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THE ARCH ASA SYMBOL FOR MARY
AS THE CHURCH m THE ART
or ROGER VAN DER WEYDEN

Thesis for the: Degree of M. A. ‘
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ABSTRACT

THE ARCH AS A SYMBOL FOR MARY AS THE CHURCH
IN THE ART OF ROGER VAN DER WEYDEN

BY

Jean A. Macchiaroli

Within the context of the known paintings by
Roger van der Weyden, it is possible to discern a segment
of four works which lend themselves to consideration as a
unit. These works are: the Thyssen Madonna i2_an.Aedicula,

the Vienna Madonna Standing, the Prado Madonna in Red, and

 

the Altarpiece g£_the Virgin, all executed within the

 

 

decade of the 1430's. They may be viewed together because
they exhibit certain common physical characteristics--the
Virgin is shown holding the Christ child, she is enclosed
within an ecclesiastical architectural setting, and she
either wears a crown or is being crowned by an angel--and
because they treat the common theme of Mary as the Church.
This study examines these paintings in their

relation to this Christian doctrine of Mary as the Church,
with careful attention to the borrowing and expanding of
motifs from the Madonna paintings, in order to produce the

complex Altarpiece of the Virgin. For this reason, the

 

Altarpiece of the Virgin may rightly be regarded as the

 

 

culmination of Roger's work in this specific area.

Jean A. Macchiaroli

This thesis attempts to determine the extent to
which certain influences acted upon the fertile imagination
of Roger van der Weyden, and led to the creation of these
paintings. These encompass Gothic architecture and
sculpture, Church doctrine, contemporary mystical writings,
and the dominant artistic trends of the period, embodied
in the art of Robert Campin and Jan van Eyck.

In studying these arched paintings by Roger, it is
imperative to investigate another altarpiece which employs

a triple arch format similar to that in the Altarpiece of

 

the Virgin. This painting, the Saint John Altarpiece,

 

conveys a theme relating to the Church, yet not to the
concept of Mary as the Church, owing mostly to the nature
of the commission itself. I have further contrasted the

circumstances of patronage of the Saint John Altarpiece

 

 

with those of the Altarpiece of the Virgin.

 

 

It is hoped that this study will provide a viable
basis for the interpretation of many of Roger van der Wey-

den's later works.

THE ARCH AS A SYMBOL FOR MARY AS THE CHURCH

IN THE ART OF ROGER VAN DER WEYDEN

BY

Jean A. Macchiaroli

A THESIS

Submitted to
Michigan State University
in partial fulfillment of the requirements
for the degree of

MASTER OF ARTS

Department of Art

1974

DEDICATION

To my parents,

Kathryn and Salvatore Macchiaroli

ii

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I would like to express my extreme gratitude and
appreciation to Dr. Molly Teasdale Smith for her many hours
of aid and guidance in the preparation of this thesis. She
has been an endless source of inspiration and untiring
enthusiasm. Her willingness to share her ideas on this
topic has led to many a stimulating discussion, and ulti-
mately to the conception of this thesis as it now stands.

I shall always be indebted to her.
Many thanks, also, to Dr. Eldon VanLiere, who is

responsible for the photographs contained in this thesis.

iii

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Chapter
INTRODUCTION . . . . . . . . . . . . .
I. THE EARLY MADONNA PAINTINGS. . . . . .
II. THE ALTARPIECE OF THE VIRGIN . . . . .
III. PATRONAGE AND THE SAINT JOHN ALTARPIECE. .
CONCLUSION. . . . . . . . . . . . . .

BIBLIOGRAPHY O O O O O O O O O O O O 0

iv

Page

26
85
99
108

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

Illustration

Roger van der Weyden. Madonna in an Aedicula.

Thyssen Collection, Lugano . . . . . .
Claus Sluter. Chartreuse de Champmol, Dijon .

Robert Campin. Betrothal gf the Virgin.
Prado, Madrid . . . . . . . . . .

 

 

Roger van der Weyden. Madonna Standigg.
Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna . . . .

 

Jan van Eyck. Madonna 12.3 Church.
Gemfildegalerie der StaatIichen Museen,
Berlin-Dahlem o o o o o o o o o 0

Roger van der Weyden. Madonna i2 Red.
Prado, Madrid . . . . . . . . . .

Roger van der Weyden. "Miraflores" Altarpiece.
Gemaldegalerie der StaatIichen Museen,
Berlin-DahleIH. o o o o o o o o 0 O

 

 

Roger van der Weyden. Appearance of Christ to
his Mother. Right panel of "Miraflores"
Altarpiece . . . . . . . . . . .

Roger van der Weyden. Seven Sacraments Altar-
piece. Musée Royal, Antwerp . . . . .

 

Roger van der Weyden. Saint John Altarpiece.
Gemaldegalerie der Staatlichen Museen, . .
Berlin-Dahlem.

