Panels that Preface the Passion

1. 15th Century Flemish Art Melchior Broederlam Annunciation and Visitation & Presentation and Flight into Egypt Musée de la Ville ,Dijon, France, 1399 Panels that Preface the Passion Fashioned by Philip the Bold for the major altarpiece for the main chapel of the Chartreuse This collaborative project consisted of a large sculptural shrine carved by Jacques de Baerze and exterior panels painted by Melchior Broederlam and depicted Christ’s birth and infancy The two panels depict both landscape and interior scene, varying from Gothic to Romanesque The representation of the parts of the landscape and architecture reveals and attempt at creating three-dimensional figures, those of which are symbolic, the rotunda referring to the Old testament while the Gothic porch referring to the New Testament Broederlam’s said treatment of the figures, their halos, and the flat gold background recall medieval pictorial conventions This work was a precursor of many artistic developments that preoccupied European artists throughout the Fifteenth Century Figure 20-3

2. 15th Century Flemish Art Jan Van Eyck, Ghent Altarpiece (closed), 1432 Saint Bavo Cathedral, Ghent, Belgium Seeking Salvation and Redemption Figure 20-4 This is one of the largest and most admired Flemish altarpieces of the fifteenth century. Jodocus Vyd, burgomaster of Ghent, and his wife Isabel Burlutt commissioned this polyptych from Jan Van Eyck. This piece functioned as the liturgical( A prescribed form or set of forms for public religious worship) centerpiece of the endowment established in the chapel Vyd and Borluut built in the local church dedicated to Saint John the Baptist. Two of the exterior panels at the bottom depict the donors. The husband and wife kneel with their hands clasped in prayer as they gaze at illusionistic stone sculptures of Ghent’s patron saints: Saint John the Baptist and Saint John the Evangelist. An Annunciation scene appears on the upper register, with a careful representation of a Flemish town outside the center panel’s painted window. In the uppermost arched panels, van Eyck depicted images of the Old Testament prophets Zachariah and Micah.

3. Of Piety, Passion, and Politics Ghent Altarpiece (open), Jan Van Eyck Saint Bavo Cathedral, Ghent, ,Belgium 1432 Fifteenth-Century Flemish This is the same Altarpiece from the other side, but open. This shows a wonderfully colored painting of the medieval conception of humanity’s Redemption. In the upper register, God the Father-wearing the pope’s triple tiara, with a worldly crown at his feet in the deep-scarlet mantle- is presiding in majesty. To God’s right, is the Virgin, who is represented as the Queen of Heaven. Saint John the Baptist sits to God’s left. To either side is a choir of angels and on the right an angel playing an organ. Adam and Eve appear in the far panels. The entire altarpiece amplifies the central theme of salvation- though humans, symbolized by Adam and Eve are sinful, they will be save because of God’s infinite love and he will sacrifice his own son for this purpose. The inscriptions in the arches above Mary and Saint John extol the Virgin’s virtue and purity and Saint John’s greatness as the forerunner of Christ. The significant inscription above the Lord’s head says: “This is God, all-powerful in his divine majesty; of all the best, by the gentleness of his goodness; the most liberal giver, because of his infinite generosity.” Figure 20-5

4. Of Piety, Passion, and Politics Rogier Van der Weyden Last Judgment Altarpiece (open) , Beaune, France. 1444-1448 Fifteenth-Century Flemish Image goes here Delete this text before placing the image here. Nicholas Rolin, whom Philip the Good had appointed chancellor of the Burgundian territories, commissioned this piece. This piece was created for the Hotel-Dieu, which is a hospital. This was used as part of treatment in the church. People back then believed that illnesses and other problems were because God was angry. Therefore, they used to pray to patron saints so they could get better. Figure 20-7

5. Of Piety, Passion, and Politics Dirk Bouts Last Supper (center panel of the Altarpiece of the Holy Sacrament), Sait Peter’s Louvain, Belgium. 1464-1468 Fifteenth-Century Flemish This painting is the first northern one to used a single vanishing point for constructing an interior and he adjusts figures’ scale to correspond to the space they occupy. The perspective isn’t perfect however. The windows and side rooms do not adhere to the rules of linear perspective. It was the first Flemish panel painting depicting this event. He didn’t focus on the biblical narrative itself but instead presented Christ in the role of a priest performing a ritual from the liturgy of the Christian Church. This contrasts sharply with other Last supper depictions. The people depicted are most like portraits of the confraternity’s members responsible for commissioning the altarpiece. Figure 20-8 20-17

6. 15th Century Flemish Art Rogier Van Der Weyden, Deposition from Notre-Dame hors-les-murs, 1435 Museo del Prado, Madrid The Drama of Christ’s Death Figure 20-6 This piece was the center panel of a triptych (three-paneled painting) the Archers’ Guild of Louvain commissioned for the church of Notre Dame hors-les-murs in Louvain. This altarpiece sums up Rogier’s early style and content. Instead of creating a deep landscape setting, he compressed the figures and action onto a shallow stage to concentrate the observer’s attention. He imitated the large sculptured shrines so popular in the 15th century, and the device admirably serves his purpose of expressing maximum action with a limited space. The painting resembles a stratified relief carving. A series of lateral undulating movements gives the group a unity, a formal cohesion that Rogier strengthened by psychological means. Image goes here Delete this text before placing the image here. The depiction of the agony of loss is among the most authentic in relgious art.

