|
|
Panel painting and altarpiece
In view of this concentration upon religious art, it follows that
the majority of the works described here are altarpieces. Most are
panel paintings, in other words paintings on wood, a medium employed
since the late 12th century and in some places still in use even in
Baroque times. At first they were hung as an antependium in front of
the altar table, while the priest stood behind it and celebrated
facing the congregation -a custom which was reinstated after the
Second Vatican Council of the years 1962—1965. In the 13th century,
following alterations to the liturgy still not fully explained or
perhaps simply in line with changing tastes, the painted panels
increasingly migrated up and onto the altar table, where they stood
at the rear as a retabulum. This implies that the priest must now
have been leading the service with his back to the congregation.
Within the altarpiece genre as a whole, a distinction may be made
between the simple panel, or pala, which was the convention in
Italy, and altars with — as a rule, folding — wings, as are found
above all north of the Alps and the Pyrenees. These triptychs were
only opened out on high days and holidays. The excitement of this
moment was heightened for the faithful by the particularly opulent
painting of their interiors, usually involving lavish quantities of
gold. We occasionally find altars with double sets of wings, which
can thus be displayed in three different ways. This concept of
opening out may in part derive both from the idea and the physical
shape of the containers used to house relics. The play, evident in
the rigid Soest altarpiece (Westphalian Master), upon the silhouette of a
triptych is one of the proofs that the folding altar was familiar by
the 13th century, even if the majority known to us today only date
from the following century.
In Italy and Spain, on the other hand, rigid structures remained
overwhelmingly, if not exclusively, the norm, although this did not
necessarily preclude them from employing more than one section.
Panels of different sizes were combined into larger superstructures,
which in Spain and Portugal could extend to fill virtually the
entire space behind the altar right up to the ceiling and out to the
side walls. Like triptychs in the North, they frequently
incorporated sculptures at their centre. These were elaborately
painted in techniques similar to those employed for the panels, and
were often admired even more greatly than the paintings themselves.
It is clear even from this brief overview that the Gothic panel
painting needs to be considered in its original context, namely
inside a church, on an altar table, perhaps topped by further panels
and even, in some cases, accompanied by holy relics and a donor's
tomb. In their relief patterning and lavish use of gold leaf, the
earliest examples of such paintings offer parallels with works
executed by goldsmiths, such as caskets made to house the bones of
saints venerated at the altar. The new genre of paintings destined
for collectors and galleries was one that only began to emerge right
at the end of the Gothic era. It would subsequently remain the norm
until the gradual dissolution of the traditional forms of art in the
20th century.
|
|
|
Goncalves
Nuno
( fl 1450–1491).
Portuguese painter. His work may be said to have initiated
the Renaissance in Portuguese painting. He is first named in
a document of 1450, when Afonso V (reg 1438–81) appointed
him court painter. In 1470 a payment to him is recorded for
an altarpiece painted for the chapel of the Palácio Real,
Sintra, which, given the dedication of the chapel, probably
represented the Pentecost (untraced). A document of 1471
states that Gonçalves replaced the painter João Eanes ( fl
from 1454) as Pintor das Obras da Cidade de Lisboa (Painter
of works for the city of Lisbon)
|
|
|
|

Nuno Goncalves
Archbishop panel
Altarpiece of Saint Vincent
1460s
Museu Nacional de Arte Antiga, Lisbon |
|

Nuno Goncalves
Archbishop panel
Altarpiece of Saint Vincent
1460s
Museu Nacional de Arte Antiga, Lisbon
|

Nuno Goncalves
Archbishop panel
Altarpiece of Saint Vincent
1460s
Museu Nacional de Arte Antiga, Lisbon
|
|
|

Nuno Goncalves
Archbishop panel
Altarpiece of Saint Vincent
1460s
Museu Nacional de Arte Antiga, Lisbon
|

Nuno Goncalves
Archbishop panel
Altarpiece of Saint Vincent
1460s
Museu Nacional de Arte Antiga, Lisbon
|

Nuno Goncalves
Archbishop panel
Altarpiece of Saint Vincent
1460s
Museu Nacional de Arte Antiga, Lisbon
|
|
|
|
|
|

Martinus "opifex" |
Martinus "opifex"
( fl 1440; d Regensburg, ?1456).
Illuminator, active in Germany. Most scholars, except
Ziegler (1988), place at the beginning of his career his
contribution, dated 1440, to a manuscript (before 1440–66;
295*210 mm; Munich, Bayer. Staatsbib., Cgm. 3974) executed
at various workshops. A manuscript with the text of Thomas
von Cantimpré’s De natura rerum and extracts from Ibn
Butlan’s Tacuinum sanitatis (c. 1445; 455*325 mm; Granada,
Bib. U., MS. C.67) also belongs to this early phase. From
1446 to 1449 Martinus is known to have been active at the
court of Frederick III in Vienna. To this period belong a
Golden Legend (1446–7; 540*360 mm; Vienna, Österreich. Nbib.,
Cod. 326) and a Breviary (1447–8; 530*365 mm; Vienna,
Österreich. Nbib., Cod. 1767), which were both executed for
Frederick III in collaboration with three other court
illuminators and their workshops. In early 1451 Martinus
‘opifex’ is attested in Regensburg.
|
|
|
|

