Artist: Claus Sluter

Tittle: The Well of Moses

Date: 1395-1406

Medium: Stone

Location: Chartreuse de Champmol, France

Period: Renaissance

Analysis:

• A hexagonal well surrounded by Hebrew Bible prophets. (At one time) a life size calvery scene was on the top of Christ on the cross flanked by Mary and saints to show the fulfillment of the old testement in the new testment
• Most of the calvary scene is gone. The prophets on the base represent Sluter's achievments for us
• The swelling forms of the prophets seem to reach out into space and interact with the viewer
• Each prophet holds a scroll predicting the death of Jesus, and each has a characteristic that distinguishes and identifies him (ei: Moses has horns and the 10 Commandments)
• The life-like feeling created by Moses's size and the naturalism was probably enhanced with the colors added by the painter Jean Malouel
• Sluter really connected the prophets to the real world-he gave one bronze glasses- which distinguishes his naturalistic style and is one of the hallmarks of the International Gothis
  

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Artist: Melchior Broederlam

Title: Infancy of Christ panels, wings of the alterpiece of the Chartreuse de Champmol

Date: 1394-1399

Medium: Tempora on panel

Location: Chartreuse de Champmol, France (now) -> Musee des Beaux-Arts, Dijon, France

Period: Renaissance

Analysis:

• Duke Philip commissioned the alterpeice for the church
• included a carved relief for the central section by Jacques de Baerze and the wings were by Broederlam (ca. 1355-1410)
• Panels depict Christ's infancy: The left-> the Annunciation and the Visitation; the rght-> the presentation of Jesus to the rabbi Simeon in the temple and the flight of the Holy Family (Jesus, Mary, Joseph) from Bethlehem to Egypt to escape the persecution of Herod.
• landscape and architecture defines the naratives and fills in the available space. A viewer can see inside the architecture (doll house like). The spatial arrangements derive from Duccio and Lorenzitti
• Details are out of scale with the figures, but strong feeling of depth due to the subtlety of the modeling
• Soft, rounded shapes and dark shadows and loosely drapped clothing create weight
• International Gothic style: the realistic depiction of small details: Annunciation panel-> foliage and the enclosed garden; the right-> donkey and the tiny fountain, and the juxtaposition of rustic St. Jospeh to the aristocratic Virgin
• These details contribute to the meaning of the art-> lilly & Mary's virginity
• Contrasting Romanesque and Gothic buildings stand for the Hebrew Bible and New Testement respectively
  

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January Page                         July Page

Artist: Limbourg Brothers

Title: Les Très Riches Heures du Duc de Berry (The Very Rich Hours of the Duke of Berry)

Date: 1413-1416

Medium: Manuscript Illuminations

Location: owned by Jean, Duke of Berry in central France; now ->Musée Condé, Chantilly, France

Period: Remaissance

Analysis:

• Prime example of international Gothic style
• Commissioned by the Duke of Berry ->for himself
• Italian inspired -> motifs and whole compositions borrows form the artists of Tuscany and Lombardy
• began in 1413 and unfinished when they died in 1416 (plague). some pages completed long after their deaths
• most famous pages were calendar pages that depicted human acitivities and cycles of nature. (cycles were a tradition in medieval art). -> depicted aristocrats and peasants doing appropriate activities for the represented month
• January: Duke at table, expensive clothing and ornaments, his personal coat of arms, surrounded by clergymen and coutiers. Use of Brilliant colors creating all the minute details
• July: semicircle at top marks days and astrological signs, labor of the month -> peasants harvesting and shearing sheep, the Dukes Chateau du Clain (castle) in the background, depicts the orderly harvesting of a fruitful earth by the peaceful peasantry. Idealised social order and feudalism achieved by combining tyhe portrait of the castle & naturalistic deatails of the peasants with an artificial space (doesn't receed); 3 major triangular zones that fit together.

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Artist: Master Theodoric

Title: St. Matthew and the Angel

Date: ca. 1360-1365

Medium: Panel

Location: the chapel dedicated to the Holy Cross, prague, Bphemia. now ->National Gallery, Progue, Bohemia

Analysis:

• Charles IV founded a guild for artists and he built the chapel with the walls covered in paintings done by Theodoric
• Theodoric was the first head of the painters' guild of Prague
• Matthew -one of the authors of the gospel- holds a book while an angel (Matthew's symbol) whispers in his ear ->an active participant in the work of the saint
• Matthew is a 3D figure: garment falls across body in folds and drapery. This style derives from study of Italian artists

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Artist: unknown

Title: The Wilton Diptych

Date: ca.1400

Medium: Panel

Location: debated -> France, England, Bohemia, somewhere else. now-> National Gallery of Art, London

Analysis:

