pis. 74-78; Saunders, op.

p.

119-121; Kuhn, op.

pis.

passim,

cit.,

cit.,

24-26.

figs.

8. London, British Museum, ms. Add. 42131. See Kuhn, op. cit., passim (especially p. 149), figs. 17-21.

its

Flemish (fol. 98: vlamscc") but also

Little

cit. f p.

London, formerly A. Chester Beatty

Millar, op.

The

Sub tuam proPrime: Haec est virgo;

tectionem; Little Chapter in

Antiphon None: Per

in

Museum, Royal ms. Kuhn, op.

British

See Kuhn, op.

year 14 14

established as a terminus post quern

is

by Herman's engaging inscription on

use (Antiphon in Prime:

its

passim,

cit.,

8.

6.

explicitly designated as

es Stabat

because

London,

5.

See Millar, op.

use

repeats the standard vocabulary of the "Ypres school"

missing,

op.

14-16.

in a greatly simplified

language

Kuhn,

Paris, 1928, pis. 122, 123;

423. See de Ricci-Wilson,

no. 15 (here dated in the fourteenth

p. 702,

I,

century).

Illinois

2 112 — 1 17

minde me vnto you.

Chapter in

Bedford."

This

— John

God

pray

I

com-

21: "I

fol.

Duke

saue the

of

was not conferred upon the

title

V—

"Hours of Daniel Rym" (see p. 119) which was demonstrably produced at Ghent. The "Clowes Hours," probably executed ca. 1410— 1420, holds in fact an intermediary position between the "Ypres" and the "Ghent" schools; it may be conjectured that it was either produced at Ypres for Ghent use, or, perhaps more probably, by a workshop that had transferred itself from Ypres to

owner

Ghent.

somewhat crude form his style recurs, it seems to me, in a Psalter for Sarum use which, since the batde of Agincourt was subsequently commemorated in the Calendar, must antedate 1415 (Rennes, Bibliotheque

Dei)

te

is

identical with that of the

until that year.

Cambridge, Fitzwilliam Museum, ms.

A

49.

op.

itself

See

London,

British

p.

70

f.,

pis.

79-

Page

99 ff.; "The Reconstruction of an English Carmelite Missal,"

Speculum, XVI, 1941,

p.

1935,

92

p.

ff.;

,

,

The ReconMu-

Kuhn,

op.

f.,

op.

cit.,

Museum, ms. Add.

British

passim,

figs. 12,

16698. See

13 (with further refer1

ences).

London, Eric G. Millar Collection. See Kuhn, cit.,

passim,

fig.

11.

Oxford, Bodleian Library, ms. Lat. Liturg.

Kuhn,

op.

cit., p.

141

ff.

II,

A

2

(Kuhn,

v.

176

p.

See p. 122; note 122

figs.

9).

7,

no.

ff.,

pis.

391,

4 .

and passim,

uy Kuhn,

2.

London,

figs.

1-6.

f.

op.

Palace cit.,

fol.

ms.

Library, 122;

pi.

Kuhn,

nearly identical composition

16998,

fol.

is

69,

op.

found

fol.

cit.,

in the

Kuhn,

4.

Millar, op.

5.

Kuhn, ibidem,

6.

Ibidem,

7.

Cambridge, Fitzwilliam Museum, ms.

cit., pi.

same

85;

op.

cit., fig. 8.

fig. 7.

49,

no.

according to James' numeration. 8.

Kuhn,

9.

Ibidem,

op.

cit., fig.

fig.

11.

Millar, op.

12.

Ibidem,

O. E. Saunders, English Illumination, Florence and

13.

London,

403

v.

16).

fig. 5.

3

n.

London, British Museum, ms. Arundel ibidem, fig. 41). (Kuhn, 37

The

4

fig.

313.

See

69.

Museum, ms. Add.

10.

2.

manuscript was discovered by Professor Kuhn.

London, Lambeth Palace Library, cod.

12.

cit., fig.

British

Lambeth

manuscript,

figs. 43, 44.

Page 116

London,

Psautiers,

1.

3.

A 152

cit., p.

Les

(Saunders, op.

seum, Chicago, 1951.

4.

23

fol.

17-

structed English Carmelite Missal in the British

See

Museum, Royal ms.

Kuhn, Hours" XVIII)

Illuminator," Burling,

Magazine, LXVII,

lington

3.

British

11 v., 12 v. (see

5); to the "Beaufort

fig.

ff.,

CXXVIII-CXXX).

"The 1935, p. 39 f.; Reconstruction of an English Carmelite Missal," Bur-

op.

141

v.,

Municipale, ms. 22, described and illustrated in Lero-

10. cit.,

LXVI,

ton Magazine,

2.

p.

(London,

quais,

Museum, p. 121. Museum, ms. Add. 29704-29705.

— apart from Millar, op. 81 — M. Rickert, "Herman the

Kuhn,

cit.,

Master of the Beaufort

the

2)

f.

everything except for

Manu-

Descriptive Catalogue of the

See

1.

"York Hours" (Oxford, Bodleian Library,

Saints contributed fols. 6

scripts in the Fitzwilliam

3.

the

In

M. R. James, 2.

To

9.

ms. Lat. Liturg.

Page 11$ 1.

Henry

of Lancaster, brother of

pi.

cit.,

pi.

28, fol.

81, c.

81, a.

British

Museum, ms. Add.

29704,

fols.

NOTES 14, 26, 31; tols. pi.

cit.,

Si.

14

and

.md

a

1.

Millar, ibidem, pi. 79.

2.

Kuhn.

o/>. r;/.,

fig.

"Annunciation"

monly known

as

trated in Millar, op.

Kuhn,

op.

op.

the

cit.,

cit.,

pi.

fig.

18.

fol.

12,

that

fact

style

91).

The

of

(cf.

pi. tifs

Continentalized

Englishman.

His

a

style

Millar, op. tail:

the

T-beams

cit.,

arms

pi.

we

231 is

cidentally, that

in

about

assigns

f.,

Netherlandish school, which

to the

it

Herman

its

connection with

Scheerre. For the

to the English school, see M. V. "The Wilton Diptych," Burlington Magazine, LVIII, 1931, p. 283 ff.; W. A. Shaw, "The Early Eng-

Clarke,

lish

School

LXV,

of

Portraiture,"

1934, p. 171

cially p.

237

fT.;

Burlington

V. H. Galbraith,

fT.;

XXVI,

of Richard II," History,

Magazine,

"A New

1942, p. 223

fT.,

Life espe-

T. Bodkin, The Wilton Diptych in

(The Gallery Books, no. 16), W. Tristram ("The Wilton Diptych," The Month, new ser., I, 1949, p. 379 fT., and II, 1949, p. 18 fT.) and J. Evans ("The Wilton Diptych Reconsidered," Archaeological Journal, CV,

the National Gallery

London,

n.d. Recently E.

1948 [published 1950],

p.

1

fT.),

while rightly insisting

on English authorship, have tried to defend very early dates on historical grounds, Tristram insisting on 1377,

in-

with a svenimento group closely akin to appears to be of "Sherborne Missal"

—

the

it

correct attribution

of their crosses but to an iron rod parallel to

combined,

French but date

not so unreasonable in view of

the style exemplified by

is

can observe a curious de-

— often

however, "toward 1395");

20, 21,

Wilton Diptychon," Pantheon, XVIII, 1936, p. 209 ff., dates it between 1396 and 1399 and attempts to connect it with the first dedication page of the "Brussels Hours," while Dimier, "Les Primitifs francais," p.

of the Thieves are fastened, not to the

these T-beams. This peculiarity

figs.

1390 and 1395-1400, respectively. T. Borenius, "Das

vat."

82)

becit.,

4 (ascribing it to Beauneveu); Dupont, Les Primifrancais, p. 11; Sterling, Les Peintres, pi. XVI (in

believe the Diptych to be

Whatever his nationality, Siferwas' Continental affiliations would seem to be Lower Rhenish rather than Flemish. In his famous "Crucifixion" (The Sherborne Missal, pi. XXII, also "leaking

who

Reau, op.

cit., pis. 4, 5. L. Gillet, La Peinture francaise, Moyen-Age et Renaissance, Paris and Brussels, 1928, pi. XXI, and Lemoisne, op. cit., pi. 23, likewise

thus represent a satirical patronymic denoting somelike

to be Parisian:

op.

somewhat reminiscent of the "Liege Hours," and his name sounds Germanic rather than English; it may, in fact, be composed of the ancient word siefern (meaning: "to trickle" or "to leak") and vas (the old spelling of Fass, the German word for "vat") and thing

especially true of those scholars

Wilton diptych

G. Bazin, L'Ecole Parisienne (Les Tresors de la peinture franchise, 1, 5), Geneva, 1942, pi. 7; Schaefer,

moderately

drapery

f.). is

Les Primitijs,

I

than

This

lieve the

is far more insular and considers him an Englishborn illuminator who "either was influenced directly lerman, or by some related Continental source." by It may be asked, however, whether the "impression of flatness and profusion" which distinguishes his style from that of Herman and his circle may not be accounted for by the conjecture that he was a thoroughly

rather

176

p.

5.

Scheerre's

Rhinelander

it

one of the Thieves in the "Arenberg Hours" (HoogewerfT, I, fig. 233, our fig. 129) although the figure itself is derived from the Master of Flemalle for

stresses the fact that Siferwas' style

Anglicized

XVII; R.

pi.

great imitator, the Arenberg Master, appropriated

penetration of the

Missal" of 1407 in the Library of the Duke of Northumberland at Alnwick Castle {The Sherborne Missal, J. A. Herbert ed., Oxford, 1920). Kuhn justly

Herman

cit.,

der Derick-Baegert-Forschung,"

It

an observation concerning John Siferwas' "Sherborne

than

94; Holker, op.

Wallraf-Richartz Jahrbuch, X, 1938, p. 139 fT., fig. 88). was obviously from nearby Westphalia that that

illus-

into

Book

a

41, 45, 64, 82, 84, 165, 192, 228, 251; fig.

cit.,

Nissen, "Der Stand

England is highlighted by the Hours largely executed in the Boucicaut Master's workshop (Paris, Bibliotheque Mazarine, ms. 4(H). sec Kuhn, p. 156, fig. 40 and above, notes 54 *, 55*) was completed in England by artists working in the Herman Scheerre tradition. For Herman Schcerrc's and his associates' influ4. ence on the insular production, see the excellent remarks in Kuhn, op. cit., p. 153 fT. I should like to add Boucicaut

Ill, figs.

cit.,

Glaser, op.

of

Pcrrins Collection at Malvern (ms. 18,

3.

in

Henry de Beauchamp," com"Warwick. Hours," in the Dyson

"Hours

later

altarpicces of ca. 1370, one in Netze near Wildungen, the other now in the Wallraf-Richartz Museum at Cologne (Stange, op. cit., II, figs. 151— 161); then in Conrad of Soest's famous Wildungen altarpiece (text ill. 33); and then in a score of pictures directly or indirectly dependent thereon (e.g., Stange,

This miniature obviously

17.

influenced the rather dismal

much

phalian

31 arc illustrated in Millar, op.

c.

Miss Evans proposing 1389-1390. As

stylistic parallels,

Wcstphalian origin and survived almost exclusively

however, Tristram quotes only the "Beaufort Hours,"

within the sphere of influence of Conrad of Soest.

the

occurs for the

first

time

in

two very

similiar

It

"Bedford

"Chichele

Wcst-

404

Psalter,"

Breviary,"

the

and

"Carmelite the

Missal,"

erroneously

the

so-called

notes wv-no—

"Bible of Richard II"

and

Scheerre

his

imported

this

in short, the

— without

circle

works of Herman

term, and a certain Broederlam influence

how

explaining

admittedly "of rather later date

style,

And

1377.

Miss Evans adduces and

(ms. Cott. Domitian a portrait of Richard

A II

XVII,

fol.

the

illustrates

Museum

traits attributable to

to

donors'

in

relatives

itself,

cit.,

Brussels,

at

por-

Cf. Walters Catalogue, 1949, p. 47, no. 125.

See preceding note.

7.

I

am much

his

See

I

p. 36.

here given as "Arras,"

obliged to Mr.

communicated 8.

me

views to

am

Wormald

in

The Hague, ms.

the Royal Library at

(Byvanck, Les Principaux Manuscrits p.

34

this

f.,

XV; Kuhn,

pi.

Book

op.

cit.,

p.

.

.

.

D

a la

My

Haye,

was

Joris

me

Bibliotheque

Paris,

4.

Acqu. 3055,

reasons

fols.

107

v.,

VII, IX, XII, our

v.,

schematized or more luxuriant form, with the pole

teenth-century Psalter, Bruges,

manuscripts

locatable

55/171,

the remarkable

viz.,

6,T

,

Second,

).

St.

the

Anthony on

pairing

fol.

15 v.

of

Acqu. 3055, 160

seems to be a

Ghent penchant since it recurs in the "Hours of Daniel Rym," fol. 160 v. (our fig. 187); in the Horae, Walters Art Gallery, ms. 169 (see note 121 132

v.;

Ghent

and

in the

9

7.

8.

Hermits' and Pilgrims' wings of the

A

9.

later

certainly copied

ff.,

from

a

Baltimore,

44 and

v.

(Leroquais

lat.

Nouv.

VI). 166,

ms.

ed., pi.

as

fig.

lat.

Nouv.

166,

ms.

Nationale,

lat.

fol.

Nouv.

36.

Ibidem,

fol.

204

v.

11.

Ibidem,

fol.

107

v.

(Leroquais

XVI).

ed., pi.

(Leroquais

ed., pi.

VII).

Page 120

it

Ibidem,

fol.

Ibidem,

fol.

ms. 131

fol.

XV).

Walters Art Gallery, ms.

10.

1.

rate the eight miniatures in

ms.

ed., pi.

fol.

2.

any

197

Bibliotheque

Paris,

14 are Flemish in the strictest possible sense of the

at

Nationale,

(Leroquais

v.

but

pi. II) is difficult to locate

Flemish original. Be that

fol.

D

may,

89

Li-

40 v. (Leroquais ed., pi. IV). For the corresponding miniature in the "Petites Heures," see p.

Magdeburger Domgymnasiums," Jahrbuch der Koniglich Preussischen Kunstsammlungen, 1908, p. 223

fol.

Morgan

1934, no. 55, pi. 51).

Bibliotheque Nationale,

Paris,

Acqu. 3055,

Bibliothek des

XXIX,

Psalter,

11 v.

woodcut showing the two saints in combination (Schreiber 1379 A; see A. Hagelstange, "Zwei unbeschriebene Holzschnitte aus der altarpiece.

French

vol.

v.

Acqu. 3055,

fol.

),

ed.,

most intimately

Baltimore, Walters Art Gallery, ms.

6.

Chris-

St.

Nouv.

Grand Seminaire,

a manuscript otherwise

Bibliotheque

Paris,

5.

lat.