7. Of Piety, Passion, and Politics Deposition, Rogier Van Der Weyden(from Notre-Dame hors-les-murs) Lovain, Belgium 1945 Fifteenth-Century Flemish This is the sorrowful face of the Virgin Mary. Figure 20-6 It was the center panel of a triptych, three paneled painting, of the Archers’ Guild of Lovain comissioned for the church of Notre Dame hors-les-murs in Louvain. To represent the patrons of this painting he ueses the crossbow, the guild’s symbol, in the spandrels. This altarpiece nicely sums up Rogier’s early style and content. He used a shallow stage instead of deep landscape setting. All of the characters are close together and there is little background space at all. A series of lateral undulating movements gives the group a unity, a formal cohesion that Rogier strengthened by psychological means- by the desolating anguish common to all the figures. The similar poses of Jesus and Mary further unify the painting. He is an amazing emotion painter. The sorrow on the faces of the characters is among the most authentic in religious art.

8. 15th Century Flemish Art Robert Campin, Merode Altarpiece(open),1425 Metropolitan Museum of Art, NY The Symbolic and the Secular The central panel depicts the popular Annunciation theme in which the archangel Gabriel approaches Mary, who sits reading The book, extinguished candle, lilies, copper basin( in the corner niche), towels, fire screen, and bench symbolize, in different ways, the Virgin’s purity and her divine mission In the right panel, Joseph has made a mousetrap, symbolic of the theological tradition that Christ is bait set in the trap of the world to catch the Devil In the left panel the altarpiece’s donor, Peter Inghelbrecht and his wife kneel and watch in awe of this momentous event The couple appear in a closed garden which symbolizes Mary’s purity and the flowers represent Mary’s virtues, especially humility Similar in format to large-scale Flemish altarpieces, The Merode altarpiece is much smaller, which allowed the owners to close the wings and move the painting when necessary The artist depicted a well-kept middle-class Flemish home as the site of the event. Both the architectural scene in the background of the right wing and the included accessories such as furniture, utensils, etc, reinforce the settings identification. These objects also function as symbols Figure 20-11

9. 15th Century Flemish Art Jan Van Eyck, Giovanni Arnolfini and His Bride 1434 National Gallery, London For Better, For Worse Van Eyck depicted the Lucca financier and his betrothed in a Flemish bedchamber that is simultaneously mundane and charged with spirituality. Almost every object conveys the event’s sanctity, specifically, the holiness of matrimony. Arnolfini and his bride, hand in hand, take the marriage of vows. The cast-aside clogs indicate this event is taking place on holy ground. The little dog symbolizes fidelity (the common canine name Fido originated from the Latin Fido, “to trust”). The bedpost’s crowning ornament is a tiny statue of Saint Margaret, patron saint of childbirth. From the finial hangs a whisk broom, symbolic of domestic care. The oranges on the chest below the window may refer to fertility, and the all-seeing eye of God is seen by the single candle in the left rear holder of the chandelier and by again by the mirror. Figure 20-13

10. 15th Century Flemish Art Jan Van Eyck, Giovanni Arnolfini and His Bride 1434 National Gallery, London For Better, For Worse Husbands traditionally presented brides with clogs, and the solitary lit candle in the chandelier was also part of Flemish marriage practices. Van Eyck’s placement of the two figures suggests conventional gender roles - the woman stands near the bed and well into the room, while the man stands near the open window, symbolic of the outside world. Van Eyck enhanced the documentary nature of this painting by exquisitely painting each object. He carefully distinguished textures and depicted the light from the window on the left reflecting off various surfaces. The artist augmented the scene’s credibility by including the convex mirror, because viewers can see not only the principals, Arnolfini and his wife, but also two persons who look into the room through the door. The picture’s purpose seems to have been to record and sanctify this marriage. Van Eyck was present, as noted in the writing in the mirror: “Johannes de Ecyk fuit hic.” Figure 20-12

11. 15th Century Flemish Art Jan Van Eyck, Giovanni Arnolfini and His Bride 1434 National Gallery, London For Better, For Worse The small medallions set into the mirror’s frame show tiny scenes from the Passion of Christ and represent God’s everpresent promise of salvation for the figures reflected on the mirror’s convex surface The artist augmented the scene’s credibility by including the convex mirror, because viewers can see not only the principals, Arnolfini and his wife, but also two persons who look into the room through the door One of these must be the artist himself, due to the florid inscription above the mirror “Johannes de Eyck fuit hic, “ announcing he was present Figure 20-12

