The Renaissance
Back in the days when I was a teacher of Theatre History (before I retired and became, again, a student of it), I was fascinated by a number of key historical “points” in the progress of the pageant, that I looked forward to presenting each year. One was the confusion and, ultimately, the psychological trap of “Method Acting”. Another was the extraordinary wit and richness of the Medieval Cycle Drama. Still another was the central importance of understanding the usage that Shakespeare made of two under-appreciated techniques: the rhythmic possibilities of blank verse and the technique of embedded stage directions. But the most interesting topic was the monumental impact of the Renaissance on all aspects of western intellectual life. In this present era of diminished intellectual demands on the average person – most of the students (not all) who arrived in my classroom in first year had an extremely limited vocabulary and a knowledge of history that only dimly perceived the existence of a past separate from their own (and none of it classical) and a knowledge of high culture that could be greatly improved with a strong dose of classic Bugs Bunny cartoons (Elmer Fudd and Bugs doing Wagner’s “Kill the Wabbit”). Mind you, this was no reflection on the students’ intellectual abilities – they were, on the whole, as sharp as a crown of thorns. It was simply a dismal result of a high school curriculum designed to train more fodder for industry, and, even worse, high school “lifestyles”, where the arrogance of ignorance begins to hold sway in western people’s lives.
So, to me, the renaissance was an intellectual challenge that might prove a revelation and an example to my students. I suppose, in my own arrogance, that gave the topic a kind of professorial zeal for me. I saw that quite a few of them began to view the world of art, sculpture, music etc. as a new kind of planet swimming into their ken and that always uplifted me. So, I always looked forward to the Renaissance part of the course (Year 1, Semester 2 – Spring!). I did an enormous amount of research and I enjoyed doing it, particularly prizing those portions that brought humour and oddity to the story; maintaining interest. History, art, philosophy, classical wisdom, architecture, politics and more. What could be better. Except …
Except that, in a number of ways I had it wrong. I was educated and trained that all things Renaissance were from Italy and more than that, Florence. Mary McCarthy puts it best in The Stones of Florence:
The Florentines, in fact, invented the Renaissance, which is the same as saying that they invented the modern world – not, of course, an unmixed good. Florence was a turning-point, and this is what often troubles the reflective sort of visitor today the feeling that a terrible mistake was committed here, at some point between Giotto and Michelangelo, a mistake that had to do with power and megalomania, or gigantism of the human ego. You can see, if you wish, the handwriting on the walls of Palazzo Pitti or Palazzo Strozzi, those formidable creations in bristling prepotent stone, or in the cold, vain stare of Michelangelo’s ‘David’, in love with his own strength and beauty.
We are following, here, in the footsteps of Ruskin, Browning, Burckhardt, Kenneth Clark, Ross King, countless others. All set the origins and first stages of the Renaissance in Florence. All made their pilgrimages there – as did I – and were transfixed by the beauty and the daring. From Giotto to Michelangelo, it was all there, presided over by the Medici. Many even admired the writings of the first, so-called, Renaissance man: Leon Baptista Alberti. Kenneth Clark thought he was magnificent, but he was largely just a well-read boaster and self-promoter. Naturally, these interlocutors would be inclined this way, being historians of Italy and Italian art, but even the premier historian of the north in this era, Johan Huizinga in his classic text The Waning of the Middle Ages (1919) viewed the late fourteenth and fifteenth centuries in northern Europe as an age of decline, the last gasp of the Gothic world. This, then, was the tale: Florence embodied the early Renaissance under the Medici and then it spread to Rome (literally) with Michelangelo (he was from Florence and raised by the Medici) and Raphael(he was from a sort of suburb of Florence).
Of course, I would touch on the wealthy and the elegant courts of Berry and Burgundy in the North and the “Tres Riches Heures” of the wondrous Limbourg brothers (who along their chief patron, the Duc de Berry, died of the plague at more or less the same time). And I would of course mention the wondrous Van Eyck – how could I not – but it was almost as an aberration: “now where did he come from”. The theory then was that the renaissance spread out from Florence, like a ripple caused by a dropped stone, to Rome, to Italy, to France, to Spain and then the north. Finally, in the form of Shakespeare, it arrived in England. The Dutch, it seems, did not exist historically, until the tulip – or at least until Breughel – and their war for liberation from Spain. And that was after the Reformation, which was more of a northern than a southern thing, and so on.
I was to learn the error of this approach.
