Category Archives: Roger Campin

Do dolphins smile?

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Simple answer: No. But they do bare their teeth. 

In a letter to a benefactor requesting financial support, the French theologian and preacher Jean Gerson wrote: “The dolphins in their formations are harbingers of the storm, messengers of melancholy, most certain prophets of sorrow. Giving their tidings in wedge-shaped formation, alas, they come, bringing threats of cruel fate.”

There are various dates attributed to this early letter ranging from 1382 to 1390. But in 1393 Gerson’s fortunes took an upturn when he became almoner and confessor to Philip the Bold, Duke of Burgundy, as well as receiving a benefice when he was appointed Dean of the collegiate church of St Donatian in Bruge. 

The precincts of the church of St Donatian was where Jan Van Eyck was first laid to rest in 1441 before his body was later translated into the church and buried near the baptismal font.

The mention of dolphins in Gerson’s letter may have alluded to the dauphins of the French throne. When the French King Charles V died in 1380, his brother Philip the Bold became more active at the court of France and served as the dominant of four regents when Charles VI, his nephew, succeeded to the throne at the age of 11.

In the donor panel of the Mérode Altarpiece Philip the Bold, now Gerson’s patron, and the reference to dolphins, is visually embedded in an inspired fashion that includes a homophonic pun on the duke’s name Philip – Flip – as in the acrobatic fashion of dolphins, and its flipper limbs. So let’s flip an image published in my previous post, Gerson’s purse and its attached buckles, and examine it from a new perspective.

Now we are presented with the upper open jaws of three dolphins baring their teeth. The two larger mammals appears to have scrolls in their mouth, perhaps echoing the text in Gerson’s letter describing dolphins as messengers of melancholy and prophets of sorrow.

Various causes of melancholy or depression are often referred to in Gerson’s writings, and as a priest and preacher he could be described as a prophet of sorrow in calling and encouraging people to repent.

Philip was given the epithet “the Bold” when, as a fourteen-year-old, he fought bravely at the side of his father, the French king John, at the Battle of Poitiers. Both were taken captive at the battle on September 19, 1356, and brought to London where they remained for four years before a ransom was agreed and paid for their release.

• The information appertaining to Jean Gerson and his letter is sourced from the book Jean Gerson Early Works, translated and introduced by Brian Patrick McGuire, and published by Paulist Press, Mahwah, New Jersey.

Armed to the teeth

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I previously posted on these two images some three years ago without knowing at the time of their connection to the Mérode Altarpiece. 

Left, is detail from the Crucifixion panel of the Crucifixion and Last Judgment diptych. Right, is detail from Pilgrims panel of the Ghent Altarpiece. Both are attributed to Jan Van Eyck.

The early commentaries are at these links:
Jankyn Van Eyck and the Wife of Bath
Eye for eye, tooth for tooth

The  common detail in both images is teeth, and it is this reference that connects to the donor panel of the Mérode Altarpiece.

In a previous post – Of Temples and Teeth – I pointed out how the formation of crenels or merlons can be viewed as resembling teeth, and the indented formation also hints at a relationship or contract known as an indenture. I also added that the crenelation can be considered as referencing teeth as in the word comb, or Combe.

In another post – A Horn and a Hook – I published the Duchy of Cleves coat of arms. At the time, I didn’t pick up on the bull’s toothy smile, but it is yet another connection to the panel’s theme of teeth. Below are three versions of the crest, two of which are taken from the Hours of Catherine of Cleves. Notice the gap-toothed version. 

Notice also that the woman’s red dress is ‘cleaved’ to reveal its white lining representing a row of teeth,

There’s more. The three buckles on the man’s purse are mouth-shaped with teeth. At another level and narrative they represent horseshoes and point to a third identity applied to the kneeling man, Arnold of Guelders (1410-1473), spouse of Catherine of Cleves (1417-1479).

Guelders, or Gelderland, is a Netherlands province famous for its mares that were bred to other bloodlines that eventually resulted in today’s breed of Gelderland horse.

The artist also punned Guelders to the Netherlands currency known as Guilders that was used from 1434 until 2002 when replaced by the euro, hence the buckles attached to the donor’s purse. The 1434 date may also give an indication to a period when the panel was painted.

Staying with the monetary theme, there are other narratives expressed by the shape of the three buckles attached to the purse, and which link to the identity of the kneeling man presented as the French theologian and philosopher, Jean Gerson.

