Читать книгу Hans Memling - Alfred Michiels - Страница 7

The first archives which mention Memling, in chronological order, are those from accounts taken by the Office of Scribes and Illuminators of Bruges.[19] Here is a note that was found there:

“Year 1477. Item, given to the woodsman five escalins, two for our painting’s frame and three for the flaps that I sent to Master Hans, from our corporation.”

A second note states that twelve gros be given to Guillaume Vrelant when he charged Memling with painting the flaps. This Guillaume Vrelant is a very interesting character. It was he who, long before, had executed for Philip the Good the beautiful miniatures of the Annals of the Hainaut, from Jacques de Guyse. The first volume of this enormous and splendid work, in certain areas as fresh as the day it was finished, is the oldest document which concerns Master Guillaume. The painting of these miniatures started in 1446. The corporation’s register of scribes and illuminators in Bruges mentions the artist from the year 1454. In the month of June 1469, Philip the Good’s treasurer gave Guillaume thirty three books to have painted, at 12 sous apiece, “stories of many colours” in a volume called Vita Christi. Vrelant paid the corporation’s annual dues until 1481, but the next year he died, and his widow stopped the payment.[20] Did Guillaume truly pass these over to Memling as an intermediary, and remunerate him for his work? I highly doubt it: artists were not treated with such ceremony then. The old Flemish word verleid means “lent, advanced.” Why would twelve gros have been lent to Guillaume Vrelant on this occasion? Perhaps because he wanted to give them to Memling, waiting for his portrait and that of his wife to cover two panels in his house. An inventory of goods that the Guild possessed in 1499 proves this to be the case: there one can read “Also, their painting with four panels, where Guillaume Vreland and his wife are painted, in their blessed memory, executed by the hand of Master Hans.”

It seems that Guillaume’s payment was quickly spent, because he soon had to give the painter one livre, and, in 1478, Memling got back, for settlement in full, three livres two escalins.[21]

Hans Memling, Virgin and Child (left panel of the Martin Van Nieuwenhove Diptych), 1487. Oil on wood, 52.5 × 41.5 cm. Hospitaalmuseum, Bruges.

Hans Memling, The Donor Martin Van Nieuwenhove (right panel of the Martin Van Nieuwenhove Diptych), 1487. Oil on wood, 52.5 × 41.5 cm. Hospitaalmuseum, Bruges.

All this does not indicate riches, or even comfort. An artist who asked for just one livre for two paintings was not worth much. We may note, in passing, that Memling did not work on the central panel, which was already finished, when he was commissioned to decorate the shutters. In 1490 two new shutters were added to the altarpiece, on which Arnould Basekin, head of the guild, and another member of the corporation, Jean de Cler, were depicted, as well as Saint Arnold and Saint Nicholas in grey.

Memling’s poverty, at the period of his life we have reached, is easily explained. Death tragically took away his protector Charles the Bold, and at the latter’s defeat at Nancy the painter was probably just only able to save himself – and he was injured! We must note that artists’ profits were not great. Pieter Van der Weyden’s portrait, previously mentioned, shows us the state of poverty in which small profits kept artists. The great colourist had neither savings nor reserves. The loss of his bags and the money bag at Nancy thus put him in a precarious situation. The struggles that Marie of Burgundy supported against the rapacity of Louis XI and the demands of the towns did not allow him to think about the luxury of painting. “They did not let one day of sad leisure pass,” according to De Barante, “to mourn the death of his father.” Memling, from this moment on, could not count even on the eventual products of his paintbrush and specific commissions. Luckily he met Brother Jan Floreins at the hospice, who loved painting passionately, a meeting that was indeed good luck.

The story now takes us inside the hospital. Two works of exceptional merit bear the date 1479. One represents the mystic marriage of Saint Catherine, the story of Saint John the Baptist, and that of Saint John the Evangelist; the second shows us The Adoration of the Magi (Illustration 1, 2). These two works were commissioned by Jan Floreins,[22] and are attributed to Memling. In the first, the artist places himself behind Saint Catherine; for clothes, he is wearing the ordinary habit of the hospital’s monks, and seems happy to be portrayed in such a beautiful work. In the background of the painting he appears again, dressed in a black robe, exercising the functions of a public pourer; jugs surround him, and there is a crane, which was employed to load and unload the wine and liquor; the buildings and a distant tower indicate the place where they were bottled. Memling’s atelier mark is found on the bottom of the central panel, near the Latin inscription. The monk is not forgotten in The Adoration of the Magi; we see him on his knees, praying fervently. He was then thirty-six years old, and his figure shows him to have a kind, vivacious nature. Memling and this loyal man must have understood each other well.