Burgundy – the bold, the good and the fearless
To explain the new reality a number of things must be understood. The first thing is the wealth and Bourgeois power of the late medieval “low counties.” Holland, at the time, referred to one or two counties within the agglomeration of the Pays Bas (our Netherlands) that was comprised of a large network of extremely wealthy and independent cities that made up what is today Holland, Belgium, Luxembourg and much more. To the south lay Burgundy (actually there were sort of two of them) a part of France. During the 100-year war between England and France a heroic act by Phillip, youngest son of king Jean of France (he was known as John the Good, but he was an absolutely disastrous ruler for his country) was rewarded by dad by giving Phillip (now Phillip the Bold 1342-1404) both Burgundies. While dad languished in English captivity, Phillip began to marry and scheme his way from power and wealth into extreme power and extraordinary wealth. By the time he was finished (or rather by the time his son Jean the Fearless (1371-1419) – a famous murderer – and his grandson Phillip the Good (1396-1467) – a famous marrier for property – were finished, Burgundy had grown exponentially to encompass all of the wealthy Netherlands and much more. While France suffered through the 100years war with England, the Low Countries – now firmly wedded to Burgundy –underwent an enormous economic expansion. Very quickly Burgundy rivaled France in power and wealth and exceeded it in sophistication and culture.
In one sense this was made most apparent by the wasteful extravagance of the Burgundian court, in ways that might even abash today’s ridiculous billionaires. This was demonstrated in clothing, in jewelry and especially in extravagant dining. The tables were loaded with the most extraordinary (in many cases life-size) decorations made of food, called entremets. There were rigged and ornamented sailing ships of twenty feet or more in length, meadows with wine fountains, castles, a church with an actual organ and singers and nearby an orchestra of twenty-eight musicians in a pie. One 1468 banquet in Bruges featured a baked tower that was 46 feet high. Phillip the Good also liked to have banquets that featured mechanical marvels: live birds flying from the jaws of a pastry dragon which was then conquered by a clockwork Hercules while wolves played flutes. Outside the peasantry suffered from malnutrition – not to mention the plague.
The enlarged Burgundy – always seemingly on the verge of becoming a kingdom on its own – became the executive centre of a northern culture that would produce the Northern Renaissance. The two Phillip’s (Bold and Good) became renowned as patrons of the arts. Bold commissioned the Chartreuse de Champmol, a Carthusian monastery and ducal tomb in Dijon where are to be found what remains (after the French Revolutionary mobs) of the Well of Moses, an extraordinary sculptural achievement (in wood) by Claus Sluter (1340?-1406) as well as the tomb of Phillip the Bold with more extraordinary sculptures (Les Pleurants) by Sluter and his workshop. The early realism of Sluter pre-dates that of Donatello (1386-1466, in Florence) and makes him one of the premier sculptors of the Renaissance, but he worked in wood and is little known today. We are also entering the domain of Rogier van der Weyden (more of him later), Hans Memling and so many other extraordinary artists that are generally only a footnote in most histories of the Renaissance.
Art was (as it was in Italy) a commodity and a pleasure of the wealthy and that made it also a craft and a profitable business. Important and major works (triptychs and panels for churches, books of the hours and portraits) were most commonly –at least at first – commissioned by churches, the aristocrats and wealthy guilds. But artists did many other types of work like painting church sculptures, decorative work, and temporary displays, just as Moliere designed court parties as well as writing plays. Master painters made a good living, sometimes even becoming wealthy. In fact, it has been determined that there was much more of a market for Northern art in Italy than for Italian art in the North in the 15th century.
Northern Painting and Jan Van Eyck
A “panel painting,” that is something painted on a panel of wood (canvas was used as early as 1410 but only became standard in the 16thcentury), takes a considerable amount of time and effort, and most panels were painted in groups for religious purposes (diptychs, triptychs and larger) they were very expensive, what we would call luxury goods. So before (and often after) 1450 they were always specifically commissioned. This had a number of consequences. The first was that any artist of any stature was, in fact, a company with a workshop, employees who usually had certain specific painting jobs to do and apprentices who paid (or, their parents paid) to be trained in the trade of the artist. So, when you see the term “from the workshop of”, that is what is meant. Secondly it meant that the patron, who was after all putting up a considerable amount of money, had a say in several things. They could insist that the master, himself, undertook the bulk of the work. They could specify types and colours of paint used: such as real gold leaf (for haloes etc.) or, for example, lapis lazuli blue, a brilliant and expensive blue made from semi-precious lapis lazuli from Afghanistan. They could also specify religious content, a particular theme such as Nativity, Adoration or Crucifixion and they could request this, or that particular Saint be depicted who was important personally to them or to the institution to whom the work was to be gifted (a Church, for example). And they could insist on all sorts of particular details (objects, particular flowers, social settings, scenery –almost anything; they were paying). Some of the contracts were quite obsessive on the part of the patron as we will see with Portinari. Never forget that this was a business designed to please the wealthy and powerful.