The donor panel is embedded with several references to Gerson and his writings; the buckles on the purse are one example. They refer to a letter Gerson wrote to a benefactor requesting help in providing a source of income, and so a further connection to the purse. I shall outline the details in my next post.

Several features from the Mérode donor panel were adopted and adapted by Hugo van der Goes when he painted the St Vincent Panels.

The House of Welf

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Having previously pointed out that the crenellation feature and small house refer to two English locations, Templecombe in Somerset and Walsingham in Norfolk, there is a third location disguised in the feature, Bayern or Bavaria in Germany.

The three merlons on the battlement are of a Guelph design as opposed to those representing the Ghibelline version (see diagram).

The Guelph or Welph name derives from the House of Welf, the family of the dukes of Bavaria. And so a connection is made to the kneeling woman, one of whose identities is Margaret of Burgundy, Duchess of Bavaria. It was she who intervened on behalf of the painter Robert Campin (the bearded figure at the gate) when he was sentenced to exile after an extra-marital affair. The sentence was then reduced to a fine.

The kneeling man’s foremost identity is the French theologian and reformer, John Gerson. More on this in a future post.

The Donor Panel of the Mérode Altarpiece. The Met Cloisters

England’s Nazareth

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A month ago I showed how the donor panel of the Mérode Altarpiece referenced the English town of Templecombe (Of Temples and Teeth). Other English locations are also indicated. The artist utilised the same iconography for the Somerset Village to also point to the pilgrimage site of Walsingham in Norfolk.

The wall (Wal); the songbirds (sing); and the small house on the rampart (ham _ meaning home)…Wal-sing-ham.

A mile from Walsingham is the hamlet of Houghton St Giles where the Catholic Shrine of Our Lady of Walsingham is located. It was established around 1061 by Richeldis de Faverches, an English noblewoman.

Statue of Our Lady of Walsingham

She is said to have had a vision of the Virgin Mary requesting a chapel be built at Walsingham. Her vision is recorded in a ballad published in the 15th century by Richard Pynson:

“Our Lady led Richeldis in spirit to Nazareth and showed her the house where the angel had greeted her. ‘Look, daughter’ said Our Lady. ‘Take the measurements of this house and erect another one like it in Walsingham, dedicated to praising and honouring me. All who come there shall find help in their need.

‘It shall be a perpetual memorial to the great joy of the Annunciation, ground and origin of all my joys and the root of humanity’s gracious Redemption. This came about through Gabriel’s message that I would be a mother through my humility, and conceive God’s Son in virginity.” 

The Holy House was cared for by the Augustinian canons. Walsingham became the greatest Marian shrine in the medieval world, and was known as England’s Nazareth. It rivalled Jerusalem and Santiago de Compostela as a place of pilgrimage.

So was it Houghton St Giles, Walsingham, that the painter Robert Campin was sentenced to make a pilgrimage In 1427, for his role in local political disturbances, and not St Gillies in Provence?

The Mérode Altarpiece Donor Panel

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This type of image representing God the Father is a common feature found in breviaries produced during the Middle Ages. It appears on the folio known as The infant Christ sent to Earth from the Hours of Catherine of Cleves.

It is also a pointer to a similar image on a folio which was part of the Turin-Milan Hours. The folio no longer exists except for a black and white photographic copy made before some pages of the illuminated manuscript were destroyed by fire in 1904.

Prayer on the Shore by Hand G, Turin-Milan Hours, Biblioteca Nazionale Universitaria di Torino

The folio is titled Prayer on the Shore and attributed to ‘Hand G’, generally accepted to be either Jan van Eyck or his brother Hubert.

The scene illustrates the safe return of William, Count of Ostrevant, and his entourage following a stormy crossing of the English Channel. William’s visit to England in 1390 was in response to an invitation extended by King John II to knights from various countries to compete in a tournament festival. During his visit William was made a Knight of the Order of the Garter. He is depicted seated on a white horse with his hands joined and head raised in prayer, giving glory to God the Father and the heavenly angels for his safe return to shore

Wiliam’ father was Albert I of Bavaria, and when he died in 1404, his son succeeded him as Count of Holland, Hainaut and Zealand, and Duke of Bavaria-Straubing.

