Mater Dolorosa. Workshop of Dieric Bouts, c 1470–75. 36.8 x 27.8 cm. National Gallery, London.
Christ Crowned with Thorns. Workshop of Dieric Bouts, c 1470–75. 36.8 x 27.8 cm. National Gallery, London.
The Christ and the Virgin Diptych consisted of two small oil on oak panel paintings by the Early Netherlandish painter Dirk Bouts (also called Dieric Bouts) completed c. 1470-1475. Originally they formed the wings of a hinged devotional diptych.
The original autograph diptych is lost, although numerous versions of generally rather poor quality survive including a near identical diptych in the Louvre and a similar diptych in Toronto. Other versions of each panel survive. The best versions of the Mater Dolorosa are in the Art Institute of Chicago and in the Weissberger collection at Madrid. The Chicago version was probably painted by Bout's son Dieric Bouts the Younger, about whom nothing is known.[1] A good version of the Christ is in the collection of the Duchess of Osuna at Seville. At least ten other versions are known, including one from the workshop of Dirk Bouts in the National Gallery, London.[2][3]
Although devotional diptychs were common in mid-15th century northern art, they typically, following the innovations of the highly commercially successful Rogier van der Weyden - whom Bouts was known to have been influenced by - showed a saint paired with a donor. This example is unusual in that both wings depict members of the holy family.
Bouts depicts the Virgin Mary as the "Mater Dolorosa" (Our Lady of Sorrows). She is shown with reddened eyes full of tears that spill down her cheeks. Her head is bowed in grief,[4] and although she looks outwards, her expression is reflective and introspective. Her eyes - like those of Christ on the right panel - are coyly and dignifiedly averted from the viewer. Hers are downcast, his equally tear reddened eyes gaze to his right.[5] In comparison to the passionate and expressively rendered depictions of Mary's suffering in the art of Bouts' near contemporaries Jan van Eyck or Rogier van der Weyden,[6] here, Mary's grief is highly restrained and, according to art historian Joseph Van der Elst, all the more "appealing and deeply moving. She is timeless like human suffering."[7]
Christ is shown in suffering and in pain, reflecting one of two broad styles of single portrait representation popular in the mid to later 15th century, both of which showed his head in either near close up isolation, in half length.[8] The representation of Christ in the "Holy Face" format dates back to ByzantineIcons and the motif was popularised again by Robert Campin and the lost van Eyck frontal representation of Christ known through a copy in the Staatliche Preussischer Kulturbesitz Museen, Berlin.[9]
The second popular means of presenting the heads of Christ, that of the "Man of Sorrows", or "Dead Christ", dates from Roman imagery and is usually less formal, less strictly frontal than Holy Face representations, and focuses on the suffering and passion of the biblical tales.[10] Perhaps the most notable example of the latter is Geertgen tot Sint Jans's Man of Sorrows c. 1485–95. Bouts' earlier right hand panel is similarly typical, showing Christ bleeding at the forehead from incisions made by the Crown of Thorns. A very similar c 1470 work attributed to Bouts, is comparable in composition, colorisation and tone, and is today in the London National Gallery.[11]
In this work Bouts shifts the emphasis and presents both Christ and Mary in the tradition, with Mary now presented as the Woman of Sorrow".[7]
Gallery
Mater Dolorosa. Workshop of Dieric Bouts the Younger, c. 1470–75. 38.7 × 30.3 cm. Art Institute of Chicago.
Early Netherlandish painting is the body of work by artists active in the Burgundian and Habsburg Netherlands during the 15th- and 16th-century Northern Renaissance period, once known as the Flemish Primitives. It flourished especially in the cities of Bruges, Ghent, Mechelen, Leuven, Tournai and Brussels, all in present-day Belgium. The period begins approximately with Robert Campin and Jan van Eyck in the 1420s and lasts at least until the death of Gerard David in 1523, although many scholars extend it to the start of the Dutch Revolt in 1566 or 1568–Max J. Friedländer's acclaimed surveys run through Pieter Bruegel the Elder. Early Netherlandish painting coincides with the Early and High Italian Renaissance, but the early period is seen as an independent artistic evolution, separate from the Renaissance humanism that characterised developments in Italy. Beginning in the 1490s, as increasing numbers of Netherlandish and other Northern painters traveled to Italy, Renaissance ideals and painting styles were incorporated into northern painting. As a result, Early Netherlandish painters are often categorised as belonging to both the Northern Renaissance and the Late or International Gothic.
Dieric Bouts was an Early Netherlandish painter. Bouts may have studied under Rogier van der Weyden, and his work was influenced by van der Weyden and Jan van Eyck. He worked in Leuven from 1457 until his death in 1475.
