CHAPTER 5 : INTERNATIONAL GOTHIC ART AND THE RENAISSANCE IN THE NORTH

FIRST PART : THE INTERNATIONAL GOTHIC

 

I. Architecture.

Two styles are sharing the second half of the 14th and 15th centuries :

- The Perpendicular style (in England). The fan vault.

  

 - The flamboyant style ( in the rest of Europe)

Here and there two styles we can name, in an anachronistic way, "baroque" or "Mannerist" (because the baroque dates from the 17th century and the mannerism, from the 16th century). There is behind these two labels, the idea of a decline. As if the Classical  Gothic was a zenith : the "purity" of the Gothic. Looking back, from our time, influenced by the functionalism of Le Corbusier and his successors, there is no doubt that the Classical Gothic , is the key of the architecture itself, because it evacuates all that is unnecessary, in order to show  only what it is necessary to the building of the church ; while the "perpendicular" or "flamboyant" styles are only moments of decoration. However  if we do not consider the history  in the 19h century way (Hegel, Marx) as a progression (outward and not return) toward an ideal or some perfection nothing  authorizes such value judgements.

We will note, again, this : if the sculpture is tending to free itself of the architecture, where it was taken, especially during the Romanesque period, it is remaining in harmony with this one. The curves refinement, the small columns preciosity are in line with the refinement and the preciosity of the sculpture and the paint in the 14th and 15th centuries.

II. Sculpture, paint : the form.

1. Refinement and preciosity.

 

 

Objects are small sized. Transportable. Made in ivory, and in precious matters (gold, silver, mother-of-pearl, black horn), chiseled in the most little detail and marked by that "grace" which will be a distinguishing feature of the mannerism in the 16th century. Statuettes, small diptychs or triptychs, etc., to be used in order to the individual devotion.

2. Search of depth . But refusal of "realism": the illumination.

Paint is already in the manuscript illuminations. The research is here. Here the innovations.

The fact that the paint is disconnected from architecture allows what was prohibited in the 12th century : the digging of the wall (disappeared in the Gothic architecture) : the perspective. Several options are tested.

a. The atmospheric perspective.

A "far away" is appearing through a lightening of the sky, near the horizon line. Of course, this is not something "realistic". The sun rays are materialized as "rays". The landscape remains sharply defined in spite of the distance. While instead it should have  disappeared progressively in the sky. But there is two plans : one close, another far away.

 

 

b. The diaphragm.

Another way to depict the perspective : the addition of a diaphragm in front the scene. Below, two small columns and a transversal beam are making a frame for the action place. We are located in front, so there is a "far away".

The method of the diaphragm improves two another methods. The first more artificial, the second more symbolic. By the first, we are removing the wall which masked the scene into the building. This way is named : explicit inside. The second involves to install tiles onto the ground in order to manifest that the scene is inside. This way is named : implicit inside

 

3. When the naturalism appeared, it was as a "mannerist" style and not as a "realistic" style. E.g, The Limbourg brothers : Très riches Heures du Duc de Berry.

 

Of course, we can see in this Calendar the first snow-covered landscape, the first drop shadows which did not appear in the illuminations of the previous painters. They were showing the human activity in work (work to be carried out in each month of the year). But the aim was moralizing (the virtues tied to the work) and religious (fruits of Nature are God gifts). If the Calendar of the Limbourg brothers shows yet the working in the fields and the vine, the search of the acorns and of the wood for the heating, it shows these things on the backdrop of a precious material. Each painting was showing one of the Duke's castles and many scenes were Court scenes, perfectly atheists. Their aim is to point the nobility through the richness and particularly the elegance of the clothes, the jewellery and the behavior.

3. The altarpiece.

But the paint is not limited at the manuscript illumination. In the 15th century, the altarpiece is developing and, in the North (Belgium, Netherlands), to the detriment of the sculpture. One of the more famous is the altarpiece of the Van Eyck brothers which is located in the Saint-Bavon cathedral in Gent (Belgium) : the altarpiece of the Mystic Lamb (below, closed then opened). 

 

 

III. Sculpture, paint : the content.

1. The melancholy.

The 12th century is the century of the faith. The believe in a God totally stranger and terrifying. The 13th century is the age of the pity. The believe in a God severe (Judge and Father) but sympathetic. The 14th and 15th centuries are the centuries of the devotion. The believe in a God human, too human, dead for the humans.  A God of pity. Several themes are following from this fact.

a. The death.

The death, always present, becomes an obsessive theme. We must remember that, between 1347 and 1350, the half of the European population ( 25 millions) is decimated by the black plague. That scourge is still in France between 1353 and 1355. It is a threat that is always weighing on the minds.

- The death is the subject matter of many illuminations.

- The Three Leaving and The Three Dead which deals  the meeting of three young people with their own dead body, is a warning that death is always present. That story is in all the memories.

- The Dance of Death appears.

- In the funerary art, the transi follows the gisant. The dead person is not depicted without the death marks. Two levels tombs are appearing at the end of the14th century. On the highest level, the spiritual part, the immortal part of the dead person. At the bottom his bodily and mortal part.