(Leroquais

of St. Francis" in the thir-

{Morgan Catalogue,

brary, ms. 72

less" in Paris, the

1,2 121 119 topher with

fol. 95,

"Sermon

related to the Northeast

"Hours of John the Fear"Hours of Daniel Rym" in the Walters Art Gallery, two Books of Hours in the Morgan Library, and a Horae at Providence (cf. below, notes Ghent,

ms.

v.

frames appears to be a good old Flemish tradi-

tion. Cf. e.g., the

at

fig.

178

183). This disregard for the

lateral

in

1525.

Nationale,

130

enframed by a peculiar border, a scroll work of oak leaves coiled around a staff or pole, which in more recurs

Cf.

170.

Gandavo."

ligavit in

Ghent about

active at

pis.

omitted,

).

angeli et archangeli dei orate

sancti

are twofold. First, three of the eight miniatures are

often

use,

6

Walters Art Gallery, ms.

pro nobis. Joris de Gavere

14

147, fig. 39); but

assumption must remain conjectural.

"Omnes

reads:

Hours

of 131

The

Walters Catalogue, 1949, p. 47, no. 126. Roman use, Flemish Calendar. The inscription on the binding

1400 inserted

ca.

later

(with

identical with that of the

is

note 114

(cf.

Baltimore,

3.

Ghent prov-

inclined to assume

beginning of a somewhat

"Clowes Hours"

having

for

in litteris.

enance for the eight miniatures of at the

ff.

p. 5

d'Heures de Jean Sans Peur, p. 53, and Byvanck, "Kroniek der Noordnederlandsche Miniaturen, III").

fig. 21.

6.

Nouv.

2. Baltimore, Walters Art Gallery, ms. 166 (erroneously referred to as ms. 170 in Leroquais, Un Livre

Parkhurst, op.

in

lat.

,

Bibliotheque Nationale, Macon, 1943, bibliography).

an approximately con-

illustrated

ms.

Nationalc,

la

temporary manuscript formerly in the Pouiller-Ketele Collection

Bibliotheque

Paris,

1.

Acqu. 3055. See V. Leroquais, Un Livre d'Heures de Jean Sans Peur, Due de Bourgogne, Paris, 1939; Supplement aux Livres d'Heures manuscrits de

the Ypres school; see, in addition

"Rouen Hours"

the

the

e.g.,

Priest in Brocder-

Page 119

manu-

of ca. 1377 whereas the

closest

High

regard for perspective.

was executed for Henry VI about 1420, probably in France. Mr. Francis Wormald kindly informs me that it contains, on fols. 8—9 v., computistical tables with dates ranging from 1420 to 1462. It should be added that the figure of Richard II and its English have their

the

75) as containing

script

parallels

Anthony with

recogniz-

is

(compare,

types

figure

lam's "Presentation") and in the patterns of the pavements (especially fol. 9 v., for which see note 1 14 x ) though these are here depicted with a sovereign dis-

been practiced by an English panel painter of about dedication page of a Psalter in the British

the

in

thickset St.

seems probable for the Diptych," could have

than

both

able

405

28

(Leroquais

v.

178

v.

ed., pi. III).

(Leroquais

ed., pi.

XII).

NOTES Ibidem,

3.

89

fol.

v.

(Lcroquais

VI).

cd., pi.

Morgan ms. 439 is an approximately contemporary Book of Hours for Roman use (with West Flemish Calendar) in which dragon-

of the fifteenth century).

-re pp. 95, 105.

Walters Art Gallery, ms.

5.

Baltimore,

6.

See note 120

166,

fol.

rinceaux arc fairly ubiquitous. The heavy "oak leaf" border occurs on fol. 21 v. ("St. John the Baptist"), while the frame of the St. Christopher miniature, fol. 25 v., has overdeveloped corner quatrc-

and-lion l .

the article by L. Mirot, quoted in Lcroquais,

Supplement aux Livres d'Heures, Bibliotheque

Paris,

8.

p. 9.

Nationale,

ms.

Nouv.

lat.

less," fol.

160

—

light of the discussions centering

"The Quinity

wicz,

XXIX,

p.

1947,

ff.,

stead

of

merly

in

also in that at

(not

Walters Art Gallery, ms.

Baltimore,

Ibidem,

fol.

106

fol.

Cf. van Marie, op.

4.

Paris,

Bibliotheque

Acqu. 3055, fol. 195 an English parallel,

Bohun"

v.

IV,

cit.,

(Leroquais

ed., pi.

foliated).

Bibliotheque

Paris,

Nationale,

Acqu. 3055, Calendar and (Leroquais

ed., pis.

I, III,

fols.

28

ms. 172

v.,

204

v.,

of the

"Gold Scroll" family)

and is

a

fig. 20, as

Horae

for

Library, ms. 3

Census,

II,

p.

Buchmalerei,

311

p.

29

p.

Miniatuur,

91

p.

ff.;

,

F.

ff.;

Die

Lyna,

De

Thieme-Becker,

f.;

XXXVII,

p. 131. Of manuscripts in American collecwhich belong, more or less closely, to the Gilbert of Metz group the following may be mentioned: New York Public Library, ms. 28 (de Ricci-Wilson, Census,

tions

v.

XI, XVI).

of Humility," p. 450

Miniaturmalerei,"

Vlaamsche

York, Morgan Library, mss. 46 and 439 (de Ricci-Wilson, Census, II, p. 1374, no. 46 and p. 1449, no. 439). Ms. 46 (adduced by Meiss, "The Ma-

donna

Brown

Ricci-Wilson,

.

ischen

New

6.

de

3,

flamische

Nouv.

lat.

Cf.

in Flanders,

within an ecclesiastical interior. For the Master of Gilbert of Metz and his circle, Winkler, "Studien zur Geschichte der niederland-

see

{Burlington Fine Arts Club, Exhibition of Illuminated Manuscripts, 1908, pi. 102). 5.

it was produced Ghent, for English use.

9.

Edinburgh

the Advocates' Library of

in

in-

Madonna

Nouv. XIV). As

lat.

the "Psalter of Eleanor

e.g.,

cf.,

ms.

fol.

caut Master

p. 227, fig. 113.

Nationale,

Hours,"

See p. 59; note 59 2 The influence of the Bouciis also evident in the "St. George" and a

8.

v.

3.

Rym

with tessellation

and Walters Catalogue, 1949, under no. 125). Roman use, Flemish Calendar; as in the "Hours of John the Fearless," SS. Bavo, Amelberga and Pharahildis are honored in the Litanies.

v.

2.

of

166,

filled

Providence, John Carter

7.

.

"Daniel

ornament. Another manuscript forthe Arenberg Collection (no. 78) is akin to

presumably

Page 121 1.

in the

foliate

2144, no.

113

and

Art Bulletin, where, however, the actual

Dove has been overlooked.

presence of the

v.,

Morgan 46

E.

Winchester,"

of

73

around the concept

— see

89

only that they are

v.,

H. Kantoro-

"Immaculate Conception"

of

not unlike those in the "Hours of John the Fear-

foils

Acqu. 3055, fol. 195 v. (Leroquais, ed., pi. XIV). For the morphological background of the unorthodox "Quaternity" which must be interpreted in the

II, p. II,

p.

1319, no. 28);

Morgan

Library, ms. 82 (Census,

1381, no. 82, closely related to the former but

inferior in execution); Walters Art Gallery, mss. 263,

member Sarum use, a

270 and Suppl.

1

(Census,

220, 242, 193, respectively).

datable about 1430-1435 and evidently produced for

pp. 792, 795, 788, nos,

I,

The

little

Horae, Walters

export to England where ten miniatures and a great

ms. 211 (see note 89

number

which the Gilbert of Metz style interbreeds with that of the "Gold Scroll" family, while the Horae, Walters

of borders were added.

The

dragon-and-lion

Some

rinceaux occur only on text pages, passim.

of the

e.g., fols.

15

know

allels I

are, first, a

ouard Kann Collection tion

by

La

Boinet,

Kann,

the

late

Miss

v.,

Horae formerly

at Paris,

Belle

brought

1926, no.

XV,

my

pi.

position

Ed-

Page 122

M. Edouard

X, here published as

in the collection of the

Duke

1.

the Last

Judgment page ovcrpainted

fol.

60

in the last

v.

De Vlaamsche

Miniatuur,

p. 90.

The most

exhaustive study on the "Gold Scroll" group

of Aren-

in

and

nederlandsche Miniaturen,

406

found

"Kroniek der Noord-

,

II."

datable by external evidence

quarter

is

Byvanck, "Aanteekeningen over Handschriften met

Miniaturen, IX, and

of Their Highnesses the Dulles d'Arenberg, no. 68,

and coats-of-arms on

Cf. Winkler, Die flamische Buchmalerei, p. 25,

and Lyna,

berg (Illuminated Manuscripts from the Bibliotheque the donors' figures

I, p. 788, no. 194) hold an intermediary between the "Gold Scroll" family and the

(A.

"French, end of the fourteenth century"); second, a

Horae formerly

in

Ghent group.

atten-

da Costa Greene

Collection de Miniatures de

Paris,

in the

to

one of the manuscripts

169 (Census,

ornament. The only par-

tessellation instead of vegetal

is

ms. 172 (Census, I, p. 788, no. 195) with its fanciful corner quatrefoils and possibly the Horae, Walters ms.

47 v., 85 v., show the rare peculiarity that the border decor consists of

Flemish miniatures,

*)

is

The

only manuscript

the

"Duarte Hours"

NOTES in the

National Archives

tions

Societe Francaise de Reproductions de Manuscrits a

Peintures,

XIV,

XX, XXI. The

1930, p. 16, pis.

have to be dated on

(miniatures nos. 44, 48, 36 according to James, respecMuseum, ms. Harley 2784, fol. 84 v.,

the

The Hague, 1415-1420) Royal Library, ms. 131 D 14 (see note 118 8 ); Morgan Library, ms. 76 (see note 114 3 ) and Morgan Library, examples

earliest

tively); British

are:

(ca.

Henry

of

others

Among

grounds.

stylistic

etc.

;

Kuhn,

be contemporary with the "Duarte

pp. 794 and 792, nos. 237 Newberry Library, part of the I,

opinion,

would seem

London, Kuhn, op.

3.

British

Museum, ms. Add.

5.

Personal

rather

than

Dead" because Universal

the

The Hague, Royal Library, ms. Morgan Library, ms. 19, fol.

Bibliotheque Royale, ms.

10776,

Bibliotheque Nationale, ms.

lat.

fol.

fol.

no. 11 according to James. After the motif

introduced

English

into

illumination

by

1.

Saints (British

fol.

101

v.,

tioned by 23),

it

e.g., in

and Add. 182 13,

Kuhn,

p.

frequently the

Museum,

"Hours

mss. Royal 2 fol.

125

v.,

in

borrowings from the Master of Flemalle

may

be mentioned the

Two

Mid-

41

and

v.,

Brussels, Bibliotheque Royale, ms.

landischen Miniaturmalerei," p. 310 and p. 312,

fig.

27); as indirect ones (through the Bedford workshop,

represented

as

woman

by Walters,

v.;

ms.

seen from the back in

Christ: Walters, ms. 263,

and ms. 211,

fol.

147

fol.

the

97)

of

62; ms. 270, fol. 59 v.;

fol.

v. (cf.

281,

the Presentation

the Master of Flemalle's

"Betrothal of the Virgin" in the Prado). 2.

dans pi.

VIII,

Cf., e.g., les

XI,

A.

J.

J.

Delen, Histoire de

anciens Pays-Bas. 2.

la

gravure

Paris,

1924-1935, I, For some early woodcuts the borders of

which imitate those

both men-

Queene"

fol.

1,

.

.

,

of miniatures,

and one of which

even boasts a tessellated background, see M. Weinberger,

fig.

Die Formschnitte des Katharinenklosters zu

Niirnberg, Munich, 1925,

English manuscripts,

of Elizabeth ye

direct

9016 (Winkler, "Studien zur Geschichte der nieder-

Herman

143; the latter illustrated in

recurred

cit.,

wives in the Nativity: Walters Art Gallery, ms. Suppl.

had been

A

As

(Dijon "Nativity")

Scheerre and his collaborator, the Master of the Beaufort

corresponding

Page 123

Paris,

126

the

fol.

miniature

81,

with

9) and in the Krakow manuscript referred to in note 122 1 (our fig. 194).

14, fol.

v.;

common

in

fig.

Brussels,

112

13264,

Cambridge, Fitzwilliam Museum, ms.

D

131

140;

much

miniatures in the "Beaufort Hours" (Kuhn, op.

Commendatio animarum is a special to the Vigils of the Dead which consists of Psalms CXVIII and CXXXVIII, Antiphon and Collect. Of specimens in "Gold Scroll" manuscripts may be men101;

Bruges, Grand Seminaire, vol. 72/175 (kindly to my attention by Dr. Harry Bober). The

equally

Judgment; the service appended

tioned:

exem-

George miniature on fol. 52 v. (fig. 195) surrounded by an architectural frame and showing the hindquarters of the horse concealed by a rock, has

refers to the

it

to the tradition

St.

sentation which, however, should not be referred to as

the "Resurrection of the

most cases kept

in

it

of another Continental

brought

ms.

16698,

work

to be the

by the "Rouen Hours" almost as closely as did the illuminator of the "Cambridge Hours."

p. 143, discusses this type of repre-

cit.,

intimately related to the Master of the

plified

324348 (Census, I, p. 536, no. 324348). 2. Cambridge, Fitzwilliam Museum, ms. 49, miniature no. 19 according to James' numeration. 44.

who

artist

1368,

in

less

Beaufort Saints. Indubitably executed in England,

and 246 (Cenand 225); Chicago, miniatures

rightly ascribes to the post-English

Musee Plantin-Moretus at Antwerp (ms. Kuhn, figs. 27-29) and, with some reservation, two Books of Hours preserved at Paris (Bibliotheque de l'Arsenal, ms. 565) and Arras (Bibliotheque Municipal, ms. 513). The Horae in the British Museum, ms. Royal 2 A VIII (Kuhn, p. 142 f., fig. 30) is, in my

no. 19); Walters Art Gallery, mss. 173 sus,

Kuhn

192,

Hours" whereas such manuscripts as AschafTenburg, Hofbibliothek, mss. 3 and 7, Walters Art Gallery, mss. 169 and 259, and The Hague, Royal Library, ms. 76 F 25 would seem to hold an intermediary position between the "Duarte Hours" and the early group. The number of manuscripts in the "Gold Scroll" style is legion, and of manuscripts in American collections not mentioned by Byvanck may be added: Morgan Lip.

18213. Cf.

143, figs. 22, 23. In addition to this

Missal in the

note 99 4 and Bulletin de la Societe Francaise de Reproductions de Manuscrits a Peintures, XVIII, 1934,

II,

Museum, ms. Add.

British

cit., p.

period of the Master of the Beaufort Saints a fine

The Hague, Museum Meermanno-Westreenianum, ms. 10 E 2. The Gold Scroll miniatures in the Horae, Krakow, Czartoryski Museum, ms. 2943 (see

brary, ms. 19 (de Ricci-Wilson, Census,

op.

manuscript,

phase (ca. 1435-1440) is represented by such manuscripts as Brussels, Bibliotheque Royale, ms. 9798 or

XV) may

London,

4.

ms. 374, a Missal executed, not for Trent but, as ascertained by Miss Meta Harrsen, for Genoa. The latest

p. 68, pi.

