The Werl Triptych
Encyclopedia
The Werl Triptych is an triptych
altarpiece
completed in Cologne
in 1438, of which the center panel is now lost. It is long attributed to the Master of Flémalle, now generally believed to have been Robert Campin
, although this identity is not universally accepted. Some art historians believe it may have been painted as a pastiche
by a either the workshop or a follower of Campin or the Master of Flémalle.
The right wing depicts a seated, pious Saint Barbara
, who is shown engrossed in her reading of a bound nad guilded holy book, seated in front of a warm open fire which lights the room with a golden glow. The right wing shows the donor Heinrich von Werl, who kneels in prayer in the company of John the Baptist before the devotional center panel scene which is lost and unrecored. The two extant panels are in Madrid and renowned for their complex treatment of both light and form. The panels became influential on other artists from the mid 15th until early 16th century, after when Early Netherlandish painting
slipped out of favour until it was rediscovered in the early 19th century.
From an inscription in the left wing, the panels are known to have been commissioned by Heinrich von Werl, provincial head of Cologne during 1438. He is shown in the left wing kneling in devotion alongside a Saint John the Baptist
. This panel contains a number of elements indebted to Jan van Eyck
, notably the convex mirror in the midground, which as with the 1434 Arnolfini Marriage
, reflects the scene back at the viewer.
Of the two panels, that of Barbara, although flawed in some anatomical respects, is richer in detail and considered the superior piece.
from the tower visible beyond the open window to her top left. A popular saint in the Middle Ages, she was a Christian martyr
believed to have lived in the 3rd century. According to hagiography
, her wealthy pagan father Dioscorus, seeking to preserve her from unwelcome suitors, imprisoned her in a tower. While captive Barbara let in a priest who baptised her, an act for which she was hunted and eventually beheaded by her father. She became a popular subject for artists of Campin's generation. Jan van Eyck
left a highly detailed but unfinished 1437 oak panel which focuses on the highly complex architectural details of an imagined Gothic
tower.
The artist depicts Barbara engrossed in her reading of a holy book with her back against a large open fireplace. Her brown hair is unbound and falling to her shoulders. She is seated on a wooden bench draped with deep red velvet cushions. She wears a sumptious green dress lined with heavy angular folds. Yet Barbara's figure is weakly rendered-her shoulders and knees are anatomically unrealistic; she seems boneless.
The panel's strength comes from both her well-described clothing and the highly detailed objects placed around her, most of which are shaped and contrasted by the two sources of light falling on their generally golden and polished surfaces. The fireplace emits a warm reddish glow which contrasts with the relatively hard light falling from the window and the unseen middle panel to the left. The ledge of the fireplace holds a glass flask while the chimney place contains a sconce
holding an extinguished candle place. A highly detailed sculpture of the Trinity
is shown above the fireplace.
The room is obviously from a contemporary middle class rather than biblical setting, and contains many of the same details found in the center panel of the c 1425-28 Mérode Altarpiece, also attributed to Robert Campin. These include the latticed
and shuttered
window, the reading Virgin seated on a long bench, and the tilted lily
in a vase on a table to her side. Writers Peter and Linda Murray note that the treatemt in the later work better arranged and is far more assured in its use of perspective
.
The perspective from which the room is viewed is unuasally steep and positions the viewer as if he is on a lower floor to the Virgin and looking up at her. It has been identified as influenced by van Eyck's Washington Annunciation
painted just a few years earlier. The painting contains a number of vanishing point
s streaching from the lower right hand to the open window serve to emphasise the panels dept. The steep angle of the panel from the viewers pint of view is achieved through the tilt of the bench, side board, line of the fireplace, and shutters of the window. According to Walther Ingo, the dramatic of these elements serves to demote the figure of St. Barbar to secondary importance to an examination of the anatomy of the space its-self.
order (today known as the Franciscan order) in Osnabrück
. He moved to Cologne
in 1430 to study at the university, where he received a magister degree
in 1435, having earlier been appointed provincial of Cologne provence. He probably commissioned this work for the Minorite church in Cologne. He died in retirement in Osnabrück in 1463.
The panel shows von Werl kneeling in prayer as he is presented by John the Baptist in a domed interior. Campin was heavily influenced by van Eyck by the early 1430's, and this wing is indebted to him in a number of ways; in the fall of light, sharp detail and especially the convex mirror in the middle ground which reflects the scene back at the viewer, a direct reference to van Eyck's 1434 Arnolfini Marriage
. The form of the lettering on this wing identifies both the donor and date, and is heavily influenced by van Eyck's elegant, almost decorative, inscriptions.