 

Page

114

115

116

117

118

119

120

121

122

123

INTRODUCTION

Among the paintings by Roger van der Weyden, there
is a group of four, executed within the decade of the
1430's, that lend themselves to consideration as a unit.
These four paintings are: the Thyssen Madonna ig_gg

Aedicula, the Vienna Madonna Standing, the Prado Madonna

 

i3 Red, and the Altarpiece gfi the Virgin. They may be

 

 

viewed together because they exhibit certain common physi-
cal characteristics: in all four, the Virgin holds the
Christ child, she is enclosed within an ecclesiastical
architectural setting, and she either wears a crown or is
being crowned by an angel. These works also indicate a
common theological basis in the Christian doctrine of Mary
as the Church.

Apparently borrowing and expanding on motifs
developed in the earlier three Madonna paintings—-the motif
of the arch, the crown, and the relationship of Mary to

Christ as both mother and spouse--the Altarpiece gf the

 

Virgin may rightly be regarded as the culmination of
Roger's work on this theme. It is hoped that this study
will eschew the common pitfall of analyzing the three

earlier paintings in the light of the Altarpiece gf the

 

Virgin, rather than vice versa.

1

This study will examine these works in their
relationship to the Christian doctrine of Mary as the
Church, and thereby attempt to determine certain influences
under which Roger van der Weyden may have worked. I shall
inquire first into his knowledge of Gothic architecture,
which will be particularly important to an understanding
of the arch motif. In the effort to illuminate the circum—
stance under which these works were created, further inquiry
will be made into the influences of general Church doctrine,
contemporary Church writings--specifically those of the
mystics--and exposure to the art of Robert Campin and Jan
Van Eyck. This should aid in an interpretation of the
symbolic elements of these arched paintings in their
relation to the concept of Mary as the Church.

An additional work of Roger's is not to be ignored
in a study of the arched paintings and their relationship

to the theme of the Church. This painting, the Saint John

 

Altarpiece, makes use of a triple arch format, similar to

 

that in the Altarpiece gf the Virgin, and expresses a

 

 

theme relating to the mission of the Church. Yet, as will
be seen, the individual requirements of the commission,

as well as Roger's awareness of the destination of the
altarpiece for a parish Church, contribute to the essen-
tially more narrative-representational nature of the
altarpiece, when compared to the symbolic images of the

three Madonna paintings and the Altarpiece gf the Virgin.

 

 

This raises the question of the role of the commission in
the determination of forms and style in the paintings of
Roger van der Weyden. In the light of a comprehensive
study of early Netherlandish commissions begun by Shirley
Neilsen Blum, I shall attempt to determine the extent to
which the patronage may have governed the stylistic and
thematic framework of the paintings.

Due to the limitations on time and availability
of research materials, this thesis will not attempt to
solve any problems, but merely to suggest reasonable
answers to questions which may be raised concerning this

group of paintings by Roger van der Weyden.

CHAPTER I

THE EARLY MADONNA PAINTINGS

The popularity of the subject of the Virgin Mary
in Roger van der Weyden's works was no accident. By the
Fifteenth Century the cult of Mary had risen to its
greatest height, placing her on a level almost equal with
that of Christ. When the Church Council at Nicaea deter-
mined in 325 that the Son was of the same nature as the

Father, Mary was often referred to as the theotokos, the
l

 

Mother of God. It was not until the Council at Ephesus
in 431 that the official point of departure for the cult
of Mary was designated. Not only did this council finally
and officially determine the relationship of Mary to the
Trinity, as the Mother of God,2 but it also designated her
the mystical spouse of Christ, and established that she
was the personification of the Church.3
By the time of the Council at Basle, from 1431
to 1443, the fathers of the Church seriously discussed
including the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception of
Mary within the cycle of feasts in the Church year,4
representing a considerable growth of the cult of the
Virgin in western Christendom. By this time, many aspects

of the Virgin Mary had become popularized in Western art.

4

Some of these aspects include the life of the Virgin before
the birth of Christ, the Virgin and Child motif, the Virgin
enthroned, the Virgin of Sorrows, and the Virgin as Holy
Wisdom. Certain motifs have achieved greater importance

in various areas of the Christian west.

Despite the proliferation of Madonna figures in
Netherlandish art of the Fifteenth Century, Roger van der
weyden, in the group of works which we are about to study,
has chosen a means of portraying the Virgin Mary that is
uncharacteristic of the medium of painting. Max J. Fried-
lander has made the astute observation that Roger's par-
ticular brand of religious piety expressed in his works
is not only traditional, but it is orthodox, in the sense
that he views his subjects with the mind of a theologian.
He is therefore more abstract, and ultimately more medieval
in outlook and form than his contemporary Jan van Eyck.5
Friedlfinder has said: "Jan van Eyck proceeded from the
visible, individual case, Rogier from the idea. Jan van
Eyck grasped the natural context, Rogier the spiritual

6 This medievalism

context of doctrine and hierarchy."
in Roger manifests itself in his early work most strongly
in an affinity for images that may be associated with Gothic
cathedral architecture in both its forms and its purport.

He is more interested in doctrine than narrative, and in

the eternal, rather than the historical.