And now, of course, we come to the person of Jan Van Eyck, often called “the Masaccio of Flanders,” the inventor of oil painting and the master of the “Arnolfini Wedding Portrait” with the famous convex mirror. Now a lot of this is less than accurate: Van Eyck did not invent oil painting (although it was invented in the north) he merely brought it rapidly to perfection. The Arnolfini painting may have had nothing to do with weddings and convex mirrors (and their reflections) played their part in many paintings. But Jan was probably the best painter of his time, both north and south. In fact, the true compliment would have been that Masaccio was the “Van Eyck of Florence.”
We do not know where and when Jan Van Eyck was born al though he seems to have had an association with the district of Maaseik, near Liege. The first record we have of him is as a court painter (with assistants) of John of Bavaria where he worked between 1422 and 1424 so he could have been born some time between 1380 and 1395. He had a sister named Margareta and at least two brothers: Lambert and Hubert. All of them seem to have been painters and Jan is known to have worked closely with his older brother Hubert. After the death of John of Bavaria in 1425, Jan moved his business to Bruges where his work attracted the attention of Phillip the Good of Burgundy. His education (he knew some Latin, Greek and Hebrew) would have made his services attractive to Phillip and Jan not only worked as a court painter but also as a diplomat while also retaining his membership in the painter’s guild of Tournai. On October 18,1427 they gave a banquet in his honour which was also attended by Rogier van der Weyden and Robert Campion (more of van der Weyden later). Although his generous court salary meant that he did not need to continue doing commissioned work it seems that he did and he was hugely in demand as his reputation continued to grow throughout his career. This is possibly why many contemporaries (including Vasari) claimed that he had invented oil painting.
From 1420 until 1432 he and his brother (and other members of the workshop) worked on their masterpiece: the Ghent Altarpiece for Saint Bavo Cathedral. The work was commissioned by the merchant, financier and politician Jodocus Vijdts and his wife Elisabeth Borluut and not by the Cathedral. Although Hubert died in 1426, Jan (and, presumably, his workshop) completed the work. Around that time (1432) Jan married his wife Margareta, whom he also painted. In 1433 he painted the wonderful Portrait of a Man in a Turban, thought by many to have been a self-portrait and added his, now-famous, motto: Als ich Kan. (Van Eyck was the only 15th century Netherlandish painter to sign his works.) At the same time (1426-1429) Van Eyck was sent on a number of “secret” missions by the Duke of Burgundy. We know very little of the details of these missions but it is surmised that one was to Jerusalem (the Duke had a Crusade fixation) since the geographical background in at least one of Van Eyck’s paintings reproduces accurate “Holy Land” details. We do know that he was sent to Lisbon in order to paint Isabella of Portugal in advance of Burgundy’s marriage with her. Unlike Holbein’s Anne of Cleves, the portrait was not a flattering one so it is unlikely that the Jan was paid off as Hans was.
The records indicate that Van Eyck remained in high regard(and high pay) in the Burgundian court but he continued to accept and execute private commissions: among them The Arnolfini Portrait, Virgin and Child with Canon van der Paele, Annunciation, Madonna in the Church and The Madonna of Chancellor Rolin and many more. In fact, the only painting (now lost) that we know that Phillip commissioned from Van Eyck was the portrait of Isabella of Portugal that Phillip married. Otherwise, Phillip frittered the painter’s talent away in decorating castle interiors and designing floats for ducal processions and food designs for the elaborate entremets that Phillip was so fond of. This pattern of waste was later followed by Louis XIV with Moliere who was set to design court masques and ballets the were performed once and then disappeared without a trace. Both monarchs valued their artists’ talents but squandered them heartlessly.
Jan Van Eyck died on July 9, 1441, at Bruges. He was buried in the cemetery of the Church of St. Donatian. Phillip the Good gave his widow Margaret a year’s salary and Jan’s workshop continued to be run by his younger brother Lambert. Rather than being forgotten, his fame grew after his death –especially in Italy.
The Middle Class
The growing wealth of Northern Europe hastened the development of a hefty middle class that possessed an access to humanist ideals as well as a desire to emulate the aristocratic classes. In the 15thcentury they began to make purchases of expensive artwork and Van Eyck was much sought after by them. Hence one of the two commissions under discussion for Chancellor Rolin.