During the year 1480, the eminent artist made for one of the chapels at Notre Dame a repetition of the same subject: Pierre Bultynck, deputy mayor of Bruges, and Catherine Van Riebeke, his wife, the donors, are depicted, and shine in their finest attire, enchanted to have received such a great honour.

Hans Memling, Saint Veronica (reverse of the Jan Floreins Triptych), c. 1470–1475. Oil on panel, 30.3 × 22.8 cm. Collection Samuel H. Kress, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D. C.

Rogier Van der Weyden, Saint Mary Magdalene (right shutter of the Braque Triptych), c. 1452. Oil on wood, 41 × 34 cm. Musée du Louvre, Paris.

From this moment, everything changed in Memling’s destiny. Did he receive a legacy? Did he marry a woman who brought him her fortune? These two events took place one after the other. One positive proof certifies that the great man married around this time, when popular tradition has him entering Bruges hospital after the defeat in Nancy. One may suppose, moreover, that Jan Floreins, who protected and admired him, united him with one of the penitent women. In a religious century, the confessional gave the priest a great influence. He confidentially looked after the prettiest people in the parish, and had the right to ask them for intimate confessions; not only did he see their beauty up close, but he could most assuredly judge their character, and get information from them. He was capable of a very powerful yet moral means of coordinating nuptials. In 1477 Memling was fifty years old and poor, two circumstances that did not dazzle young women and did not help him conquer their good graces. This was a large obstacle. His future wife had, moreover, a beautiful face, a bright complexion, and a silky head of hair, of which she was very proud, that could have inspired ambition in him and charmed other suitors. She also had a gentle, timid, and honest character that he could invoke through pious motifs or by other means. The wedding took place promptly, for the couple celebrated their nuptials in the same year that the great painter escaped from the Swiss. When he died in 1495 he left young children, and his oldest son, who, like him was called Hans, became head of the family in 1503. He was born in 1478, in the middle of the year after the marriage of his father. This is an interesting mathematical coincidence.[23]

The young lady who married Memling was in all likelihood poor like him, for the precarious financial position of the artist hardly changed after the wedding: but she received a modest inheritance in 1480. Even though her succession was very small, she was able to increase the couple’s lot. We do not know what the bride’s family name was, but her baptismal name was Anne. However, thanks to the artist’s brush, we know all aspects of her figure. In the Mystic Marriage of Saint Catherine, and in The Adoration of the Magi, which The St John’s Hospital possesses, both works painted in 1479, we see her occupying the Virgin’s throne and carrying her first born, who portrays the infant Messiah. The latter painting proves that she was very young. But the piece in which we can best study her nature and her physiognomy is a portrait of her alone, which bears the number NG709 in the National Gallery in Britain. Here she is painted in much larger proportions than anywhere else.

In this effigy, she has perfectly regular features, an ample forehead, thin eyebrows, large, well-drawn eyes; a pure and delicate nose, a charming mouth, a small, coquettish chin, and an oval silhouette. Her flowing red hair falls in streams over her shoulders. The painter lovingly displayed her beautiful hands and fingers.[24] Her expression is one of a serious and reflective person. A modest grace, a certain refinement, proves that she was hardly from the lower class, but came from a good family.

The child, whom she carries on her knees and who appears to be one year old at the most, does not resemble her much, although there are several similarities, notably in the shape of his eyes. He has a round, heavy-set face that is not oval-shaped like his mother’s: it makes one think of the physical description of the anonymous traveller, and of his father, “rather plump and rubicund”. This toddler, when he became bigger, must have had, like the celebrated painter, a portliness and a rosy cheeks.

Justus of Ghent, Saint Augustine, c. 1475. Oil on wood panel, 118 × 62 cm. Musée du Louvre, Paris.

Justus of Ghent, Saint Jerome, c. 1475. Oil on wood panel, 116 × 68 cm. Musée du Louvre, Paris.

Hans Memling, Saint Benedict (left shutter of the Benedetto Portinari Triptych), 1487. Oil on wood, 45.5 × 34.5 cm. Galleria degli Uffizi, Florence.