But there may be another interpretation to this scene. It references the conflict in the County of Holland between 1350 and 1490 known as the Hook and Cod Wars. I posted about this and the Prayer on the Shore folio some five years ago at this link: The Fisherman’s Tale.

Donor panel, Mérode Altarpiece

Whoever painted the donor panel for the Mérode Altarpiece seemingly referenced the Prayer of the Shore folio and its Hook and Cod narrative to point to one of probably three levels of identities applied to the kneeling donors: William, Count of Holland (1365-1417) and his wife Margaret of Burgundy (1374-1441).

I pointed out the Hook feature in my previous post, but what about the Cod reference? There are two: Cod as in bag or purse, and Cod as in fish. William’s purse suspended from the belt around his waist is plainly seen, but the second Cod reference is not so obvious. It requires rotating the panel 90º clockwise.

Now William’s black gown can be viewed as the shape of a fish, it’s open neck as the mouth, and the section of folds to the left of (or below) the belt as the fish tail. The feature can also be recognised as an analogy of Christ’s Resurrection as described in the Book of Jonah, the prophet who lived for three days in the belly of a great fish before “God spoke to the fish, which then vomited Jonah onto the shore”, and so another reference to the onshore and safe arrival of William after crossing the English Channel. This narrative links to another in the panel which I shall present in a future post.

Margaret, too, is also featured as a fish, but the tail is indicated above her belt. That behind her stands the bearded painter Robert Campin (d. 1444) is not without coincidence. In 1432 Campin was prosecuted for adultery and sentenced to banishment for a year. However, Margaret of Burgundy intervened and Campin’s sentence was reduced to a fine instead. This wasn’t the first time the painter had been summoned to court. In 1427, for his role in local political disturbances, he was sentenced to undertake a pilgrimage, generally assumed to St Gillies in Provence. However, the painter of the patron’s panel has indicated that the pilgrimage destination may have been to Houghton St Giles at Walsingham in England.

Update: September 28, 2023:

The Flemish painter Hugo Van der Goes adopted and adapted the Mérode Altarpiece patron panel when he painted the Friars Panel in the famous polyptych known as the Saint Vincent panels.

The fish references are there in the shape of the two foremost friars, so is the representation of Robert Campin, portrayed by Van der Goes as St Augustine of Hippo. 

The St Vincent Panels are attributed to the Portuguese painter Nuno Gonçalves, but all the evidence points to Hugo Van der Goes as being the artist who produced the work.

A horn and a hook

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In my previous post I mentioned how the unknown artist who painted the Infant Sent to Earth folio countered some of the features of the St Joseph figure in the Mérode Altarpiece.

The ‘Master of Catherine of Cleves’ took his lead from a counter feature embedded in the patrons panel of the Mérode Altarpiece. It appears between the edge of the main door and the thigh of the kneeling male patron as a horn or a hook. Both shapes are relevant.

The horn or hook counter… Cleves coat of arms… demon or bull…

That it’s positioned under the man’s arm can be understood as a reference to a coat of arms. It connects to an underarm feature on the female figure that I pointed out in a previous post – what appears to be a demon’s visage.

When paired, they can be recognised as the bull or demon (take your pick) that appears on the helm of the Cleves family coat of arms. The artist separated or ‘cleaved’ the two items to pun on the name Cleves, in the same way the woman’s dress is split or cleaved.

The Master of Catherine of Cleves picked up on this and adapted the feature for his figure of the fisherman whose coat is cleaved or separated at the hem (not helm) to reveal a gold coloured undergarment shaped as an axehead and its sharpened edge, and so refers back to the axehead placed at the feet of the carpenter in the St Joseph panel of the Mérode Altarpiece.

So could the two kneeling figures in the patron’s panel be intended to portray Catherine of Cleves and her husband Arnold, Duke of Guilders?

• I shall explain in my next post how the counter feature can also be considered as representing a hook.

Fishing lines

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MS M.917/945, ff. 84v–85r, Hours of Catherine of Cleves, Morgan Library and Museum

This folio is from the Hours of Catherine of Cleves, an illuminated manuscript commissioned for Catherine, Duchess of Guilders when she married Arnold, Duke of Guilders in January 1430. The manuscript’s completion date is put at between 1434 and 1440.

The folio is referred to as The Infant Christ Sent to Earth, and was inspired by the Mérode Altarpiece, the triptych attributed to the workshop of Robert Campin.