Another factor weighs heavily in this discussion. At the end of the 14th century the importance of the virgin Mary (largely because of her humanity) began to grow exponentially as an intercessor between Christians and the divine trinity. The concept of purgatory, where the soul is purged of sin before entering heaven also achieved its greatest importance at this time. The church, of course capitalized on this in the form of “indulgences” as a vast source of revenues and this in turn led (with other factors) to Martin Luther and the reformation. But in the interim, indulgences, prayers and the commission of good deeds were the means of shortening the purgatorial sentence – as well as showing others that the sentence would be shortened: a sort of late, medieval conspicuous consumption. Whichever way (sometimes all of them) was chosen to speed dial through purgatory, the figure of Mary played a larger and larger role. She was the mother of Christ, the symbol of the Church Triumphant (Ecclesia Triumphans) and the Queen of Heaven; and with friends in high places, she could move you along through Purgatory. So, when, for instance, Canon van der Paele chose to have himself painted in a religious setting by Van Eyck, it was with the mother of Heaven.
The Paintings
A third piece of information is necessary before examining any work by Van Eyck. Each and every picture painted by Jan contains clues, symbols, messages and hints (this is NOT a conspiracy theory), from the simple and the mundane to things that no one has figured out yet. On his portrait of his wife, he wrote: “My husband Johannes completed me in the year 1439 on 17June, at the age of 33. As I can.” Als ich Kan is, as we have seen, was Eyck’s motto – but pronounced properly it sounds like As Eyck Kan. A simple word game. The Arnolfini Portrait, on the other hands contains a plethora of mysteries (or questions), starting with, “who exactly are these people” and going on to “why the dog,” “why the patins (shoes – and two pairs of them),” “why the oranges – again, twice,” “why the whisk on the bedstead,” “what do the hand gestures really mean,” “is she pregnant or doe she want to be and is she raising her skirt in front of the bed,” where (exactly) is the light coming from” and “who is in the mirror?” (although around the mirror it does say in script: "Johannes de eyck fuit hic 1434.") There is very little unanimity in answers on these questions, among art critics -- much less in the general public. One thing that everyone agrees on is that it is an astonishing portrait, blending quotidian realism with religious and secular symbolism in a style that was borrowed, copied by Van der Wyden and others but used by none as effectively and intriguingly.
So let us look at this first picture, the 1435 Madonna of Chancellor Rolin.
At first glance this is a standard, privately commissioned, portrait of a wealthy (and clearly powerful) man interrupted but not surprised at worship (with his bible open) by the appearance of Mary and the Christ Child. Christ, on Mary’s lap and under her watchful gaze, blesses Rolin (whose importance is suggested by his equal stature, size and position with the Queen of Heaven) with a gesture. The man is grave and attentive, his hands held in a position of prayer. The specificity of everything in the painting is extraordinary – the Chancellor’s robe, the brocade of Mary’s fringe, the detailed (and extremely busy) background seen through the pillars. It can be clearly seen that the vista beyond is bifurcated by a river and is of two natures. The view on the left is clearly secular: town and field, agriculture and commerce; the sources of Rolin’s wealth frame (pun also intended) his image. The view on the right is more ethereal: cathedral and cloisters; a suitable background for Christ and his mother. In the center is a bridge, being crossed by many people. Behind that, an island, surmounted by a castle, and beyond that the river winds into the hazy mountains beyond.
The painting (which we will return to) had an enormous impact. Other great painters took it as a model for their own work. Van der Weyden’s St. Luke painting Mary (which itself became a model for painters both north and south) was patterned on it and the portrait (along with Van Eyck’s other work) made Eyck’s reputation both in the north and in Italy. in fact, the Genoese humanist Bartolomeo Facio called Van Eyck “the leading painter” of his time.
Why this painting? There is nothing in the art of the Middle Ages or before (with some few, possible, minor exceptions} like it. Paintings were of royalty and the aristocracy and religious paintings were iconographic: they portrayed the holy (God, Jesus, Mary, various Saints and biblical figures)but not politicians, merchants or the middle class. Suddenly this was changing and it was acceptable for those who could afford it to commission art featuring themselves in the presence of immortals. Why was this happening, and, perhaps more interesting, why would they want to do it? To explain this requires a brief look at the state of the Church at the time and the state of faith.
