| Died on 18 June 1464:
Rogier de la Pasture van der Weyden, Flemish Northern
Renaissance painter born in 1399 or 1400. — BIOGRAPHY Extensive coverage with commentaries and links to reproductions, in whole and in many details, of: — Deposition — Saint Luke Madonna — Annunciation Triptych — Miraflores Altarpiece — Seven Sacraments Altarpiece — Crucifixion Altarpiece — Bladelin Triptych — Last Judgment Polyptych — Braque Family Triptych — Saint Columba Altarpiece — Saint John Altarpiece — Other altarpieces — Other Crucifixions (here) — Portraits — Other paintings ^ == Crucifixions and Pietàs — Crucifixion (1445, 77x47cm) As in the Crucifixion Triptych, the Virgin Mary is here embracing the upright of the Cross, this time even more emotionally. The landscape is a later overpainting. Originally there was a flat gold background here, beginning immediately behind Saint John, with a multicolored aureole around Christ, its colors reflected in the angels. The crucified Christ is of an older, elongated type, as still seen in the Pietà of the Miraflores Altarpiece. The finely executed work unites figures reminiscent of both Rogier and the Master of Flémalle; it was probably painted by the workshop of Rogier. — Lamentation (1441, 32x47cm) The latest studies attribute this Lamentation directly to Rogier van der Weyden, a student of the Master of Flémalle and one of the most important and influential of the Flemish Primitives. The style and pictorial qualities of the painting match those of other Van der Weyden panels that are documented by archival material. A few authors, however, believe this Lamentation to be by his workshop, because of the various versions that exist of this composition, some of which have definitely been produced by assistants. Van der Weyden had so much work that he left the reproduction of popular compositions like the Lamentation to the other painters in his workshop. Dendrochronological research - the dating of a wooden panel based on the growth rings - places this version at around 1441, i.e. relatively early in the painter's career. Depicted is the lamentation of Christ under the cross, a scene that does not appear as such in the Bible. To the left we see John the Evangelist, barefoot and robed in a red mantle. His right hand supports the Savior's upper body, which is resting against the Virgin's knee. With his left hand he is comforting Mary. The Mother of God supports her Son's limp head and presses her cheek against his. At Christ's feet Mary Magdalen kneels in veneration, alongside her an ointment pot, her customary attribute. The skull in the foreground refers to the location, Golgotha, literally "place of the skull". Apocryphal texts frequently interpret this as the skull of Adam, whose fall brought death on the human race, and whose original sin Christ died to expiate. The withered trees to the left and right are also taken from medieval Passion stories, certain of which tell that all trees withered when the Savior gave up the spirit. The emotional intensity of the Lamentation witnesses to the influence of 'devotio moderna', with this type of tableau intended to move the viewer to compassion. Closer contemplation of the Passion would then lead to the imitation of Christ, or place the viewer into the right frame of mind to receive communion. — Entombment of Christ (1450, 110x96cm) It is believed - but without absolute certainty - that this Entombment is the center of a polyptych which was acquired by Leonello d'Este, Duke of Ferrara, for the Study at Belfiore, when the painter went in pilgrimage to Rome in 1449, the year before the Jubilee. It is however more probable that this work - which is also mentioned as being in the Medici Villa at Careggi - was done in 1449-50 at Florence, because it derives its compositive formula from the Deposition by Fra Angelico which can be seen in the predella of the altarpiece of Saint Mark in the Alte Pinakothek, Munich. This painting, in a Renaissance frame decorated with pilasters, adorned the altar of the private chapel of the Medici villa in Careggi, near Florence. Cosimo de' Medici (1389 -1464) had built this country residence around the middle of the century, and there are good reasons to suppose that the Medici family, who must have owned Rogier's small panel of the Madonna (Städelsches Kunstinstitut, Frankfurt), also commissioned the larger painting. The work closely follows the Entombment of Christ which was part of an altarpiece by Fra Angelico, painted around 1440 for the Florentine monastery church of San Marco. Its influence is evident in the display of the dead man, shown almost standing, with Mary and John holding his arms one on each side, and more particularly in the hill with the tomb in the rock, which runs entirely counter to Northern European tradition. Fra Angelico's altarpiece, to which the picture of the Entombment, much imitated in Florence, also belonged, was itself an important donation by the Medici family. It is improbable that Rogier van der Weyden saw Fra Angelico's work by chance on his Italian journey, and then reworked it for his own Medici altarpiece - particularly as we do not know whether he passed through Florence at all on his way to Rome. The model was more probably prescribed for him by his patrons when the work was commissioned. Very likely they sent the master a sketch of the work they had donated, telling him to follow it. Such clear guidelines from Florence would also explain why the painting was executed in almost square format, unusual for Netherlandish works but common in Italy and suitable for the architectural Renaissance setting. The patrons who commissioned the work will have been as much struck by the fine, realistic detail of the painting of the Lamentation as by the intense emotion of the faces. These qualities, and the slight asymmetry that suited late Gothic taste, distinguish the picture in significant respects from the work of Fra Angelico. A two-dimensionality at least matching that of the Saint John Altarpiece (Staatliche Museen, Berlin), and not at all in line with the artistic ideals of the Renaissance, is particularly noticeable in the Magdalene kneeling at the front, her limbs compressed into the same plane. The painting can thus be associated with Rogier's late works coming after the Saint Columba Altarpiece. |