12. 15th Century Flemish Art Petrus Christus, A Goldsmith in His Shop 1449 Metropolitan Museum of Art, NY A Golden Moment This painting, just like Van Eyck’s portrait, involves a couple and the holy sacrament of matrimony. A goldsmith sits in his stall, showing an elegantly attired couple a selection of rings. The bride’s betrothal girdle lies on the table, and the woman reaches for the ring the goldsmith weighs. The carefully depicted objects on the right side of the painting refer to the goldsmith’s trade. The raw materials - precious stones, beads, crystal, coral, and seed pearls - are scattered among finished products, including rings, buckles, and brooches. The convex mirror in the foreground extends the painting’s space into that of the viewer’s. This painting incorporates secular and religious elements. While focusing on an economic transaction and the goldsmith’s profession, it calls attention to the sacrament of marriage and includes items such as a crystal container of Eucharistic wafers. The scales could easily symbolize the Last Judgment. Figure 20-14

13. 15th Century Flemish Art Jan van Eyck, Man in a Red Turban 1433, Oil on wood National Gallery, London Meeting the Viewers Gaze Completely secular painting without a layer of religious interpretation. This absence of religious meaning was very uncommon in Flemish painting in this time. Believed to be a self-portrait, it shows that this man required no religious purpose for being, only a personal one. Private portraiture began to multiply as both artists and patrons became interested in the reality they revealed. The man in the painting looks directly at the viewers, perhaps like he was looking in the mirror. This was the 1st western portrait in a thousand years to have this. The man in the painting has a level, composed gaze, directed from a three-quarter head pose, which showed that this man was very impressive in his day. At any angle you look at the painting, it looks like it is staring right back at you. (much like the Mona Lisa) Figure 20-15

14. 15th Century Flemish Art Rogier Van Der Weyden, Portrait of a Lady 1460 National Gallery, Washington D.C. Capturing Class and Character The commission details for Rogier van der Weyden’s portraits of an unknown young lady remain unclear. Her dress and bearing imply noble rank. The artist provided viewers with a portrait that not only presented a faithful likeness of her somewhat plain features but also revealed her individual character. Her lowered eyes, tightly locked thin fingers, and fragile physique bespeak an introverted and devout personality. Rogier’s honestly and directness, typical in the Flemish artist’s approach, reveal much, despite the woman’s reserved demeanor. This style contrasted with the formal Italian approach derived from the profiles common to coins and medallions, which was sterner and conveyed little of the sitter’s personality. Rogier was perhaps chief among the Flemish in his penetrating readings of his subjects, and as a great pictorial composer, he made beautiful use here of flat, sharply pointed angular shapes that so powerfully suggest the rigidity of this subject’s personality. He placed little emphasis on minute description of surface detail. Instead, he defined large, simple planes and volumes, achieving an almost “abstract” effect. 20-16

15. 15th Century Flemish Art Hieronymus Bosch, Garden of Earthly Delights. 1505-1510 Museo del Prado, Madrid Love and Marriage or Sex and Sin? Hieronymous Bosch is considered to be one of the most fascinating and puzzling painters in history. Was he a satirist, an irreligious mocker, a pornographer? Was he obsessed by guilt and the universal reign of sin and death? This particular painting is Bosch’s most enigmatic, and no interpretation of it is universally accepted. The large scale painting takes the familiar form of the tripych, and extends more than twelve feet wide and seven feet tall. The tripych form indicates a religious function, yet documentation reveals that this image resided in the palace of Henry III of Nassau, regent of the Netherlands, seven years after its completion (suggesting private use) The left panel depicts God presenting Eve to Adam in a landscape, presumably the Garden of Eden. Bosh complicated his straightforward presentation of this event by placing it in a wildly imaginative setting that includes an odd pink fountain-like structure in a body of water and an array of fanciful and unusual animals, which may hint at an interpretation involving alchemy-- the medieval study of seemingly magical changes, especially chemical changes. 20-17

16. 15th Century Flemish Art Hieronymus Bosch, Garden of Earthly Delights. 1505-1510 Museo del Prado, Madrid Love and Marriage or Sex and Sin? Sandwiched between Paradise and Hell is the huge central panel, with nude people blithely cavorting in a landscape dotted with bizarre creatures and unidentifiable objects. The prevalence of fruit and birds (fertility symbols) throughout the scene suggests procreation, and , indeed, many of the figures are paired off as couples. The orgiastic overtones of the painting, in conjunction with the terrifying images of Hell, have led some scholars to interpret this triptych, like other Last Judgment images, as a warning to the viewers of the fate awaiting the sinful, decadent, and immoral. 20-17

17. 15th Century Flemish Art Hieronymus Bosch, Hell, from the Garden of Earthly Delights. 1505-1510 Museo del Prado, Madrid Love and Marriage or Sex and Sin? The right panel, in contrast, bombards the viewers with the horrors of Hell. Beastly creatures devour people, while others are impaled or strung on musical instruments. A gambler is nailed to his own table. A spidery monster embraces a girl while toads bite her. A sea of inky darkness envelops the entire range of horror. Observers must search through the hideous enclosure of Bosch’s Hell to take in its fascinating through repulsive details. 20-17