The Church
The last “Roman” Pope of the medieval church was Benedict XI(1303-04). The papacy made the fatal (literally) mistake of thinking that it could dictate politics to the Kings of Europe, particularly Phillip IV of France. Benedict and his predecessor were shown otherwise with beatings, imprisonment and possibly poison. After Benedict XI Phillip resolved his issues with the Church by ensuring that the Pope was always French and that the Papacy resided in Avignon, France – which it did from 1304-1376. During that time, the central occupation of the Church turned from political, moral and religious concerns to raking in money to pay for the Avignon building program and to compensate the hierarchy for its “captivity.” Thus began the era of the Papal “indulgences” and financial addiction that was to lead, eventually, to Martin Luther. Historian Barbara Tuchman describes the scene:
“Money could buy any kind of dispensation: to legitimize children, of which the majority were those of priests and prelate; to divide a corpse for the favorite custom of burial in two or more places; to permit nuns to keep two maids; to permit a converted Jew to visit his unconverted parents; to marry within the prohibited degree of consanguinity (with a sliding scale of fees for the second, third and fourth degrees); to trade with the infidel Moslem (with a fee required for each ship on a scale according to cargo) to receive stolen goods up to a specific value. The collection and accounting of all these sums, largely handled through Italian bankers, made the physical counting of cash a common sight in the papal palace.” Tuchman 30
There was even a new itinerant church position created: the Pardoner (immortalized by Chaucer). A Pardoner could grant absolution for any sin from gluttony to homicide, cancel any vow of chastity or fasting, remit any penance for money, most of which he pocketed.
Seven Popes reigned in Avignon, all French, and controlled by the French crown. In1376 Gregory XI moved the Papal court back to Rome, largely at the urging of the utterly unstoppable Catherine of Sienna. (You can still see her skull in the Duomo in Sienna). Unfortunately, after Gregory’s death a series of wars broke out within the Church hierarchy and with the mobs of Rome. The result was a schism of the Church between two and then three different Pope’s, each with their own Cardinals, supporters, cities and even countries. The resulting scandal demolished whatever respect that the Church had left after the ignominy of Avignon. When the matter was finally settled at the Council of Constance (1414-1418) the Church was in a sad state indeed. And the Borgias and Medici Popes had not even arrived on the scene.
As a result of all of this there was clearly a valid motivating force for reform in the Church that led to the Reformation. There was also a very real concern by many devout people – remember the Catholic vision of the universe was the only reality that most people in Europe knew –that their souls were deeply imperiled. Then believed that their sins would take them to hell for eternity and that the Church may have lost its power to take that fate from their shoulders. A lot of people, particularly the clever, educated and powerful, who had few illusions left, began to doubt what they had been taught or began to seek their own path to salvation that did not need a, now, tainted Church. And if “good works” was a way there, then they could take that on their own, without the aid of the church. These changes are reflected in the art of the era. In the medieval era, devotional art was largely commissioned by the Church, or individuals within the Church, and by the royalty and aristocracy. In northern renaissance religious art lay patrons outnumber the clerical by a ratio of two to one and it illustrates an intimate world of private prayer and devotion that excludes the church. Now we turn to the man who commissioned and stars in this particular devotional work.
Chancellor Rolin
One of the many fascinating phenomena of the Burgundian Court(and other courts of the time, such as France) was the enormous growth of a new class of individuals known at the time as functionaries. Today we would probably refer to them as bureaucrats but the power they held in advising the duke and administering his lands, properties and affairs was colossal. And their wealth was staggering to the point that they also bear comparison to todays billionaires. In a very rich Burgundy, Chancellor Rolin was, after the Duke, the wealthiest man in Burgundy. Largely drawn from the bourgeoisie and educated in law this group of functionaries had a status between the middle-class merchants and the aristocracy but were richer and more powerful than their social superiors. The object of our interest here, Chancellor Nicolas Rolin (1376-1462) over-saw the running of Burgundy for most of his professional life.
Born to a bourgeois family in the town of Autun, he seems to have begun his climb through a series of marriages into wealthy French bourgeois families ultimately leading his career to the upper bourgeoisie of Paris and a connection with Jean the Fearless (Phillip’s father). At the age of42 (1422) he was chosen by Phillip the Good to be his chancellor and remained in that position for forty years. In fact, it was rumoured at court that Phillip referred to Rolin as “father” and when Rolin died at 86 the bishop assigned to bring the news to the Duke was terrified and tried not to mention the Chancellor’s death (while telling him about the Chancellor’s death). Rolin was married to Guigone de Salins (his third wife) and one of his sons was made Cardinal. Besides running all of the Burgundian properties and collecting the taxes (including his own cut), Rolin played a major and profitable role in the foreign affairs of the Dukedom.
At this time, France was deeply involved in the 100 years war with England and England was winning. Part of the reason for that was that Burgundy, out of sheer opportunism, and revenge for the death of Joh the Fearless, had taken the side of England. We are in the time of Henry V, Joan of Arc and Henry VI. The King of France at the time was the crafty Charles VII, who realized that his only chance of turning the tide and reclaiming substantial parts of France (including Paris), was to pry his uncle Burgundy from the British side and into alliance with him. So, he negotiated with Burgundy to do just that. In 1435 the Treaty of Arras was signed making Burgundy once more a friend and ally of France. This was an extremely fraught treaty for the Burgundian possessions since Burgundy itself was part of France but the Low Countries were not and moreover, they were dependent on the import of English wool for their manufacturing industry. So, the treaty was not popular in the richer northern territories.