The painting is typical of early commissioned altarpiece in that the donor is not include in the central devotional scene. Instead he is demoted to a side panel, a witnesses to the divine who are visible through the doorway connecting the wing to the central panel. Campin's Mérode Altarpiece]], painted after 1422, places the donor wing in an exterior setting in a garden below the level of the Virgin, here he is placed in an interior. Although the door in the earlier work connects the space of the donor and Virgin, it is ppen and seemingly obstructs his view of the Virgin. Campin's early altarpieces, unlike those of van Eyck's, stick with the traditional hieratic form of a center panel reserved for the devotional scene, and are physically and spcaially removed from the wings. In the Werl Triptych, the donor is a mere witness rather than a protagonists, although he is positioned in an interior rather than an exterior setting. The triptych further introduces the idea of the intermediary saint, again a van Eyeckian influence; here represented by John the Baptist
seen holding a lamb in the same panel as von Werl, increasing the sigificance of the area occupied by the donor.
Triptych
A triptych , from tri-= "three" + ptysso= "to fold") is a work of art which is divided into three sections, or three carved panels which are hinged together and can be folded shut or displayed open. It is therefore a type of polyptych, the term for all multi-panel works...
altarpiece
Altarpiece
An altarpiece is a picture or relief representing a religious subject and suspended in a frame behind the altar of a church. The altarpiece is often made up of two or more separate panels created using a technique known as panel painting. It is then called a diptych, triptych or polyptych for two,...
completed in Cologne
Cologne
Cologne is Germany's fourth-largest city , and is the largest city both in the Germany Federal State of North Rhine-Westphalia and within the Rhine-Ruhr Metropolitan Area, one of the major European metropolitan areas with more than ten million inhabitants.Cologne is located on both sides of the...
in 1438, of which the center panel is now lost. It is long attributed to the Master of Flémalle, now generally believed to have been Robert Campin
Robert Campin
Robert Campin , now usually identified as the artist known as the Master of Flémalle, is usually considered the first great master of Early Netherlandish painting...
, although this identity is not universally accepted. Some art historians believe it may have been painted as a pastiche
Pastiche
A pastiche is a literary or other artistic genre or technique that is a "hodge-podge" or imitation. The word is also a linguistic term used to describe an early stage in the development of a pidgin language.-Hodge-podge:...
by a either the workshop or a follower of Campin or the Master of Flémalle.
The right wing depicts a seated, pious Saint Barbara
Saint Barbara
Saint Barbara, , Feast Day December 4, known in the Eastern Orthodox Church as the Great Martyr Barbara, was an early Christian saint and martyr....
, who is shown engrossed in her reading of a bound nad guilded holy book, seated in front of a warm open fire which lights the room with a golden glow. The right wing shows the donor Heinrich von Werl, who kneels in prayer in the company of John the Baptist before the devotional center panel scene which is lost and unrecored. The two extant panels are in Madrid and renowned for their complex treatment of both light and form. The panels became influential on other artists from the mid 15th until early 16th century, after when Early Netherlandish painting
Early Netherlandish painting
Early Netherlandish painting refers to the work of artists active in the Low Countries during the 15th- and early 16th-century Northern renaissance, especially in the flourishing Burgundian cities of Bruges and Ghent...
slipped out of favour until it was rediscovered in the early 19th century.
From an inscription in the left wing, the panels are known to have been commissioned by Heinrich von Werl, provincial head of Cologne during 1438. He is shown in the left wing kneling in devotion alongside a Saint John the Baptist
John the Baptist
John the Baptist was an itinerant preacher and a major religious figure mentioned in the Canonical gospels. He is described in the Gospel of Luke as a relative of Jesus, who led a movement of baptism at the Jordan River...
. This panel contains a number of elements indebted to Jan van Eyck
Jan van Eyck
Jan van Eyck was a Flemish painter active in Bruges and considered one of the best Northern European painters of the 15th century....
, notably the convex mirror in the midground, which as with the 1434 Arnolfini Marriage
Arnolfini portrait
The Arnolfini Portrait is an oil painting on oak panel dated 1434 by the Early Netherlandish painter Jan van Eyck. It is also known as The Arnolfini Wedding, The Arnolfini Marriage, The Arnolfini Double Portrait or the Portrait of Giovanni Arnolfini and his Wife, among other titles...
, reflects the scene back at the viewer.
Description
Although the center panel is lost with no surviving copies, inventory records or descriptions, it has been speculated that it was set in the same room occupied by Saint Barbara. This is likely given the abrupt end of the lines of the beams of the roof and the frames of the window, as well as the direction of the falling light. The center panel may have formed the setting for a Virgo inter Virgines. Given that there is no surviving evidence of the triptych's influence on Cologne art until the middle of the century, it was likely the tripych was until then positioned either in private or in an inaccessible place in the church which was large enough to hold a number of altarpieces. However it became influential from the mid 15th century.Of the two panels, that of Barbara, although flawed in some anatomical respects, is richer in detail and considered the superior piece.
