Late Gothic art in Northern Europe from 1400-1500 was shaped by political and economic forces. Wealthy rulers like the Dukes of Burgundy funded lavish illuminated manuscripts and altarpieces featuring donors. Artists like the Van Eyck brothers developed new techniques like oil painting and linear perspective to depict sacred and secular subjects with illusionistic realism. Portraiture also grew more common as the wealthy merchant class commissioned works that integrated them. Meanwhile, printmaking advanced significantly in Germany through works like the Nuremberg Chronicle.

1. Late Gothic Art
Northern Europe, 1400 to 1500
Gardner’s Art Through the Ages, 13e,
Chapter 20
1

2. Europe in the 15th Century
2

3. Goals
• Understand the effect of political power in the development of
Northern European art.
• Examine the variety and types of media used in art in this period.
• Identify specific artists, their respective styles, and their key works
of art.
• Understand the integration of sacred and secular power and
wealth, along with its resultant display in art.
3

4. The Art of France and Flanders
• Examine the effect of political power on the sumptuous art
forms that developed in the 15th Century.
• Examine the results of Burgundian wealth and largesse
directed to art.
• Understand the growth of public devotional art, the artists,
new art media and new illusionistic devices developed.
4

5. The Very Sumptuous Hours
• Examine the sumptuous art forms that developed in the 15th
Century.
• Explore French manuscript illumination and the new spatial
and illusionistic devices used in art.
5

6. LIMBOURG BROTHERS (POL, JEAN, HERMAN),
January, from Les Très Riches Heures du Duc de Berry,
1413–1416. Ink on vellum, approx. 8 7/8" X 5 3/8".
Musée Condé, Chantilly.
6

7. Jean, Duke of Berry was the
noble patron who commissioned
Les Très Riches Heures
LIMBOURG BROTHERS (POL, JEAN, HERMAN),
October, from Les Très Riches Heures du Duc de Berry,
1413–1416. Ink on vellum, 8 7/8" X 5 3/8”.
Musée Condé, Chantilly.
7

8. The fountain created
by Claus Sluter for the
cloister of Chartreuse de
Champmol symbolizes
everlasting Life.
Sluter's sculptural works
can be characterized as
having little physical
movement or weight
shift.
CLAUS SLUTER, Well of Moses,
Chartreuse de Champmol, Dijon, France,
1395–1406. Limestone with traces of paint,
Moses 6’ high.
8

9. MELCHIOR BROEDERLAM, Retable de Champmol. from the chapel oft he Chartreuse de Champmol,
Dijon, France, installed 1399. Oil on wood, each wing 5’ 5 3/4” X 4’ 1 1/4”. Musée des Beaux-Arts, Dijon.
9

10. ROBERT CAMPIN (MASTER OF FLEMALLE), Merode Altarpiece (open), ca. 1425-1428.
Oil on wood, center panel 2’ 1 3/8” X 2’ 7/8”, each wing 2’ 1 3/8” X 10 7/8”.
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (The Cloisters Collection, 1956).
Most major works included the donors along with the subjects.
The format for most northern altarpieces was the triptych arrangement.
10

11. Burgundian Wealth and Art
• Understand the need for sacred sculpture and new sacred art.
• Examine the growth of devotional altarpieces, the media, and
individual artists.
11

12. JAN VAN EYCK, Ghent Altarpiece (closed),
Saint Bavo Cathedral, Ghent, Belgium,
completed 1432. Oil on wood, 11’ 6" X 7’ 6".
12

13. JAN VAN EYCK, Ghent Altarpiece (open), Saint Bavo Cathedral, Ghent, Belgium, completed 1432. Oil on wood, 11’ 5" X 15’ 1”.
The following were included in the twelve panels: Adam and Eve, Christ the King, Mary, John the Baptist,
and the Adoration of the Lamb. 13

14. After his death in 1464, Rogier van der He eliminated the secondary
Weyden became one of the most symbolism from his
influential painters in northern Europe. compositions.
ROGIER VAN DER WEYDEN, Deposition, center panel of a triptych from Notre-Dame hors-les-murs,
Louvain, Belgium, ca. 1435. Oil on wood, 7’ 2 5/8" X 8’ 7 1/8". Museo del Prado, Madrid.
14

15. Northern artists
secularized the Holy
figures in their
paintings by making
them appears as
contemporary
Northern Europeans.
ROGIER VAN DER WEYDEN,
Saint Luke Drawing the Virgin,
ca. 1435-1440. Oil and tempera on
wood, 4’ 6 1/8” X 3’ 7 5/8”.
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. (Gift of
Mr. and Mrs. Henry Lee Higginson)
15

16. 20.2 Flemish Public and Private Devotional
Art
• Examine the large numbers of private and public devotional
art created at this time.
• Identify specific artists, their respective styles and their key
works of art.
• Understand the relationship between religious and secular
authority in the development of art.
• Examine the rise of portraiture and self-portraits.
16

17. Flemish Public Devotional Art
• Examine the complex illusionary images of the Flemish
artists, especially noting the development of a single
vanishing point.
17

18. Figure 20-12 DIRK BOUTS, Last
Supper central panel of the Altarpiece of the
Holy Sacrament, Saint Peter’s, Louvain,
Belgium, 1464–1468. Oil on wood, 6’ X
5’.
18