Martinus "opifex"
"Here the Greeks sail for Troy"
1456
(miniature from the Trojan War by Guido de Columnis)
|
|
|
|
 Martinus
"opifex"
"Here the Greeks sail for Troy"
1456
(miniature from the Trojan War by Guido de Columnis)
|
|
|
|
Juan de Levi
(b Saragossa; fl 1388–1410).
Spanish painter. He belonged to a family of converted Jews and was the
nephew and pupil of the painter Guillén de Levi. He painted
the altarpiece of SS Laurence, Catherine and Prudence,
commissioned by the brother prelates Fernando and Pedro
Pérez Calvillo for their sepulchral chapel, founded in 1376,
in Tarazona Cathedral (Saragossa). The altarpiece was
finished by 1403, when it was mentioned as a model in a
contract that commissioned Juan de Levi to supply a retable
for S Jaime, Montalban (untraced). Other documents record
that he executed works in Huesca, Saragossa and Teruel, but
none of these survives. The altarpiece in Tarazona
Cathedral, Juan’s only surviving authenticated work, is one
of the most beautiful examples of late 14th-century
Aragonese art. It is painted in an expressive and elegant
style, and shows great narrative ability. It indicates a
development from an Italianizing Gothic style, of Sienese
origin, towards a more international manner that
incorporated elements derived from the work of north
European masters.
|
|
|
|

Juan de Levi
Peter Recognizes the Risen Christ on the Lake Shore
c. 1400
Museu Diocesa, Vic
|
|
|
|
Canvas paintings
Paintings on a textile backing ate similarly only found in larger
numbers as from around 1500. Over the following years they would
become increasingly widespread, not least because of the lower costs
involved. The use of less durable paint materials and a less
thorough preparation of the ground meant they deteriorated easily.
They were also treated with less care, since their value was
considered to be lower. It was precisely this perception of canvas
as having a lower worth that meant it was selected only rarely
before 1500 for important works of art. The potential of the new
medium only began to be recognized by painters such as
Durer.
Unfortunately, many such paintings have suffered irreparable damage
even in recent times as a result of inappropriate treatment.
Specifically, canvases do not tolerate the protective coatings of
varnish which have been applied, often thoughtlessly, in the modern
museums of the 19th and 20th century.
|
|
|
|
Wall painting
In Italian art from
Giotto to Raphael, wall painting is at least as
important as panel painting. In contrast to the murals surviving in
smaller numbers in the North, in which the pigments bound in oil or
egg tempera were generally applied directly on top of a dry ground,
artists in Italy mostly employed the true fresco technique. Fresco
means fresh: the pictures were painted on plaster that was still
damp, in sections which had to be completed at one stretch, with
only gold accents and a few other colours being added later. The
possibility for corrections was only limited, and thus the painting
of vast surfaces such as those confronting
Andrea da Firenze (doc.
from 1343- after 1377) in Santa Maria Novella - the mural he painted
was executed in 156 different sections - demanded very
precise preliminary studies and a highly efficient and concentrated
organization of labour. Outside Italy and the Alps, however, the
frescoed interior of Wienhausen monastery church from the years
around 1355 and the few other remnants which survive
can only hint at the role which murals played in the North. Facade
paintings such as those still visible in a number of southern German
and Alpine regions must also have commanded a more prominent
presence in daily life than devotional panels.
|
|
|
|
Stained Glass
and
Illuminated Manuscripts
To restrict this study to the genres of wall and panel painting
would be to do an injustice to the very artists who stood at their
fore. From
Simone Martini to
Bernat
Martorell and
Jan van Eyck, all also
turned their hand to designs for stained-glass windows, tapestries,
and the illumination of
manuscripts. Following the destruction of so
many altarpieces, in many regions stained glass and manuscript
illuminations remain the only witnesses to artistic developments.
Manuscripts also have the advantage of facing a much lower risk of
subsequent deliberate damage, overpainting, restoration or fading,
so that as a rule they convey the artist's original intentions much
more directly than panel paintings or murals. Alongside a number of
miniatures, the present volume also includes examples of stained
glass and unusual paintings such as the Hildesheim ceiling (Master
of the Lower
Saxon Workshop).
|
|
|
|
|
|
Master of the Lower Saxon Workshop
(active c. 1230-1240)
|
|
|
|

Master of the Lower Saxon Workshop
Jesse
c. 1240
(from the ceiling of St Michael's Hildesheim)
St Michael's, Hildesheim
|
|
|
|

Master of the Lower Saxon Workshop
The Fall
c. 1240
(from the ceiling of St Michael's Hildesheim)
St Michael's, Hildesheim
|
|
|
|
Everyday art
Finally, it must be remembered that medieval painters were employed
in another, important sphere of art of which practically nothing
survives. Even in the accounts of the leading Gothic masters, more
receipts have survived which refer to the painting of banners,
standards, steeple balls, festival decorations and the like than for
the production of art works in the modern sense. The raising, off
Stockholm, of the warship Wasa, built a century after the end of the
Gothic era, has given us an insight into the numbers of woodcarvers
and painters who would have been employed on "artefacts" of this
type. In those days there were hundreds of such ships, albeit only a
few of such magnificence.
In order to appreciate the significance of such decorative art for
the aesthetic of the Middle Ages, we need only consider the impact
upon our own daily lives of film sets and design, and how much more
strongly these affect us than the works of contemporary artists. Pop
artists such as Andy Warhol, Robert Rauschenberg and
Jasper Johns
have not been the only ones to reflect this everyday aesthetic;
although the impermanent art forms of the Middle Ages are almost
entirely lost, the miniatures by the
Master Boucicaut and the
Limburg suggest that their
influence was already strong. Bearing all these factors in mind, the
scattered remains that are brought together within these pages can
nevertheless offer a colourful and many-sided picture of the Gothic
age in art.
(Robert Suckale)
(Matthias Weniger)
|
|
|
|