:

from One Hundred Manuscripts in the Library Yates Thompson, London, 1914, pi. LXVIII); Cambridge, Fitzwilliam Museum, mss. 51, 53, 54

Lisbon; see Bulletin de la

at

3

120 -123

(Illustra-

3.

407

pis. 2, 4, 5, 6.

Schreiber 1349; very frequendy illustrated,

e.g.,

NOTES Michel, Histoire de

I'art, III, I, fig.

179; Dclcn, op.

dominus, justum judicium"; and: "Surgite mortui, venite ad judicium, manifestabuntur secreta cor-

cit.,

VIII.

pi.

dium");

Cf. Martens, op.

1.

Stange, op.

cit., III. fig.

cit.,

p. 135

in half-length cit.,

owned by

243 by

Pass.

Meckenem

van

Israel

"Imago

Pietatis," fig. 34).

Page 12$

Pietatis," fig. 38. Gerini's

the Earl of

Crawford and Metro-

Museum.

1.

See

2.

Cf. Martens, op.

p. 46;

trated also in

London, British Museum, Schreiber 864; Campbell Dodgson, Woodcuts of the Fifteenth Century in the British Museum, London, 1934, no. 109, pi. XXX.

M. Weinberger, "An Early Woodcut

of the

note 46

many

s .

cit.,

cit.,

XXIV

151, pi.

p.

other works,

47 and Stange, op.

fig.

4.

Cf.

2982, fol. 53, the Man of Sorrows completed into a standing figure as in

Burlington Magazine, XLI, 1922,

in

Balcarres, has recently been acquired by the

politan

engraving

the

passim; Panofsky,

is

(illustrated in Panofsky,

and Panofsky, "Imago

picture, formerly

143 v. In the English Horae, British

1, fol.

Museum, ms. Harley

XLYIII-L;

Pietatis," passim.

Illustrated

3.

p. 156,

pis.

rl.,

12.

Ct. von der Ostcn, op.

2.

"Imago

a nearly identical representation in Walters,

ms. Suppl.

Page 124

e.g.,

(illus-

Glaser, op.

cit.,

Miss Martens,

Ill, fig. 5).

note 296, lists a few exceptional Nativities from which the St. Joseph is absent, to which may be added (apart from the miniatures in the "Codex Gisle" and cod. Vind. 1774, mentioned in note 46 3 ): p. 250,

Man

of Sorrows at the Art Institute, Chicago," Gazette des ser. 6, XXXIX, 1946, p. 347 ff., fig. 5. Weinberger, ibidem, pp. 352, note 13, and 358. Weinberger, denying that the type of the Man of

a

Sorrows showing His wounds

Buonaguida type; Michael Pacher's "Nativity" at St. Wolfgang (Glaser, op. cit., fig. 175); and a miniature

Beaux-Arts,

— whether exposing the

e.g., in

Library, ms. 106,

fol.

10

"Paten of

St.

Bernward"

R. Schmidt, and G. Swarzenski,

Frankfort,

the Gothic style

figures of the Judge

ward" unequivocally

— that

in the

inscribed:

vos moriendo redemi"

— that

"Hue

2).

cave motif had

(cf., e.g.,

Italian

the examples in

Die

159, 225, 251, 273, 483, 496, 532, 716, 747, 750,

lateinischen

Cf. Stange, op.

4.

illuminierten

Handschriften,

cit., Ill, figs.

271 and 262.

—

indigenous tradition

the

It

should

viz.,

under

— the

in

considerably

less

fantastic

form;

see,

piece

not occur until the fourteenth century.

Petrus Christus' Berlin "Nativity" of 1452

cit.,

fig.

95. Cf. Panofsky,

"Imago

New

and p. 305, note 97. York, Morgan Library, ms. 46 (see note

121 8 ), fol. 99 v. (the scrolls of the trumpeting angels

inscribed:

"Unicuique

juxta

opera

largitur.

from Roermond

(p. 311;

Pietatis," fig. 32 7.

e.g.,

"Nativity" and "Adoration of the Magi" in the

vulnerum could be most easily transferred to representations of the Man of Sorrows where it does Martens, op.

upon

cave-and-shed combi-

nation also occurs in Netherlandish painting, though

spectate viri, sic

the motif of the osten-

tatio

6.

entirely

the impact of the Italianate "St. Bridget type"

Bern-

of

H. Swarzen-

figs.

be noted that under similar conditions

these isolated St.

fig.

p. 46, the

(Panofsky,

41

fol.

ski,

O. von Falke,

"Paten of

647,

797, 1024, 1043); but this vogue had been eclipsed by the ensuing development.

Der Welfenschatz,

was from

1930, pi. 71). It

ms.

— not through but through Byzantine sources — before the advent

of the second half

of the twelfth century, illustrated in

l'Arsenal,

As mentioned above,

3.

of

stressed,

is

been introduced to the North

Catalogue, 1934, no. 50, pi. 46) or entirely omitted (as in numerous book illuminations and, above all, in the so-called

where the idea

"Reintegration of a Book of Hours,"

Morgan

v.,

v.

the marginal miniatures in the Horae, Bibli-

otheque de

even characteristic of those representations

Morgan

63

fol.

present in representations

adoration rather than the historical event

Christ the

Psalter,

is

of the Nativity proper but omitted

Judge in which the Resurrected are either reduced to insignificance (as in the Flemish of

di

fig.

Rohan workshop he

the

is

is

27) which

loc. cit., fig.

73) where the St. Joseph seems to have been omitted by sheer inadvertence. In the productions of

(our

wounds." However, this very action, ostentatio vulnerum, is originally an exclusive feature of the Last Judgment, documented as early as the fourth century and persisting throughout the Middle Ages (though artists often, but by no means typically, replaced it by the assymmetrical gestures of blessing and condemnaIt

VII (Kletzl,

Horae, Walters Art Gallery, ms. 260,

in the

— assumes that the Last Judgment, "the identity of posture caused by that of action — the showing of

A

however, a mere abridgment of the Pacino

is,

palm of one hand and placing the other at the wound in His side, or raising both hands symmetrically with is influenced by palms turned toward the beholder

tion).

miniature in the Bohemian Missal, Zittau, Stadt-

bibliothek, ms.

5.

19

Justus

Amsterdam

(see p. 104) or at

Berlin

409).

5.

See p. 46.

6.

Paris.

Bibliotheque Nationale, ms.

(de Laborde, Etude sur

743)-

408

fig.

in

the

altar-

la

166,

fol.

Bible Moralisee,

fig.

fr.

NOTES The Hague, Royal

7.

note 122

Library, ms. 131

D

3

123 -127

Protevangelium Jacobi, XIX, XX (only Salome 3. named); Pseudo-Matthew, XIII (Salome and Zclomi); Golden Legend, chapter De Nativitate (Salome and Zebel). In all these versions Salome is the name of the doubting midwife. But owing to a widespread confusion with St. Mary Salome it was generally trans-

(see

14

*), fol. 42.

Page 126 1. The following instances may be mentioned: The Hague, Royal Library, ms. 76 F 25, fol. 53 (for

the

manuscript

Oudheidkundig

see

itself,

ferred to the believing one.

Jaarboel^,

X, 1930, p. 104 ff., fig. 6); Baltimore, Walters Art Gallery, ms. 173 (sec note 122 *), fol. 44, and ms. 121 9 ),

note

(see

fol.

New

33;

York,

National

very

Museum, ms. Harley but

indistinct

2846,

recognizable);

definitely

Bum, Kottbus), Horae

by the Arenberg Master,

28

XLII,

Sept., pi.

fol.

v.

x

The

3.

few instances

(see

filled the

motif of

specific

obscuring a natural

description

Philostratus'

Birth of Dionysus {Imagines,

source

manner

illumination seems to be derived, in a

be explained, from

14; cf.

I,

still

of

ser. 4,

to

Nabur Martins ou the

D. Panofsky,

Bacchus and Byzantine cave,

may

art;

between

connections

the

Nativity

4.

The

first

alternative

— the

Child

5.

A

— by

at Pisa

the

(our

minister-

one of wonderment (H. B. Wehle and M.

sammlung

second —

38).

in

Basel,

to St. Bridget,

5.

Museum, ms. 141; XLIV, fig. 128. As one of the French examples may be mentioned the "AnnunCambridge,

rare

ciation" in the

Fitzwillian

Sept., pi.

"Hours

tionalbibliothek, ms.

(H.

Beschreibendes Verzeichnis, VIII, VII, 2.

Robb, op.

cit., fig.

J.

Ganz,

Munich, 1924,

pref.,

Rouen Horae

Newberry Library

of ca. 1450,

Chicago (ms.

at

Mary and St. Joseph. unusual French miniature (which

is

not without exceptions.

sisting St. Joseph

NaHermann,

3, pi.

An

erally true,

of Charles VI," Vienna,

1855, fol- 2 5

Cata-

I

have

Gheon, Noel, Noel, Paris, 1935, p. 18). It should be added that the rule (Male, L 'Art religieux de la fin du moyen age en France, 2nd ed., 1922, p. 34) according to which the midwives do not appear in Northern art until the end of the fourteenth century, while gen-

Page I2j 1.

A

been unable to identify) showing Salome in adoration of the Christ Child is, however, illustrated in H.

was given by de Tolnay, Le Maitre de Flemalle, p. 14; the St. Bridget passage was duly stressed by Meiss, "Light as Form and Symbol," p. 176, note 2.

Byvanck, Min.

P.

31); and a miniature in a

the Virgin

symbolic interpretation of the candle in the

Dijon "Nativity," but without reference

of Art,

23845, de Ricci-Wilson, Census, I, p. 527, not foliated), where Salome is shown kneeling in the center between

anonymous panel

fig.

now

logue of Early Flemish, Dutch and German Paintings, New York, 1947, p. 166); a Swiss picture at Kunstder Oeffentlichen Basel (Meisterwerfe

exemplified by

of Art (Johnson Collection), the

Joseph

other

The Metropolitan Museum

Museum

St.

the

Salinger,

preserved in the

Museo Civico

Berlin,

Collection and

tion into

p.

in the

Goldman

Petrus Christus but reinterpreting the gesture of adora-

Niccolo di Tommaso's triptych in the Pennsylvania candle held by

"Nativities," one in

at

in

nymphs

is

two

Museum

Kaiser Friedrich

of

candle on a shelf of

—

Ecole meconnue;

Birth

ing to the infant Dionysus.

rock in the interior of the cave

Une

especially

to the Christ

well be the descendants of the

,

Maitre de Flemalle, Brussels and

in the possession of

both scenes are staged in or before a

and the midwives attending

Nabur

Mr. Georges Wildenstein at New York (our figs. 409, 411); a Rhenish picture in the Museum apparently derived from Metropolitan

the

Christ,

of

ff.;

le

formerly in the Henry

Fogg Museum,"' Art Bulletin, XXXI, 112 ff.). It would seem that there are direct

1949, p.

p. 53

Paris, 1913); Petrus Christus'

the

in the

representational

X, 1913,

of

"Narcissus and Echo; Notes on Poussin's Birth of

Bacchus

in

St.

There should be added, however, a which Salome alone is shown in

Martins (L. Maeterlinck, "Le 'Maitre de Flemalle' et l'ecole gantoise primitive," Gazette des Beaux-Arts,

stressed in the

its

the midwives approaching the

the Vieille Boucherie at Ghent, asscribed to

cave

Apocrypha (PseudoMatthew, XIII; Arabic Infancy Gospels, III). But the is

Davies,

Netherlandish

adoration of the Infant Jesus: the "Nativity" of 1448 in

139 supernatural radiance which

of the Nativity

\ but show

Bridget, a lantern.

ms. 211

M.

in

Early

further amplification of the motif introduced by

(Byvanck, Min.

v.

), fol.

instances

scene or quietly standing by, Salome often carrying, in

120, our fig. 127).

fig.

Baltimore, Walters Art Gallery,

2.

note 89

note 123

Private

Collection (formerly Dr. Alfred

of

Catalogues,

the Dijon "Nativity" and the miniatures referred to in

77 (cave

fol.

collection

Gallery

School, London, 1945, p. 38. All of these, however, do not really tell the story of the withered hand as does

Public

Library, ms. 28 (see above, ibidem), not foliated; Lon-

don, British

the

Cf.

4.

ser. 3,

172

:

in the

XLV).

in

Hohenfurth

cit., I, fig.

409

midwife,

as-

altarpiece of ca. 1350 (Stange, op.

179; Glaser, op.

preparing the bath

28.

A

bathing the Infant, already occurs

is

cit., fig.

found,

at

7);

and a midwife

an even more surpris-

NOTES ingly early date, in the "Psalter of Yolande de Sois-

Morgan

sons" in the

Library, ms. 729,

246

17;

1270— 1280, the same manuscript that also anticipates

the

King

the motif of the eldest

v.,

kissing the Christ Child's

Adoration of the Magi (see note 23 2 ). A midwife testing the bath water as later in Paris,

—

Les

(Leroquais,

d'Heures,

Litres

A,

1156

lat.,

fol.

XLIV)

pi.

48

—

in the

drei 7.

op.

germ.

H. Degering, Des Priesters Wernher Lieder von der Magd, Berlin, 1925, p. 168—172. Munich, Staatsbibliothek, elm. 14045. Cf. Stange,

cit.,

II,

175, fig. 232.

p.

was Paul Cruger, Sanpere

8.

Walters Catalogue, 1949, no. 204, the type of Walters, ms. 170, fol. 172

pi. v.,

de

cit., I,

Robb, op.

13.

Page

name

illuminator's

also called Polener

Miquel, op.

i

The

Silesia.

p. 273, fig. 99.

Page 128

Van

2.

Ibidem,

3.

The

2

2.

That the Crucifixion with the Virgin and

ff.,

especially p. 68

f.

"The Madonna of Humility," p. 449 (from Morgan Library, ms. 88, a Book of

See Meiss, 18

fig.

Hours

for the use of

Cf.,

4.

e.g.,

16998 (by Cf.,

5.

Hours,"

Herman e.g.,

fol.

12

Metz).

London,

Scheerre),

our

For a Trecento

6.

fig.

Museum

fol. 65,

dedication

the v.,

British

our

ms. Add.

in Meiss,

nearest approach to an exception

of

Michel, Histoire de Yart, op.

cit., I, pi.

Humility

a

in

of

in

10.

cit.,

Saints, all seated

660,

and Magdalen

e.g.,

Ibidem,

fig. 10.

8.

Ibidem,

p. 490,

9.

For the Brenken

fol. 25.

note 41. altarpiece

and

its

relation to a

Boston

fig.

Glaser, op.

cit.,

incline to think that the Italian

fourteenth-century

in

German work depends

model rather than

vice versa.

For the

(also transmitted

[Meister der Graphik, II], 2nd ed. Leipzig, 1923,

more

XV.

pi.

particularly,

Jahrhunderts

Jahrbuch der Preussischen Kunstsammlungen, XLIX, 1928, p. 187 ff., fig. 8. Since Miss who rightly refuses to ascribe the WinterFutterer

im

art

Elsass,"

—

thur "Annunciation" to the same hand as the famous

Strasbourg fig.