19. HUGO VAN DER GOES, Portinari Altarpiece (open), from Sant’Egidio, Florence, Italy, ca. 1476.
Tempera and oil on wood, 8’ 3 1/2" X 10’ center panel, 8’ 3 1/2" X 4’ 7 1/2" (each wing). Galleria degli Uffizi, Florence.
19

20. HANS MEMLING, Virgin with Saints and Angels, center panel of the Saint John Altarpiece, Hospitaal Sint Jan,
Bruges, Belgium, 1479. Oil on wood, 5’ 7 3/4" X 5’ 7 3/4" (center panel), 5’ 7 3/4" X 2’ 7 1/8" (each wing).
20

21. Private Images
• Examine the private devotional art created at this time.
• Understand the illusionistic devices in painting, the
atmosphere of the private home, and the attention to
symbolism.
21

22. JAN VAN EYCK, Giovanni Arnolfini and His Bride,
1434. Oil on wood, approx. 2’ 9" X 1’ 10 1/2".
National Gallery, London.
22

23. PETRUS CHRISTUS, A Goldsmith in
His Shop, 1449. Oil on wood, approx.
3’ 3" X 2’ 10". Metropolitan Museum
of Art, New York (the Robert Lehman
Collection, 1975).
23

24. Portraiture and
the Growing Interest in Secular Art
• Examine the rise of portraiture and self-portraits and the
social and economic factors that made portraiture desirable.
24

25. The Man in the Red
Turban is thought to
be a self-portrait by
Jan Van Eyck. He
appears to be staring
into a mirror.
JAN VAN EYCK, Man in a Red Turban,
1433. Oil on wood, 1’ 1 1/8” X 10 1/4".
National Gallery, London.
25

26. VAN DER WEYDEN, Portrait of a Lady,
ca. 1460. Oil on panel, 1’ 1 3/8" X 10 1/16".
National Gallery, Washington, D.C.
(Andrew W. Mellon Collection).
26

27. 15th Century French and German Art
• Understand the royal court art in France and the integration
of the sacred and the secular in art.
• Examine the art that developed in Germany and in the Holy
Roman Empire.
• Comprehend the variety and types of media used in art in
this period.
• Identify specific artists, their respective styles, and their key
works of art.
• Examine the development of graphic art, especially in
Germany in the 15th Century.
27

28. French Sacred and Secular Art
• Identify specific artists, their styles, media and works of art.
• Understand royal court art and the integration of the sacred
and the secular.
28

29. JEAN FOUQUET, Melun Diptych. Étienne Chevalier and Saint Stephen, (left wing), ca. 1450. Oil on wood, 3’ 1/2” X 2’ 9 1/2”.
Gemäldegalerie, Staatliche Museen, Berlin. Virgin and Child, (right wing) ca. 1451. Oil on wood, 3’ 1 1/4” X 2’ 9 1/2”.
Koninklijk Museum voor Schone Kunsten, Antwerp.
29

30. 15th Century German Art
• Identify specific artists, styles and works of art.
• Examine the art patronage interest in private piety and
familiar themes.
30

31. KONRAD WITZ, Miraculous Draught of Fish, from the Altarpiece of Saint Peter, from Chapel of Notre-Dame des Maccabées
in the Cathedral of Saint Peter, Geneva, Switzerland, 1444. Oil on wood, approx. 4’ 3” X 5’ 1”. Musée d’art et d’Histoire,
Geneva. 31

32. VEIT STOSS, The Death and Assumption of the Virgin
(wings open), altar of the Virgin Mary, church of
Saint Mary, Kraków, Poland, 1477–1489. Painted
and gilded wood, central panel 23’ 9” high.
32

33. TILMAN RIEMENSCHNEIDER, The Assumption
of the Virgin, center panel of the Creglingen Altarpiece,
Herrgottskirche, Creglingen, Germany, ca. 1495–1499.
Lindenwood, 6’ 1” wide.
33

34. Development of Graphic Arts
• Examine the development of graphic arts, especially in
Germany in the 15th Century.
• Understand the processes that were developed in relief and
intaglio printmaking.
34

35. The Nuremberg Chronicle
is a tribute to the new craft
of the printed illustrated
book.
The content of the
Nuremberg Chronicle was
the history of the world.
MICHEL WOLGEMUT and shop, Tarvisium,
page from the so-called Nuremberg Chronicle, 1493.
Woodcut,1’ 2” X 9”.
Printed by ANTON KOBERGER.
35

36. In Martin Schongauer's
engraving, Saint Anthony
Tormented by Demons, he
created distinctions of tonal
values and textures. He
distinguished between skin and
cloth, feather and fur.
To produce an engraving, the
artist used a tool called a burin
to incise lines creating an
image into the surface of a
copper plate.
MARTIN SCHONGAUER, Saint Anthony
Tormented by Demons, ca. 1480–1490.
Engraving, 1’ 1/4" X 9".
Fondazione Magnani Rocca, Corte di Mamiano.
36

37. Discussion Questions
 What were some of the most important innovations in art
media and spatial techniques at this time?
 How does the court and wealthy merchant patronage shape
the content and appearance of religious and secular art?
 Why does the portrait – absent in art for nearly 1000 years
– return in this period?
37