Right panel: Saint Barbara
The woman in this panel can be identified as Saint BarbaraSaint Barbara
Saint Barbara, , Feast Day December 4, known in the Eastern Orthodox Church as the Great Martyr Barbara, was an early Christian saint and martyr....
from the tower visible beyond the open window to her top left. A popular saint in the Middle Ages, she was a Christian martyr
Martyr
A martyr is somebody who suffers persecution and death for refusing to renounce, or accept, a belief or cause, usually religious.-Meaning:...
believed to have lived in the 3rd century. According to hagiography
Hagiography
Hagiography is the study of saints.From the Greek and , it refers literally to writings on the subject of such holy people, and specifically to the biographies of saints and ecclesiastical leaders. The term hagiology, the study of hagiography, is also current in English, though less common...
, her wealthy pagan father Dioscorus, seeking to preserve her from unwelcome suitors, imprisoned her in a tower. While captive Barbara let in a priest who baptised her, an act for which she was hunted and eventually beheaded by her father. She became a popular subject for artists of Campin's generation. Jan van Eyck
Jan van Eyck
Jan van Eyck was a Flemish painter active in Bruges and considered one of the best Northern European painters of the 15th century....
left a highly detailed but unfinished 1437 oak panel which focuses on the highly complex architectural details of an imagined Gothic
Gothic architecture
Gothic architecture is a style of architecture that flourished during the high and late medieval period. It evolved from Romanesque architecture and was succeeded by Renaissance architecture....
tower.
The panel's strength comes from both her well-described clothing and the highly detailed objects placed around her, most of which are shaped and contrasted by the two sources of light falling on their generally golden and polished surfaces. The fireplace emits a warm reddish glow which contrasts with the relatively hard light falling from the window and the unseen middle panel to the left. The ledge of the fireplace holds a glass flask while the chimney place contains a sconce
Sconce (light fixture)
A sconce is a type of light fixture affixed to a wall in such a way that it uses only the wall for support, and the light is usually directed upwards. It does not have a base on the ground...
holding an extinguished candle place. A highly detailed sculpture of the Trinity
Trinity
The Christian doctrine of the Trinity defines God as three divine persons : the Father, the Son , and the Holy Spirit. The three persons are distinct yet coexist in unity, and are co-equal, co-eternal and consubstantial . Put another way, the three persons of the Trinity are of one being...
is shown above the fireplace.
The room is obviously from a contemporary middle class rather than biblical setting, and contains many of the same details found in the center panel of the c 1425-28 Mérode Altarpiece, also attributed to Robert Campin. These include the latticed
Latticework
Latticework is a framework consisting of a criss-crossed pattern of strips of building material, typically wood or metal. The design is created by crossing the strips to form a network...
and shuttered
Window shutter
A window shutter is a solid and stable window covering usually consisting of a frame of vertical stiles and horizontal rails...
window, the reading Virgin seated on a long bench, and the tilted lily
Lilium
Lilium is a genus of herbaceous flowering plants growing from bulbs. Most species are native to the temperate northern hemisphere, though the range extends into the northern subtropics...
in a vase on a table to her side. Writers Peter and Linda Murray note that the treatemt in the later work better arranged and is far more assured in its use of perspective
Perspective (graphical)
Perspective in the graphic arts, such as drawing, is an approximate representation, on a flat surface , of an image as it is seen by the eye...
.
The perspective from which the room is viewed is unuasally steep and positions the viewer as if he is on a lower floor to the Virgin and looking up at her. It has been identified as influenced by van Eyck's Washington Annunciation
Annunciation (van Eyck, Washington)
The Annunciation is an oil painting by the Early Netherlandish master Jan van Eyck, from around 1434-1436. It is in the National Gallery of Art, in Washington D.C. It was originally on panel but has been transferred to canvas. It is thought that it was the left wing of a triptych; there has...
painted just a few years earlier. The painting contains a number of vanishing point
Vanishing point
A vanishing point is a point in a perspective drawing to which parallel lines not parallel to the image plane appear to converge. The number and placement of the vanishing points determines which perspective technique is being used...
s streaching from the lower right hand to the open window serve to emphasise the panels dept. The steep angle of the panel from the viewers pint of view is achieved through the tilt of the bench, side board, line of the fireplace, and shutters of the window. According to Walther Ingo, the dramatic of these elements serves to demote the figure of St. Barbar to secondary importance to an examination of the anatomy of the space its-self.