I

33), see Robb, op. cit., fig. 36; and, I. Futterer, "Zur Malerei des friihen

on the

German

at

view of the general trend

through an engraving by the Master of the Nurem-

68).

See, e.g., Paris, Bibliotheque de l'Arsenal, ms.

fol.

7.

ms. 1364,

berg Passion, illustrated in M. Geisberg, Die Anfdnge des deutschen Kupferstichs und der Meister E. S.

throughout the fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries. 9. Suffice it to mention Conrad Witz's well-known (frequently illustrated,

the

cit., fig. 9.

picture in the Reinhart Collection

e.g.,

337, fig. 180; Delen,

Netherlandish and

picture of SS. Catherine

Robb, op.

on an

illustrated,

illustrated, e.g., Glaser, op.

Our Lady amidst Virgin

lat.

of

posture

ms.

halfway between the "humility pose"

is

Paris, Bibliotheque Nationale,

art

59 (with erroneous caption); Winkler, Altdeutsche Tajelmalerei, pp. 50-53; Hartlaub, op. cit. The type

ground, persisted

however, the

6.

in

of Art illustrated

of Humility," fig. 21.

III, 1, p.

where,

115

5.

in the

V.

Frequently

8.

Museum

frequently

1160;

in the

is

Paris, Bibliotheque Nationale,

stable,

Madonna

"The Madonna

Schreiber

7.

158.

Museum of Fine Arts, see W. G. Con"A Florentine Annunciation," Bulletin of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, XLIII, 1945, p. 72 ff.;

page of the "Rouen

154.

domestic setting, however rudimentary, see the Sienese panel in the Pennsylvania

fig.

234,

composition transmitted by Bicci di Lorenzo's panel

172.

fig.

cit., II, p.

p. 519, fig. 333.

and normal sitting and her dignity is stressed by an enormous canopy. 4. Robb, op. cit., fig. 27; Geisbcrg, Meister Konrad von Soest, pis. 2 and 46; Steinbart, Konrad von Soest, pis. 8 and 53.

St.

Trecento has been demonstrated by D. C. Shorr, "The Mourning Virgin and St. John," Art Bulletin, XXII, 1940, p. 61

18851,

Museum

cit., fig. 7.

Marie, op.

Annunciate

.

John seated on the ground beneath the Cross instead of standing beside it is also an innovation of the Italian

ff.,

fol.

924,

Cf. again note 23

3.

Museum, ms. Add.

12

II,

pis.

monographs with

plates but different texts

identical

2.

40

Weyden,

Museum,

Rogier

van

ff.,

3. 1,

have been published in Engder

Ueberwasscr,

The

112

f.

of

the

20,

58;

van

reputation and

composition

Magdalen,

at-

is

in the guise of

"Hours of Isabclle of Britand 1442 (Pacht, "Jean

p. figs.

a

460

XIV,

I;

Musper,

56;

Nachtrag,

pi.

XI;

Beenken, Rogier,

p.

34, 37. p.

Destree,

58;

fig.

p. 88).

88,

p.

166 pis.

Musper,

Friedlander,

II,

p.

13-17; Renders,

II,

pis.

f.,

figs.

74,

75;

91,

no.

2,

23,

Beenken, Rogier,

31-33. Cf. Wehle and Salinger, op. cit., drawing of the head of St. Joseph, probably workshop pattern of excellent quality rather than

p. 41

London, 1945) and French (E. Michel, Rogier van

63;

Winkler,

pi.

45—47,

p.

Study of His Style,"

Friedlander,

Schone,

color

Paintings from the Escorial and the Prado

A

Fouquet:

41,

53;

have shown the Resurrection and the Four

Two

pis.

tany," executed between 1433

92, no. 3,

Schone, pp. 65, 67; Musper, figs. 55, 57; van Puyvelde, Primitives, pi. 33; Beenken, Rogier, p. 45 ff., figs. 40-44. The lost wings are 43-45. 49» 5°> 5 2

95, no. 12, pi.

II, p.

II,

46; Beenken, Rogier, p. 31,

tested by the fact that the

1.

(W.

Renders, pi.

Netherlandish School,

2.

lish

Friedlander,

125;

Cf. Davies, National Gallery Catalogues, Early

fig. 15.

Evangelists.

p. 169;

pi.

Puyvelde, Primitives,

p.

See p. 96.

to

Friedlander,

J.

Hulin de Loo, Biographie Nationale, XXVII,

1.

Page 256

said

M.

353 #•

comparatively

pis.

64.

the one hand, the "Virgin in

f.

3.

50.

Page 258

Page 255

2.

pi.

col. 242.

stable, op. cit.

Eyck,"

II,

P-

p.

Parish

Porciano,

their connection with the

piece, see note

De

Renders,

Baltimore, Walters Art Gallery; Flor-

Arcangelo

Church) and

1.

Illustrated, e.g., Destree, pi. Cf., e.g.,

4.

Museum

Lorenzo (Boston,

1.

2.

"Flemalle-Meister-Dammerung," Pantheon, VIII, 1931,

Martino), see

S.

Fra Angelico da Fiesole (Klassiker

For those bv Bicci

221.

187

fig.

der Kunst, XVIII), Stuttgart and Leipzig, 191

83

Page 257

For Masolino's "Annunciation" (formerly Henry

5.

Goldman

connection with a special case of this kind,

in

see R. A.

30

ff.,

ff.

figs.

A

NOTES an original,

Ashmolean Museum

in the

is

at

,

253 -260

Oxford

the

triptych

XIX; F. Winkler, "An Attribution to Roger van der Weyden," Old Master Drawings, X,

Philip

no.

1935, p.

presented

altarpicce,

Granada Cathedral by

to

dismembered

barbarically

in

of

The

1632.

1492,

were cut down

tation

of a reliquary

Isa-

ordered

by

Termonde and Byloke

(see

f.).

was Page 260

Lamen-

The

1.

inscriptions

— that

New

on the

York "Ap-

pearance" considerably garbled in Wehle and Salinger

at the top to serve as shutters

— were

preserved in the Capilla Real; the

still

78

p.

"edition");

first

altarpieccs

understanding that they should exactly dupli-

cate those furnished for

panels show-

ing the Adoration of the Infant Jesus and the

two

the

Bold from Jacques de Baerzc with the

the

explicit

The "Granada"

p. 98).

Catholic after the conquest

the

bella

Hcenken, Rogier,

fL;

1

the second rather than the

is

we may remember

pi.

93,

alternative (with the proviso that the Berlin

first

K. T. Parker, Catalogue of the Collection of Drawings in the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, 1938, (see

:

phrased on the basis of Scriptural texts men-

tioning the bestowal of crowns but having no spe-

"Appearance of Christ to His Mother," fortunately unmutilated and in better condition also in other respects, has found its way into the Metropolitan Mu-

the tense

seum. The "Miraflores" altarpiece, very

progression of tenses from future to present and from

(each panel 71 cm.),

by 43 cm.

well preserved,

is

information about

as

against possess

Don Antonio

the excellent

by 38.1

63.5

was changed

present to preterit.

more detailed Viaje de Espana (1783)

In his

it.

slightly larger

and we

reference to the Virgin Mary, and in one case

cific

With

into a continuous

fit

abbreviations expanded and

modernized, the three

punctuation

the

so as to

inscriptions

are here juxtaposed with their sources.

Ponz, carefully distinguish-

Adoration of the Infant Jesus:

ing between firsthand evidence and hearsay, reprints a Latin

document according

to

"Mulier hec

which the triptych was

King Juan to

II in

Martin

V

was "believed" from Pope reprinted in Win-

1445 and adds that

have been received by the

Colonna (Ponz's

kler, p. 166, note 3). Since

is

Martin

V

himself — must

Ponz

suspected by

quern,

now

faced

with three

be dismissed.

whether

now

The

New

York

Either,

we

made by

alternatives

no

is

by

altarpiece

a copy, also

is

has

after

Isabella,

never

been

dabo

et

coronam

tibi

10).

II,

Appearance

Christ's

His Mother:

to

"Mulier hec perseuerauit vincens omnia; ei

is

Ex Apoc. VI

corona.

"Et data

a copy,

est ei

to the rider

[scil.,

ideo

data est

capitulo."

on the white horse]

corona, et exivit vincens ut vinceret" (Revelation VI, a).

presumably

For the analogously derived inscriptions in the Chevrot triptych, see note 283 2

the

considered

by

the

indeed most improbable from a

less difficult to substantiate;

"Appearance," recently cleaned,

when

.

For a detailed description of the scenes in the archevaults of the "Appearance," see Wehle and Sal2.

inger, op.

ex-

to the

United

States,

no

stylistic

stylistic

zeichnis

I

32;

for the

two other

panels, see

der Gemalde im

Ver-

Kaiser-Friedrich-Museum,

1, p. 478 f. It should be noted, however, that the second scene in the left-hand ar-

chevault of the "Lamentation"

latter's

as

and technical

am, therefore, inclined

p.

7th ed., Berlin, 191

New

"Mary with

Two

— here described — can be

Apostles"

with an event depicted by Roger

differences indicative of an interval of ca. fifty years

could be discovered.

cit.,

Konigliche Museen zu Berlin; Beschreibendes

York could be compared the

with the Berlin triptych on the occasion of the visit

datur

capitulo."

usque ad mortem,

(Revelation

are

point of view. But the third, preferred by Winkler, is

11°

Granada-

the

Granada-New York altarpiece, in which case the Queen would have transferred the original from Miraflores to Granada and left the copy as a substitute. The second of these commissioned

and

Ex Apoc.

order of Isabella, after the Berlin altarpiece.

Or, the Berlin altarpiece

perts

fuit fidelissima in Christi dolore; ideo

vitae.

"Esto fidelis

and the Berlin altarpiece are both produced in Roger's work-

Granada-New York

corona

vitae"

shop and not separated by an appreciable interval of time. Or, the

pro-

James,

this

altarpiece

genuine duplicates,

(Epistle

12).

"Mulier hec ei

divided be-

at Berlin, or to both; for,

possibilities.

cum of

vitae"

Lamentation of Christ:

tween the Capilla Real and the Metropolitan Museum, to the altarpiece

"Beatus vir qui suffert tentationem; quoniam

— apparently

being

question

only

the

terminus applies to the altarpiece

ab omni labe; ideo

I°."

batus fuerit, accipiet coronam I,

date 1445. however, stands and furnishes a terminus

ante

Jac.

died as early as

second piece of information

1431, this

Ex

vitae.

it

latter as a gift

text

munda

fuit probatissima,

coronam

accipiet

given to the Convent of Miraflores (near Burgos) by

vases described by Fazio (see note 2

Receiving the

to accept

461

News

only

identified

in the 7

Naples can-

), viz.,

of Christ's Arrest.

the Virgin

NOTES Page 261 In

1.

mande Nativity relief

the

group on the left) thumbs are crossed as

panel,

(first

vault

this gesture

the

in the Bladelin

and, later on, in

altarpieccs

arche-

first

varied in that

is

and Columba Dresden altar-

Diirer's

Cf.,

Speculum humanae

e.g..

(Lutz and Perdrizet, op. Panofsky,

See

3.

Hours." 4.

— none

cit.,

pis. 49,

Jerome,

which

of

St.

of

Book

a

of

known

lander,

The

restored the

Body

Bottenwieser's in Berlin (Destree,

is

can

antedate

possibly

—

the

(Winkler,

writer

this

to

pi.

Fried-

170;

p.

XVII; Destree,

pi.

85).

84;

f.;

Musee Royal

Musper,

Friedlander,

Musper,

87;

fig.

52;

fig.

our

fig.

at

E. Michel, Rogier van der after the Berlin or

Prado

1.

Weyden,

A number

Weyden,

2).

pi.

pi.

A

listed

is

triptych,

known

ascribed as

to

in the possession of

2;

2.

3.

II,

Austrian

itinerant

in that the legs are slightly

hip and both arms freed from the

more noteworthy

Louvre, Louvre,

cf.

p.

317)

illustrated,

torso;

master

e.g.,

in

E.

VI

fig. 3.

Durrieu, Les Tres-Belles Heures,

"Lamentations" See,

II,

e.g.,

the

p. 281, fig.

(Sanpere

i

vier-

"The de Buz Book

,

the

in

retables

at

"Petites

pi.

XXIV. For

Heures"

and

in

the

Musee

des

Arts

A

History of Spanish Paint172), in the Abella de la Conca

Miquel, op.

Lady's Church

of

see pp. 44, 50.

cit.,

II,

fig.

15),

Manresa (G. Richert,

and

in

Our

Mittelalterliche

Malerei in Spanien, Berlin, 1925, fig. 39. wrongly connected with St. Bridget by G. G. King, "Iconograph-

Notes on the Passion," Art Bulletin, XVI, 1934, ff.). For the passage from St. Ambrose {De

ical

p.

290

14), see Patrologia Latina,

III,

well-known

bent

at the

to

It

is

a

His Mother

is

fact that Christ's

XVI,

col.

Appearance

not authenticated in the Bible;

was, however, accepted

all

(Paris,

p.

18

ff.,

1

a.

283.

(Paris,

Quentin

particularly

illustrated in fig.

29.

11;

9,

virginitate,

Massys

both

and

pi.

some-

Dire Bouts

that

pi.

ing,

replicas

is

is

Die deutsche Plasti\ des

is

it

the excellent para-

Panofsky, "Reintegration of a Book of

Cf., e.g.,

Hours,"

5.

.,

and

p.

1933, p. 372,

Decoratifs at Paris (Post,

York (G. Ring, "An Austrian Triptych," XXVI, 1944, p. 51 f.; Holbein and His October Contemporaries; A Loan Exhibition 22-Dec ember 24, 1950, The John Herron Art Mu-

seum, Indianapolis, Ind., no. 53). In all these and variations the posture of the dead Christ

XXVII,

"Grandes Heures,"

New

.

3,

Cf., e.g., Pinder,

figs.

4.

Mr. and Mrs. Clarence Y. Palitz

.

cf.

Meiss, "Italian Primitives at Konopiste,"

Hours,"

the

60) and the central panel of a

the

M.

in

zehnten Jahrhunderts,

Art Bulletin,

what softened

and Ambrogio Lorenzetti,

pseudo-F esperbild,

and, in a somewhat larger reproduction, in Bollettino

Master of the Krainburg Altarpiece,

the

this Italian

tini

d'Arte, ser.

of later variations

p. 51, fig.

fT.).

probable origin in the Siena of Simone Mar-

Art Bulletin, XXVIII, 1946, 8 ff.; Cecco di Pietro's panel

copy

by Friedlander,

For the genesis of its

graphs

no. 20 d; Destree,

II,

150

p.

and

replica, preserved in a private

Naples (?)

(Musper.

however, Friedlander,

cf.,

Page 262

on the Brussels version (with the Magdalen) may be grouped around the "Lamentation" by Gerard David in the Pennsylvania Museum of Art (Friedlander, VI, pi. LXX), e.g., a picture in the van Ittersum collection at Amsterc.

