Notes on the Two Earliest Paintings by Rogier van der WeydenAuthor(s): Karl M. BirkmeyerSource: The Art Bulletin, Vol. 44, No. 4 (Dec., 1962), pp. 329-331Published by: College Art AssociationStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3048035 .

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NOTES

NOTES ON THE TWO EARLIEST PAINTINGS BY

ROGIER VAN DER WEYDEN

KARL M. BIRKMEYER

The two paintings of the Madonna al latte by Rogier van der Weyden in the Thyssen Collection and in the Kunsthistorisches Museum at Vienna (Figs. I and 2) are very similar in style and concept. They usually are dated within the first decade of Rogier's work, Panof- sky, to my mind, being right in accepting them as the earliest extant works by the master.' The reasons for the early dating are primarily stylistic, both paintings showing a conflux of Campin's and Jan van Eyck's in- fluences. Furthermore, they are both extremely small,2 and never again did Rogier make use of so small a scale.! It seems to me, however, that both paintings are not only indicative of Rogier's formative period; they reveal, at the very beginning of his career, one of the main sources of Rogier's iconological inspiration and set the tone for one of the basic aspects of his oeuvre.

At the time of their creation Rogier was approxi- mately thirty-three years of age.' Although we do not know of any travels of Rogier prior to this time, we can assume that thanks to his age and thanks to the

importance of the great French city of Tournai he had been exposed to a good number of artistic experiences. The sculpture of Tournai is related to sculpture in the heart of France. Campin's work gives many evidences for a stylistic and iconological proximity to sculpture and it is known that he was commissioned to polychrome works of sculpture. Earlier I have tried to point out that Campin's Marriage of the Virgin, the right half of the panel in the Prado, harks back to the Portal of the Chartreuse at Champmol.5 I think that Rogier's Thyssen Madonna, too, can be linked to the artistic and iconological climate of Sluter and Champmol.

In this connection one of the more obvious features of the panel is the presence of six prophets, flanking as simulated sculptures the image of the Madonna. Be- sides the Moses Fountain I do not know of any other work, be it sculpture or painting, that so conspicuously employs six prophets in subservient connection with another main theme, in Sluter's case the Crucifixion, in Rogier's the Madonna. In Sluter's work the prophets

are identified by inscriptions and some attributes. In the Thyssen Madonna only the second from the left can be identified as David because of the harp he is holding. But a certain number of details might establish a pos- sible and plausible concordance between the series of prophets in both works. The counterclockwise sequence of the prophets on the Moses Fountain is Moses, David, Jeremiah, Zechariah, Daniel and Isaiah. In Rogier's painting the prophet preceding David is bearded and hatless, and in these respects follows Sluter's Moses, although the latter's cloak is pulled over his head. The

prophet following David on the Fountain is Jeremiah, who is wearing a cap; in Rogier's case, too, the prophet is capped. (Since David is the only royal prophet, it is improbable that this figure's headdress includes a crown as the barely visible details might make some believe.) The fourth figure in the painting is bearded and his garment shows rather loose, wide folds, two features which also appear in Sluter's Zechariah. The fifth fig- ure in both works shows long vertical folds and is wear-

ing a hat with lappets. And the last figure, Isaiah, is bare-headed and bearded in both instances.

In the Moses Fountain the prophets function as the

judges of Christ: Secundum legem debet mori.6 They justify the necessity of Christ's Passion for the salvation of mankind. The Passion proper, Christ's Crucifixion, originally was the crowning group above the prophets for which the "well" only provided the support. If

Rogier adopted the prophets from the Fountain, he was aware of their original meaning and incorporated it into his painting. To the sides of the aedicula appear flowers, incongruous within the architectural setting, but for that very reason the more conspicuous. On the right is the iris, a symbol of the Passion, and on the left the columbine, a symbol of sorrow which relates the Passion to the Mother of Christ.!