• Charles IV's daughter, Anne, married English King Richard. Richard is the figure depicted in the painting.
• Dyptich: double panel that opens on a hinge at the center like a book.
• depicts king Richard II kneeling before his patron saints to venterate the Virgin Mary and her Child.
• The gazes of the figures connect across the panels as the Child playfully reaches toward King Richard.
• Angels surround the Virgin, who appears like a queen. and the angels wear badges of Richard -> his guard surrounds Mary.
• Sumptuous colors and tall weightless figures stand in eternal setting; but drapery worn by angels is molded in a natural light
• combination of Gothic otherworldliness and natutal observation

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Title: Facade of Bruges Town Hall

Date:1376-1402

Medium: architecture

Location: Bruges, Netherlands

Analysis:

• Buildings like this were designed to provide setting for town councils and to serve as symbols of the independence and privileges the cities claimed
• one of the earliest of these structures in N. Europe
• looks like an ecclesiastucal structure: high gabled roof, traceried windows, vaulted interior.
• Also emulates Gothic churches: sculpted figures of local rulers.
• interior was a council hall, the exterior sculpture expressed the nominal rule of the counts of Flanders
• beginnings of artistic revolution in cities of Flanders

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Artist: Robert Campin

Title: Merode Triptych

Date: ca.1425-1430

Medium: oil on oak

Location: the Mérode household. now-> Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

Analysis:

• Personal family's alterpiece
• triptych -> 3 panels
• Central pana is the Annunciation
• Vigin and Gabriel in the main room of a hous
• a viewer has the sense of actually looking through the surface of the panel into a realistic world
• very detailed
• two kinds of lighT: diffused kind with soft shadows and a more direct light from the windows
• oil made effects possible
• two donors shown kneeling outside the Virgin's room
• figures rendered as real people with mass and weight
• Symbols: lillies, candle tiny baby holding cross coming through the window.
• Joseph working in the right panel
• very natural, realisic

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Artist: Jan van Eyck

Title: Ghent Alterpiece

Date: ca. 1432

Medium: oil on panel

Location: Church of St. Bavo, Ghent, Belgium

Analysis:

• Alterpiece at the Cathedral, commissioned by a rich family (portraits on the lower tear when it is closed). It elucidates the liturgy.
  
• 20 images
• Closed: Annunciation of Mary, Propets and angels above and Saints below (painted in grisaille), light and shadows create depth, Gothic architecture
• Open: on special days, trying to make the world coherent, the panels connect, new intereset with earth and people, beginning of humanism, Lord in the middle, On the bottom -> various congregations coming together, lamb of God bleeding into chalace, Naturalistic background, light of God, Nudes of Adam and Eve (first life size nudes from antiquity) and viewer has perspective.
• relationship of natural and spiritual
• very minute details with light and shadow

Artist: Jan van Eyck

Title: Man in a Red Turban

Date: 1433

Medium: oil on panal

Location: Netherlands; now->The National Gallery, London

Analysis:

• represents a middle-aged man in a 3/4 pose, face is framed by turban
• warm light bathes the face from the dark background
• detail of shape
• man gazes out of painting makes eye contact with the viewer, could be a self portrait
• inscription on the fram "As best i can" (challenge?)

Artist: Jan van Eyck

Title: The "Arnolfi Portrait"

Date: 1434

Medium: oil on panel

Location: Bruges for the Arnolfi family. now -> The National Gallery, London

Analysis:

• Giovanni Arnolfi, an Italian merchant, with his bride (Giovanna Cenami)
• can see 2 men in mirror on back wall, could be Eyck himself. says "Jan van Eyck was here" next to the mirror
• holding hand Arnolfi raising hand (solemn oath). a marriage would be a legal and financial contract between the families
• The woman looks pregnant, you see St. Margret (Saint of childbirth) and a bed (consumation)

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Artist: Rogier Vand der Weyden

Title: Descent from the Cross

Date: ca. 1435-1438

Medium: oil on panel

Location: Netherlands. now-> Musseo del Prado, Madrid

Analysis:

• Figures brought inward, braquets enclosing Jesus
• see the bodies under the fabric ->depth, humanistic
• strong presence of light and shdow
• Virgin in blue-> royal, she is mimicing Jesus's position
• Flowing curve of Jesus unifying the painting
• N. Renaissance: dreppery, elongated figures
• Confined to shallow space-> dramatic, emotional
• tears ->empathy
• Skull-> Adam
• 4 ppl on left with simple clothing and 2 ppl on right with intricate clothing

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Artist: Rogier van der Weyden

Title: St. Luke Drawing the Virgin

Date: ca. 1435-1440

Medium: oil and tempora on panel

Location: Netherlands, now -> Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

Analysis:

• reveals debt to earlier Flemish artists
• deep landscape that moves into the distance
• represent St. uke as the portrayer of the Virgin and Jesus
• Luke drawingthe features of the Virgin in siverpoint (used a stylus scraped across prepared peper)
• St. Like bacame the patron of painter's guilds across europe