190;

Geburtstage, Vienna, 1927,

top after the fashion of the early

at the

86; Ueberwasser, Rogier van der

no. 20

fig.

390); the

61); finally, a "Pieta" in

sixteenth century (Friedlander,

collection at

by

History of Spanish Paint-

drawing of the dead Christ (K. Frey, Die Handzeichnungen Michelagniolos Buonarroti, Berlin 1909-1911, no. 21; A. E. Brinckmann, Michelangelo Zeichnungen, Munich, 1925, pi. 23; E. Panofsky, "Die Pieta von Ubeda," Festschrift fur Julius Schlosser zum 60.

the Prado perfectly identical with the Berlin picture

but cut round

influence

compare Willem Key's well-known Munich (Winkler, Die altniederlandische

Malerei, p. 320,

fig. 330) in the Kaiser Friedrich Museum (Winkler, p. 88; Friedlander, II, no. 20 b;

pi.

The

exemplified

is

We may

"Pieta" at

du Hainaut, Destree,

A

(Post,

457).

Spain

88)

van der Goes

ing, IV, p. 99, fig. 18).

no. 20 a;

II,

and a Donor" (who can be identified among the retinue of Philip the Good in the dedication miniature of the Chroniques at Berlin

(fig.

in

picture pi.

the one hand, and with Sebastiano del Piombo's Paris

p. 98, no. 20, pi.

II,

Vienna

at

Roger's composition

of

Hugo

based on

partly

The

Dominic and a Donor" in the CollecPowis at London which is, however,

"Pietd with St. John the Evangelist

the

pastiche

to Its original rigidity.

XIII, p. 96) with the "Granada-Miraflores" type, on

is

others are: the very fine "Pieta with St. John the

Destree,

at

at

the "Pieta with

Brussels (Winkler, p. 161

dam

a

5.

Evangelist and the Magdalen" in the

pi.

.

formerly

p. 491.

tion of the Earl of

not

au Musee du Louvre, p. 64 f., pi. while abandoning the dramatic kiss motif,

Fernando Gallego

50).

to the experts, the best of these varia-

"Granada-Miraflorcs" altarpiece St.

XXV

salvationis,

"Reintegration

ff, especially

p. 479 According

tions

.

"Lamentation"

piece. 2.

.

XXXIV),

as

a

it

matter of "reasonable

throughout the Middle Ages; an instructive though by no means complete list of authorities accepting it is found in the Roman edition of St. belief"

Michel, L'Ecole Fla-

462

NOTES 26T-264 (Rome,

Bridget's Revelationes

1628,

II,

Gallery of Art," p. 184,

164, note

p.

by the Master of the

to VI, 94).

Cambridge, Fitzwilliam Museum, ms. 62 (work-

6.

1

Museum,

p.

pi.

(Friedlander, VI, p.

Early Netherlandish

earliest

Cunigundae op.

cit., I, p.

tury, see the

is

miniature

this

Passionale

the

in

found

A in

la

gravure

v.

(D. Fava,

Tesori delle Biblioteche dltalia, Emilia e

Romagna,

Milan, 1932, p. 211, 3. Best published

fig.

Restauro della chiesa di

S.

in

pi.

Maria

di

G. Chierici, // Donnaregina a

704,

XXXIV.

XXXV,

reflecting

a

as

in

my de

By

the figure of Margaret of

Burgundy,

composition,

Museum

at

York

is

see,

a

picture

18;

de Tolnay, "Flemish Paintings

in the

The Apocryphal

salvationis, XIII

see

p. 32;

New

(Lutz

humanae pis.

Wehle

Speculum humanae

(Lutz and Perdrizet,

pis.

57, 58).

salvationis,

XXXII

63, 64).

"would

Christ

necessarily

slide

down"

der van Eyck," p. 337) is fact that it is held in place by

Stiles

and why the double function of His right that Roger adapted the Master of

St.

John

The

to his

way (Wehle and

who

of Roger

Cloisters

composition instead of the

Salinger, op.

is cit., p. 32) should be noted that a weak follower

in a at

huge

New

altarpiece

now

York combined

different Rogerian compositions

with a

preserved at five St.

or

six

John pat-

terned after that in the Werl altarpiece %vas careful to

change the position of the Baptist's hand to the customary pointing gesture; See T. Rousseau, Jr., "A Flemish Altarpiece from Spain," The Metropolitan

Museum

of Art, Bulletin,

new

ser.,

IX, 1951, p. 270

ff.

to

Page 264

Vrancke van der Stockt in the National Gallery at Washington (Friedlander, II, p. 105, no. 41; Destree, pi.

44;

f.

Luke XXIV, 38-40; John XX, 25. Tolnay's contention that the mantle of the

difficult to see. It

Fogg

ascribed

wrist;

other

substituted for that

now

De

Flemalle's

(Pacht, The Master of Mary of For copies and variations of Roger's

Harvard,

fol.

arm should prove

Burgundy)

apart from a tapestry in the

See

11.

His

the end of

Mary

pi. 1).

XXIX

("Zur Herkunft des at variance with the

Duchesse (London, British Museum, ms. Add. of

10.

resurrected

1 149 (de Ricci-Wilson, Census, I, p. 98, 149) to which Professor Samuel C. Chew calls attention; and in a Dialogue de Jesus Christ et

Mary

7831

II,

erroneously stated in

as

cit.,

(Lutz and Perdrizet,

an unpublished Horae in the Huntington Li-

7970, illustrated by the Master of

ms.

26).

Speculum

See

9.

appearance of Christ to a private gendeman

of the Virgin

humanae

pis. 25,

Salinger, op.

salvationis,

1

la

R. James,

Not "Daniel"

8.

and

brary, ms.

no.

M.

See Speculum

7.

miniature of ca.

1913, no. 27).

Royale,

D. Breckinridge.

J.

and Perdrizet,

the fifteenth century this type could be used to illustrate the

Bibliotheque

at

obviously

forms the counterpart of

Christian art will be studied in a forthcoming article

by

fiinfzehnten Jahrhunderts, LIX, Strasbourg, 1925, no. no.

See, e.g.,

6.

(no. 703 illustrated in P. Heitz, Einblattdrucke des

1430, ibidem,

74 a),

pi.

Testament, Oxford, 1924 and 1926, p. 183. The iconography of Christ's Appearance to His Mother in Early

Cambridge, ms. 194 (M. R. James, A Descriptive Catalogue of the Manuscripts in the Fitzwilliam Museum, pi. XIX). For the German tradition, culminating in Diirer's woodcut B. 46, cf. the woodcuts, Schreiber, Manuel, nos. 701-706

6;

special

Thomas."

for the manuscript, see p. 108

For the few instances of this type in Spanish and Italian Trecento painting, cf. Meiss, "Italian Style in Catalonia," fig. 2 A and p. 66, note 44; to be added: a miniature from an Italian Chorale in the

Museum

as the picture

Brussels,

5.

4.

Fitzwilliam

Of

f.).

(formerly Colbert de Beaulieu Collection),

93).

illustration

Napoli, Naples, 1934,

86

fol.

115

generally based

a "Conviction of St.

French example of the sixteenth the Hours of Henry II, Parma,

Biblioteca Palatina, ms. pal. 169,

is

more obvious

160, fig. 180); for the early fifteenth cen-

woodcut, Schreiber, Manuel de

p.

upon the Granada-Miraflores type but shows the right hand of Christ, bearing the print of the nail, directly extended toward the Virgin Mary. Here the idea of ostentatio vulnerum is all the

of ca. 1320 (illustrated, e.g., in F. Burger,

sur bois, no. 700.

century

and best known instance of

beautiful

the

is

School,

a composition, originating

is

(Scheme, Dieric Bouts und Seine Schule,

which

CCXXXVI). The

117,

from the workshop of Dire Bouts but known to us only through a copy by the Ulm Master of the Ehningen altarpiece interest

Pseudo-Bonaventure, The Mirrour of the Blessed 1. Lyf of fesu Christ, p. 263 f.; Ludolf of Saxony, Vita Jesu Christi, II, 70 (in the Lyons edition of 1 519, fol. 2.

no.

137,

LI I;

don, no. 1086 (Davies, National Gallery Catalogues,

159.

Page 263

kind

14); a triptych shutter

fig.

Ursula Legend in the Metro-

Wehle and Salinger, op. cit., p. 76 f.); and an anonymous painting in the National Gallery at Lon-

shop of the Rohan Master), no. 58 according to M. R. James, A Descriptive Catalogue of the Manuscripts in the Fitzwilliam

Museum

politan

St.

1.

Friedlander,

also Friedlander,

National

463

Von II, p.

Eycf^ bis Bruegel, p. 24 (see 66; Winkler, p. 36; Vogelsang,

NOTES "Rogier \an der Weyden," p. 90). Friedliinder's is found in Friedlander, XI\', p. 84.

berbo

re-

cantation

The

2.

is

assistente. Subscriptio talis est

ibi

in English:

"The

Duke

section Herkinbald.

subject of Giotto's murals, recurring in the

.

Which

."

.

third picture contains in the

first

nude and

of Brabant, lying

the Vices

sick in bed, who, rising violently, cuts the throat of a young man summoned before him; while in the second section a servant deplores the deed and a

S.

woman

looks on, the beardless painter himself being

present.

The

Great Hall

Arte della Lana, has been identified

of the

"Brutus, Prototype of the Just Judge, Attacked by

.is

and Defended by the Cardinal Virtues"; see MorpurgO, "Brutus, 'il buon giudice,' nell' Udienza dell'arte della Lana," Miscellanea di Storia dell Arte in Onore di Igino Benvenuto Supino, Florence, 1933, p. 141

Winkler,

3.

Musper, hg.

p.

3.

Weyden," and maximi pictoris." der

ff.

103

f.,

XIX;

pi.

Destrec,

pis. 73, 74;

For the hypothesis (unconvincingly p. 43 f.) that the Herkinbald

28.

reads

title

4.

contested by Musper,

See Renders,

.

II,

Panofsky,

"Facies

The

C, D.

pi. 21,

two heads with

of these

were added as late as after October 30, 1454, Hulin de Loo, "Les Tableaux de justice de Rogier

." .

See KaufTmann, "Ein Selbstportriit Rogers van

juxtaposition

that of the Virgin

A) and

Rogeri

ilia

Mary

in

pictures

the Dijon "Nativity" (pi. 21

see

Barbara in the Werl altarpiece (pi. 21 B) makes it most evident that a Roger of 1437-38 is infinitely closer to a Roger of ca. 1452 than to a contemporary Master of Flemalle.

van der Weyden et les tapisseries de Berne," XlV e Congres International d'Histoire de I Art, Suisse, 1936, Actes du Congres, Basel, 1938,

II,

p.

141

for the

fT.;

date of the Trajan pictures (1439) and the liberties taken by the cartoonist of the tapestry, J. Maquet-

that of the St.

Page 266

Tombu, "Les Tableaux de justice de Roger van der Weyden a l'Hotel de Ville de Bruxelles," Phoebus,

1.

See note 2

4 .

For the document, see Winkler, p. 188. The drawing, preserved in the Boymans Museum at Rotterdam (our fig. 384), was published by M. J. 2.

II,

1949, p. 178

ff.

For the general historical implicaH. van de Waal, Drie Eeuwen

tion of the series, see

vaderlandsche Geschied-Uitbeelding (1500—1800); Een iconologische studie, figs.

100

Cf. also

ff.

stellungen

in

The Hague,

1952,

I,

261

p.

"A Drawing by Roger van de Weyden," Old Master Drawings, I, 1926, p. 29 ff., pi. 38. Cf. also C. de Tolnay, History and Technique of Old Master Drawings, New York, 1943, pp. 58, 131, pi. 154; De van Eyc\ a Rubens, Les Maitres Flamands du Dessin (Exhibition at the Bibliotheque Nationale, Paris, 1949), no. 9, pi. II; L. van Puyvelde, Musee Friedlander,

ff.,

U. Lederle-Grieger, Gerichtsdar-

deutschen

und niederlandischen Rat-

hdusern (Heidelberg doctoral dissertation), Philippsburg, 1937; here Roger's panels are discussed on pp. 54 and 57 f., and on p. 10 is found an interesting reference to the lost representations from Valerius

Maximus, Plutarch and Aulus Gellius which could be seen in the

seem

be

to

the

Town

Hall

at

in

juillet, Brussels, 1947, no. 101, pi. LXXII. The numerous paintings derived from Roger's composition were assembled by Winkler, p. 76 f., figs. 41-43, and

7

Nuremberg and

"Gerechtigkeitsbilder"

earliest

de lOrangerie, Paris: Les Primitifs flamands, 5 juin-

1378

on

record.

Friedlander, loc.

Page 265

Maquet-Tombu, "Les Tableaux de justice de Roger van der Weyden"; cf., however, Panofsky, "Fades ilia Rogeri maximi pictoris." 2. As pointed out by Panofsky, ibidem, an impor1.

See

cit.;

to

be added: a much-repeated

Madonna

(the posture of the Christ Child changed

in various

ways) by the Master of the Embroidered

Foliage (Friedlander, IV,

My

p.

for

tant passage in Dubuisson-Aubenay's Itinerarium Bel-

'forties: first, that

of such compositions as the

been mispunctuated and, in one point, misread otherwise excellent article by

who,

in

Herkinbald

for the

"Tenia tabula

in

lamenting servant

The

prima

correct text

sectione

Archambaldum ducem Brabantiae nudum aegrotum, qui ascersitum ad

sc

juvenem

is

Rothschild

on the

as

in

secunda sectione,

cum

LXIII).

the pose of the Virgin, reminiscent

Louvre "Sacra Conversa-

Madonna by

Jan

(fig.

231) or the

van Eyck and Petrus fairly formal "Andachts-

original, a picture of ca. 1480 in the

Museum

lecto

loc. cit.,

cultro jugulat

sent

at fig.

Leipzig (Winkler,

pictore ipso im-

insignita).

464

fig.

42;

Municipal

Friedlander,

2), retains the characteristic motif

from the

later replicas

— of two

the Virgin with a "star-encircled

insurgens acriter; servo factum deplorante et muliere

admirante

pi.

Christus (fig. 257), implies a bild" with donors; second, that the earliest variation

ac-

continet in

no. 84,

zione" after the Master of Flemalle

in the

Madame Maquet-Tombu

tually present in the tapestry.

follows:

has

reading se instead of servo, has substituted

a penitent

f.,

connecting the Rotterdam

gicum

(Paris, Bibliotheque Mazarine, ms. 4407)

144

drawing with Roger's lost Carmelite Madonna are, apart from the fact that its style agrees with the middle of the reasons

— ab-

angels crowning

crown" (corona

stellis

NOTES For the two "Descents from the Cross" in halfSt. John the Evange-

3.

length (one with, one without see Friedlander,

list),

II,

p.

123

f.,

2 264 -267

"Descent" from the Escorial, as

den," Burlington Magazine, XLIII, 1923, p. 214

Beaux-Arts,

der

XIII, 1935, p. 15

ser. 6,

Holy Blood

a triptych by the Master of the

Museum, Wehle and

ropolitan p. 81

To

ff.