The Virgin, after all, is the obvious and central theme of the picture. However, she does not appear as a single devotional image. She is the central image, the nucleus of a complex of ideas which is clearly and

precisely visualized in Rogier's painting. Although she is shown suckling the child, thus referring to the In-

fancy of Christ, the crown makes her at the same time the Queen of Heaven, a status she achieved in part by her co-passion with Christ, which probably is alluded to by her blue robe, connoting her faithfulness to her son. Another reason for her elevation was her role of

I. Erwin Panofsky, Early Netherlandish Painting, Cam- bridge, 1953, p. 251, dates them 1430-1432. Max J. Fried- linder, Die Altniederldndische Malerei, II, Leyden, 1943, p. 94, dates both ca. 1435. Heinrich Beenken, Rogier van der Weyden, Munich, 1951, p. 121, dates the Thyssen Madonna 1432-1433 and, p. 144, the Vienna Madonna ca. I440o. Jules Destree, Roger de la Pasture, Paris, 1930, p. 16 and p. 120, is not certain about Rogier's authorship.

2. 14 x 10.4 cm and 18.5 x 12 cm, respectively. 3. Unless one accepts the St. George (Coll. heirs to Lady E.

Mason) as by Rogier and includes the dedication miniature

in the Chroniques du Hainaut. 4. Accepting the identity of the Master of Fl6malle with

Robert Campin and that of his pupil Rogelet de le Pasture with Rogier van der Weyden, Rogier, born 1399/14oo, had studied with Campin at an unusually advanced age from 1427 to 1432. Cf. Panofsky, op.cit., pp. i55ff. and 247.

5. "The Arch Motif in Netherlandish Painting of the i5th Century," ART BULLETIN, XVIII, 1961, pp. 12ff.

6. For the iconography cf. Aenne Liebreich, Claus Sluter, Brussels, 1936, pp. 8off., with bibliography.

7 Cf. Panofsky, op.cit., p. 146.

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330 THE ART BULLETIN

Virgin Mother. The first four scenes in relief at the top of the aedicula refer to her motherhood and Christ's Infancy: the Annunciation, the Visitation, the Nativity, and the Adoration of the Magi. The Visitation does not always form part of the Seven Joys of Mary.' In Rogier's case its inclusion emphasizes the messianic aspect because during the Visitation the unborn St. John recognized the divinity of Mary's future child.

The Resurrection scene, the next of the reliefs, con- cludes the references to the Passion expressed by the presence of the prophets and the flowers: the power of Death has been broken. Only now are the Pentecost and the Coronation of the Madonna possible. The read- ing sequence of the six reliefs ends in Pentecost. That event marks the beginnings of the Church. Mary, the Apostles, and the disciples were gathered together, some 12o faithful, when the Holy Spirit descended and filled them. The miracle of the same tongue "added unto them about three thousand souls" (Acts I and 2). The Church as a congregation is established. The liturgical color for Pentecost being red,9 it is possible that Christ's red robe is meant to refer to this feast day; none of the other paintings by Rogier of the Madonna and Child show Christ dressed.'"

Mary, crowned after her bodily assumption, not only is the Queen of Heaven, but she is the Church: the Coronation scene, fittingly at the top of the painting, above the cross-flower, is on the same axis as the central image of the Madonna who, by the architectural niche, is identified as the Church. If the Incarnation of Christ is referred to in the first four relief scenes and is made present in the flesh-and-blood image of the Child, the Church is made present in the lifelike image of the Madonna. The prophets "demand" the Passion for the sake of materializing the divine intention, the estab- lishment of the Church. Rogier emphasizes the presence and "reality" of the Church by the strong cast shadow of the Madonna in her niche.

With regard to the prophets, their inclusion is spe- cifically justified by the total iconological program of the painting, and their role within this program, in turn, gives further evidence for the probability that Rogier was inspired by Sluter's Moses Fountain. Thus, the painting revealingly reflects works of sculpture as an important source of Rogier's oeuvre.

