15th century Flemish art

Voorstelling van het dubbelboek van Cor Engelen

De Vlaamse Primitieven doorgelicht
De Franse Primitieven doorgelicht
een iconografisch onderzoek


Nog een boek over de Vlaamse Primitieven en een over de Franse Primitieven? En toch zal de lezer de indruk krijgen dat hij of zij voor het eerst naar de vele werken kijkt die bij iedereen op het netvlies gebrand staan als de hoogtepunten van artistieke kunde waar de merknamen Vlaamse en Franse Primitieven garant voor staan.
Engelen geraakte geïntrigeerd door enkele eigenaardigheden en ‘unieke creaties’ in het werk van Van der Weyden. Zijn onderzoek bracht hem bij andere grote Vlaamse Primitieven en uiteindelijk ook bij de Franse Primitieven, werken die gesitueerd worden in het eerste tot het derde kwart van de 15e eeuw.

Chap. 3. Because of the multitude of manifestations, it is difficult to reconstruct the coming into being of the biblical portrait historié. Different lines of development can be followed within classical and christian art. This religious type of disguised portraiture can only be partly explained by ideas about incarnation, christomimetes, and euhemerism. The identification with a biblical figure can perhaps be best interpreted through typology and anagogè. In religious art, the portrait historié developed from the donor portrait into the “portrait in assistance”, in which the patrons increasingly find their way to the centre of the composition, passively taking part in the sacred history. In the course of time, these passive witnesses gain a more active rol. An important group of works are portraits of burghers in Passion scenes: a specific kind of religious identification that can be connected with the ideas of Modern Devotion. When in later time the religious reform movements gained foothold in the Netherlands – on both sides of the denominational spectrum – it was mainly the epitaph (memorietafel) from which the autonomous biblical portrait historié developed.

With the coming of the Reformation, the dichotomy between ecclesiastical art and (civic) private art further widened but also resulted in the increase of religious paintings in secular spaces. Nevertheless, autonomous (non-devotional) portraits historiés with Old Testament subjects were already being painted for private homes from the last quarter of the 15th century onwards (e.g. David and Abigail by Hugo van der Goes). Looking across the borders, in France and Germany, one also finds precursors of the autonomous biblical group portraits that first appeared in the southern Netherlands in the last quarter of the 16th century. The diffusion of Reformation ideas also contributed to the rise of the portrait type. In Reformation exegesis the method of humanist allegoresis of scripture was transformed and analogies between biblical and contemporary events and individuals could also be understood in a more literal sense. As before in the Modern Devotion, the anagogy may also have played an important role, since according to the anagogical argument the image, as a substitute for a textual source, could elevate the beholder’s mind to immaterial realities and even a partial or complete union with God. Calvin’s more down-to-earth approach of art and preference for historical representations with a didactic function may also have had an indirect influence on the preferences of citizens in the Dutch Republic. Although portraits were deemed admissible in his view, het was critical of images ‘without meaning’: as a consequence portraits historiés would meet the requirements of art he had envisioned.

3. De ontwikkeling van het portrait historié vanaf de oudheid tot de reformatie 91
3.1. Mythologische voorbeelden uit de oudheid 93
3.2. Vroegchristelijk euhemerisme en de profane typologie 95
3.3. Representatie in vroegchristelijke en middeleeuwse portraits historiés. 98
3.4. Vroege portraits historiés: keizer Sigismund en de Vlaamse connectie 101
3.5. Van gehistoriseerd stichtersportret naar autonoom portrait historié 105
3.6. Assistentieportretten en geïntegreerde portraits historiés van burgers 113
3.7. Opname en inleving: portretten in Passiescènes en de moderne devotie 117
3.8. De Heilige Maagschap als gehistorieerd familieportret 123
3.9. Vroege autonome portraits historiés met oudtestamentische onderwerpen 130
3.10. Van humanistische allegorese naar reformatorisch historiebegrip 134
3.11. Euhemerisme en anagogische betekenisoverdracht 141