Rolin was the point man on the negotiating team for Burgundy and we are fortunate to possess a most interesting letter from King Charles on the topic of the treaty. And I quote:
Amboise, 6July 1435
Charles, by the grace of God, king of France, greetings to all those who see these letters. Be it known that we, having heard on good authority… of the good will and affection which Nicolas Rolin, knight, lord of Authumes and chancellor [of Burgundy), and the lords of Croy, Charny and Baucignies, councillors and chamberlains of our cousin of Burgundy, and other servants of his, cherish for the reconciliation and reunion of us and our cousin…; bearing in mind that this peace and reconciliation is more likely to be brought about by our cousin’s leading confidential advisers, in whom he places his trust, than by others of his entourage; and having regard for the great benefits likely to accrue to us, out subjects and realm as a result of this peace and reconciliation, which we hope that the aforesaid chancellor and lords of Croy, Charny and Baucignies will do their best to bring about…we grant and have granted by these present letters the sum of 60,000 gold saluts… to divide between them as follows:
To the said Nicolas Rolin, 10,000 saluts
To the said lord of Croy, likewise, 10,000 s
To the said lord of Charny, 8,000s.
To Philippe, lord of Ternant, 8,000 s
To the lord of Baucignies, 8,000 s
And to Jehan de Croy, brother of the said lord of Croy; Jaques, lord of Crèvecoeur; Jehan de Brimeu, lord of Humbercourt; and to Guy Guilbaut, all councillors of our aforesaid cousin, 10,000 saluts to share between the four of them our subjects and realm as a result of this peace and reconciliation.
In other words, Rolin and all the major negotiators for Burgundy were heavily and openly bribed to see things France’s way. Rolin was rich and totally without scruples and was also heavily despised by all those people in Burgundy whose taxes he raked in.
Rolin had to work hard to earn much of his salary, day to day. Phillip was an extraordinary spendthrift and absolutely mad for pageantry – particularly in the area of costuming his retinues, without any thought as to where the cash was to come from. It was Rolin’s job to solve that problem and he always managed to do it. By 1457 he seems to have gotten a bit tired and jaded with it all and his influence began to wane but until then – for 35 years – he was the Richelieu of Burgundy. But for now we will return to 1435 and the aftermath of the Treaty of Arras. Rolin is suddenly rolling in money and he feels he deserves a reward for giving Charles VII what he wanted. So, he decides to hire Van Eyck to paint him with the Virgin and Christ – and no one else. No (usual) intervening Saint to introduce him to the deities; just Nicolas and the holy, equal in size, equal in position (except for the hand gestures. It really is an extraordinarily revealing portrait. If you take a moment to compare this to the presentation of Joos Vijd in the Ghent Altarpiece (which Vijd commissioned) you will see what I mean. Where most portraits of this kind appear to present a lifechanging religious moment in time, this looks a lot like a business appointment.
And there are other oddities if you take the time to look. Rolin is the best dressed guy in the picture, wearing fur and brocade, trimmed with real gold. There are many other items that provoke some guesswork. In the background, at the centre of the bridge is a huge cross. While not unusual, anyone at the time would have immediately have been reminded of the bridge at Montereau where Phillip the Good’s father (Jean the Fearless) was hacked to death under a flag of truce by the, then, Dauphin, now, Charles VII's orders. The erection of the memento cross was an item in the Treaty of Arras. There are two figures on the middle-ground balcony who we see from the rear. One is bending over pointing his ass at us (or Rolin). The other could easily, based on his head ware, be Van Eyck himself. Perhaps he is gazing at the mountain peaks bedecked with snow – the first such an appearance in western painting. These men are not easily dismissed or ignored as they are at the focal point of the painting. The figures carved above Rolin on the pillars are Adam and Eve being expelled from Paradise and a drunken Noah – to much Burgundy? Then there are the multitude of livestock and horticulture, not unusual in the art of the time and all carrying standard symbolic values: rabbits for lust, lilies for purity, a peony for Eden, roses for suffering, daisies for innocence, peacocks for immortality or pride, magpies for death – creatures on Rolin’s side, flowers on Mary’s.