Mérode Altarpiece, Workshop of Robert Campin, The Met Cloisters

The most obvious link is the style of the Infant Christ bearing his Cross. The motif also appears in the central panel of the Mérode Altarpiece depicting the Annunciation to Mary.

But there is another prominent feature in the folio that links to the altarpiece, and the St Joseph panel in particular, the border illustration at the foot of the page of a man fishing by the side of a pool.

The unknown artist, but referred to as the Master of Catherine of Cleves, has modified the St Joseph figure to create a new identity, that of the fisherman.

The common identifier is the blue chaperon, except that the tail-end hangs to the opposite shoulder.

Countering is another technique; Joseph sits, the fisherman kneels; the colour of Joseph’s red sleeves becomes the colour of the fisherman’s coat; Joseph’s modest, dull brown coat becomes the rich gold colour of the fisherman’s undercoat; the carpenter’s left hand clasps a piece of wood while the fisherman’s left hand grips a wooden pole, and his right hand guides the attached net into the basket’s hole; Joseph’s right hand shows a similar action, guiding the gimlet drill into a mark to make another hole in the wood for constructing a “bait-box”, as seen in the margin illustration.

• There are other features in the folio adapted from the Mérode Altarpiece and I will post on these at another time.

Detail from the St Joseph panel of the Mérode Altarpiece, The Met Cloisters

The hand on the shoulder

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Notice the demon’s claw that grips the shoulder of the judge in the Monsaraz Fresco; similar motifs are located in two other paintings associated with the fresco.

(1) In a side panel of the Mélrode Altarpiece, Joseph’s claw-shaped, right hand grips the shoulder of the drill.

(2) As a bone feature on the shoulder of the kneeling figure in the St Vincent polyptych’s Panel of the Prince.

Below is another variation of the demon appearing at the shoulder in the Panel of the Archbishop, and a reference to the maxim, “see no evil, speak no evil, hear no evil”.

Of temples and teeth

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In October, 2020, I posted an item connecting the Mérode Altarpiece and the St Vincent Panels, and suggested that the bearded figure in the Panel of the Friars represented Robert Campin, the man standing behind the kneeling donors featured in the left wing of the Mérode Altarpiece.

The altarpiece is attributed to Robert Campin and his workshop, and housed at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City.

Another feature in the donor panel connects to the St Vincent Panels and to some paintings by Jan van Eyck as well.

It’s a reference to the English village of Templecombe in Somerset, famous for the discovery of what is known as the Templecombe Head, a panel painting said to of either Jesus Christ or St John the Baptist, and discovered in 1944 in the ceiling of a local cottage. The panel is now displayed in the parish church of St Mary.

The Temple feature in the Mérode side panel is the building located above the open door in the crenellated garden wall, The formation of crenels or merlons can be viewed as resembling teeth. The indented formation also hints at a relationship or contract known as an indenture, which could suggest that this panel, said to have been produced at a later date than the Annunciation panel, may have been painted by an artist apprenticed or tied to Campin’s workshop. 

“An indented document was usually, if not always, written in two or more identical versions. Orig. these were written on a single sheet of parchment and then cut apart along a zigzag, or ‘indented’ line. Each party to the agreement retained one copy, which he could readily authenticate by matching its serrate edge with that of another copy.” [ Middle English Compendium]

This joining together also implies a “mutual covenant” and here the artist brings together the battlements as one half of the “contract” and the skyline or heavens as the other. The cloud formation, though not well defined, is meant to represent the Trinity: Father, Son and Holy Spirit, and God’s binding covenant with the three people below.

The crenels can also be considered as referencing the word “Combe” which, in geology terms, is “a dry valley in a limestone or chalk escarpment” which in turn is “a long steep slope separating areas of land at different heights”.

Combe sounds like or is pronounced as “comb”, as in teeth of a comb. So binding the Temple with the crenellations – the teeth of a comb – we arrive at the word Templecombe. Teeth also connects to one of the identifiers given to the kneeling male donor. Yes, each of the three main figures has more than one identity.

Finally, the Templecombe reference in the Panel of the Relic is shown at this link: Hugo’s hat-tip to Jan Van Eyck. There are also references to serrations in this panel, namely the edges of the relic and the saw feature. The relic held by Cardinal Henry Beaufort and shaped as a porcupine is meant to represent part of the skull of John the Baptist. The serrated edge of the saw appears alongside the cardinal’s right cheek. 