1949, p. 312

archetype

in the

Met-

op.

cit.,

in

"Descent

"e

II,

p.

123, no. 95,

ff.,

figs.

rather

follower

than Roger himself.

28,

8

de Roger," Bulletin de

la

la Societe

And

village

Church

to

of

Banderoles

re-

make him

Niederwaroldern

of

lection at

from

II,

a Bearing of the Cross transmitted

51

tion

The

credit for

ser.

6,

XII,

ings," Burlington pi. III.

The

224

presupposing

and

not

preceding

2.

two heads

date and

its

— that

176, fig. 54; Friedlander,

p.

X; Destree,

II, pis.

of

St.

pi.

21

and

text

II,

vol.,

p.

95,

pi.

9;

22, 30, 32, 37-39, 43, 44, 48; Scheme, figs. 62, 63;

Beenken, Rogier,

p.

45-50.

Cf., e.g., the

compositions by and copied after

f., figs. 129, 229). See Durrieu, Les Tres Riches Heures,

Martens, op. 3.

ff.,

Cf. a

in F. E.

cit.,

figs. 38,

pi.

LV;

87.

sermon by George of Nicomedia quoted

Hyslop,

Jr.,

"A

Byzantine Reliquary of the

True Cross from the Sancta Sanctorum," Art Bulletin, XVI, 1934, p. 333 ff. (p. 339), or the Liber de Passione Christi et doloribus et planctibus Mariae wrongly

— mani-

the

of

The who is

writer

(p. 176

frames, faithfully copied in both drawings,

suggest the possibility that this composition festly

1934, p.

"Some Early Netherland Drawp.

this

from the miniature in the "Arenberg Hours" and the picture by Gerard David in the Thyssen Collection

having recognized the connec-

Magazine, XXIV, 1914,

to

Jan van Eyck (p. 235; figs. 290-293, 301) and the "Calvary" by the Master of Flemalle reconstructible

between the Louvre and Leipzig drawings be-

longs to F. Winkler,

known

Destree,

p. 99).

Page 267

ff., figs. 44-46; fig. 391), see Winkler, p. 81 Friedlander, II, p. 122 f., no. 94; Destree, pi. 61; Musper, figs. 49, 53; E. Michel, "Le Maitre de Franc-

Gazette des Beaux-Arts,

XV;

York (Winkler, p. 175; Friedlander, 36, pis. XXXII, XXXIII; Destree, pi.

through a draw-

our

ff.

pi.

figs.

ff.,

1.

236

no. 17, pi.

heard of in the Gulbenkian Col-

last

pp. 54, 66; Musper,

ing formerly in the F. Becker Collection at Leipzig,

fort,"

—

New

Winkler, 11,

Renders,

392), finally (apparently the central panel the left-hand wing of which showed

triptych

consists

103, no.

p.

5.

f., fig. 30) seems almost sacrilegious to this writer. For the "Bearing of the Body to the Sepulchre"

fig.

f.,

Beenken, Rogier,

72;

(not personally

Virgin Mary

no.

(our

96

II, p.

fig.

Joseph and that of a female saint rather than the

Beziehungen zu Rogier van der Weyden," Zeitschrift jiir Kunstgeschichte, VII, 1938, p. 119 ff.; Musper, p.

of a

Musper,

1;

authenticity)

120).

26

f.;

the Berlin panel

is

therefore reluctant to pronounce about

responsible for

far

12

other

d" Archeologie

not

273

p.

works (possibly exshowing

of these fragmentary

Friedlander,

p. 160; pi.

Germany

Central

in

preserved in the Uffizi (see

Apollonia and Margaret, apparently the righthand shutter of a triptych the left wing of which showed St. John the Baptist and St. John the Evangelist; it may be dated between 1445 and 1450 (Winkler,

Descente de Croix

Royale

One

(W. Medding, "Der Kreuzabnahmealtar zu Niederwaroldern und seine

Cassel

be identical with the

SS.

"Descent from the Cross" in the

design of a

may

330-

4.

de Bruxelles, 1949, July, p. 1 ff., fig. 3), is even less likely to repeat an original composition by Roger

van der Weyden.

it

ecuted by an assistant)

II, pi. 42; Musper, Douai published by J.

Maquet-Tombu ("Autour de

the

famous "Bearing of the Body" (which if this were true

supplicio

fig-

(Renders,

45), a picture at

fig.

in in-

Borghese;

the Galleria

Tomb" now

86; Destree,

The model

the engraving by the Master of the ferred to in note 176

stationed

have exerted some

originally to

it

view, cannot be identical with the "Farewell at the

p.

compositions may, however, have been devised by a

p.

however, inclined to identify the painting

49-51. (also Fried-

and XIV,

by a

58; our fig. 393);

fig.

fact,

a

fluence on Raphael's

and for another, simpler one, M. J. Friedlander, "Der Meister der Katharinen-Legende und Rogier van der Weijden," Oud Holland, LXIV, 1949, p. 156 ff. Both these Musper,

63;

in

is,

Vrancke van der

ascribed to

Stockt, see Winkler, p. 89

lander,

8,

humanati Jovis pientissimum agalma" which was admired by Cyriacus of Ancona and Facius 4,7 at Ferrara (see notes 2 ) and, contrary to Houben's

stiff

in full length, best transmitted

Munich now

picture at

fig.

is,

seems rather doubtful)

from the Cross"

pi.

ff.,

with

because he believes

Italy

f.

For a many-figured but somewhat

Michel,

wood-carved altarpiece). W. Houbcn, "Raphael and Rogier van der Weyden," Burlington Magazine, XCI,

a

be added:

Salinger,

assumed by Musper,

is

sketched by Roger for the benefit of a

sculptor rather than executed as a painting (one of

ff.;

Weyden," Gazette des

— was

the replicas, illustrated in

E. Salin, "Copies ou variations anciennes d'une oeuvre

perdue de Rogier van

29

p.

nos. 97, 98, pis.

LXX, LXXI; Destree, pi. 65; Musper, figs. 50, 51; S. Reinach, "A Lost Picture by Roger van tier Wey-

:

great

465

NOTES ascribed to St. Bernard {Patrologia Latina, ff.).

134

1

This

CLXXX1I,

Width Width Width

seems to be the source of the inscription on the Berlin "Calvary" (see p. 298 f.,

col.

text

39S) which reads (with abbreviations expanded):

fi£-

"O

me

dignarc

Fili,

manus

figerc.

attrahcrc

crucis

ct

pedem

in

2.

For Rolin,

XIX,

gique,

and

"Paradise,"

of

108 cm.

panel:

Biographie

see

1907, col. 828

hommes du royaume,

3.

p.

art

I

quoted

54

f.,

1904,

was not

Bibliothcque Royale, ms. 9242,

Durrieu,

fig. 51.

Lyna,

"Die

Post,

l'espirituel,

The monograph

in col. 838.

me.

Brussels,

XXXVI;

crucem do not know of any such

levabat in altum, amplectens

Western

is

(some of the heads repainted Destree, pi. 144; Musper, fig.

that the text postdates the twelfth century]

In

tais")

accessible to

benigno Christum pendentem in crucis ligno, stipite saevo, pedibusque flexis iunctisque [this very phrase tends

..."

m'en

au regard de

by A. Perrin, Nicolas Rolin, Paris,

are described as follows: "Considerans vultu

[sese]

de Bel-

plus sages

a parler temporellement, car

show manibus

Nationale

the phrase of Jacques

du Clcrcq ("un des

to

shutters:

ff.;

from the Song of Songs I, 3, significantly changing the words "Trahe me post te" to "Trahe me ad te" (col. 1 135), and in the "Meditations" on John XIX. 25 ("Iuxta crucem stabat Maria") her actions

je

and top

"Hell,"

the Virgin addresses the crucified Christ with a versicle

Paul wings: 82.5 cm.

St.

c ™.

54

Bernhardus." In the Liber de Passione

of central

of St. Peter

at

fol.

76;

Beenken, Rogier,

La Miniature flamande,

De Vlaamsche

Miniatuur,

Darbringungsminiatur

der

fig.

Hennegau-

chronik in der Bibliothek zu Brussel," fahrbuch

reliquary discussed by Hyslop (better illustration in

Kunstwissenschajt,

\Y. F. Volbach, Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, Guida,

self is

bizantina

L'arte

I,

Medioevo, Rome,

nel

pi.

1935,

is

1923, p. 171

ff.

pi.

25; P.

representation prior to Roger's; even in the East the

I,

jiir

That Roger him-

responsible for the design of this beautiful page

highly probable, not only because the composition

II),

was frequently imitated

seems

Geschichte der niederlandischen Miniaturmalerei,"

showing the Virgin standing instead of kneeling, to be a hapax legomenon. For the Magdalen embracing the Cross, see note 26 2 4. For a copy in the Gemaldegalerie at Dresden, II,

Destree,

121, no. 90;

p.

sonages in

26;

pi.

Cf. p. 298

f.;

fig.

4.

Scheme,

pis. fig.

Primitives,

to

157

p.

Musper,

71;

pi.

figs.

11, 13, 22, 48;

The manual

ex-

left

to

Jacques du Clercq (quoted in Biographie Na-

67-69; van Puyvelde,

A

the altarpiece, see

ff.,

figs.

reproduced

is

M.

le

Beaune,"

in

strated in Destree, pi. 149,

is

The

Uffizi

drawing

illus-

only remotely connected

with Roger. Since the dimensions of the Beaune

monter tousjours

et

a

Page 269

Vogelsang,

p. 89.

ff.

mais contendoit a

au poing, triomphant sur fortune."

60-

For the history of Baron Verhaegen, "Le PoCongres Archeologique de

Prance, XCI, 1928, p. 327

paix,

multiplier jusqu'a son darrenier et de mourir l'espee

photograph of the Paradise wing

restoration

de

la II, pis. 3,

36; Beenken, Rogier, p. 62

"Rogier van der Weyden," lyptyque

interpretation.

de Bilgique, XIX, col. 834): "Nul si eust voulu souffrir regner en son lieu pour luy retraire en

Friedlander, p. 95, no. 14;

f.;

92-101; Renders,

72, 74, 76, 77.

prior

p.

tionale

Winkler,

1.

zur

a professional illuminator.

398.

Page 268

Destree,

and

style

ecution of the page may, however, have been

for another, preserved in the Prado, Destree, pi. 24. 5.

(see Winkler, "Studien

307 f., fig. 22) but also because the heads closely resemble Roger's authentic portrayals of the same per-

.

see Friedlander,

1

an early date). Cf.

altar-

1.

See p. 10 1

2.

See

;

also illustrated in Destree, pi. 91.

301.

3.

237 ff.; See note 61 3

4.

See note 242

5.

Durrieu, Les Tres Riches Heures,

6.

See note 167

fig.

p.

.

8

also illustrated in Destree, pi. 90.

;

pi.

XLVII.

2 .

piece are given only in general terms or even faultily in the literature

van Puyvelde, Flemish Primitives, useful to indicate tion

Page 2jo

(especially confusing the caption in

them here

after a

pi.

36),

it

may

1.

be

See

M.

P. Perry,

"On

the Psychostasis in Chris-

tian Art," Burlington Magazine, XXII, 19 12-13, pp.

kind communica-

94

from Mr. Robert A. Koch.

h-ight of central panel: ca. 225 cm. Height of lateral panels: ca. 135 cm. Height of top shutters: ca. 80 cm. Interior overall width (including inner frames):

ff.,

208

ff.

1

Page 2ji This he does, e.g., in a Spanish altar frontal in Cunill, the Museo Arqucologico at Vich (J. Gudiol Els Primitius (La Pintura Mig-EvaJ Catalana), Barcelona, II, 1929, p. 215, fig. 98) while a smaller devil 1.

i

546 cm.

Width

of central triptych (including inner frames):

attaches himselt to the

273 cm.

466

wrong

scale

from underneath.

NOTES The outcome

2.

more or

varies

4

267 -273

weighing process therefore random, frequently according to

almost

of the

less at

and often remains, quite literally, "in the balance" as in the altar frontal just quoted or, to mention another example distinguished by the fact that St. Michael weighs the two souls in his bare hands instead of in a pair of scales, in the well-known mural (school of Bartolo di Fredi) in San Michele at Paganico (van cit., II, p.

fig.

507,

Spanish

another

Cunill, Els Primitius,

human

little

II,

p.

Vich

at

The

220

to in note

l

good

plex

(evil

the

demonstrated

may become

by

Emperor Henry

How

here expressed by frogs).

is

situation

in

representations

certain

to

of

legend

the

(see the recent article by

II

"Die Seelenwagung Kaiser Heinrichs

J.

IV, 1950, p. 125 sins,

ff.).

is

of

Got-

According to this legend, the his unfounded suspicions

especially

outweigh his virtues Lawrence placed a Chalice (referring to Henry's gift to the Church of Einstetten) in the opposite scale and thereby turned the balance in his favor. On the Emperor's tomb by Tilmann Riemen-

of his saintly wife, threatened to

when

St.

schneider (see Perry, op.

cit.,

p. 209, pi.

are very properly expressed by an ugly

famous

In Orcagna's chalice

is

D)

his sins

little

demon.

I

and Some

of

Kantorowicz

As

His

does in

altarpiece by the to

all

the

Psychostasia,

German

more e.g.,

H.

of

ca.

1275

in

the

Museum

the Statens Historisk

Museum

Memlinc's "Last Judgment" and the cit.,

Tani and Portinari I,

picture

p.

Kantorowicz,

4.

Winkler,

190

now

ff.

It

families,

its

XIX;

Warburg,

an

31,

agree, however, with

I

is

neither

Destree, ff.,

180.

p.

pi.

89;

Musper,

figs. 55, 56.

The

not identical with the 3

altre

p. 99, no.

II,

fig.

83;

215

fT.,

tionale,

op.

5.

381

"Deposition"

cf. also

XXVII,

W.

dem Grabe von

Vrancke van der Stockt and

Signore schonfitto di crocie e

col.

cit., I,

pp.

Hulin de Loo, Biographic No-

237.

Jahnig, "Die

Beweinung

Christi vor

Rogier van der Weyden," Zeitschrift

fur Bildende Kunst, LI II, 19 18, p. 171

467

at

but with the tavola showing

)

figure" listed in the inventory of Villa

fT.;

See K.

22,

Beenken,

fact that the Uffizi

lost

Careggi, was demonstrated by Warburg, op.

should also be noted that in a

ascribed to

is

cinque

connection with

see

December

stay at Ferrara

165; Friedlander,

p.

"el sepolcro del nostro

("Gotlands

Stockholm. For

at

to

would have had two-andmonths (from the middle of July to the

Ferrara (see note 266

L., or,

Fornsal") at Visby, no. 108, or another, of ca. 1520, in

probability, that the entry of

all

3.

panel

quote two "out-of-the-way" instances, a Swedish

painting

attention

to

Rogier, p. 60

the Xiederrotweil

sculptor, Master

calls

demonstrable nor probable.

"logical" representain

f.)

end of September) in Italy. Kantorowicz in feeling that a

pi. it

179

(p.

