Rogier van der Weyden

Rogier van der Weyden or Rogier de le Pasture (1399 or 1400 – June 18, 1464) was an Early Netherlandish painter. His surviving works consist mainly of religious triptychs, alterpieces and commissioned single and diptych portraits. Although his life and career were generally uneventful, he was highly successful and internationally famous in his lifetime -his painting were exported, or taken, to Italy and Spain, and he received commissions from, amongst others, Philip the Good, Netherlandish nobility and foreign princes. By the latter half of the century, he had eclipsed even van Eyck in popularity. His fame lasted until the 17th century, and largely due to changing taste, he was almost totally forgotten by the mid 18th century. His reputation was slowly rebuilt during the following 200 years; today he is known, after Robert Campin and Jan van Eyck, as the third (by birth date) of the three great Early Netherlandish artists, and widely as the most influential Northern painter of the 15th century.

Van der Weyden worked from life models, and his observations were acute, yet he often idealised certain elements of his models facial features, and they are typically statuesque, espcially in his triptychs. All of his forms are rendered with rich, warm colourisation and a sympathetic expression, while he is known for his expressive pathos and naturalism. His portraits tend to be half length and half profile, and as he is as sympathetic here as in his religious triptychs. van der Weyden utilised an unusually broad range of colours and varied tones; in his finest work the same tone is not repeated in any other area of the canvas; even the whites are varied.

Little record of the details of his life survive, and those that do are often open to interpretation. He left no self portraits. Many of his most important works were destroyed during the late 17th century. van der Weyden is first mentioned in historical records in 1427 when, coming to painting relatively later in life, he studied under Campin during 1427-32, but soon out shone us master and later even influenced him. After his apprenticeship he was made master of the Tournai Guild of St Luke. He moved to Brussels in 1435, where he quickly established his reputation for his technical skill and emotional use of line and colour. He completed his Deposition in 1435, which as he had deliberately intended, made him one of the most sought after and influential artists in northern Europe and is still considered his masterpiece.

Life

Early life and apprenticeship

Rogier van der Weyden was born in Tournai (in present-day Belgium) as Rogier de le Pasture (Roger of the Pasture) in 1399 or 1400. His parents were Henri de le Pasture, a master cutler, and Agnes de Watrélos. The family had settled before in the city of Tournai where Rogier's father worked as a 'maître-coutelier' (knife manufacturer). In 1426 Rogier married Elisabeth, the daughter of a Brussels shoemaker Jan Goffaert and his wife Cathelyne van Stockem. Rogier and Elisabeth had four children: Cornelius, who became a Carthusian monk, was born in 1427 a daughter Margaretha in 1432. Before 21 October 1435 the family settled in Brussels where the two younger children were born: Pieter in 1437 and Jan the next year. From the second of March 1436 onwards he held the title of 'painter to the town of Brussels' (stadsschilder) a very prestigious post because Brussels was at that time the most important residence of the splendid court of the Dukes of Burgundy. On his move to the Dutch-speaking town of Brussels, Rogier began using the Dutch version of his name: 'Rogier van er Weyden'.

Little is known about Rogier's training as a painter. The archival sources from Tournai were completely destroyed during World War II, but had been partly transcribed in the 19th and early 20th century. The sources on his early life are confusing and have led to different interpretations by scholars. It is known that the city council of Tournai offered wine in honour of a certain 'Maistre Rogier de le Pasture' on 17 March 1427. However, on the 5th of March of the following year the records of the painters' guild show a 'Rogelet de le Pasture' entered the workshop of Robert Campin together with Jacques Daret. Records show that de le Pasture was already established as a painter. Only five years later, on the first of August 1432, de le Pasture obtained the title of a 'Master' (Maistre) painter. His later entry into apprentiship might be explained by the fact that during the 1420s the city of Tournai was in crisis and as a result the guilds were not functioning normally. The late apprenticeship may have been a legal formality. Also Jacques Daret was then in his twenties and had been living and working in Campin's household for at least a decade.

It is possible that Rogier obtained an academic title (Master) before he became a painter and that he was awarded the wine of honour on the occasion of his graduation. The sophisticated and 'learned' iconographical and compositional qualities of the paintings attributed to him are sometimes used as an argument in favour of this supposition. The social and intellectual status of Rogier in his later life surpassed that of a mere craftsman at that time. In general the close stylistical link between the documented works of Jacques Daret, and the paintings attributed to Robert Campin and van der Weyden is considered as the main argument to consider Rogier van der Weyden as a pupil of Campin.