Friedliinder said in 1934 that "an idea of Rogier's beginnings is particularly essential,""' a postulate which still is in the process of being fulfilled. It seems that the second of the paintings under discussion can also yield more in this respect than the often stated Morellian and stylistic cross-fertilization from the work of Campin and Jan van Eyck. In this case the Madonna is stand- ing in a niche which, in comparison to the Thyssen painting, has been extremely simplified. There is thus

a decided incongruity of proportions between the Vir- gin-her volume increased by the broad and massed folds of her robe-and the architectural setting, a fea- ture which reinforces the symbolical aspect of Mary's image. If the crown again identifies her as the Queen of Heaven, the artist has added the motif of the Throne of Solomon, referring to the wisdom of the Madonna, i.e., the wisdom embodied in the Church and revealed by the Church. Rogier continues this theme by adding above the head of the Virgin, in the concave molding of the niche, the bust of God the Father in the gesture of blessing and the Dove of the Holy Spirit. By itself this combination does not make sense. Iconographically it appears usually as part of either an Annunciation or a Baptism of Christ, neither theme being specifically evoked by the painting. The only other way of "com- pleting" the image is to add the third part belonging to a Holy Trinity, namely Christ. And by reading verti- cally downward, the figure of Christ concludes the visualization of the Trinity. It is not the traditional Trinity with the Crucified Christ. Christ, though ren- dered as child, is referred to as man. But in contrast to the Thyssen Madonna, where the child is clothed in a red robe, here it is unclothed and wrapped in white linen-an obvious reference to the shroud onto which the body of the dead Savior will be placed after the Deposition.

As far as I know there is no precedent for this kind of representation in the iconographical sense. Nor do I know of any instance in which the bust of God the Father is shown in frontal foreshortening as if the figure were receding horizontally into the clouds out of which it projects. We look upon the shoulders of God who seemingly is resting his left arm on the edge of the niche's concave molding. There is only one, al- though a purely formal, prefiguration for such an arrangement, and that is the prophet Micah on the exterior of the Ghent altar. Jan van Eyck correlated the prophets with the event prophesied, the Annuncia- tion, by placing them in the attic, so to speak, above the room of the Annunciation. Micah is shown in frontal foreshortening, directly above the Madonna, looking down toward her while seemingly resting on the archi- tectural framework, all features which recur in Rogier's painting. Rogier only changed the pose of the right arm into the blessing gesture and moved up the dove of the Holy Spirit which in Jan's painting, because of the different theme, hovers above the Virgin.

Rogier, however, not only gave the figure a new meaning. By painting it and the Dove in grisaille, he separates the flesh-and-blood presence of the Madonna from the architectural and sculptural framework which enlarges upon the basic theme. If the combination of God the Father and the Dove in this context is unique,

8. Cf. Stephan Beissel, Geschichte der Verehrung Marias in Deutschland wiihrend des Mittelalters, Freiburg, io909, pp. 630ff.

9. Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church, London, 1958, s.v. Whitsunday.

ro. As a matter of fact, all paintings of the Madonna and

Child by the Flemish masters of the s5th century represent the Child in the nude or partially wrapped in a white cloth, the only exceptions to my knowledge being the Thyssen Madonna and Campin's Frankfort Madonna; in the latter case, however, the robe is blue.

11. Op.cit., p. 2I.

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NOTES 331

so are the figures of Adam and Eve. Eve is rendered

eating the forbidden fruit, i.e., at the moment of the Fall, and Adam at the moment of Expulsion. Neither serves within a narrative, since they are rendered as

sculpture. And Rogier contradicts any possible "read-

ing" of Sin and Expulsion by reversing their sequence. The story is frozen into the respective images of indi- vidual figures. Literally the first family is split, each half standing symbolically for one event of the whole

story. There is only one prototype for this separation of

Adam and Eve, and that again is the Ghent altar, where the two ancestors of mankind are separated by five intervening panels, Adam to the left and Eve to the right. There, however, no narrative element is alluded to, both being present as representatives of man- kind in sin. The two figures fulfill the same function in the later Nativity by Petrus Christus in the National

Gallery of Art in Washington. In comparison with these two other objects, the characteristics of Rogier's version become the more apparent. Rogier abbreviates the historical narrative, he freezes it into representative imagery and thereby heightens the symbolical aspects: Adam parallels the New Adam, i.e. Christ, and Eve the New Eve, i.e. Mary. By the same token the re-

demptory message of the total painting is brought forth

and, therefore, the bust of God the Father with the Dove can be rendered on the same level of reality-as sculptural framework-as the first sinners.