We find these two figures again in all of Memling’s works after the year 1477; there is always a signature on the paintings from this period. If we do not know the dating of his earlier works, we do know at least a few for which the date can be fixed. But we can see how the panels in which the Virgin and her Son are represented compare with other figures; chronological clues serve to determine birthdates, or to certify the missing pieces, in order to prove the accuracy of my remarks.

The documents found in Bruges’ religious and civil archives confirm all my reasoning with regard to Memling’s biography: they tell us that in 1480 he owned two houses situated on Pont-Flamand Street, that they were next to each other and that least one was inhabited by him. Nothing indicates the period when he bought them, but the accounts from Saint Donat church attest that he paid, for the first time on 24 June 1480 a sum of thirty-four deniers, which was paid every year by the owner of these buildings. That same year, the artist gave the town a loan of twenty escalins for the costs of the war that the town then supported along with the rest of the nation. Two hundred and forty-seven people also aided the council of the deputy mayor, and added to the 500,000 livres already being used for the same goal. Memling was reimbursed the next year. Then from September 1482 to September 1483, the town paid him six escalins, in order to compensate him for a quarter of the expenses that he had incurred on his roof, where he replaced the thatch with tiles. Since almost all the houses were covered in straw, the regency, in order to prevent fires, had offered an incentive to the citizens who made use of more solid and less dangerous materials. Simon Marmion (circa 1425–1489) also received a sum for the same reason.

Other information comes to us from diverse sources. During the year 1480, which was of such high importance for Memling, Adrien Reims, administrator of St John’s Hospital, resolved to have a splendid reliquary made, to be used for Saint Ursula’s relics, and commissioned Memling to produce the paintings that would decorate it. Because the legend’s main scenes take place on the banks of the Rhine, Reims thought it indispensable that the artist go to see the country, and especially Cologne, where the pious heroine had been welcomed by Queen Sigillindis, at whose home she would die at the hands of barbarians. The ecclesiastical dignitary paid the expenses of Memling’s voyage. And furthermore, since the first excursion did not suffice, Memling returned to the banks of the great river: Reims again gave him the necessary funds.[25]

Memling then roamed, full of enthusiasm, next to the waves, where the Lorelei fairy played, where two chains of hills threw their shadow and displayed their heads crowned with vineyards. He depicted their image in his works. Cologne, the holy city, city of arts, birthplace of the Germanic ideal in painting, forest of Romanesque bell towers or Gothic towers, nest of marvellous legends, city of sorcerer kings and Saint Ursula; in a word, nothing surprised him, nothing charmed him less; it enthroned him with its perspectives, with its diadem of spires and crenellations. There he admired the noble works of William and Etienne that were under the double influence of Germany and the Netherlands;[26] Memling, whom grace had given such marvellous talents at birth, he whom a ingenious dreamer accompanied on every path, who experienced an intimate joy before these figures, loved the genre of beauty, and it was a profound emotion that agitated his heart. One said that a celestial dew, a springtime dew invigorated his intelligence and lit up his most mysterious abilities. This action fortified the recent bonds between the Flemish and Germanic schools.

A manuscript seems to witness his passage to the banks of the great river. It is a book of prayers in Latin, in quarto format. It was found at the residence of Pastor Fochen, in Cologne, and passed into the collection of the University of Oxford library. It is believed to have previously been the property of Marie de Medici, who died in Cologne. Not only are all the initials of the chapters covered in gold and painting, but the indents of the first lines of the paragraphs are decorated in an equally elegant manner. On these parallel borders, arabesques unfurl, forming groups as long as columns of writing and a third as wide. The bottom is a dusky gold: on the field, flowers, fruit, and every type of bird shine in whimsical designs. At the beginning of the chapters and prayers, one admires large historical scenes, whose subjects come from the Bible and the lives of saints. The richness of invention, grace, and the truth of the order, of the figures, outfits, and landscapes, give these miniatures, which bear the seal of Memling’s style, the utmost value. We do not know the name of the masters who helped him in this work, and we cannot say which paintings are exclusively from his hand. The most beautiful of all depicts the descent of the Holy Spirit, in the painting, the mystical dove spills out of the divine light and perfection.[27]

Returning to Bruges, Memling worked for several years on a poem about Saint Ursula. He finished it in 1486. One must nonetheless state that this work did not absorb all of his time; in 1484 he bought and read, at the Saint Julien hospice, the admirable Saint Christopher, which the Bruges Museum now possesses.