The image of the cardinal is based on Jan van Eyck’s painting of the prelate and also embeds a reference to Templecombe.

End of the line – for a reason

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The St Vincent panels attributed to Nuno Gonçalves, Museu Nacional de Arte Antiga

The two end frames of the St Vincent Panels – the Friars Panel (left) and the Relic Panel (right) are similar in composition. Their “end of the line” positioning is a pointer by the artist, be it Nuno Gonçalves or Hugo van der Goes, to another painting known as the Merode Altarpiece and attributed to Robert Campin. Art historians generally agree that its two end panels were painted at a later date, and possibly by a young Rogier van der Weyden.

The Merode Altarpiece, Robert Campin, The Met Cloisters, New York City

In the two St Vincent Panels the bearded friar represents Robert Campin, while the pilgrim or hermit figure is portrayed as Jan van Eyck, aka Joseph, husband of the Virgin Mary, (a carpenter’s saw hangs from his belt), as explained in a previous post.

In the Merode Altarpiece the so-called ‘messenger’ in the left panel, standing beside the garden door has never been identified, but I would suggest that he represents Robert Campin, the same bearded ‘messenger’ patting the wooden plank in the Friars Panel.

The other end panel in the Merode Altarpiece sees a busy St Joseph in his workshop drilling or ‘tapping’ holes into a plank of wood – a pointer to the holes seen in the plank alongside the beared friar (Campin).

Another Campin connection seen in the Relic Panel is the figure dressed in black supporting the holy book. He is the French prelate Jean Jouffroy. The likeness is based on a portrait by Robert Campin titled Portrait of a Stout Man, now housed at the Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza in Madrid.

• More on this in my next post which will identify the two men placed on the back row of the Relic Panel.

Battles and beards

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This Portrait of a Carthusian Monk was painted by Petrus Christus in 1446 and is housed at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.

It was this painting, along with another work by Petrus, that was the inspiration for the bearded Carthusian figure in the Panel of the Friars, the first of six frames that make up the St Vincent Panels.

The long-bearded monk is holding an upright plank of wood – upright as in the sense of righteous (a righteous or just judge). This contrasts to the first figure on the back row, Pontius Pilate, who sentenced Jesus Christ to death by crucifixion after telling the Jews he could find no fault in the man.

It’s not just the beard and white robe that Gonçlaves adopted from the Carthusian painting. The orange, fiery background is echoed in the fiery cross on the monk’s black hat, while the box edge that runs top and right of the frame is represented by the box standing behind Jan van Eyck in the Panel of the Relic.

The plank of wood as representative of the Cross is forefront in another painting by Petrus Christus, A Goldsmith in his Shop, and forms the counter on which various items are displayed. This, too, was incorporated by Nuno Gonçalves into the Panel of the Friars.

A Goldsmith in his Shop, by Petrus Christus. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.

Researcher Clemente Baeta has identified eleven holes in the plank featured in the Panel of the Friars. The eleven holes match the number of round items grouped on the shop counter, excluding the red ribbon and the mirror. In the Petrus painting they represent the positions of the English forces when it laid seige to Orleans in 1428. The seige was relieved the following year when French forces led by Joan of Arc attacked and overpowered the English positions.

Gonçalves has linked this to reference the siege and conquest of Ceuta by Portugal in 1415 and its successful defence when Moroccan forces counter-attacked in 1419.

Notice also how the right hand of both St Eligius and the monk rest on the panel of wood.

There is another detail in the St Vincent Panels that links to a third painting by Petrus Christus. More about this in a future post.

The St Vincent Panels attributed to the Portuguese painter Nuno Gonçalves.

Several Flemish painters are shown in the St Vincent Panels. The long-bearded monk is meant to represent Roger Campin. Hugo van der Goes shows up in the Panel of the Prince, as does Petrus Christus (see below). Jan van Eyck is the pilgrim featured in the Panel of the Relic, while Dieric Bouts, Rogier van der Weyden and Jaques Daret line up in the Panel of the Knights.

Left: Petrus Christus as portrayed in the St Vincent Panels and (right), probably twenty years earlier, as St Eligius in A Goldsmith in his Shop.

The Pearl Poet… a third sighting

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Some months ago I discovered that Jan van Eyck had embedded in the Ghent Altarpiece the identity of the Pearl Poet, author of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. Jan wasn’t the first artist to do so. Pol Limbourg included him as one of the figures in the January folio from the book of hours known as the Très Riche Heures du Duc de Berry.

