![]() ![]() The Gothic French illustrated manuscripts were no longer those bulky Bibles and monastic sacramentaries* of the Carolingian period, but isolated texts, psalters*, and Evangeliaria* for personal or domestic use. ![]() In the 15th century, Avignon was other important center for manuscript illumination although with a strong Italian influence. Louis marked the apogee of the French school of book illuminators with its center in Paris. The landscapes portrayed are Provençal and include perhaps the first appearance in art of Mont Sainte-Victoire, later to be painted so often by Cézanne and others. On the extreme left a church is shown in “cut-away” style, containing a Mass of Saint Gregory. Beneath the landscapes the Purgatory (left) and Hell (right) open up, and in the center the donor kneels before a Crucifixion. There are also depictions of Rome (bottom left) and Jerusalem (bottom right) in the panoramic landscape. Around the Trinity, blue and red angels are deployed. Although the Coronation of the Virgin is a common subject in art, in this painting there is an unusual representation of the Father and Son of the Holy Trinity as identical figures at both sides of Virgin Mary. Oil on panel, 183 x 220 cm (Musée de l’Hospice, Villeneuve-les-Avignon). The Coronation of the Virgin by Enguerrand Quarton, 1453-54. In this sense, miniatures became a part of the art of the book craftsman and not of the painter per se. ![]() In the Gothic period, the size of books was reduced to almost resemble today’s books, and the miniatures became an embellishment of the written text. Usually, the illuminated books of the Carolingian schools were monumental codices, and the illustrations were rather paintings on parchment than mere decorations of a written text. The importance of French Gothic miniature somewhat belies the size of its manuscripts. The art of decorating books with paintings had a glorious history in the French miniature of the Carolingian period followed by a not so productive period during the Romanesque, indeed the French illustrated books of the 12th and 13th centuries didn’t reflect the magnificent works that will be later produced. John kneels at Christ’s head, the Virgin’s hands are together in prayer, and the crying figure of Mary Magdalene kneels at the right.ĭue to the lack of surviving panel paintings from Gothic France, the study of French Gothic painting has been directed more to the miniatures and stained glasses. The clerical donor kneels to the left, while the figure of St. The bare background landscape falls away to a horizon with the buildings of Jerusalem, and the sky is represented by a plain gold leaf with stamped and incised haloes, borders and inscriptions. ![]() The Pietà*, where the dead Christ is supported by his grieving mother, is one of the most common themes of late-medieval religious art, but this is one of the most striking depictions and has been considered as the greatest masterpiece produced in France in the XVth century. The “Pietà of Villeneuve-lès-Avignon” by Enguerrand Quarton, mid XVth century. Some of those masterpieces exist today, but they are few, and among them stand out for their extraordinary quality two paintings by Enguerrand Quarton, La Pietà de Villeneuve-lès-Avignon (Louvre), and the Coronation of the Virgin (Musée de l’Hospice, Villeneuve-les-Avignon), both pieces from the first quarter of the 15th century. The altar pieces and furniture that disappeared during the religion wars and the Revolution must have included masterpieces of French Gothic painting. Instead, in Gothic France, there were abundant paintings on table (or panel paintings*) of the same high quality of the sculptures and ivory reliefs we’ve already discussed. There are in France some few frescoes from the Gothic period, such as those at one of the vaults of the oratory of the house of Jacques Coeur in Bourges with beautifully drawn figures (in this case angels) in the vault’s arches. ![]()
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