Acclaim in Brussels

The final mention of Rogier de la Pasture in the financial records of Tournai, on October 21, 1435, lists him as demeurrant à Brouxielles ('living in Brussels'). At the same time, the first mention of Rogier de Weyden places him as the official painter of Brussels. It is this fact that puts de la Pasture and van der Weyden as one and the same painter. The post of city painter was created especially for Van der Weyden and was meant to lapse on his death. It was linked to a huge commission to paint four justice scenes for the 'Golden Chamber' of Brussels City Hall. Different properties and investments are documented and witness his material prosperity. The portraits he painted of the Burgundian Dukes, their relatives and courtiers, demonstrate a close relationship with the elite of the Netherlands.

The Miraflores Altarpiece was probably commissioned by King Juan II of Castile, since Juan II donated it to the monastery of Miraflores in 1445. In the holy year 1450 Rogier quite possibly made a pilgrimage to Rome which brought him in contact with Italian artists and patrons. The House of Este and Medici family commissioned paintings from him. The Duchess of Milan, Bianca Maria Visconti, sent her court painter Zanetto Bugatto to Brussels to become an apprentice in Rogier's workshop. Rogier's international reputation had increased progressively. In the 1450s and 1460s scholars such as Cusanus, Filarete and Facius referred to him in superlatives: 'the greatest', 'the most noble' of painters. Van der Weyden died on June 18, 1464, and was buried in the Chapel of St Catherine in the Cathedral of St Gudulphe.

Work

No single work can be attributed with certainty to van der Weyden on f 15th century documentary evidence alone. However, Lorne Campbell has stated that three well-authenticated paintings are known, but, at various times, each has been doubted or underestimated. The best documented is the The Descent from the Cross in the Museo del Prado, Madrid. Campbell points out that this painting's history can be reconstructed in some detail from the 16th century and later records. The 'Triptych of the Virgin' or 'Miraflores altarpiece', now in Berlin, was given in 1445 to the Charterhouse of Miraflores near Burgos by John II of Castile; it was described in the deed of gift as the work of great and famous Flandresco Rogel. The 'Crucifixion', now in the Escorial Palace, was given by Rogier himself to the Charterhouse of Scheut outside Brussels. In his catalogue raisonné of Van der Weyden's work, the Belgian art historian Dirk de Vos agrees with Campbell about the authenticity of these three paintings.

The fragment of The Magdalen Reading in the National Gallery London has been described by Campbell as "one of the great masterpieces of fifteenth-century art and among Rogier's most important early works". Since the 1970s, this painting has been linked to two small heads in the collection of the Calouste Gulbenkian Museum (Lisbon), of Saint Catherine and of St Joseph. It is now widely believed that these three fragments came from the same large altarpiece depicting the 'Virgin and Child with Saints', partly recorded in a later drawing now in Stockholm. At some unknown date before 1811, this altarpiece was carved up into these three fragments.

Rogier's most famous paintings, which survived until the 17th century, were four large panels representing the 'Justice of Trajan' and 'Justice of Herkenbald'. These were commissioned by the City of Brussels for the 'Gulden Camere' (Golden Chamber) of the Brussels Town Hall. The first and third panels were signed, and the first dated 1439. All four were finished before 1450. They were destroyed in the French Bombardment of Brussels in 1695, but are known from many old descriptions, from a free partial copy in tapestry (Bern, Historisches Museum) and from other free and partial copies in drawing and painting. The paintings probably measured ca. 4,5 m. each, which was an enormous scale for a painting on panel at that time. They served as 'examples of justice' for the aldermen of the city who had to speak justice in this room. The paintings were praised or described by a series of commentators until their destruction, including Dürer (1520), Vasari (1568), Molanus (c.1570-1580), and Baldinucci (1688). The paintings made a strong emotional impact on the spectator. As can be seen in existing paintings attributed to him, Rogier van der Weyden was a master in the depiction of emotions and grief.

Influence

His vigorous, subtle, expressive painting and popular religious conceptions had considerable influence on European painting, not only in France and Germany but also in Italy and in Spain. Hans Memling was his greatest follower, although it is not proven that he studied under Rogier. Van der Weyden had also a large influence on the German painter and engraver Martin Schongauer whose prints were distributed all over Europe from the last decades of the 15th century. Indirectly Schongauer's prints helped to disseminate Van der Weyden's style.

Gallery

List of works by Rogier van der Weyden