Detail from the Panel of the Friars and the Panel of the Relic in the St Vincent Panels

Recently I came across another painting that features the Pearl Poet – the St Vincent Panels attributed to the Portuguese artist Nuno Gonçalves.

In all of the three paintings the iconography attached to the figure of the Pearl Poet confirm his identity as Hugh Stafford, 2nd earl of Stafford, KG, c1342 – October 13, 1386.

The St Vincent Panels was an attempt to emulate the lower register of the Ghent Altarpiece, It includes several references to the work of the Van Eyck brothers and even a portrat of Jan in one of the panels, as there are of other Netherlandish artists.

The Pearl Poet appears in the first frame titled the Panel of the Friars. He is the figure with long hair and a straggling beard. His right hand is placed on a plank of wood. He wears a similar habit to the other two friars but a darker shade. On his head is a fez-type hat marked on the front with a cross amid what appear to be flames of fire.

Like Van Eyck in the Ghent Altarpiece, the artist has applied more than one identity to each figure – in this instance, three. The iconography that points to the name of the Pearl Poet is less detailed than that created by Van Eyck but, like Jan, the artist has split the name into three syllables: Hugh-Staf-ford.

Why the darker shade of the man’s habit? For this, read HUE. The staff is the STAVE or plank of wood he his holding. The FORD is the crossover he is about to make to the water reference in the panel alongside and also the mirror panel on the far side, referred to as the Panel of the Relic. In this scenario the plank is seen as the lid of the coffin placed behind the figure of Jan van Eyck who is presented as a poor pilgrim.

Sir Hugh died at Rhodes while returning from a pilgrimage to Jerusalem. His bones were translated back to England by his squire and entombed at Stone Priory alongside his wife Philippa Beauchamp who had died a few months earlier.

Van Eyck also pointed to Sir Hugh by referencing text from Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. So has Gonçlaves, and from the same passage: “Face fell as the fire, and free of his speech.” The fire reference is the symbolic flames at the end of his beard – a kind of singeing of the beard which also refers to another narrative in the painting.

The second identity given to the figure is the artist Robert Campin, considered the first great master of Flemish painting. He is one of several Flemish artists featured in the St Vincent Panels. He can be identified in three ways.

Firstly, In other Flemish paintings he is generally portrayed with a beard and as the third king or wise man that followed a star to Bethlehem to pay homage to Jesus, the new-born king of the Jews, hence the celestial motif on his hat.

Jean Jouffroy, painted by Roger Campin and (right) as he appears in the St Vincent Panels.

The second connection to Campin is the ‘mirror’ image in the far-right frame – the Panel of the Relic. The man wearing the black habit is Jean Jouffroy, almoner to Philip the Good duke of Burgundy. The image is adapated from Roger Campin’s painting, Portrait of a Stout Man. The motif on the front of the habit represents the Order of Our Lady of Bethlehem.

Detail from the Merode Altarpiece showing a self portrait
of Roger Campin. Could the horse-rider be Jan van Eyck?

A third connection to Campin is his placement alongside the plank. In this scenario it represents a door to to a sanctuary and is borrowed from a feature in Campin’s painting of the Merode Altarpiece where he has portrayed himself standing next to an open door that leads into a garden and the scene of the Annunciation.

I shall reveal the figure’s third identity in a future post.

A poet (and painter) of great value

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Detail from the Pilgrims panel of the Ghent Altarpiece

Gawain gazed on the gallant that goodly him greet,
and thought him a brave baron that the burg owned,
a huge man in truth, and mature in his years;
broad, bright was his beard and all beaver-hued,
stern, striding strongly on stalwart shanks,
face fell as the fire, and free of his speech;
and well he seemed to suit, as the knight thought,
the leading a lordship, along of lords full good.

Poetry in Translation

The Gawain Poet, author of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight and three other poems: Pearl, Patience and Cleanness, had been in his tomb about 45 years before his ghostly presence showed up in the Ghent Altarpiece painted by Jan and Hubert van Eyck. Neither brother had ever set eyes on the mysterious poet, but Jan was certainly acquainted with his work and his name, as he was with the names and poems of the two other contemporary poets referred to in the altarpiece.