This essentially medieval outlook is discernible
in what is probably the earliest of the known works by
Roger, the Madonna i2_gn Aedicula, in the Thyssen Col-
lection, Lugano.7 Executed circa 1430-32, while Roger
was still a member of Robert Campin's workshop in Tournai,8

the Thyssen Madonna9 demonstrates a considerable influence

 

of this master on Roger,lo both stylistically and con-

ceptually. The face of the Thyssen Madonna is particularly
ll

 

Flémallesque in its wide, round shape and its frontality.
In that respect it may be compared to Campin's Madonna

Before 3 Fire Screen, in the Salting Collection, the

 

National Gallery, London.

K. M. Birkmeyer has noted the great amount of
ecclesiastical sculpture in the city of Tournai, and has
observed that this must have had a decided influence on
the paintings of Robert Campin and the members of his

12 In fact, it is known that, prior to 1423,

workshop.
Campin had been a member in Tournai of the mutual guild

of painters and sculptors. In 1423, the guilds were
reorganized, and the painters became associated with manu-
script illuminators and stained glass workers. We may
surmise that Campin, in such close proximity to sculptors
until 1423, came into contact with much contemporary
sculpture.13

Robert Campin was probably strongly influenced

by the Burgundian sculptures of Claus Sluter, which he

either viewed directly himself, or whose influence
reached him through contemporary Tournaisian sculpture.
Birkmeyer feels that Campin is interested in the use of
combined architectural and sculptural motifs--a fundamental
Gothic idea--to express a given concept in Christian doc-
trine. He may have been interested in a work such as the
Chartreuse de Champmol,l4 which combines a sculpture of
the Madonna and Child with its facade portal, to indicate
Mary as the gateway to Heaven.15 Indeed a similar statue
of the Madonna and Child--and a type which is common in
Gothic sculpture--appears on the trumeau of the portal of

Tournai Cathedral.l6

One may look at Campin's Betrothgl
gf the Virgin in this light, and in terms of the influence
it may have exerted over Roger in the Thyssen Madonna. In

the righthand portion of the Betrothal gf the Virgin there

 

is a Gothic arched portal decorated with sculptural motifs,
beneath and before which is depicted the betrothal of Mary
to Joseph. The true subject of the painting is the found-
ing of the New Church, represented both by the Virgin Mary
at its threshold and by the Gothic portal which is in

the process of being erected. Just as the physical build-
ing process of the church is incomplete in this painting,
so is its spiritual fulfillment unfinished: it awaits

the birth of Christ. As Shirley Neilsen Blum has pointed

out, Mary, who wears the crown of the Queen of Heaven,

does not stand directly beneath the arch, but slightly
in front of it, to denote that the founding of the Church
has not been completed.17

In the Thyssen Madonna Roger has depicted the ful-

 

fillment of the founding of the Church as it is seen in

its inception in Robert Campin's Betrothal gf the Virgin.

 

 

There are two important developments here: Christ has
been born, and Mary is situated seated within an aedicula
which imitates a Gothic portal. Mary now truly appears
as the personification of the Church; she is depicted as
both Mother of God and his mystical spouse. The latter
interpretation is assured by her appearance as the Queen
of Heaven, wearing the crown and seemingly enthroned
beneath the arch.

Wedded to Mary in this symbolic sense, Christ is
mystically wedded to his Church, a concept based on the
Lover and the Beloved in the Song of Songs.18 This
mystical marriage was a favorite topic for the mystics

of the Late Middle Ages. The Spiritual Espousals, written

 

near Brussels by Jan van Ruysbroek in the Fourteenth
Century, establishes the mystical basis for the union of
Christ and his Church, and serves to illuminate the trends
in mystical thought of this period on that subject.

Basing this writing entirely on the phrase, "See, the
Bridegroom comes: go out and meet him," from Matthew 25:6,

Ruysbroek clarifies that Christ is the Bridegroom, and

that the Bride is man's nature, created in the image of
God. Man's nature, he says, was lured into sin by the
serpent at the Fall; subsequently, God sent Christ to be

19 At the Incarnation

sacrificed and to redeem humanity.
it was established that man's nature was intended to be
united with God, for Christ, who is God, was born of the
flesh of woman, that is, Mary: he was sent "into a

glorious temple, which was the body of the glorious maiden
Mary. There he espoused the bride, our nature, and united
her with His Person by the noble Virgin's most pure blood."20
Mary's womb, therefore, can be regarded as a bridal chamber,

21 She is the fore—

in which God and mankind were united.
most Bride of Christ, by virtue of the fact that her flesh
was fused with Christ's divinity at the moment of Incar-
nation, i.e. the Annunciation. Along similar lines, the
Thyssen Madonna ig'ag_Aedicula depicts a Virgin who has
just recently given birth, yet who is already enthroned as
the Queen of Heaven. Essential to the concept of Mary as
the Church is the idea that she is 9222 Christ's Mother,
and personifies the Church as his spouse.

