Flemish Painting Essay, Research Paper

During the fifteenth and sixteenth century, one of the key aesthetic goals of the Netherlandish art is realism. The realism of figures, setting, and especially space is a distinguished aspect of the early Netherlandish painters and it has long been seen as a feature in paintings, retables and other various art forms. At times, the realism in the artworks of the Netherlands represent a variety of aesthetic and/or religious reasons; however, a majority of the Netherlandish artists were concerned with attaining realistic interpretation and Robert Campin is one of them.

Although Campin was a Flemish painter, he could be classified as a Netherlandish artist because Flanders was a medieval county along the coast of what is now Belgium and adjacent parts of France and Netherlands. During the beginning of the fifteenth century, Campin was one of the earliest and most well known Flemish painters. Born in 1378 and died in 1444, he became a master painter in Tournai, a commune in southwest Belgium. As the .peintre ordinaire de la ville, x or the ordinary painter of the town, Campin was sometimes identified as the Master of Fl malle. In Tournai, he became the head of a considerable workshop which never lacked commission and apprentices. Campin s style was formed from the highly developed manuscript tradition of his time and throughout his career, his works took the form of multiple panels. One of his most famous pieces of work is .The Annunciation Triptych, x which is part of the Cloisters Collection in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. This tripych is often referred to as the .M rode Altarpiece x because for many years, the M rode family was in possession of it.

A triptych is an altarpiece which contains three hinged panels: a central panel and two side panels called wings. Each wing is half the width of the center panel; when both wings are closed, they completely cover the interior painted surface. .The Annunciation Triptych x is foldable and it was conceived as an object of private devotion. It also displays the trademark of the Netherlandish style: realism.

Campin painted his masterpiece on three wooden panels and oil was the medium that he chose to use. In .The Annunciation Triptych, x the figures and objects are painted with apparent depth, rich gradations of light, and a broad distribution of color. Campin combines translucent oil pigments on aqueous opaque pigments, thereby making the surface luminous and enamel-like and giving the artwork the result of an illusionistic effect. In addition to Campin s profound artistic skills, he has a great eye of precise observation; thus, he is able to depict the clarity of the details in his artwork. Due to these various painting techniques and careful visions, .The Annunciation Triptych x appears to be three-dimensional and heavy. Hence, Campin is successful in reflecting reality onto a two-dimensional plane.

The theme of the Annunciation is common throughout the Middle Ages and it is obvious that .The Annunciation Triptych x depicts a narrative. It illustrates the moment when the archangel, Gabriel, announces to the Virgin Mary that she has been chosen by God to be the mother of Christ. On one of the side panels, the donors of the painting are witnessing this miraculous event, while on the other wing, Joseph is sitting on his carpenter s bench. However, because Campin s fascination with the natural and domestic world dominates his telling of the sacred story, his version of the Annunciation takes place inside an ordinary but comfortably furnished room.

In .The Annunciation Triptych, x Campin changed the viewpoint between the center panel and the wings. By implying explicit hierarchy of the levels from panel to panel, Campin is able to maintain the prominence of the center panel for the major devotional scene. He kept this central scene within its own separate spatial situation, never allowing the wings to become a perfect extension of the central space.

The center panel depicts a room that is physically highest, for one sees only blue sky and clouds from the back windows of the Virgin s chamber. Campin is able to achieve a convincing account of a room because he has perceived the fall of light, coming through the door by which Gabriel has entered on the left and through the windows on the left and in the back wall. The gradation of light on the walls is also subtly perceived. With the furrows of shade that envelop the contours of forms, the three-dimensional effect is heightened. Not only is the use of light and dark unquestionably one of the decisive elements in the picture, but their roles stimulate the overall mood of the artwork. In addition, the phenomenon of the cast shadows expresses a mastering of reality or, more precisely, a resemblance to reality.

The perspective of the central panel converges abruptly to one vanishing point centered between the Virgin and Gabriel, i.e. along the axis on which one would logically stand when contemplating the scene. Neither the Virgin nor the archangel have haloes, therefore their natural rather than supernatural character is stressed. The Virgin, who is unaware of her heavenly visitor, is studying her book; the book is evidently a precious one, since she holds it in a cloth. She has a large oval face with small hands and she seems to be sitting on the narrow step of the settle. However, this is unclear due to the heavy drapery. Standing between the Virgin and Gabriel are benches and tables which are exaggeratedly tilted upward to show more of their tops. As for the archangel, the folds of his robe are well defined and he is seen as slowly approaching the Virgin. Not only are the figures in the center panel significant, but the objects have their own importance as well. For example, the lily itself symbolizes the Virgin s purity and the three lilies on a single stalk refer to the Christian Trinity.

On the right panel, one is able to see that the sense of depth of this wing is similar to that of the center panel due to the usage of light and shadow. St. Joseph s room is on a lower level in comparison to the Virgin s chamber. This is because his back window looks out to people, houses and streets, whereas the back window of the Virgin s room looks out to the blue sky and clouds. St. Joseph is in his craftsman s shop, seated at his bench; he is completely absorbed in his work.

The sense of perspective in the left wing is not as prominent as the center and right panels; however, the use of light seems to be warmer than the other two. The left panel reveals that the patrons are kneeling on the ground, perhaps within a garden since there is grass surrounding them. Campin placed them on the left wing because that is the preferred side in a religious scheme. Even though the door to the Virgin s chamber is opened to them, they cannot see Gabriel and the Virgin; however, their attention is directed towards them.

In Campin s .The Annunciation Triptych, x he shows that naturalistic style was still a symbolic subject matter which was used to convey important religious history. By setting his figures in space, giving them solidity, using the gradation of light, and providing a great sense of three-dimensional perspective, Campin is a truly stylistic and original painter of the fifteenth century. Not only was he able to portray a significant religious event vividly, but the pictorial surface of Campin s masterpiece presents objects that carry a meaning apart from their literal identity. Although the individual Netherlandish paintings of this period have been considered part of the total oeuvre of an artist, the history of Netherlandish paintings is the history of the artist. Not only was Campin an influential artist of his time, but his impact on later painters was profound.