Aelbrecht Bouts was a Flemish painter of the Early Netherlandish era. His first name is sometimes spelled ‘Albert’, ‘Aelbert’ or ‘Albrecht’. He was born into a family of painters in Leuven. Aelbrecht’s father was Dieric Bouts the Elder, and his brother was Dieric Bouts the Younger. Jan Bouts, son of Dieric Bouts the Younger, also became a painter. Dieric Bouts the Younger inherited his father’s shop in 1475, while Aelbrecht established his own workshop, also in Leuven. Whereas Dieric the Younger continued in his father's style, Aelbrecht developed his own unmistakable style with strong colors, rich texture and fine details. He died in Leuven.
The decade of the 1460s in art involved some significant events.
A donor portrait or votive portrait is a portrait in a larger painting or other work showing the person who commissioned and paid for the image, or a member of his, or her, family. Donor portrait usually refers to the portrait or portraits of donors alone, as a section of a larger work, whereas votive portrait may often refer to a whole work of art intended as an ex-voto, including for example a Madonna, especially if the donor is very prominent. The terms are not used very consistently by art historians, as Angela Marisol Roberts points out, and may also be used for smaller religious subjects that were probably made to be retained by the commissioner rather than donated to a church.
Portrait of a Lady is a small oil-on-oak panel painting executed around 1460 by the Netherlandish painter Rogier van der Weyden. The composition is built from the geometric shapes that form the lines of the woman's veil, neckline, face, and arms, and by the fall of the light that illuminates her face and headdress. The vivid contrasts of darkness and light enhance the almost unnatural beauty and Gothic elegance of the model.
The Diptych of Philip de Croÿ with The Virgin and Child consists of a pair of small oil-on-oak panels painted c. 1460 by the Netherlandish artist Rogier van der Weyden. While the authorship and dating of both works are not in doubt, it is believed but not proven that they were created as wings of a devotional diptych and that at some unknown time the panels were broken apart. A diptych panel fitting the description of the Mary wing was described in a 1629 inventory of paintings owned by Alexandre d'Arenberg, a descendant of Philip I de Croÿ (1435–1511). Both have been approximately dated to 1460 and are now in Antwerp and San Marino, CA respectively. The reverse of de Croÿ's portrait is inscribed with the family crest and the title used by the sitter from 1454 to 1461.
The Magdalen Reading is one of three surviving fragments of a large mid-15th-century oil-on-panel altarpiece by the Early Netherlandish painter Rogier van der Weyden. The panel, originally oak, was completed some time between 1435 and 1438 and has been in the National Gallery, London since 1860. It shows a woman with the pale skin, high cheek bones and oval eyelids typical of the idealised portraits of noble women of the period. She is identifiable as the Magdalen from the jar of ointment placed in the foreground, which is her traditional attribute in Christian art. She is presented as completely absorbed in her reading, a model of the contemplative life, repentant and absolved of past sins. In Catholic tradition the Magdalen was conflated with both Mary of Bethany who anointed the feet of Jesus with oil and the unnamed "sinner" of Luke 7:36–50. Iconography of the Magdalen commonly shows her with a book, in a moment of reflection, in tears, or with eyes averted.
Saint Luke Drawing the Virgin is a large oil and tempera on oak panel painting, usually dated between 1435 and 1440, attributed to the Early Netherlandish painter Rogier van der Weyden. Housed in the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, it shows Luke the Evangelist, patron saint of artists, sketching the Virgin Mary as she nurses the Child Jesus. The figures are positioned in a bourgeois interior which leads out towards a courtyard, river, town and landscape. The enclosed garden, illusionistic carvings of Adam and Eve on the arms of Mary's throne, and attributes of St Luke are amongst the painting's many iconographic symbols.
The Entombment is a glue-size painting on linen attributed to the Early Netherlandish painter Dieric Bouts. It shows a scene from the biblical entombment of Christ, and was probably completed between 1440 and 1455 as a wing panel for a large hinged polyptych. While the altarpiece remains lost as a complete set, it is thought to have contained a central crucifixion scene flanked by four wing panel works half its height – two on either side – depicting scenes from the life of Christ. The smaller flanking panels would have been paired in a format similar to Bouts's 1464–1468 Altarpiece of the Holy Sacrament. The larger work was probably commissioned for export to Italy, possibly to a Venetian patron whose identity is lost. The Entombment was first recorded in a mid-19th-century inventory in Milan, and has been in the National Gallery, London, since its purchase on the Gallery's behalf by Charles Lock Eastlake in 1861.
Crucifixion Diptych — also known as Philadelphia Diptych, Calvary Diptych, Christ on the Cross with the Virgin and St. John, or The Crucifixion with the Virgin and Saint John the Evangelist Mourning — is a diptych by the Early Netherlandish artist Rogier van der Weyden, completed c. 1460, today in the Philadelphia Museum of Art. The panels are noted for their technical skill, visceral impact and for possessing a physicality and directness unusual for Netherlandish art of the time. The Philadelphia Museum of Art describes work as the "greatest Old Master painting in the Museum."