It is highly significant that Roger, so early in
his career as an independent painter, is already producing
a work of such symbolical complexity. His art seems to
presuppose an already highly refined feeling for both the

Gothic cathedral tradition and the dominant theological

trends of his period, as well as an extraordinary

10

ability to assimilate and transform the ideas of his
master, Robert Campin.

Birkmeyer further ties Roger's Thyssen Madonna

 

to another work by Claus Sluter, the Moses Well, executed

 

for the Chartreuse de Champmol. This association is made
through the presence in Roger's painting of six figures,
presumably Old Testament prophets, flanking the Madonna;
three are placed on either side of the arch. According

to Birkmeyer, the Moses Well is the only other known work

 

of art that employs six prOphets in subordination to
another main theme, in Sluter's case the Crucifixion, and
in Roger's the Madonna.22 Admitting that it was possible
that Roger had seen the Sluter ngl, Birkmeyer attempts

to establish a bond between the six figures in Roger's
Madonna £2 £2 Aedicula and those in the Sluter work.
Although the identification of the prophets in the Mgggg
ngl is made easy by inscriptions, this seems to be a more
difficult task in Roger's painting. However, Birkmeyer
concludes that the identification and order of the pr0phets

23 If this is true,

in both compositions are identical.
Roger is compounding his complex theme to refer directly
to the act of redemption itself. That is, if the prophets

on the Moses well serve as a reminder of the justification

 

of the Passion and death of Christ in order to redeem
mankind--as Birkmeyer would maintain24--then is one not

confronted in Roger's painting with a further statement on

11

the subject of salvation? The inference is that Christ
has been born to redeem mankind, that he will come again
in judgment, and that Mary will serve as mediatress for
each faithful person at that judgment. Significantly,
Mary's position directly beneath the arch, and in symbolic
relation to it, shows again that she is the gateway to
Heaven.

Also manifest in this painting is the theme of a
nursing Madonna. This refers to the notion that just as
Christ received nourishment from the Virgin Mary, so do all
believers receive spiritual amplification from the Church.
The source for this may be found in I Peter 2:2: “Like
newborn babes, long for the pure spiritual milk, that by

25 This idea further

it you may grow up to salvation."
reinforces the element of redemption implicit in the
painting.

The painted relief sculptures in the tiny niches
across the top of the painting depict seven scenes from
the life of the Virgin: the Annunciation, the Visitation,
the Nativity,the Adoration of the Magi, the Resurrection,
Pentecost,26 and the Coronation of the Virgin in the domi-
nant position above the keystone of the arch. It is
significant that Roger has eliminated the scenes of the
Passion of Christ. It is nevertheless implied in the

painting. The flowers on either side of the aedicula can

be identified as the iris on the right, the symbol of the

12

Passion of Christ and sorrow of the Virgin, and the
columbine on the left, another symbol of Mary's sorrow.27
And of course the Resurrection presupposes the Passion and
Crucifixion of Christ. But it appears that Roger has
deliberately chosen the most joyful and glorious aspects

of Christian doctrine to express the joyous message of
salvation through the Virgin Mary and the Church.

This is very much an optimistic and promising image
of redemption for the faithful person. The event of Pente-
cost marks the official beginning of the Church as a cor-
porate body, for a large group of the faithful were present
at that event.28 By portraying this scene, Roger has
established the legitimacy of the viewer for salvation,

as a member of the Church on earth.

The Madonna Standing, in the Kunsthistorisches

 

Museum in Vienna,29 represents a departure from Roger's
earlier composition. The elaborate aedicula has been
reduced to a somewhat simplified niche; and the sculptural
decoration has likewise been greatly reduced. The
Madonna--again crowned, and again nursing the Christ
child--is now standing, and appears generally more monu-
mental in conception than in the previous painting. The
work was probably executed circa 1432-33, as it seems
evident that Roger must have left Campin's workshop by

the time he worked on it.

13

There are several motifs in the painting which
have appeared in Robert Campin's works, but it appears that
Roger must have come into contact with a number of Eyckian
works, and this composition reflects an interest in this
style which is uniquely different from the familiar
Flémallesque style of the shop in which he was apprenticed.
The lions on the arms of the seat behind the standing
Madonna are a familiar motif, for they have appeared in

Robert Campin's Mérode Altarpiece and Salting Madonna.

 

 

This throne motif refers to Mary as the "Sedes Sapientiae,"

 

the “throne of wisdom," by paralleling her with King
Solomon. This motif finds its source in I Kings 10:19:
"The throne had six steps, and at the back of the throne
was a calf's head, and on each side of the seat were arm
rests and two lions standing beside the arm rests.“ The
reference is to the throne of King Solomon, the Old Testa-

30 Mary, as the bearer of Christ,

ment seat of wisdom.
is the New Testament throne of wisdom, the Church. In
Roger's painting, the image of the nursing Madonna may

be a metaphor for the transmission of the wisdom of the
Church to each individual believer.