Hans Memling, Saints John the Baptist and Lawrence (shutters of the Pagagnotti Triptych), c. 1480. Oil on oak panel, 57.5 × 17.1 cm. The National Gallery, London.

Hubert and Jan Van Eyck, Triptych of the Adoration of the Lamb known as the Ghent Altarpiece, 1432. Oil on wood panel, 350 × 461 cm. Saint Bavo’s Cathedral, Ghent.

Hans Memling, The Virgin and Child with Angels, after 1479. Oil on wood, 57.6 × 46.4 cm. National Gallery of Art, Washington, D. C.

Hans Memling, The Virgin and Child with Saint Anthony Abbot and a Donor, 1472. Oil on inlaid wood, 92.7 × 53.6 cm. National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa.

Robert Campin, The Annunciation Triptych, c. 1425. Oil on wood, 64.5 × 117.8 cm (central panel: 64.1 × 63.2 cm; shutter: 64.5 × 27.3 cm). The Cloisters Collection, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.

In 1487 Memling executed a work full of emotion, which bears the date of the year when it was painted. It is a simple portrait, but with an admirable expression of finesse and charm. We see, in the centre, a young beardless man with feminine features, in an architectural frame, in front of an open book. His hands are clasped as he prays to God in meditation. Beautiful wavy hair surrounds his calm and gentle figure. During this same year, Martin Van Newenhoven commissioned a diptych from Memling, now conserved at St John’s Hospital; on one of the shutters, the artist represents the Virgin seated, holding her Son: on the other, the donor. The image carries the following inscription: Hoc opus fieri fecit Martinus de Newenhoven anno Dni 1487, anno vero ætatis suæ XXIII. (Martin de Newenhoven had this work made in the year of the Lord 1487, he was twenty three years old). This diptych is an exceptional example of Memling’s talent, notably in his treatment of light. The light shadow and the particular clarity bring a true impression of space to the interior. The Virgin, with her clear and oval visage and wide forehead, is one of his happiest creations, while the donor is one of the most interesting portraits that he ever produced. The landscapes have an equally exquisite touch.

Martin, succeeding the Count of Croeser, was born on November 14, 1465; he was deputy mayor of the town of Bruges in 1492, superintendent in 1495, magistrate in 1497. He died, still young, on August 16, 1500. Memling was connected to his family for a long time. In 1479, he had already painted Anne de Nieuwenhove (the spelling of whose name varied greatly during the fifteenth century and during the Middle Ages). At the bottom of his portrait, one finds this inscription in incorrect Latin:

De Nieuvenhove, conjunx, domicella, Johannis et Michœlis, Obit, de Blasere nata Johanne, Anna, sub m. c. quater, Xocto, sed exipeiotam; octobris quinta. Pace quiescat. Âmen.

In order to construe these confused sentences, one must appeal to the learned paleographer, Vallet de Viriville, who translates them as below. They mean: Miss Anne, daughter of John Blasere, wife of John and Michael of Nieuvenhove, died October 5, 1479. Rest in peace. Amen.[28]

This woman, who married two men with the same family name, two parents without any doubt, probably gave birth to Martin de Nieuwenhove. She is depicted on the panel, kneeling, hands clasped, in front of Mary and her Son, to whom Saint Anne, her patron, who occupies the left portion of the painting, recommends her. A velvet robe, accented with fur, a green belt and black hat that surrounds a transparent veil, makes up her outfit. She resembles the Sambethe Sibyl, the oldest and weakest of Memling’s works owned by St John’s Hospital. Behind this pious woman, the city of Bruges is drawn in perspective: one can recognise the belfry, Notre Dame, and Saint Sauver’s church. Behind the Virgin and Saint Anne is a rich rug that often served as the background in paintings from the fourteenth century. The fabrics and tapestries are shining and treated with the greatest care: the faces were almost secondary to them.[29]

Robert Campin, The Annunciation (detail of the central panel of The Annunciation Triptych), c. 1425. Oil on wood panel, 64.1 × 63.2 cm. The Cloisters Collection, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.

Melchior Broederlam, The Annunciation, the Visitation, the Presentation in the Temple and the Flight into Egypt, 1394–1399. Tempera on wood panel, 167 × 125 cm. Musée des Beaux-Arts, Dijon.