 - Or the mourners (Below the Tomb of Philippe Pot, Cireaux Abbay).

 

b. The crucifixion.

On Byzantine and then Romanesque periods, the Christ crucified is a Christ who defeats the last enemy : the Death. On the classical Gothic period, the Crucifixion wears a dogmatic, a pedagogic worth. At the 14th century, the idea of triumph disappeared, but the treatment remains precious and mannerist. At the 15th century, it is a suffering Christ, distressed who is depicted.

c. The figures of the suffering Christ.

Two figures are often confused : the one of the Christ of Pity and the other of the Man of Sorrows. The latter is a 15th century invention.

-The Christ of Pity is dead, half-outside of his tomb, supported (or not) by angels. He is showing his wounds.

 

- The man of sorrows is still alive. He is the Christ on Calvary, waiting for crucifixion.

 

Here, we are far from the terrible God on the Moissac tympanum Apocalypse. Far from the supreme Judge of the classical Gothic tympanums. It is the ecce homo, this one who, in his humanity, has suffered all that it is possible to suffer. And who is dead as each human dies.

From the Romanesque ages to the end of the 15th century, there appears to be a decline of God, a de-divinization, which end the medieval culture that will paradoxically be continued in the North.

SECOND PART : THE RENAISSANCE IN THE NORTH IN THE 15^TH CENTURY (OR THE FLEMISH PRIMITIVES)

I. The codes.

The symbolism, evident in the medieval depiction, hides in the Nordic Renaissance. All must be interpreted.

 

 Church (NT) ; Temple of Jerusalem (AT) skein of purple wool

 So, a Romanesque window will mean the Old Testament or the Old times or the time which was before the time : the eternity of the God's kingdom. A Gothic window will mean the New testament or the current time. Then, a window never is a window. It is a sign.  There again, you have to know how to read. All the difficulty remains in the fact that the symbolism is hided.

II. The World as an allegory.

The difficulty, in a work, is to know if such or such object or element of the decor is a symbol  INTENTIONALLY willed by the painter or invented by the person who tries to understand the work. In the symbolism of the beginning, not yet complete (The Maître de Flemalle, e.g. : Merode Altarpiece), that problem arose. It does not arose, then, with masters as Jan (or Hubert) Van eyck. The the portrait of Nicolas Rolin, chancellor to Philippe Le Bon in La Vierge au Chancelier Rolin, e.g. (below), is spontaneously interpreted as a portrait of a donor. In reality it is the soul of this man (dead) in front of the Virgin, in the City of God. Indeed, where are we ? The view is perfectly distinct from the foreground to the infinity. It is not the view of an human look.  The only being which is able to see distinctly from foreground to infinity is God. Then, were are in the City of God, not in our World. The paint is not depicting the Virgin in Majesty with the donor portrait, as often.

The three semicircular arches are three and Romanesque. Three as the Trinity. Romanesque as the Old Time. May be as the Time which was before the Time : the eternity. So the Chancellor is dead. He is received in Paradise by the Virgin. Here is a hided symbolism. Under the appearance of a paint depicting a Virgin in Majesty with donor, another scene is indicated.

  

 

The character of the Virgin in The Virgin in a Church (Van Eyck, below) is not the Virgin. And the church is not a church. She is the Church in an aedicula which is itself the idea of the Church. This meaning does not appear without an interpretation.

Indeed, the Virgin is too tall compared to the height of the edifice. But she has the right size for the classical Church in an aedicula. The church itself is not a church. The light comes from the North and this is contrary to the right orientation of a church. So, the church is nothing but the aedicula where the Church is taking place.

 

As well, Van Eych does not depict (below) the husband and his wife just before their wedding night, in the Arnolfini Husbands. The paint IS a marriage certificate delivered by the painter. Only the interpretation is able to reveal that meaning.

Look at the background mirror. You can see not only the back of the bride and groom, but also the face of the painter and another character. So, they are located in front of the paint. Where you are located. They are the marriage witnesses. The signature is not the traditional "Johanes van Eyck fecit" (made by Jan van Eyck) but "Johanes van Eyck fuit hic" (Jan van Eyck was here). All the signs and symbols of the paint are confirming that interpretation.

 

III. The Ars Nova.

1. The Ars Nova is a new way of painting which is appearing in the North at the 15th century.

2. The palette expands.

3. Oil painting is used. More luminous. With a biggest chromatic intensity. But an illusion which is not misleading, because it  saying its illusory character and orders an interpretation.

IV. Toward the end of the symbolism.

The Van Eyck successors (Rogier Van der Veyden, Petrus Christus, Dirk Bouts, Hugo Van de Goes, Hans Memling and others) will gradually give up the symbolism. The Middle Ages is ending. The World ceases to be the Creator's Writing decoded by the artist. It begins to affirm itself in its autonomy as an "object" (ob-ject) for a science which will study it. New methods will needed, new devices for its depiction. The Italian Renaissance, already in the 14th and 15th centuries, is working on that.