The use of a cloth of honor, indicating Mary's
status as Queen of Heaven, is also a familiar motif
employed by Robert Campin. He used this motif, displayed
behind a nursing Madonna, in the Virgin 329.923l91 in

the Stfidelsches Kunstinstitut, Frankfort.31 However,

14

the Campin painting shows no trace of the architectural
setting which is so important thematically in Roger's
painting.

The Madonna herself bears a resemblance to the
Berlin Madonna i_.g Church, by Jan van Eyck: both Madonnas
are standing as they hold the child, and both are crowned;
the setting of both is ecclesiastical architecture, although
typically more elaborate in the Van Eyck painting. Addi-
tional Eyckian stylistic elements in Roger's painting may
be seen in the subtle handling of light and dark, the
greater fullness and agitation of the drapery, and the
position in which the child is held by Mary, again recall—
ing the Madonna i3 3_Church,32 as well as Gothic sculpture.

Harry B. Wehle and Margaretta Salinger have called
attention to an Eyckian Madonna in the collection of the

Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, which is very similar

to Jan van Eyck's Madonna 22 the Fountain of 1439, though
33

 

probably executed later. Since both of the above-
mentioned Madonnas are very close in type to Roger's

Vienna Madonna Standing, one might speculate as to the

 

possibility of there having been a prototype, either in
sculpture or painting, which these artists used in their

34 Of particular interest in the Madonna

conceptions.
painting discussed by Wehle and Salinger is the inscription

on the canopy: "DOMUS DEI EST ET PORTA C[O]ELI" ("This

 

 

is none other but the house of God and this is the gate of

15

5 It is possible that the

Heaven." Genesis 28:17).3
concept of Mary as the gate of Heaven was probably an
integral part of this specific Madonna type--always set
within an arcuated framework--and of course may be applied
to Roger's painting as well, thus augmenting the metaphor
of Mary as the Church.

Further Eyckian influence on the Vienna Madonna
Standing has been suggested by K. M. Birkmeyer. He notes
that the grisaille figures of Adam and Eve which flank the

Madonna in this painting recall the same figures on the

Ghent Altarpiece. In neither work is the artist trying

 

to tell a story by putting the figures in a narrative
setting. In Roger's painting, Eve holds the forbidden
fruit, indicating the moment of the Fall, but Adam is
shown being expelled from paradise by the avenging angel.
Birkmeyer remarks that Roger has intentionally reversed
the sequence of the two scenes in order to assure that the
viewer understands them as symbols for Christ as the New
Adam and Mary as the New Eve. In this respect, the
redemptive quality of the image is stressed: according

to Birkmeyer, the figures of Adam and Eve, and of God the
Father and the dove of the Holy Spirit are all rendered in
grisaille by Roger so that their complex role in the
redemptive process may be emphasized as a unit.36

According to Birkmeyer, the presence of God the

Father in painted sculpture above the architectural niche

16

within which the Madonna stands serves the purpose of
setting up a vertical reading of the composition as a
Trinity. This may raise the question as to whether this
painting was perhaps executed for the Chartreuse de
Champmol. There is no documentation for this opinion, but
the charter of that house explicitly states that the church

37 If

was dedicated to God, the Trinity, and the Madonna.
this is true, then perhaps Roger created this painting in
consultation with a Carthusian monk from the Chartreuse de
Champmol.38 Even if this speculation is not true, it
seems that perhaps an awareness of the dedication of this
famous building, coupled with an understanding of the
manifold doctrine of redemption, may have had a profound
effect on Roger's conception of the Madonna and Child

motif at this point in his career.

The Madonna i2 Red (or Madonna Duran), in the

 

 

Prado, Madrid,39 represents another variation on the
Madonna and Child motif from Roger's two earlier Madonna
paintings. Panofsky has suggested that the basic formal

motifs were borrowed from the Ince Hall Madonna by Jan

 

van Eyck,40 again pointing to the strong possibility that
Roger came into contact with the works of that master
very early in his career as an independent artist. Like

the Ince Hall Madonna, Roger's Madonna is dressed in red,

 

and the child leafs through the pages of a book. But

unlike Jan, Roger has placed his Madonna in an

17

ecclesiastical niche, rather than in a domestic interior.
In addition, the crown held over Mary's head by an angel
is similar to the same motif in Jan van Eyck's Madonna gf

Chancellor Rolin, which Roger may have seen in progress.
41

 

Dated by Panofsky circa 1436-37, the Madonna 32
ESE in fact bears little resemblance to either of the
previously discussed Madonnas by Roger. The niche has
been greatly simplified from the Vienna Madonna Standing,
and is now devoid of any sculptural decoration. Con-
current with the simplification of the niche setting,
Roger has also made the Madonna somewhat plainer by
removing the crown from her head and introducing a veil

in its place. It seems, as a consequence of this reduction,
that what Roger has achieved in this painting is a unique
result, different from his earlier works: the stark
quality of the image with which the spectator is confronted
represents a heightened spirituality, an almost ascetic
sense of piety. It is a style which has come to be dis-
tinguished as uniquely Rogerian, demonstrating at once a
synthesis and a transcendence of the elements of both
Robert Campin and Jan van Eyck of which Roger had pre-
viously made use. It is interesting to note that he has
eliminated any hint of the opulence and wealth of tangible
detail so common to the paintings of Jan van Eyck, in
favor of visual and physical simplicity, which is more

akin to the Flémallesque style.