Detail from the Pilgrims panel of the Ghent Altarpiece

Whlle researchers have never conclusively agreed on the identity of the Gawain Poet, Jan van Eyck has threaded cryptic clues in the altarpiece which keep pointing to one name in particular. Follow the trail and it keeps leading back to the start – an endless knot, so to speak.

In the Just Judges panel each of the ten riders has four identities. This also happens with some of the other figures in the narrow panels of the lower register. For example, the St Christopher figure (above) in the red cloak is draped with three more identities, one of whom is the so-called Pearl Poet. The other two are Constantine the Great and the artist Robert Campin, considered the first ‘great’ master of Flemish and early Netherlandish painting.

The Pearl Poet also shows up in two other panels of the Ghent Altarpiece but in different guises, and there are references to his work in all of the panels on the lower register when opened and in the closed section of the altarpiece.

The Pearl or Gawain Poet was indeed a man from the West Midlands, UK –
HUGH STAFFORD, 2nd earl of Stafford, KG, c 1342 – October 13, 1386

My next post will start to illustrate some of the iconography in the Ghent Altarpiece that identifies with the Pearl Poet and Van Eyck revealing him as Hugh Stafford.

“A bit of the dog in all of us”

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A priest was once heard to say to a group of pilgrims: “There’s a bit of the dog in all of us”. He was referring to the times when people break out from their ordered and obedient nature.

There is sense of disorder in the Pilgrims panel of the Ghent Altarpiece – a giant of a man leading a group of rough but seemingly ready-to-follow pilgrims, all men with the exception of the woman at the back of the group identified in the previous post as the Wife of Bath and one of the travellers featured in Geoffrey Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales.

Could it be that Jan van Eyck is hinting at “long and tall tales”, or even “shaggy dog” stories told by ‘shaggy’ pilgrims? The clue comes through the leader of the group, St Christopher. His collared hair and flowing beard has a hairy-dog appearance. Van Eyck has even given the saint’s nose a shine. Closer inspection of others in the pack with their squinting eyes suggests they too have a-bit-of-the-dog about them.

An Orthodox Christopher portrayed as a dog-headed saint.

The explanation is that in Eastern Orthodox iconography St Christopher is represented with the head of a dog. Apparently it came about from a mistranslation of the latin word Cananeus which means Canaanite (Cana in Galilee is where Christopher, who was originally named Reprobus, is said to have come from). Along the way Cananeus became misinterpreted as Canineus (canine). There was also a belief that a race of people with a head of a dog really did exist at one time! In The Canterbury Tales the Wife of Bath, seen at the rear of the group, also made mention of Cana in Galilee where Jesus miraculouly turned water into wine.

Reputed to stand over seven feet tall, St Christopher is also depicted here as a Colossus, possibly mirroring the smaller version portrayed by Jankyn, the youth behind him wearing a red tunic and representing a young Constantine. So in this instance Van Eyck is pointing to St Christopher as the Roman Emperor Constantine who moved the imperial capital to Byzantium and renamed it Nova Roma (later known as Constantinople) straddling the Bosphorus.

This East to West connection links to another panel in the altarpiece, so too does the straddling stance taken up by the “Colossus”. It is meant to mirror the straddling theme applied to Henry Beaufort in the Just Judges panel.

 Notice also how St Christopher’s feet are set wide apart, ready to take “one giant leap” across the Bosphorus for Christianity! And the man standing next to the clossus portrayed as Constantine the Great? Possibly St Paul, “called to be an apostle and set apart for the gospel of God.” (Romans 1:1) And if Van Eyck intended the white-haired figure to represent Paul, he may also have had in mind the missionary’s warning to the Philippians: “Beware of dogs!” (3:2) 

“Set apart” may also be Van Eyck referencing the East-West Schism of the Church and Constantine’s move to Byzantium, a move seen by some as rash and reckless, and so echoing the the metaphor from Proverbs 26:11: “As a dog returns to its vomit, so a fool reverts to his folly.” But with this metaphor Van Eyck also points to the indiscretion of his mentor Roger Campin, and an adulterous liaison which initially resulted in him being banished from Burgundy and having to set up his ‘business’ elsewhere before he was pardoned and allowed to return. As mentioned in the previous post, Van Eyck has used Campin’s likeness to depict St Christopher.

• Images: russianicons.wordpress.com and closertovaneyck

“A bit of the dog in all of us” (2)

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This is an update to an earlier post of the same name and a follow-on to the post I made a few days ago about the identity of the Pearl Poet.