Le Traité des Quatre dernières choses est la traduction française, réalisée par Jean Miélot, certainement à la demande du duc de Bourgogne Philippe le Bon, d’un texte latin intitulé Cordiale Quatuor Novissimis. La mise en images du traité en français a été commandée à trois artistes distincts : Jean Le Tavernier, Le Maître aux grisailles fleurdelisées et Loyset Liédet. Ils ont chacun enluminé un manuscrit. Les formations, les styles et les goûts de ces artistes se distinguent et se traduisent dans leur art. À travers l’analyse des enluminures de ces trois manuscrits, ce mémoire prétend étudier la relation texte-image et montrer que trois artistes travaillant à une même période au sein de la même cour ont réalisé des œuvres singulières. Les enluminures qu’ils ont peintes constituent certes la mise en images du texte, mais traduisent également la pensée de l’époque sur la mort et l’au-delà. Les images et les discours visuels employés ont parfait le Traité servant ainsi de moyen d’édification spirituelle et de guide aux lecteurs dans leurs médiations et prières personnelles.

- English: Is possible try to draw one corpus about the lost paintings of Bosch thanks some copies and their relation between them. This work sample this option using one case of study Hispanic: Triptych of the Curses. The study of him lateral wings manifested one relation between this and Bosch so near, for who is possible accept who this wings speak us about lost paintings of Bosch.
- Castellano: Es posible tratar de delinear un corpus de obras perdidas de Bosch gracias a algunas copias y la relación entre ellas. Este trabajo muestra esta opción usando un caso de estudio hispánico: el Tríptico de los Improperios. El estudio de sus tablas laterales manifiesta una relación entre éstas y Bosch muy cercana, por lo que es posible aceptar que estas tablas nos hablan de pinturas perdidas de Bosch.

Many viewers have contemplated over the mysterious curtains held up by two prophets on either side of the panel of Hugo van der Goes’ Adoration of the Shepherds, now in Berlin. Some say it alludes to the story of Parrhasius and Zeuxis, battling for fame, others see it as a reference to curtains often draped over altarpieces, which this work was undoubtedly meant to be. A third group, to which this article belongs, sees a connection with contemporary theatre.
The mystery plays held during the Christmas mass show remarkable similarities to the scene depicted by Van der Goes in the later years of his life. The story seems to take place on a raised platform or stage with the two prophets serving as mediator between the public and the divine scene. The Old Testament men holding up the curtains seem to be taken straight from descriptions of the Ordo Prophetarum, a medieval liturgical play performed on Christmas day. In other descriptions of fifteenth-century nativity plays the angels are described as they are rendered here, the comedic figures of the shepherds too show similarities in their clownish behavior, just as the figure of the donkey. This article will argue that the painting doesn’t simply reference the play, but that it is a representation of a scene from the nativity plays that were held in many cities in the Netherlands at that time. Just after the shepherds were asked the question ‘who are you looking for’ and they had answered, the prophets, who had predicted to coming of the savior, would lift up the curtains to reveal the newborn child.
Furthermore Van der Goes’ motives to do so will be discussed in light of his newfound religious convictions. At the end of his career he became an Augustinian lay brother in a monastery adherent to the Modern Devotion. Through simplicity and immediacy, with the vernacular as its instrument, his movement sought immaterial transcendence. ‘When a learned man, for instance, hears something sacred expressed in his mother tongue, he seems to conceive in his mind something new or fresh by way of that mother tongue’. (Geert Grote, founder of the Modern Devotion) By making something recognizable Van der Goes used painting in the same way as priests used the vernacular. By bringing the scene of the adoration closer to the everyday life of the beholder, so this article will argue, Van der Goes attempted to aid the viewer in understanding of the depiction and to conceive something new or fresh. The adoration is as it were a step on the way to immaterial transcendence.

L'articolo contiene una descrizione del Crocifisso detto "di Nicodemo" conservato presso la chiesa di S. Francesco (Oristano); vengono citati e ricordati i principali studi e le ipotesi sulla datazione dell'opera, etc. In conclusione si propongono alcune nuove piste di studio.