18

By removing all sculptural decoration, and by
situating the figures in a niche intended to hold
sculpture--there is no visible chair upon which the
Madonna sits, nor is there a cloth of honor behind her—-
the figures themselves take the place of and become the
sculpture. We see "a woman of flesh and blood presented

42 Roger has trans-

to us under the guise of a statue."
formed the image of the Madonna and Child into a symbol,
and an obvious symbol at that. Mary is the Church, as

she is intimately tied to the ecclesiastical architecture
within which she sits. Christ is the lggggf-the WOrd of
God, presented to man—-in the sense that he is equated
with the book which he handles. The starkness of the
image--like that of an icon--reminds us of Mary's humility
and faithful piety; and she is shown being crowned as the
Queen of Heaven, by virtue 2: this humility.

The original location and purpose of the Madonna
i3 529 are unknown. Martin Davies notes that in the Prado
Catalogo of 1963 it is confirmed that no evidences of
landscape or further architectural structure exist under
the black space within the niche.43 This indicates that
Roger had originally intended the painting to be as it
stands today. It has been suggested by Professor Molly
Teasdale Smith that the niche within which the Madonna

sits, reminiscent of those on the lower portions of the

exterior of the Ghent Altarpiece, perhaps indicates that

 

19

Roger's painting was originally part of the exterior of an
altarpiece; in that context it would take on a penitential
aspect, for meditation during the Lenten season, when the

44 This would certainly

altarpiece would have been closed.
be in keeping with the ascetic quality of the piece.

What is most important in the Madonna ig_§g§ in
terms of the development of the theme of the Church in
Roger's oeuvre is the integration of the concept of Mary's
humility with her status as the Queen of Heaven. The
Virgin is truly the intercessor for all the faithful here,
for she is a model of human behavior, and through imitation
of this perfect individual, the soul of each person may be
accepted into Heaven by her in her capacity as the divine
queen. This role of Mary is heightened by the presence of
Christ as the divine lgggg, bringing the word of God to
mankind, that each person might learn how he will be

judged.45

The image in this painting is therefore a far
more intimate one than the previous Madonnas studied, in
its personal value to each individual worshipper.

In retrospect, it is seen that in those formative

years leading up to the production of his Altarpiece gf

 

the Virgin Roger developed many of the crucial elements

 

which would go into the creation of that altarpiece.
These include: (1) the identification of the Virgin Mary
in a symbolic way with an ecclesiastical architectural

setting to indicate her role as the Church in Christian

20

thought; (2) the dual motif of Mary as Mother of God and
Queen of Heaven; (3) Mary as the mystical bride of Christ;
(4) Mary's humility as the paragon of human behavior;

(5) Mary as the "throne of wisdom" nourishing the lggg§_

of God; and (6) the notion that Mary does contribute in

some way to the redemptive process. It is with the creation

of the Altarpiece gfi the Virgin, that Roger was able to

 

fuse these diverse motifs into a coherent doctrinal state-

ment.

NOTES--CHAPTER I

erjB Hirn, Th3 Sacred Shrine (First English ed.;
Boston: Beacon Press, 1957), p. I87. Hirn states that
many Eastern fathers of the Church made use of this epithet:
Athanasius, Ephraim Syrus, Eusebius, and Chrysostomus.

2Ibid., p. 188.

3Louis Réau, Iconographie g2 1'Art Chrétien,
Vol. II, Part Two (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France,
1957), p. 58.

 

 

4Rev. Edward H. Landon, A Manual gf Councils gf
the Holy Catholic Church (New and rev. ed.; Edinburgh:
JOHn Grant, 1909), p. 88.

 

 

5Max J. Friedlander, Early Netherlandish Painting,
trans. by Heinz Norden, Comments and notes By Nicole
Veronee-Verhaegen, Vol. II: Rogier van der Weyden and
the Master gf Flémalle (Leyden: A. WT_SIj?hoff, I9F7T,
p. 29}

 

 

6Ibid., p. 29.

7For the purposes of this study, the writer assumes
that Roger van der Weyden was a unique artistic personality.
we shall assume that he was not identical with the Master
of Flémalle, nor with other FIEmish artists by the name
of "Roger." (See Erwin Panofsky, Early Netherlandish
Painting. Its Origins and Character, VoI. I [Icon ed.;
New York: Harper and Row, Pfiblishers, 1971], pp. 153-58.)

 

8Panofsky, Earl Netherlandish Paintin , V01. I,
p. 251. See page 2 or a diScussion of Roger's stay
in Campin's workshop.