15th, 1450, according to

a-half clear

Page 272 1.

p. 180.

other twenty ducats, Roger

his protege's perdition.

tions of the

fT.

the final account for the calendar year, refers to an-

Followers, Cambridge, Mass., 1917, pi. 185) so that the helpful action of the saint results, strictly speaking, in

reprinted in Winkler, p. 189.

is

1450, instead of merely repeating the earlier record in

balanced against the crowned figure of the Siren, Giotto

Ibidem,

against

altarpiece of 1357, however, the

Emperor himself (O.

[by H.

which twenty ducats Roger through Paolo Pozio, merchant of Bruges, a payment later referred to in the Registro dei Memoriali dell anno 1450 of December 31st. Assuming that it took four weeks for the ducal order to reach Pozio and another four weeks for Pozio's report to reach Ferrara, Kantorowicz correctly concludes that Roger must have been in the Netherlands around June 15. There is, however, no reason to suppose that he was not in Italy in August and that he could have spent there "only a few weeks, at most a few months" in the spring. He may have left very soon after the receipt of his twenty ducats and stayed abroad up to the end of the year; in fact, he may have requested this payment for the very purpose of financing his journey. Even if we were to assume,

landischen Malerei," Zeitschrijt fur Kunstwissenschaft,

Emperor's

Museums

1939-1940, p. 165

III,

1.

were paid

Roosval,

in der

II.

86;

m).

p.

1,

Latin text

2.

August

com-

cases

p.

entry in the accounts of the Ferrarese Court, dated

mutilated to permit the identification of the symbol of

and XIV,

102,

Page 27s

Gospels of 1194 referred figure in Chartres is too much

The

.

no.

E.

tauld Institutes,

in the Wolfenbiittel

is

125,

p.

i

the

known

phantly outweighing the symbols of sin)

me

is

H. Kantorowicz, "The Este Portrait by Roger van der Wcyden," Journal of the Warburg and Cour-

occurrence of the Chalice (trium-

earliest

The

2.

3.

diavolino. 4.

II,

maldegalerie des Kaiser Friedrich

where the

"outweighs"

Psychostasia

the

Konigliche Museen zu Berlin; Die Ge-

Posse], Berlin, 191

in

e.g.,

(Gudiol

199, fig. 90)

emphatically

figure

found,

also

is

frontal

altar

(Friedlander, illustrated in

328).

This transitional form

3.

upper section of the

the

Bcaune,

at

omitted while a great number of devils has been added

the exigencies of the composition (Cf. Perry, op. cit.),

Marie, op.

repeating

literally

Judgment"

"Last

fT.

NOTES 6.

Cfc,

Schottmiiller, op.

c.l;.,

cit.,

22,

pp.

44,

69,

was pointed out to mc by Messrs. Albert Bush-Brown and Robert A. Koch. This

112.

detail

Illustrated

7.

\V.

in

The miniature

fig.

iu.

ms.

E IV

14, tol.

"A Mediaeval

Hildburgh,

1932,

79

p.

fT.,

Turin, University Library,

in

has not been published and was

v.,

1

me

pointed out to

L.

Art Bulletin, XIV,

Pectoral Cross,"

by Dr.

Hanns Swarzcnski.

Burlington Magazine, XXII, [913, p. 230 fT. Wauters believes the Frankfort picture to have been executed about 1426-1427 (!) for the newly founded University of Louvain; that

which

house

Cf., e.g.,

G. de Francovich, Scultura medioevale

Rome,

in legno,

at the disposal of the

Antonio

in S.

Burlington Magazine,

in

at Pescia

LXXXIX,

was published for

1947, p. 54;

that in S. Miniato al Tedesco, see de Francovich, op. pi.

cit.,

Its

Social

Background, London, 1947, pi. 27 A. The gradual dissociation of the Body from the Cross is further by a picture in the

illustrated

Art

at

Museum

of Historic

Princeton (here tentatively ascribed to Lorenzo

Monaco) and Masaccio's famous "Pieta" (van Marie, op.

A

4.

the presence of

cit.,

IX,

p. 267, fig.

two supporting

picture in the cit.,

at

Empoli

X,

170).

Body and

free replica of

Richmond 32),

figures instead of one,

Bellini

931, p. 54

La Regia

Galleria

deW

de

St.

is

2.

see

p.

136, no.

122; Destree,

cit.,

and Destree,

p.

no

fT.

p.

165

f.;

Friedlander,

179

f.;

Those of Pierre de Beffremont are known a drawing in the "Recueil d' Arras" (Wink-

27; Stein, fig. 5).

666

more important,

ceptibly lowered and,

Madonna" is

per-

that the bare

polygonal base has been replaced by the conventional Flemish dais covered with an oriental rug. For Domenico Veneziano's "Sacra Conversazione," very fre-

quently reproduced, see van Marie, op.

98, no. 21,

Winkler, pp. 49

f.,

100

f.,

no. 26, pis.

.

468

X,

p. 311,

168; figs. 19-21; Friedlander,

XXI-XXIII; 104; E. Michel, L'Ecole Flamande Louvre, p. 43 f., pis. VII-IX (with II, p.

II,"

cit.,

192.

4.

31; Renders, II, pis. 14, 53; 82; Beenken, Rogier, p. 59 fT., figs 52-54. pi.

Wauters, "Roger van dcr Weyden,

p.

105, no. 44; Destree, pi. 129; Stein,

referred to in note 274 6 the head of the Virgin

Roger's composi-

II, p.

from

II, p.

transmitted by his portrait (after

For the personality of Jean le Fevre de St. Remy, Biographie Nationale de Belgique, XI, 1890/91,

fig.

XVIII; Destree,

Antwerp Museum (Winkler,

significant that in the replica of the "Medici

theory, based

character of

Italianate

are

in the

3.

tion.

}.

II,

in Italy.

ff. (his missions to Italy mentioned in col. 669). For the principle of triangulation vs. isocephaly, see D. Roggen, "Roger van der Weyden en Italie," Revue Archeologique, ser. 5, XIX, 1924, p. 88 fT. It is

col.

patterned after that in Roger's

"Entombment." This

A.

(Friedliinder,

Remy

5 b).

ler, fig.

upon the erroneous assumption that Roger's picture was in Ferrara, is not convincing; rather it would seem that both figures derive from a common Italian source. But their resemblance cannot be questioned and contrib-

6.

formerly in the

was acquired

Friedlander,

und Rogier v. d. Weyden," BelvefT., the Magdalen in Bellini's "Cru-

cifixion" at Pesaro

fig.

the

der Preussischen Kunstsammlungen, XLVII, 1926, p. 1 ft., especially p. 19. The features of Jean le Fevre

Sellaio

Procacci, p. 44, no. 8627). According to V. C. Habicht,

Winkler,

e.g., in

Page 2js

to us

Musper,

similar to the

is less

in

fig.

pi.

creates the erro-

236) and in a panel from the in the Accademia (van

p. 377, fig.

the

it,

See Wauters, op.

7.

at London is reminismore general way (cf. Warburg, op. cit., I, p. 215), and the motif of the cloth supporting the Body from underneath seems to derive from a Predella by Bartolommeo di Giovanni preserved in the Accademia (van Marie, XIII, p. 256;

5.

modernized

arbitrarily

Wauters

Madonna" itself but also a Cook Collection at

that not only the "Medici

cent of Roger's in a

to

Lily,

famous Biadaiolo of 1330 (P. d'Ancona, La Miniature italienne du X e au XV e siecle, Paris and Brussels, 1925, pi. XXXIII, fig. 47). It should also be noted

angelo in the National Gallery

utes

Madonna with an

than to the Gheylensone arms; the fleur de lys in Roger's picture is, however, perfectly identical with

Roger)

"Giovanni

is

latter

Accademia di Firenze, Rome, 1936, p. 44, no. 5069). The "Entombment'' formerly ascribed to Michel-

1

connection

the fieur de lys seen in the

1. See Kantorowicz, op. cit., p. 179, and W. Stein, "Die Bildnisse von Roger van der Weyden," Jahrbuch

of Jacopo del

dere, X,

Ghcylensone family of academic

such

neous impression that the former

pi.

think, in a vaguely Castagnesque

I

Marie, XII, p. 410; U. Procacci,

Uffizi

no

University; and that the

the

Museo Andrea Castagno (van Marie,

can be observed,

op.

Frankfort

certain influence of Roger's composition, mani-

festing itself in the conformation of the

circle

however,

to

the authentic Florentine Lily as illustrated,

40.

See F. Antal, Florentine Painting and

3.

belongs

form of the Florentine

1943, pi. 37.

The group

Louvain

a citizen of

is

known. By juxtaposing

Page --.

2.

Peter

St.

coat-of-arms

which,

1.

Roger was then

indeed the patron); that the St. John refers to one Jan van Rode who had placed a (oi

Destree, .

.

pis.

102-

au Musee du

illustration of the

NOTES backs); Musper,

fig.

85;

Beenken, Rogier,

34, 35;

67

drawings of the Magdalen,

figs. 78, 80, 81.

ff.,

pis.

piece and, even

more emphatically,

"Annunciation"

in Ste.-Madeleine at

Museum,

the British

all in

are illustrated in Destree, pi. 105

B-D. For

considered as an original, our

Popham, Drawings Catalogue 12, and ,

Flemish Artists

.

.

.

cor-

fig.

Drawings by Dutch and Museum, V, Lon-

of

the faces are equally un-Rogerian, especially that of

p. 69, fig.

Angel Gabriel with

the

in the British

don, 1932, p. 55; Beenken, Rogier,

79.

button-tipped

thin,

parallel

Hulin de Loo, Biographic Nationale, XXVII,

col. 236.

John

St.

2.

agnus Dei qui tollit 29). The Virgin Mary:

the Baptist: "Ecce

munfdi]" (John I, "Magnificat anima mea dominum et exultavit spiritus meus in Deo sal[utari meo]" (Luke I, 46, 47). Christ: "Ego sum panis vivus qui de coelo descendit" (John VI, 51). John the Evangelist: "Et verbum caro factum est" (John I, 14). The Magdalen: "Maria ergo accepit

peccata

libram unguenti nardi

pistici

read

[should

pretiose

et unxit pedes Ihesu" (John XII, 3). For a

pretiosi]

and

description of the back

a transliteration of

its in-

For the pseudo-Kufic inscription on the headdress of the Magdalen (visible only in a raking light and allegedly containing the signature "Wijden"), see F. de Mely, "Signatures de primitifs; Le retable de Roger van der Weyden au Winkler,

scription, see

168.

p.

Louvre et l'inscription du turban de la Madeleine," Revue Archeologique, ser. 5, VII, 191 8, p. 50 ff.

Von Eyc\

3. 4.

Hulin de Loo, Biographic Nationale, XXVII, Winkler,

Destree,

p.

in,

pis.

159

f.,

Friedlander,

112; Renders,

38; Schone, fig. 74;

Musper,

drawing

Destree, 6.

after

103, no. 38;

II, p.

II, pis. 2, 8,

figs. 90,

21, 31, 33,

van Puyvelde, 78 ff., figs. 85-

91;

Primitives, pi. 40; Beenken, Rogier, p.

A

wing

illustrated

in

see Biographie Nationale

de

the

left

is

For Peter Bladelin,

delburg,

II,

1868, col. 445

ff.;

for the history of

H. Brugmans and C. H.

landsche Steden, Leiden,

I,

1909, p.

198

ff.,

and

J.

J.

de Smet, "Notice sur Middelbourg en Flandre," Messager des Sciences et des Arts de la Belgique, IV, 1 836, 333

ff.

may

An

p.

43

f.

reproduced features

which

far

as

I

number

recall the exterior of the

Bladelin

altarpiece

France and (cf.

).

Legenda Aurea vulgo Historia

T. Graesse,

ed., Breslau,

1890, VI,

suggestion that the program of the Blade-

altarpiece

lin

humanae made by Emile Male, was ac-

based upon the Speculum

is

originally

Winkler, p. 159 f. However, while the Speculum does recount both the Vision of Augustus and the Vision of the Three Wise Men in much the same way as does the Golden Legend (Chapters IX and X, Lutz and Perdrizet, op. cit., pis. 15, 16 and

cepted by

pis.

18),

17,

connects only the

it

of these events

first

is

linked to the

Adoration of the Magi. Moreover, in the description

Augustus no mention

is

made

of either

the fact that Augustus offers incense or of the altar

which

so prominently figures in Roger's painting and,

so far as

I

know, does not appear Lutz and

tions of the incident (cf.

The Iconography

Cornell,

83

ff.),

in other representa-

Perdrizet, p. 194

3.

ff.;

of the Nativity of Christ,

except for such direct copies as that in the

The Cloisters referred to in note 263 u The Virgin Mary supporting herself on a column

altarpiece at

.

prior to giving birth

is

described in a passage of the

Meditationes by Pseudo-Bonaventure, already adduced

by Male,

U Art

Sancti Bonaventurae

.

47

p. .

.

f.,

"Cumque

opera, XII, p. 390:

media nocte Dominicae surgens virgo appodiavit ad quandam columnam,

venisset diei,

du moyen age en which I quote from

religieux de la fin

France, 2nd ed., 1922,

hora partus,

ibi erat,

column

— so before — contains a

that the assistant re-

4

dicta,

The

salvationis,

illustrated

This "Annunciation"

is

his preliminary training in

facobi a Voragine

2.

quae

Page 2jj

"The Jacques Coeur

even have been a Frenchman by extraction

Lombardica

monograph on Middelburg by Karel Verschelde, 1867, was not accessible to me.

1.

and the inference

ff.);

also note 344

(with a line engraving after the Bladelin

altarpiece).

Bourges Cathedral, be-

in

Bourges," Magazine of Art, XLII, 1949,

at

had received

Mid-

Oud Neder-

Peters,

Coeur

sponsible for the exterior of the

p.

pi. 149.

Belgique,

p.

of Jacques

of the Vision of

col. 236.

87.

64

contemporary

closest

1447 (see L. Grodecki,

in

Window p.

The

nose.

the Angel Gabriel in the famous

is

with the Nativity whereas the second

bis Bruegel, p. 31.

Friedlander,

5.

window gun

know

I

bulbous forehead, large,

its

somewhat prognathous mouth, and

liquid eyes, wide,

Page 2j6 1.

Aix-en-Provence

But even more remarkable is the fact that the drapery style and the facial types do not agree at all with those of Roger and his entourage. The draperies are arranged in deeply scooped-out, angular masses again reminiscent of the Aix altarpiece, and

384), see of the Early Flemish School, pi.

rectly

the wings of the

(see p. 307).

the best

D, often and perhaps

of these (Destree, pi. 105

:

Three

van Puyvelde, Primitives, p.

6

273 -277

sc.

in

Joseph vero sedebat moestus

of the Flagellation

is

mentioned,

.

.

."