The immediate and definite conclusion that can be drawn from the above observations is that the Vienna Madonna must postdate the Ghent altar. The latter was finished by inscription on May 6, 1432. Rogier left Campin's studio as master on August I of the same

year. I think it is therefore highly improbable that the Vienna Madonna-and the same goes, to my mind, for the Thyssen Madonna as well-was executed prior to Rogier's "graduation" as Panofsky assumes.12 Both are, even if the earliest works of Rogier, already the works of a "master."

With regard to their sources each painting represents a specific aspect. The Vienna Madonna borrows formal motifs from Jan van Eyck, but they do not remain within the purely formal realm, devoid of meaning. They become part of Rogier's language and are bor- rowed primarily for the sake of their expressive poten- tial. The more painterly characteristics of the prototype are translated into simulated sculpture. If this in itself already minimizes any narrative features, their juxta- position with the lifelike rendition of the central figure finds an iconological and symbolical justification. Rogier does not play with the possibilities of the new illusion- istic style; his differentiation of imitated architecture and sculpture and imitated life is based on calculated and deliberate choice.13

Eyckian motifs appear also in the Thyssen Madonna, namely in the undisguised flowers. But the more domi- nant motifs are taken from the medium of sculpture, Claus Sluter specifically. Sculpture and architecture are

Rogier's preferred means for iconological enrichment. And even if the reliefs with the Seven Joys of Mary form a narrative sequence, the narration is literally frozen into "stills." Again the contrast between the levels of reality within one picture enhances their re-

spective iconological function.

Formerly the sources for Netherlandish painting of the fifteenth century were seen only in manuscript illu- mination. This tendency can be explained by the earlier

concept of style which was almost synonymous with

handwriting. The style of one medium would be more decisive for a later formulation within the same medium than that of another one. Furthermore, this concept of

style was divorced from meaning. The comparatively recent emergence of Robert Campin as one of the most influential figures in the development of Flemish

painting was the first major inroad on the illumination

theory. His indebtedness to the sculptural climate of Tournai could not be denied. The Entombment of the Seilern triptych, the Prado Betrothal, the Deposition of the Liverpool triptych, among others, all betray more or less obvious references to sculpture. Rogier was the

pupil of Campin. But his reliance on sculptural and

sculpturesque compositions was not necessarily caused

purely by the master-apprentice relationship. A major cause, to my mind, lies in the complexity of iconological statement required by the rise of the new easel paintings for which not illumination but sculpture linked with architecture provided the major source of inspiration. And the foremost project of this kind in temporal, geo- graphical, and political proximity was Champmol.

If the Thyssen Madonna was inspired by Champmol, is it possible that the painting also was destined for

Champmol? There is no documentary evidence to back up such a proposition. But the theme is unique enough at least to raise the question. A greater degree of probability for the original destination could be ad- duced for the Vienna Madonna. The church of the Chartreuse was dedicated to God, the Trinity, and the Madonna. The foundation charter lists the dedications in this sequence."1 The Madonna was the main and central image at the entrance to the church, and a

sculpture of the Holy Trinity by Marville was placed conspicuously in the interior, probably in the choir.15 Rogier gives, so to speak, a synopsis of these principal dedications, and since his formulation, too, in this case is so unique, the painting might have been commissioned for the Chartreuse,16 or at least for a member of the Burgundian Valois in reference to their necropolis.

UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, LOS ANGELES

12. Op.cit., p. 251. 13. Beenken, op.cit., pp. 44-45, misunderstands Rogier's

intention by insisting that the Vienna Madonna "ist nicht ein- fach als lebendige Gestalt gemeint, sondern offenbar als plast- isch geformtes Bildwerk in einem Altarschrein, holzgeschnitzt und bemalt."

14. Henri David, Claus Sluter, Paris, 1951, p. 27.

15. Ibid., p. 40. 16. Although I doubt the attribution of the corresponding

panel, St. Catherine, to Rogier, the subject of this painting might further earmark the diptych for Champmol. St. Cath- erine was a preferred intercessor for the Burgundian dynasty. Cf. ibid., pp. 72-73.

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