 

21

22

9Martin Davies (Rogier 222 der Weyden [London:
Phaidon, 1972],EL.222) notes that BEEEken (Ro ier van der
Weyden, 1951, p. 29) has suggested, on the Basis of_Elfid§t
identical dimensions, that the Thyssen Madonna i2 fig
Aedicula may have formed a diptych with a Saint Georgg
paneI. (The Madonna panel is 14 x 10.5 cm, the Saint
George panel is 14.3 x 10.5 cm.) Davies agrees with this
opinion. However true or false this claim may be, the
study of this possibility is outside the range of this
work, and I shall confine the present study to the sig-
nificance of the Madonna painting in the development of
Roger's work.

 

10The writer assumes the identity of the Master of
Flémalle as-Robert Campin, according to Panofsky, Earl
Netherlandish Painting, Vol. I, pp. 154-58, and sha use
these two names interchangeably.

 

11Panofsky, Early Netherlandish Painting, I, p. 251.

12K. M. Birkmeyer, "Notes on the Two Earliest Paint-
ings by Rogier van der Weyden," Art Bulletin, XLIV (Dec.,
1962), 329.

 

13See Molly Teasdale Smith, “Grisailles in Early
Fifteenth Century Flemish Painting," Master of Arts thesis,
New York University Institute of Fine Arts, 1957, pp. 41-
42 and note 93. Dr. Smith cites La Grange and Cloquet
(Etudes sur l'Art de Tournai in Mémoires de la société
histori ue et archgalogique de Tournai, XY—[I887I, p. 97
and XXI II888], pp. 65-66) afid PauI Rolland ("La Double
Ecole de Tournai, peinture et sculpture," in Mélan es
Hulin g3 Egg, Brussels and Paris, 1931, p. 303).

 

14K. M. Birkmeyer, "The Arch Motif in Netherlandish
Painting of the Fifteenth Century," Art Bulletin, XLIII
(March, 1961), 10, and note 54.

 

15This same theme of Mary as the gateway to Heaven
is expressed in a familiar hymn, which is at least as old
as the Ninth Century. It calls Mary, "Mother, Ever-Virgin,
/ Heaven's Portal fairest" ("At ue semper Virgo, / Felix
coeli porta"). (Mathew Britt, T e Hymns of the Breviary
and Missal [New York, 1936], ppf‘ii‘iT 8.)— ""

 

 

 

16Dr. Molly Teasdale Smith has brought this par-
ticular portal to my attention. This type of portal seems
to have been a common type.

23

17Shirley Neilsen Blum, Early Netherlandish
Triptychs (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of Cali-
fornia Press, 1969), p. 10.

 

 

l8Hirn, Sacred Shrine, p. 440.

 

19Jan van Ruysbroek, The Spiritual Espousals, trans.
and introduction by Eric Colledge (New York: Harper and
Brothers, 1953), p. 43.

 

2°Ibid.

21Hirn, Sacred Shrine, p. 347.

 

22Birkmeyer, "Notes on the Two Earliest Paintings,"

329.

23For a discussion of this, see Birkmeyer, "Notes
on the Two Earliest Paintings," p. 329.

24Ibid.

25Dr. Molly Teasdale Smith has brought this passage
to my attention in relation to the motif of the nursing
Madonna.

26Birkmeyer ("Notes on the Two Earliest Paintings,"
p. 330) suggests that the red robe on this Christ child
may refer to the Church feast day of Pentecost, as no
other Madonna by Roger shows the child in red.

27Birkmeyer, "Notes," p. 329.

281bid., p. 330.

29The painting was probably half of a diptych with
a Saint Catherine in a Landscape, also in Vienna, but it
seems questionable—fihéther the Saint Catherine panel was
actually by Roger's own hand. Both panels are 18.5 x
12 cm, and both are documented in the Austrian Imperial
Collection in 1772. (Davies, Rggier van der weyden,
p. 240.)

 

 

 

24

 

3oPanofsky, Early Netherlandish Paintin , I, p. 143,
and p. 415, note 1 to p. 143, where he refers Ege reader to
W. Molsdorf, Christliche S mbolik der mittelalterlichen
Kunst, 2nd ed. (Leipzig, IEZE), p.-I383f. See also
Hirn, Sacred Shrine, p. 456.

 

 

31See Davies, Rogier van der Weyden, Plate 124.

 

32Panofsky, Early Netherlandish Painting, I,
p. 251, and Hermann Beenken, "Rogier van der Weyden und
Jan van Eyck," Pantheon, XXV (1940), 130.

 

33Harry B. Wehle and Margaretta Salinger, A
Catalogue of Early Flemish, Dutch and German Paint1n
(New York: ‘The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1947), p. 20

 

 

 

34Cf. Note 16. Refer again to the sculptured
Madonna and Child figures on the facades of Gothic cathe-
drals.

35Wehle and Salinger, A Catalogue ofE Early Flemish
Painting, p. 21.

36Birkmeyer, "Notes on the Two Earliest Paintings,"
p. 331. For this reason, and for the reason that he sees
the grisaille figure of the prophet Micah on the exterior
of the Ghent Altarpiece as the one prototype for the
figure SfeGod the Father on the Vienna Madonna Standi_g,
Birkmeyer believes that Roger's painting must post-date
the Ghent Altarpiece, dedicated May 6, 1432 (see Panofsky,
Early NetherlandiSh Painting, I, p. 207).