Left panel: Saint John and donor
The donor, Heinrich von Werl, is named in the Latin inscription on the left wing, which translates as; "In the year 1438 Minister Heinrich von Werl, master of Cologne, has this image painted" (Anno milleno c quater x ter et octo. hic fecit effigiem...depingi minister hinricus Werlis magister coloniensis). Von Werl was a member of the MinoritesFranciscan
Most Franciscans are members of Roman Catholic religious orders founded by Saint Francis of Assisi. Besides Roman Catholic communities, there are also Old Catholic, Anglican, Lutheran, ecumenical and Non-denominational Franciscan communities....
order (today known as the Franciscan order) in Osnabrück
Osnabrück
Osnabrück is a city in Lower Saxony, Germany, some 80 km NNE of Dortmund, 45 km NE of Münster, and some 100 km due west of Hanover. It lies in a valley penned between the Wiehen Hills and the northern tip of the Teutoburg Forest...
. He moved to Cologne
Cologne
Cologne is Germany's fourth-largest city , and is the largest city both in the Germany Federal State of North Rhine-Westphalia and within the Rhine-Ruhr Metropolitan Area, one of the major European metropolitan areas with more than ten million inhabitants.Cologne is located on both sides of the...
in 1430 to study at the university, where he received a magister degree
Magister (degree)
Magister is an academic degree used in various systems of higher education.-Argentina:...
in 1435, having earlier been appointed provincial of Cologne provence. He probably commissioned this work for the Minorite church in Cologne. He died in retirement in Osnabrück in 1463.
The panel shows von Werl kneeling in prayer as he is presented by John the Baptist in a domed interior. Campin was heavily influenced by van Eyck by the early 1430's, and this wing is indebted to him in a number of ways; in the fall of light, sharp detail and especially the convex mirror in the middle ground which reflects the scene back at the viewer, a direct reference to van Eyck's 1434 Arnolfini Marriage
Arnolfini portrait
The Arnolfini Portrait is an oil painting on oak panel dated 1434 by the Early Netherlandish painter Jan van Eyck. It is also known as The Arnolfini Wedding, The Arnolfini Marriage, The Arnolfini Double Portrait or the Portrait of Giovanni Arnolfini and his Wife, among other titles...
. The form of the lettering on this wing identifies both the donor and date, and is heavily influenced by van Eyck's elegant, almost decorative, inscriptions.
The painting is typical of early commissioned altarpiece in that the donor is not include in the central devotional scene. Instead he is demoted to a side panel, a witnesses to the divine who are visible through the doorway connecting the wing to the central panel. Campin's Mérode Altarpiece]], painted after 1422, places the donor wing in an exterior setting in a garden below the level of the Virgin, here he is placed in an interior. Although the door in the earlier work connects the space of the donor and Virgin, it is ppen and seemingly obstructs his view of the Virgin. Campin's early altarpieces, unlike those of van Eyck's, stick with the traditional hieratic form of a center panel reserved for the devotional scene, and are physically and spcaially removed from the wings. In the Werl Triptych, the donor is a mere witness rather than a protagonists, although he is positioned in an interior rather than an exterior setting. The triptych further introduces the idea of the intermediary saint, again a van Eyeckian influence; here represented by John the Baptist
John the Baptist
John the Baptist was an itinerant preacher and a major religious figure mentioned in the Canonical gospels. He is described in the Gospel of Luke as a relative of Jesus, who led a movement of baptism at the Jordan River...
seen holding a lamb in the same panel as von Werl, increasing the sigificance of the area occupied by the donor.
Attribution and provenance
The painting was earlier associated with either Campin's pupil Rogier van der Weyden, or van der Weyden's workshop. However the discover of under drawings in both this work and the Mérode Altarpiece leading most art historians to believe that they are by the same artist. The work has been identified as among Campin's late works by Panofsky (1953) and Chatelet (1996), although a number of others, including Kemperdick (1997), Thurlemann (2003) and Sanders (2009) continue to argue van der Weyden or his circle's authorship. It is still a monirity view, not held by the Prado; accoring to Till-Holger Borchert, "the figure style - which in the view of the author cannot be reconciled with Rogier's - would seem to speak against this."Sources
- Blum, Shirley. 1969. Early Netherlandish Triptychs. Los Angles: University of California Press.
- Borchert, Till-Holger. "Saint Barbara". In: Van Eyck to Durer. Borchert, Till-Holger (ed). London: Thames & Hudson, 2011. ISBN 978-0-500-23883-7
- Cambell, Lorne. "Robert Campin, the Master of Flémalle and the Master of Mérode". Burlington Magazine 116, 1974. 645.
- Trio, Paul; De Smet, Marjan. The use and abuse of sacred places in late medieval towns. Leuven: Leuven University Press, 2006. ISBN 9-0586-7519-X
- Smith, Jeffrey Chips. The Northern Renaissance. London: Phaidon Press, 2004. ISBN 0-7148-3867-5