A priest was once heard to say to a group of pilgrims: “There’s a bit of the dog in all of us”. He was referring to the times when people break out from their ordered and obedient nature.

There’s a sense of disorder in the Pilgrims panel of the Ghent Altarpiece – a giant of a man leading a group of rough but seemingly ready-to-follow pilgrims, all men with the exception of the woman at the back of the group identified in the previous post as the Wife of Bath and one of the travellers featured in Geoffrey Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales.

Could it be that Jan van Eyck is hinting at “long and tall tales”, or even “shaggy dog” stories told by ‘shaggy’ pilgrims? The clue comes through the leader of the group, St Christopher. His collared hair and flowing beard has a hairy-dog appearance. Van Eyck has even given the saint’s nose a shine. Closer inspection of others in the pack with their squinting eyes suggests they too have a-bit-of-the-dog about them.

An Orthodox Christopher portrayed as a dog-headed saint.

The explanation is that in Eastern Orthodox iconography St Christopher is represented with the head of a dog. Apparently it came about from a mistranslation of the latin word Cananeus which means Canaanite (Cana in Galilee is where Christopher, who was originally named Reprobus, is said to have come from). Along the way Cananeus became misinterpreted as Canineus (canine). There was also a belief that a race of people with a head of a dog really did exist at one time! In The Canterbury Tales the Wife of Bath, seen at the rear of the group, also made mention of Cana in Galilee where Jesus miraculouly turned water into wine.

Reputed to stand over seven feet tall, St Christopher is also depicted here as a Colossus, possibly mirroring the smaller version portrayed by Jankyn, the youth behind him wearing a red tunic and representing a young Constantine. So in this instance Van Eyck is pointing to St Christopher as the Roman Emperor Constantine who moved the imperial capital to Byzantium and renamed it Nova Roma (later known as Constantinople) straddling the Bosphorus.

This East to West connection links to another panel in the altarpiece, so too does the straddling stance taken up by the “Colossus”. It is meant to mirror the straddling theme applied to Henry Beaufort in the Just Judges panel. Notice also how St Christopher’s feet are set wide apart, ready to take “one giant leap” across the Bosphorus for Christianity! And the man standing next to the clossus portrayed as Constantine the Great? Possibly St Paul, “called to be an apostle and set apart for the gospel of God.” (Romans 1:1) And if Van Eyck intended the white-haired figure to represent Paul, he may also have had in mind the missionary’s warning to the Philippians: “Beware of dogs!” (3:2) 

“Set apart” may also be Van Eyck referencing the East-West Schism of the Church and Constantine’s move to Byzantium, a move seen by some as rash and reckless, and so echoing the the metaphor from Proverbs 26:11: “As a dog returns to its vomit, so a fool reverts to his folly.” But with this metaphor Van Eyck also points to the indiscretion of his mentor Roger Campin, and an adulterous liaison which initially resulted in him being banished from Burgundy and having to set up his ‘business’ elsewhere before he was pardoned and allowed to return. As mentioned in the previous post, Van Eyck has used Campin’s likeness to depict St Christopher.

The ‘Jankyn’ figure of the youth in red introduces another theme in the panel – that of family. Firstly it points to the head above him as being Van Eyck’s brother, Hubert (a similar motif of the brothers appears on the centre panel of the altarpiece), echoing the dedication Jan recorded on the frame of the painting, that his brother Hugh was greater than himself. It was Hugh who was first commissioned to produce the altarpiece. Jan completed the work following his brother’s death in 1426.

Another family pairing is is that of Jesus and “the Lord’s brother” James (the Just). Jesus is also matched in appearance with his cousin John the Baptist, and placed at St Christopher’s shoulder with James beside him.

• Images: russianicons.wordpress.com and closertovaneyck

Three Flemish primitives

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The painting below is attributed to the workshop of Roger van der Weyden and located at the Royal Museums of Fine Arts Belgium. Its title is King David Receives the Water of Bethlehem. Measuring 50cm x 32.7cm, the painting is dated between 1451 and 1475. It appears to be a section of a larger work but I don’t have access to any information to confirm this.

Three painters are featured in the foreground: Roger Campin, Rogier van der Weyden and Jan van Eyck.

More details on this at Water of Bethlehem

Water of Bethlehem