There are two features to the painting that we cannot see but have been uncovered by art historians. The first is that in an earlier version (now painted over) Christ’s gesture pointed downwards and now is raised to bless. Likewise, Rolin used to have a large purse of gold at his side that has been disappeared. While Van Eyck may have made these changes on his own the likely scenario is that Rolin, the man picking up the tab, asked for the changes to improve his appearance. And a surprising number of art critics have fallen for this bit of image-making. They take this painting, which ended up hanging in Rolin’s church in Autun over his tomb as an image of piety and fealty to the virgin, the Queen of Heaven. And that it serves as a memento mori encouraging others to pray for his soul that it might escape the torments of purgatory before too long a time. Perhaps.
But his contemporaries might have disagreed. One Jaques de Clerque once said of Rolin that he was “reputed to be one of the wisest men in the kingdom, to speak temporally; with respect to the spiritual, I shall remain silent.” The Burgundian chronicler Georges Chastellain said that “he always harvested on earth as though earth was to be his abode for ever.” The canny Dutch historian Johan Huizinga was not impressed by this painting of piety: “are we to suspect the presence of a hypocritical nature behind the countenance of the donor of La Vierge, Chancellor Rolin?” Art critics have referred to it as “a carefully orchestrated display of piety”, and that’s exactly what it is; except . . .
Except that Rolin had underestimated (and he would not be the first and last patron to do so) the perception and skill of his artist. For under all the myriad symbolism and distractions of the setting one thing remains clear. Van Eyck knew how to draw the true face of his subject. When he produced his The Virgin and Child with Canon van der Paele his portrait of the donor was so true and clear that twentieth century doctors diagnosed the canon’s arteriosclerosis from the painting. So, when you look at the face of Rolin and take it mentally out of context, what do you see? A devout, penitent man, nearing his dotage and meditating on the state of his immortal soul? Or, a hard, clever man, at the peak of his power and wealth, posing for posterity but ceding nothing with his gaze except, perhaps, “what’s in it for me?”
Beaune
Rather than be accused of a hasty judgement on a man who died over 500 years ago, let us take advantage of the fact that Rolin had the great fortune to have another encounter as a sponsor with another artist of great genius: Rogier van der Weyden. We can immediately take advantage of this fact by looking at one of Rogier’s less successful works, since it presents a number of the people that we have been dealing with.
This work shows us Phillip the Good (dressed in black) being presented with a book. Behind Philip and dressed in blue is Rolin. Behind the book bearer, dressed in gold, is the young (and absolutely horrific) Charles the Rash, Phillip’s son and heir who would bring to an end the independent history of Burgundy through his idiotic behaviour – hence the moniker.
As Rolin’s wealth continued to accumulate at record speeds he began to realize that he would need to perform more acts of ostentatious charity to keep away the recriminations of his enemies and lessen the pains of purgatory. With the very active participation of his wife, he founded the Hospices de Beaune in 1443 which was, in essence, a hospital for the poor. While Beaune was (and is)the centre of the wine district of Burgundy, it was at the time of Rolin a very poor area. It was also an unfortunate victim of repeated waves of the Black Death, multiple attacks from disbanded soldiers (one of the many horrible side-effects of the 100 years war) and quite a few waves of St. Anthony’s fire.
A brief word on St. Anthony’s fire. This was, in fact a condition caused by the consumption of rye or barley grain that had been poorly stored, gotten wet and become infested by a fungal growth called Claviceps purpurea. It’s known today as ergot poisoning. It has all sorts of nasty symptoms (see the Grunewald painting detail) which include convulsions, skin conditions, mania, psychosis and gangrene that will cause the loss of extremities (your hands and feet falloff). It has caused epidemics throughout history and may, in fact, have been the plague that ravaged Athens during the Peloponnesian War. The mania it produces (including bizarre visons) has been blamed for everything from the Salem Witch trials to the paintings of Hieronymus Bosch (once again, see Grunewald detail). It gained its name – St. Anthony’s fire – from the fact that the monks of the order of St. Anthony specialized in treating it. It was one of the nastiest conditions going and seemed to like the people around Beaulne.
So, Beaune needed a hospital for the poor and since a lot of Rolin’s income came from the local vineyards it seemed like a good fit. He also created a new religious order, "Les sœurs hospitalières de Beaune," in 1452 to staff it. At the same time, he engaged Rogier van der Weyden to paint an altarpiece that was to be displayed so that the inmates had a very clear view of it.
There is, by the way, a very clear connection between Van Eyck and van der Weyden (aside from the fact that they were both Northern Renaissance masters). One of Van der Weyden’s most popular paintings (in that it was much copied) was St. Luke Portraying the Virgin. This was clearly based on Van Eyck’s Rolin painting as a casual glance will reveal. In addition, it is strongly believed that the face of St. Luke was that of Van der Weyden himself, emphasizing the paintings proclamation of the creative skills and power of the artist. Van der Weyden as the new St. Luke – who was the patron saint of painters.