The Miraflores Altarpiece is a c. 1442-5 oil-on-oak wood panel altarpiece by the Early Netherlandish painter Rogier van der Weyden, in the Gemäldegalerie, Berlin since 1850. The three panels are each 71 x 43 cm and show, from left to right, a portrait of the Holy Family, a Pietà and Christ's appearance to Mary—a chronological reading of the birth, death and resurrection of Jesus, with Mary the focus of both wings. The altarpiece examines Mary's relationship with Christ at different stages of his life. It is notable for its use of colour, distinguished by its use of whites, reds and blues, and use of line—notably the line of Christ's body in the central panel—and, typically of van der Weyden, its emotional impact.
Man of Sorrows is a small Early Netherlandish oil on wood panel painting completed c. 1485–1495. It is attributed to Geertgen tot Sint Jans and in the tradition of the devotional images of the "Man of Sorrows", which typically show Christ before his crucifixion, naked above the waist, bearing the wounds of his Passion. The panel has an unusually complex and suffocating spatial design, and depicts the mocking of Jesus, and his grieving mother. The panel is steeped in both complex iconography and deep pathos. Christ is in obvious pain and holds his wounds up for the viewer. He looks out while white robed weeping angels bear the Arma Christi -objects associated with his crucifixion and death- float around him. The attending saints include Mary and the Magdalene.
The Virgin and Child Enthroned is a small oil-on-oak panel painting dated c. 1433, usually attributed to the Early Netherlandish artist Rogier van der Weyden. It is closely related to his Madonna Standing, completed during the same period. The panel is filled with Christian iconography, including representations of prophets, the Annunciation, Christ's infancy and resurrection, and Mary's Coronation. It is generally accepted as the earliest extant work by van der Weyden, one of three works attributed to him of the Virgin and Child enclosed in a niche on an exterior wall of a Gothic church. The panel is housed in the Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza in Madrid.
The Nativity is a devotional mid-1450s oil-on-wood panel painting by the Early Netherlandish painter Petrus Christus. It shows a nativity scene with grisaille archways and trompe-l'œil sculptured reliefs. Christus was influenced by the first generation of Netherlandish artists, especially Jan van Eyck and Rogier van der Weyden, and the panel is characteristic of the simplicity and naturalism of art of that period. Placing archways as a framing device is a typical van der Weyden device, and here likely borrowed from that artist's Altar of Saint John and Miraflores Altarpiece. Yet Christus adapts these painterly motifs to a uniquely mid-15th century sensibility, and the unusually large panel – perhaps painted as a central altarpiece panel for a triptych – is nuanced and visually complex. It shows his usual harmonious composition and employment of one-point-perspective, especially evident in the geometric forms of the shed's roof, and his bold use of color. It is one of Christus's most important works. Max Friedländer definitely attributed the panel to Christus in 1930, concluding that "in scope and importance, [it] is superior to all other known creations of this master."
The Exposition des primitifs flamands à Bruges was an art exhibition of paintings by the so-called Flemish Primitives held in the Provinciaal Hof in Bruges between 15 June and 5 October 1902.
The Ecce Homo and Mater Dolorosa Diptych consisted of two small oil-on-panel paintings usually attributed to the Early Netherlandish artist Aelbrecht Bouts produced between 1491 – 1520. For many years they formed the wings of a hinged devotional diptych, but are now broken apart. Although their exact dating is unknown, the Ecce Homo panel, portraying Jesus bound and crowned with thorns, is thought to have been painted after 1491, while the Mater Dolorosa panel presents the Virgin Mary as Our Lady of Sorrows, and was painted after 1517. Both panels measure 45.5 x 31 cm, although the Mater Dolorosa is slightly larger at 31.1 cm wide. They are in the collection of the Suermondt-Ludwig-Museum, Aachen, Germany, where they are hung alongside each other.
The Ascension of the Elect is a c. 1470 oil on panel painting by the Early Netherlandish painter Dieric Bouts, originally produced as part of a triptych of the Last Judgment commissioned by the town of Louvain in 1468. The central panel is lost but the other side panel, The Fall of the Damned, survives. Concerning the Elect in the end times, the painting draws on Genesis 2:10, Book of Revelation and The Purgatory of St Patrick, a 14th-century Irish manuscript by Berol telling of Sir Owein's legendary trip to Purgatory. Ascension is now in the Palais des Beaux-Arts de Lille.
Lamentation of Christ is an Early Netherlandish panel painting made 1455–1460 by Flemish painter Dirk Bouts of the Lamentation of Christ. the picture was bequeathed to the Louvre Museum by Constant Mongé-Misbach in 1871, at which time it was misattributed to Rogier van der Weyden. It remains in that museum's collection as RF 1.
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