Melchior Broederlam
Melchior Broederlam (born
Life
His early career included a lengthy stay in Italy, where he adopted a sense of space and use of modelling influenced by
Dijon panels
Probably his only surviving paintings (as opposed to painted carvings) are the two outsides of the wings for a well-documented carved altarpiece by Jacques de Baerze commissioned by Philip for the charterhouse of Champmol near Dijon, which Broederlam completed in 1399, also gilding and painting the wood carvings inside.[4] This is now in the Musée des Beaux-Arts de Dijon, as is another altarpiece from the same commission, for which he gilded and painted the carved figures;[1] he had apparently also painted outside panels for this, but they are lost. Guild rules usually mandated that carving and painting were performed by members of different guilds.[5]
Broederlam's use of oil paint had a strong impact on the painters of the following generation, including Robert Campin and Jan van Eyck. Both panels include two scenes, with an extensive landscape, and look into pavilion-like buildings in a manner derived from Italy. Although the perspective is far from fully developed, light and shadow are used to create a sense of depth in a very advanced fashion, and the realistic depiction of Saint Joseph was to become characteristic of Netherlandish painting. Although the skies are painted in gold in the Dijon panels, a flying hawk in one shows they are intended as real space. The buildings in the Annunciation combine Romanesque and Gothic areas, probably intended to contrast the Old and New Testaments, in a visual metaphor that was to become characteristic of Eyckian painting.[6] The panels contain much of the contemporary International Gothic but also "announce a new world of naturalism and disguised symbolism that will be further refined in the works of his successors in the Netherlands."[7]
Possible other works
Some other works have been attributed to him or his workshop, but without being generally accepted.[8] In particular six scenes (two panels are painted on both sides) from an altarpiece from Champmol, now equally divided between Antwerp and Baltimore, have often been attributed to him, although iconographic and stylistic details suggest a Mosan origin.[9]
Notes
- ^ a b Jugie, Sophie (2002). "Retable de la Crucifixion (Altarpiece of the Crucifixion)" (in French). Musée des Beaux-Arts de Dijon. Archived from the original on 26 July 2011. Retrieved 21 December 2008.
- ^ See Gardner's Art Through the Ages, Janson, and Levey, for example
- ^ Vaughan, p.205
- ^ Snyder, 73 discusses and rejects other possible works – see below also.
- ^ Snyder, 292-3
- ^ Snyder, 72-3, and History of Art By Horst Woldemar Janson, Anthony F. Janson
- ^ Snyder, 73
- ^ List from the Centre for the Study of fifteenth-century Painting in the Southern Netherlands and the Principality of Liège Archived 2008-12-25 at the Wayback Machine
- ^ Snyder, 72–73;One of the Baltimore panels Archived 2009-03-02 at the Wayback Machine – the first photo is the Annunciation – the Baptism of Christ is shown in the enlarged view. All the panels (bottom of page) Archived 2008-08-29 at the Wayback Machine.
References
- Anne Hagopian van Buren, "Broederlam, Melchior," Grove Art Online, Oxford University Press [accessed 14 April 2008]
- ISBN 0-13-623596-4
- Vaughan, Richard; Philip the Bold, The Formation of the Burgundian State, Boydell Press, 2002, ISBN 0-85115-915-X