But to return to the hospital at Beaune. It was (and still is) a wonder to behold. It is, perhaps, the most beautiful hospital in Western Europe.
The architect was the Flemish Jacques Wiscere and the work took ten years to complete. The tile roofs, chimneys and pinnacles are spectacular and everywhere is displayed the N (for Nicolas) and G (for Guuigore). The hammer-beam-like chestnut ceiling features dragons and is monumental. The end of the main hospital room is actually the chapel, placed there so that the inmates could attend mass without leaving their beds and there hangs the Last Judgement commissioned from Van der Weyden, featuring (of course) the patrons on either side of the closed wings. When opened the panels number nine (no tryptic for Rolin) and the result is colossal. A naked Christ, flanked by Angels, presides in heaven, while the Archangel Michael holds the scales that divide the saved from the damned. On either side of Michael, various saints and holy personages pray as the scale tips down on our right side and up on our left. The saved move off to our left to enter a church-like heaven (“there is no salvation outside the church”) while those on the right, in great fear and agony, make their way to hell.
Van der Weyden
It is important to place this picture in the context of its time. It is a mighty work, both in its size and in its artistic splendour. The portrayal of the damned is particularly riveting in the emotional power of its realism. But the work is conventional in its general depiction of the Last Judgement. The proportion of saved to damned is what was believed throughout the Middle Ages – mankind are great sinners (just look around you) and so many more will be damned than saved. Not a cheery thought. This fact is even clearer if you look at Hans Memling’s Last Judgement which is a copy of Weyden’s (sincerest form of flattery). I’ll be dealing with that painting later when I write about a man named Portinari. At the time of judgement there will be no mercy, just judgement – a strong argument for deathbed repentance. In addition, there was one popular belief (not, necessarily theologically supported, but generally accepted) that sickness was a sign of sin, the physical illness the visible sign of a spiritual malaise. Oh, and one other thing: a hospital was at that time (and for many still is) a place where you went to die, not to be cured. So, it behooves us to try and imagine all of those poor people, three or four or more to a bed, with diseases that were almost always fatal, daily lectured about the constant sin in their lives; thinking about these things and gazing at this vast painting so thoughtfully placed there.
Who was the Master that painted this huge, astonishing work for Rolin and his wife? Rogier van der Weyden (“of the Pasture”) 1399-1464 was (with Van Eyck and Robert Campin) one of the early Flemish artists of the Northern Renaissance. Like the others, he fell out of fame from in the 18th century and was “rediscovered” in the 20th. He was the official “painter to the town of Brussels” as well as executing private commissions – including for Phillip the Good and King Juan II of Castile. His work was very popular in Italy, particularly with the Este and Medici families. Much of our information about Rogier – many of his works as well – have ben lost to the violence of the protestant reformation and to the devastation of World War II. His Deposition (in the Prado) is another masterpiece and was a model for other painters for a long time. But this Last Judgement is a unique vision into the psyche of his time – where the religious beliefs of the era shade into a close comparison with cruelty.
I mentioned above that the closed panels of the altarpiece traditionally featured the two donors, one on either side, in very pious attitudes so it may be assumed by many that Rolin (after his brief period of egomania after the treaty and while Van Eyck was at work) had regained his pious senses and returned to at least a presentation of humble worship and repentance. And so, it would appear from his portrayal on the panels. But there is a surviving document that may give this portrayal the lie. The foundation document of 4 August, 1443 clearly states Rolin’s motives in this huge expense of money on such an extraordinary project:
“disregarding all human concerns and in the interest of my salvation, desiring by a favourable trade to exchange for celestial goods temporal ones, that I might from divine goodness render those goods which are perishable for ones which are eternal … in gratitude for the goods which the Lord, source of all wealth, has heaped upon me, from now on and for always, I found… a hospital”.
If one was to be cynical, one might say that Rolin felt that he was buying a stairway to heaven while leaving all those poor folk behind to look on a beautiful painting of their own pathway to hell. But was that any more cynical than the Church selling get out of Purgatory cards (not free) in order to finance its own wealth and corruption. As Martin Luther (and others) pointed out, if the Pope had the power to release souls from purgatory into heaven, then why didn’t he do it for free, out of the universal love that the church was always proclaiming that it had in such abundance. Or, indeed, is it any more cynical than Mark Zuckerberg buying an island in Hawaii and building a colossal bunker to survive global warming in or another billionaire for planning to flee the planet to Mars. The ultra rich have always been with us and they do not look good in any era. But the works of Van Eyck and Vander Weyden do.
