Gothic Era



 

(Gothic and Early Renaissance)






European Painting from the 13th to the 15 th Century






 

Malouel Jean

Master of the Wilton Dyptych

Borrassa Lluis





See also collection:

Pisanello

Konrad of Soest
 

A uniform style throughout western Europe

In the thirty years following the completion of the Wittingau Altar, non-Byzantine painters everywhere competed in their striving towards an ever more exquisite palette and ever more fluid draperies; not without reason is the International Gothic also known as the Soft or Beautiful Style. For the first time, lovingly detailed landscapes became a major element of the composition. For the last time before the Baroque, western European painters shared the same vocabulary, the same aesthetic ideals. Even Italy, entrenched in its old traditions, eagerly embraced the new trend, to the regret of later Renaissance theoreticians of the school of Vasari; the supposedly unbroken line of development from Giotto to Michelangelo (1475—1564) is a later myth. Gentile da Fabriano (c. 1370— 1427;) and Pisanello (before 1395-1455) were leading figures in both Italian and Gothic art. It is no coincidence that Milan cathedral dates from precisely this period, as a symbol of the triumph of Northern form. There are sociological reasons, too, behind this broad-based stylistic uniformity: the ruling houses of the day were dominated by very similar courtly ideals, which were also finding their way into literature.
What is so truly astonishing about this epoch is the fact that the style was practised so widely, including by many unknown and second-rate artists. But it was also embraced by some of the greatest names in Gothic painting. Apart from Gentile da Fabriano and Pisanello, these included Jean Malouel (c. 1365— 1419) and Melchior Broederlam (doc. 1381—1409) in Paris and the Burgundian capital of Dijon, the Master of the Wilton Dyptych (doc. c. 1390-1395) in London, Lluis Borrassa (doc. from 1380-c. 1425/26) in Catalonia and, in the wealthy Hanseatic city of Dortmund, Konrad of Soest (c. 1370 — after 1422), who would exert an enormous influence upon west and north German art for decades to come. All of these artists sought to place their own stamp upon the universal style.

  Malouel Jean

(b ?Nijmegen c. 1365; d Dijon, 12 March 1415).
North Netherlandish painter, active in Burgundy. He was the son of the heraldic artist Willem Maelwael and uncle of the Limbourg brothers. First recorded as a painter in 1382, he is then documented on 20 September 1396 for a commission to provide designs for textiles with decorative armorial bearings for Queen Isabeau of Bavaria, wife of Charles VI, for which he received payment on 27 March 1397. By 5 August 1397 he was in Dijon, where he succeeded Jean de Beaumetz as court painter and Valet de Chambre to Philip the Bold, Duke of Burgundy. Malouel was highly paid, and his annual pension was considerably more than that of Beaumetz or of the sculptor Claus Sluter. One of the first works Malouel produced for the Duke was a painting of the Apostles with St Anthony (untraced), paid for on 11 November 1398, which the Duke is known to have kept in his private oratory. On 18 March 1398 wooden supports were purchased for Malouel to paint five large altarpieces for the Charterhouse of Champmol, outside Dijon. The subject-matter of the paintings is not specified in the document, although the dimensions of the panels are given. The Martyrdom of St Denis (Paris, Louvre) has been identified as one of these five panels, on the basis of its possible provenance and its dimensions, which correspond approximately to those given in the document. In May 1416, however, Henri Bellechose received pigments to ‘perfect’ a painting of the Life of St Denis, and this document, in conjunction with the earlier one, has been interpreted to suggest that Bellechose completed a work left unfinished by Malouel. A rereading of the 1398 document and the absence of any discernible evidence of collaboration on the St Denis panel has led to its attribution to Henri Bellechose alone.

See also collection:

Pisanello

Konrad of Soest