| — Christ on the Cross with Mary and Saint John (1460, 325x192cm) _ Apart from some outstanding portraits, only a few paintings from Rogier's late period are extant. They include a problematical Lamentation containing many figures, and the great Crucifixion which, unlike the Lamentation, is remarkably well documented. The monumental Crucifixion, over three meters tall and almost two meters wide, is the largest extant single panel by the artist, was given by Rogier himself to the Carthusian monastery of Scheut near Brussels in the last years of his life. Rogier had had connections with the Carthusians for some time, since his eldest son Corneille, whom he had enabled to study at the university of Louvain, had entered the Carthusian monastery of Hérinnes in the year 1448/49, and on that occasion Rogier and his wife had already made the monastery a handsome present of money and paintings. The monastery of Scheut, whose first prior came from Hérinnes, was not founded until 1456, and Rogier again donated money and paintings; in return, Mass was later said for his soul annually on the anniversary of his death. About a hundred years later, in 1555, the monks sold the painting, probably to Philip II of Spain, who took a great interest in Early Netherlandish painting, and had acquired Rogier's early Deposition, among other works. Philip placed the painting in the Escorial, where it was severely damaged in a fire at the end of the 17th century. In this picture Rogier had returned to the concept of placing "living" figures in a painting where sculptures might be expected. In contrast to the Deposition, however, the scene is not set in an altar shrine. Rather, it is set in a shallow stone niche. This relates the picture to those monumental stone Crucifixion groups that can still be seen today in the interiors or exteriors of churches. The uniform "stone-colored" garments emphasize this aspect, and at the same time suggest the white habits of the Carthusian order. The cloth of honor behind the figures both distinguishes them as saints and suggests the association with sculptures, which were often set off by real or painted cloths. Within the muted coloring of the panel, the intense bright red strikes a powerful note that heightens the emotional effect of the figures. Those figures are not readily comparable with the rest of Rogier's late works. The folds of the garments make a very harsh impression, at least in the picture's present poor state of preservation, the result of fire damage and subsequent restorations. The reason for the emphatic folds may lie in the reference to stone sculpture, but is more likely to have been for expressive purposes. The jagged shapes in front of the breast of Saint John in particular, pointing sharply upward, seem in tune with his gestures and glance. Saint John and the Virgin Mary here represent two complementary images of pain, one turned inward and the other outward. The motif of the Magdalene in the Deposition (Prado, Madrid) is used here for the Virgin Mary, but transformed into a more silent grief. The donation of the huge Crucifixion to Scheut, along with other items given by Rogier, meant a considerable expense of time and money. Rogier could afford it, as he could afford a number of charitable donations for the poor, and other gifts to churches in Brussels. In so far as we may conclude from the sparse source material, he had lived in prosperity since first coming to Brussels, and as a painter in great demand with a large workshop, he was obviously able to increase his fortune over a period of 30 years. — Lamentation (1464, 35x45cm) _ Rogier van der Weyden and his followers made several versions of the Pietà. This version with Saint Jerome, Saint Dominic and the donator belonged to a small portable altar and is considered as one of the best. For this version of the Lamentation the man who commissioned it wanted to retain only Mary and Christ out of the central group, and to have himself and his patron saint, Saint Jerome, shown instead of Saint John. To the right, a Dominican replaces Mary Magdalene. As the evidence of dendrochronology and the costume of the donor indicate, the panel must have been painted shortly before, or perhaps soon after, Rogier's death. — Lamentation (1480, 81x130cm) _ This Lamentation combines figures in Rogier's style with a composition lacking his ability to create a well-constructed unity. The gesture of Saint Peter, seen right with his keys, obviously expresses a particular relationship with the donor, who was a bishop. The art historian Erwin Panofsky has suggested that the bishop is Pierre de Ranchicourt (d. 1499), the only bishop in the Netherlands in the second half of the 15th century whose first name was Peter. If the identification is correct, the painting could not have been commissioned before April 1463, when Ranchicourt became Bishop of Arras. The two halves of the scene are disconnected. Particularly unfortunate is the relationship between the woman crouching in the left foreground to the man next to her; it is almost as he had been pestering her and she were turning away in annoyance. This female figure also occurs in the fine Deposition of a later painter in Cologne known as the Master of the Saint Bartholomew Altar: the figure corresponding to her there, however, has less in common with the woman in our picture than with her underdrawing. In the underdrawing (and like the woman in the picture by the Master of the Bartholomew Altar) she was holding a salt cellar - identifying her as the Magdalene - instead of a skull, and had her hand pressed to her breast. The figure was therefore imported into the Lamentation from an existing model, also used by the painter in Cologne, but was not harmoniously integrated in Rogier's usual way. Nor do the brown and orange tones in the robe of the saint wringing her hands behind the Magdalene resemble Rogier's typically cooler coloring. Perhaps the Lamentation was in fact done in Rogier's workshop, as the stylistic similarity of its underdrawing with that of the Florentine Entombment would suggest, but it may be one of the many works by later successors of Rogier. It is worth noting that the saints to the left and to the right on the outside of the work show clear similarities to those on the wings of Hugo van der Goes's Portinari Altarpiece. |