The

in direct con-

know, not

nection with the Nativity, in the speech of the Virgin

of

addressed to

still-life

Ghent

St.

saw the Passion

altar-

469

Bridget and describing as soon as she

how

she fore-

had given birth

to the

NOTES Lord: "Ductus ad columnam pcrsonalitcr cxuit"

{Revelationes,

I,

Roman

10;

scourged but do not mention the column,

more corroborates

once

visions,

like

those

of

the

that

fact

many

other

was

that Christ

visionaries,

p. 145 f., fig. give the ox a friendly

tap on the nose whereas the ass

is

(Paris, Bib. Nat., ms.

fol.

lat.

10538,

not equally favored

fol.

and Baltimore,

63,

63

v.,

our

figs.

72

and 73).

Bridget's

were

In other contexts, too, the "stubborn," "benighted"

influenced by pictorial representations; they

strongly

may

Infant Jesus in turn

Walters Art Gallery, ms. 260,

this passage

St.

The

3.

edition of 1628, vol. 2,

23). Since the Gospels say only

p.

Magi," Art Bulletin, xxxv, 1953,

of the

se vcstibus

and "pcrsonalitcr ad columnam manus applicuit"

Jews were likened

combine, as Bertrand Russell would say, "imaginationimages" with "memory-images." See also the follow-

to the headstrong and stupid ass, and the Synagogue herself is seen riding a donkey in Herrad of Landsberg's Hortus deliciarum {op. cit.,

ing note.

pi.

P. in

Page 278

On

the strength of Isaiah

I,

as well as in several

und Synagoge,

der Kirche

3 ("The ox knoweth his owner and the ass his master's crib") and Habakkuk III, 2 (where, according to the Itala, the work of the Lord will be made known "inter duo animalia" rather than "in medio annorum" as the Vulgate has it) the two animals attending the Nativity were always presumed to have been aware of Christ's divinity. 1.

XXXVIII)

mystery plays (see

Weber, Geistliches Schauspiel und kjrchliche Kunst ihrem Verhaltnis erlautert an einer Ifonographie

The

symbolical equation

Stuttgart,

"Ass

=

1894, p. 90

Ignorance

=

f.).

Syna-

gogue" even survived into the Renaissance; see Tommaso Garzoni, La Sinagoga degl' Ignoranti, Pavia,

the ox,

1589, briefly discussed in E. Mandowsky, Untersuchungen zur Iconologie des Cesare Ripa (Hamburg dissertation, 1934), pp. 21, 89. In the Golden Legend, on the other hand, both animals are described as ador-

who knows his master, and the more materialistic ass, who knows only his master's crib, the two animals

ing the new-born Saviour on their knees (in PseudoBonaventure's Meditationes they even warm Him

But since a subtle difference

is

made between

with their breath), and

were not always thought of as being equally worshipful. Originally, the ass, always representing the inferior principle, was distinguished from the ox as

such

in

was perpetuated

this idea, too,

representations

as

Geertgen

Sint

tot

"Nativity" in the National Gallery at

Jans'

London

(fig.

symbolic of the Gentiles as opposed to the Jews (as in

448) or Gerard David's "Nativity" in the Metropoli-

the majority of patristic sources). But after this dis-

tan

tinction

had

lost

much

of

its

interest, the ass

came

to

New

of Deutz). Accordingly,

many

ward Judaism

Jerome and, later on, in Walafrid Strabo or Rupert

(as already in St.

such medieval authors as representations

in

we

in

find, in addition to the

number

246

Use," Die Graphischen Kiinste, 91

ff.).

v.,

of

new

ser..

Ill,

Relief of the Nativity

and

German "Master

"The Nativity Attributed

(for a similar motif in

Hugo The

Albrecht

to

van der Goes' Portinari

ox,

munching

pletes the

"A

A

nutritious

470

sword

pi.

the picture

ant

to

devour

I

lily,

his

own

sterility of

prophetic of the Passion, com-

complicated symbolism of the picture.

Winkler,

2.

Destrec,

Group from an Adoration

Him, attempts

thereby expressing the self-destructive

Judaism.

Nantwich (England) puba

Jr.

were, in the somewhat crude but

altarpiece, cf. p. 333).

tail,

1938, p.

lished but insufficiently interpreted by R. Berliner,

it

turning away from

for Paris

Occasionally, the ox and the ass engage in an

at

McCormick,

hay, turns toward the Infant Jesus whereas the ass,

actual tug-of-war about the swaddling clothes as in a

wood-carved roof boss

J.

to-

be hoped,

to

1940, p. 2 f.). Here the significance of the enormous column is explained, so to speak, by the group seen in the background, the Virgin Mary bending with fatigue and pain and St. Joseph pointing in the direction from which he hopes to summon help

and the material

Hours

Thomas

is

it

XXXIV,

swaddling clothes with his teeth while St. Joseph tries to ward him off with a stick (see, for example, the amazing Psalter of Yolande de Soissons, fol.

be treated,

motifs discussed in this and the preceding note

(F. A. Sweet,

Infant's

M. Harrsen, "A Book

cit., p. 95 f.). small way, the

a

Altdorfer," Bulletin of the Art Institute of Chicago,

remains standing (as in Daret's "Nativity" in the Thyssen Collection, our fig. 233, or Schongauer's engraving B. 4) or concentrates his attention on the fodder in "his master's crib" instead of on the Infant Jesus. The ass may register contempt and dismay by loudly braying or even attempt to devour or tear off

Library, ms. 729,

in

of the Vita Frederici" in the Art Institute of Chicago

ass

Morgan

Salinger, op.

reflecting,

interesting "Nativity" by the south

which the behavior of the ass differs unfavorably from that of the ox: the ox may kneel down while the

collected by

—

will

are dramatized, as

of others

in

the

—

an essay by Mr.

The

which both animals show

their affection for the Christ Child, a

subject

ambivalent attitude of the Christian Middle Ages

be identified with the Old Testament as opposed to the

Museum (Wehle and

The whole

p. 174;

109;

Friedlander,

Bccnken, Rogier,

II,

p.

p.

99 100.

f.,

no. 24;

Whether

was executed by Roger himself or an

assist-

dare not decide for want of personal acquaint-

NOTES ance with

it

am

but

inclined in favor of the

For the interpretation of the

native.

de Loo, Biographie Nationale, XXVII,

Remy and

e.g.,

Hendy,

London

Pesellino's

in

altarpiece,

e.g.,

Winkler,

4.

p. 158;

Friedlander,

Destree, pi. 19; Renders,

Musper,

The

cit.,

II, pis. 7, 8,

p.

91

f.,

is

The

— each

produced

own workshop.

in Roger's

two

the other of the

triptychs

donne

to be iden-

Baptiste del Agnelli

[not "Aquelli" as stated in van

Puyvelde, Primitives,

p. 26]

op

and

— the

right

&

Collection at

.

.

also

CCXIII, 1948, July

Page 1.

.

New

Illustrated

two legs, is in York (Sotheby

London

op.

IX, p. 69,

now

p. 489, fig. 293; cf. also

cit., p.

134).

with the bundle in the sixth

fig.

re-

Nine

40). Cf. also one of the

tentatively ascribed to the Italo-French

Avignon (van Marie, VII,

123; Lemoisne, op.

191, fig.

Lanyi,

J.

44; Ring,

pi.

cit.,

"The Genesis

of

cit., p.

98

A

Naming

ff.;

Andrea Pisano's Bronze

XXV, 1943, p. 132 ff.; U. MiddelTwo Pictures by Tintoretto," Gazette

dorf,

"A Note on

ser. 6, XXVI, 1944, p. 247 ff. I do not of any other representations of the Birth of St.

des Beaux-Arts,

News,

know

John in which the Virgin Mary, even if present, carries the infant to Zacharias so that he may name him. In

10, p. 48).

2-jo

pre-Rogerian renderings she either stands or

sits

near

Hulin de Loo, Biographie Nationale, XXVII,

the bed of St. Elizabeth, holding the child in her

arms

(an early instance

Friedlander, cit.,

p.

XIV,

32; Musper,

p.

p.

85;

52

Wehle and

Accademia

Salinger,

I,

f.

p. 386, fig.

a

215), while Zacharias, all,

handmaiden

receives

(cf., e.g.,

p. 414; a

fig.

10,

n; Mark VI,

earlier representations of these

two

in the Chapelle

27,

28.

Ste.

or converses with

the well-known Urbino murals illustrated

in

van Marie,

II,

p.

370, note; a Ravennate

panel reproduced in Jahrbuch der Koniglich Preus-

For

sischen

scenes, see, e.g., the

de

cit.,

participating in

127,

tioned by van Marie,

Matthew XIV,

him from

if

and Bollettino d'Arte, IV, 1910, Lorenzettesque picture in the Louvre men-

VIII, p. 219,

Page 281

window

the Italo-Byzantine retable in the

by the Salimbeni brothers,

Hulin de Loo, Biographie Nationale, XXVII,

col. 236.

second

is

Siena illustrated in van Marie, op.

at

the action at

1.

woman

See the

cit.,

and

Page 280 1.

X,

Doors," Art Bulletin,

col. 236. 2.

cit.,

of St. John the Baptist, see Falk, op.

Sold on June 30, 1948, no. 153,

The

is

(Oscar Wilde, Aubrey

Century, Cat. no. 84, pis. 33, 34). 4. For the iconography of the Birth and

Old Master Drawings,

Co., Catalogue of Important

Fine Paintings, frontispiece;

p.

—

of the Baptist as well as

Lehman

siecle

painter Jacques Iverny of

or p. 480 f. A drawing for "Baptism," showing the head, shoulders

arm

the Robert

de

Marie, op.

Piedmont,

Gemalde im Kaiser-

Museum,

Friedrich

passion

this

Heroines in a mural in the Castello della Manta in

183, after Weale who, however, does not give any source). For a detailed description of the scenes in the archevaults, see Konigl. Museen zu Berlin;

after?

with

55) or the groom feeding a horse in Giovanni del Ponte's Brussels "Adoration of the Magi" (van Marie,

negociant de Pise" (Wink-

Verzeichnis der

credits

von Schlosser, Leben und Meinungen des FlorenLorenzo Ghiberti, Basel, 1941, pi.

(J.

ler, p.

Beschreibendes

ff.,

tinischen Bildners

[St.-James at Bruges], en 1476, par

a l'eglise

190

(Joseph story) of Ghiberti's "Gates of Paradise"

lief

par Roger van der Weyden, et

Jean-Baptiste, peint

Van

3.

Vie de Saint

la

p.

Atta Troll "conceived the

the Louvre (Schottmiiller, op

Either the one or

would seem

with the "retable representant

tical

in his

Heine

to the fin

left

2.

have been

to

XI, 1953,

Fra Angelico's representation of the same subject in

panel measuring 45 cm. by 28 cm. as

— would seem

ser.,

Beardsley and Richard Strauss).

80 and 81, text, p. 54); but here, as in the case of the lica"

who

whom

lady

was

figs.

"Granada-Miraflores" altarpiece, the Frankfort "repagainst 77 cm. by 46 cm.

new

Herodias; to substitute the daughter for the mother

pi. 41.

convincing juxtaposition in Musper,

of Art, Bulletin,

idea of Salome's fatal passion for John the Baptist."

Berlin triptych doubtless precedes that at Frank-

fort (see the

Museum

B.

Heinrich Heine

no. 2;

23; Schone, p. 70;

78-81; van Puyvelde, Primitives,

figs.

N.

"Martyrdom of St. John" in favor of its weak imitation by Mcmlinc (Bruges, Hopital Saint-Jean) and erroneously states that it was

502, fig. 302).

II, p.

1940, figs.

Rodney, "Salome," The Metropolitan

26, 28).

curiously omits Roger's

P.

"Pesellino," Burlington Magazine, LIII, 1928,

facing p. 67 (a drawing for, or after, the figure

reproduced in van Marie, op.

Andrea Pisano, Hamburg,

Falk, Studien zu

.

For an illustration of Castagno's "Farinata," see, van Marie, op. cit., X, p. 354, fig. 216; for the St.

Mammas pi.

Pisano's south door of the Baptistry at Florence (I.

l

Pierre de Beffremont, note 275 3.

Hulin

239; for

col.

identifiable portraits of Jean le Fevre de St.

4

in Bourges Cathedral (A. Martin and C. Cahicr, Monographic de la Cathedrale de Bourges, I, Vitraux du Xlll e siecle, Paris, 1841-1844, pi. XVI) or Andrea

first alter-

subject, sec

1

278 -281

Jeanne d'Arc

p.

47*

88;

Kunstsammlungen, XXXVII, two panels

1916,

pi.

facing

of a polyptych, dated 1369, in the

NOTES Pinacotcca at Fcrmo; a Spanish painting in the Rusi-

A

nol Collection at Sitges, published by Post, of Spanish Painting.

II,

J05, fig.

p.

History

185). Or, less

t're-

quently, she calmly looks on as in a mural in the

Chapel of Innocent VI at Villeneuve-lcs- Avignon (J. Guiffrcy and P. Marcel, La Pcinture francaise; Les primitifs, Paris, n.d.,

I,

8) or talks to St. Elizabeth

pi.

Henry

as in the "Pericope of

II" in the

Munich

Staats-

to assist at the dedication of a chronicle of the

de Bourgogne, counseiller

chanccllier

de Philippe,

du Clercq, IV,

13,

these examples are either Italian or Italianate except

lington Magazine,

this represents, as correctly p. 41, a

roles

of the

principal

II,"

St.

— reversing, — has

as

it

Our Lady Fouquet's

Jean

looks

much

"Hours

of

were, the

simply com-

LXXXIX,

Musee Conde

Baker, "The

Mediaeval Art," Bur-

1947, p. 81

The draw-

ff.

at Chantilly, illustrated as a vol., pi.

10, belongs,

its

Hamburg, Niederldnder, new ser., Frankfort, nos. 1, 2), to a "Symbolum Apostolicum" series

1926,

prob-

ably produced by a North-Netherlandish artist about

older than her cousin.

Etienne

siecle, vol.

companion pieces in the same collection (Destree, pi. 146) and in the Kunsthalle at Hamburg (G. Pauli, Zeichnungen alter Meister in der Kunsthalle zu

like

with the Elizabeth of the Visitation so that in his miniature

XV.

E. P.

cf.

in

sketch by Roger in Destree, text

bined the Virgin and Child of an ordinary Nativity

In

renderings,

earlier

ing in the

John and the

characters

For

4.

and

Jacques

Paris, 1826, p. 52]).

Sacraments and the Passion

pointed out by Leidinger,

fusion between the Birth of

Visitation; the illuminator

Henry

gouverneur

year 1460 [J.-A. Buchon, Collections

des Chroniques Nationales Francoises,

XIV,

for the miniature in the "Pericope of

et

Due de Bourgogne" (Memoires de

Cim. 57 (G. Leidinger, Miniaiurcn aus 1 landschrijtcn der Kgl. Hof- und Staatsbibliothek^ in Miinchen, Munich, V, n.d., pi. 29). All bibliothek, olm. 4452,

Hainaut,

and that he is paired off with Nicholas Rolin in the same way as in the Memoirs of Jacques du Clercq: "Lcquel evesque estoit lung des principaux, avecq le

Chevalier,"

1470-1480.

nearly contemporary with Roger's St. John altarpiece, the idea of showing the Virgin Mary sitting on the ground and holding the infant St. John on her lap is ev