This 15th-century Dutch Artist
A Most Skillful Painter or the Master of the Monstrous?
Which Renaissance Dutch master was honored by Romboudt de Doppere of Bruges or validated by Carl Jung?
Which painter was characterized as:
1. That very model of a major minor master (by Erwin Panofsky)?
and
2. The most skillful and most excellent painter of the whole Christian world (by Romboudt de Doppere)?
Hans Memling
Hans Memling (c. 1430-1494) was the last major 15th-century artist from the Netherlands. The subjects of Memling's paintings were symmetrically balanced, naturalistic, delicately detailed, and rich in luminous colors. He was known for his portraits and his idealized landscapes and religious depictions of saints and angels. In portraits like Madonna and Child, which today hangs in the Gemaldegalerie in Berlin, Memling’s originality is in evidence: he was the first Flemish artist to set a portrait against a landscape background. Most earlier 15th-century Flemish portraits depict the sitter on a plain, solid background (originally blue or green pigments which have aged and turned black). Memling sometimes brought his subjects outdoors, showing them under sunny skies and with lush green landscapes behind them.
Creating work that was similar to yet less controversial than his contemporaries may be a reason why Memling was so popular. Because Memling's work was so strongly influenced by that of other painters and seemed to rely on a successful yet reliable “cookie-cutter” formula, it often has been harshly dealt with by 20th-century critics. German art historian Erwin Panofsky in his 1953 book Early Netherlandish Painting (p. 347) says rather harshly of Memling, "...while the Romantics and the Victorians considered his sweetness the very summit of Medieval art, we feel inclined to compare him to a composer such as Felix Mendelssohn: he occasionally enchants, never offends, and never overwhelms. His works give the impression of derivativeness..."
Though a citizen of Bruges, Memling was born in Germany, a fact that is validated by notations made by Romboudt de Doppere, a registrar of the cathedral of St. Donation in Bruges. When Memling died he was one of the hundred wealthiest citizens of Bruges. In his diary in 1494, de Doppere, a contemporary of Memling, commented that Memling was “the most accomplished and excellent painter of the whole Christian world.”
3. This master of the monstrous…discoverer of the unconscious (by Carl Gustav Jung)?
Hieronymus Bosch
Bosch (1450-1516), a Late Gothic Flemish artist, is unmistakable as the eccentric painter of the torments of hell and damnation. Where painters like Memling who had come before him did serene paintings of madonnas, saints, and devotional imagery, Bosch delved into the stuff of nightmares. His paintings, created in brilliant colors and with amazing detail, are filled with strange objects, bizarre plants and animals, and monstrous or amusing figures believed to have been suggested by folk legends, allegories, and religious morals.
His work expresses the pessimism representative of the anxieties of his time. There was much social and political upheaval going on. The old medieval order imposed by the Church was cracking under modern changes like the growth of cities, the power of capitalism, the rise of nation-states, the demands for religious reform, and the beginnings of science. People were growing curious and restless and in many cases violent. Kings and dukes were murdered, soldiers pillaged and killed, the poor and animals were treated cruelly. The future appeared a vision of demons and darkness, with possible salvation through punishment and torment; Bosch responded with his bizarre paintings.
Psychiatrist Carl Jung believed Bosch’s disturbing use of symbolism originated from a process he called “individuation," in which humans search for psychic wholeness by exploring dreams, art, and various mythologies. He believed that modern civilization relied too heavily on science and logic.
Source:
Bailey, Colin J. The Art Quiz Book: 2000+ Questions on Painters and Paintings. Station Press: Scotland, 1995.
Grove Dictionary of Art. Oxford University Press, 2006.