 

 

 

 

 

37Birkmeyer, "Notes," pp. 330-31 and note 14 to
p. 331, where the reader is referred to Henri David, Claus
Sluter, Paris, 1951, p. 27. This picture had previous Iy
Been connected with a "nostra Donna sola cun e1 puttino
in brazzo, in piedi, in un tem io Ponentino, cun a corona
1n testa," seen by Marcanton1o M1chie1, and be11eved to
H—ve Been painted by "Rugerio da Brugiis." However,
Panofsky believes that the word "tempio" must be trans-
lated "church," rather than "niche," so the painting in
question was probably one of the numerous copies of Jan
van Eyck' 5 Madonna in a Church. (Panofsky, Early Nether-
landish Painting, I, p. 458, note 2 to p. 251. )

 

 

 

25

38We shall recall that Dieric Bouts was assigned
two theologians to aid in setting up the program of the
Louvain Holy Sacrament Altarpiece. See WOlfgang Stechow,
Northern Renaissance Art 1409-1600, Sources and Documents,
in the—History of Art Series, H. W. Janson, ed. (Englewood
Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1966), p. 11.

 

39See Davies, Rogier van der Weyden, p. 226.

40Panofsky, Earleretherlandish Painting, 1, p. 259.

411bid.

421bid.

43Davies, Rogier van der Weyden, p. 226.

44Molly Teasdale Smith, "The Use of Grisaille as
a Lenten Observance," Marsyas, VIII (1957-59), 53. Dr.
Smith notes in note 56, page 53, that Walter Ueberwasser,
Rogier van der Weyden, Paintings from the Escorial and
Prado, New Ydrk, I946, p. 9, has suggested the possIBIlity
Efiat this panel may have been on the exterior of an altar-
piece. For the development of the use of grisaille during
the Lenten season, see Dr. Smith's article, p. 43ff.

 

45The Gospel of John refers to the following words
of Christ: "You are already made clean by the word which
I have spoken to you / . . . If you abide in me, and my
words abide in you, ask whatever you will, and it shall
be done for you" (John 15:3, 7).

CHAPTER II

THE ALTARPIECE OF THE VIRGIN

Doubtless the direct successors of the Prado
Madonna 12.399 in terms of both style and iconography are
two altarpieces of the Virgin that are almost exact
duplicates, and are both associated with Roger van der
Weyden. Although more elaborate in presentation and more
complex in scope than the three Madonna paintings pre-
viously discussed, the theme of these altarpieces is again
the Virgin Mary. And it seems that these works not only
represent a development of the arch motif and the theme of
Mary as Queen of Heaven, but also make a statement on the
entire doctrine of redemption in relation to the Virgin.

Within the identical schemes of the altarpieces,
each panel comprises a main scene involving the Virgin
and Christ, placed beneath a painted stone archway, around
which are arranged grisaille scenes comprising the lives
of the Virgin and Christ from the Annunciation through the
Assumption and Coronation of the Virgin. In each panel
the grisaille scenes follow chronologically not from lower
left over the arch to lower right, as might be expected,

but rather counterclockwise beginning in the upper left.

26

27

On the left, the Adoration of the Infant Jesus by
the Virgin Mary is surrounded by the Annunciation, Visi-
tation, Nativity, Adoration of the Shepherds, Adoration
of the Magi, and Presentation in the Temple. The center
scene of the Lamentation is surrounded by Christ Taking
Leave of Mary Before his Arrest, Mary Receiving the News
of Christ's Arrest, the Road to Calvary, the Erection of
the Cross, the Crucifixion, and the Entombment. On the
right is the Appearance of Christ to the Virgin Mary after
the Resurrection, surmounted by the Three Maries Taking
Leave of the Virgin to Go to the Tomb, the Ascension, the
Pentecost, the Annunciation to the Virgin of her Imminent
Death, the Death of the Virgin, and the Coronation of the
Virgin. In the background of the right-hand panel can also
be seen the Resurrection, witnessed only by the angel at
the tomb, and the approach of the Three Maries to the
tomb. The presence on the arched framework of grisaille
scenes from Mary's life, and Christ's, is not new in
Roger's work: we shall recall the use of similar scenes
in the Thyssen Madonna 12 EB Aedicula.

From the keystone of each arch descends an angel
holding a crown, similar to that in the Prado Madonna 12
5297 a scroll accompanies each angel, on which are
inscribed words adapted to relate to Mary from biblical
texts in the epistle of James (over the Adoration panel),

and from the Book of Revelation (above the Lamentation and

28

Appearance scenes). In addition, the sculptured scenes on
the capitals in each panel--as Old Testament prefigurations
of New Testament events--depict the Sacrifice of Isaac and
Death of Absalom (in the Adoration panel), the Expulsion
from Paradise (in the Lamentation panel), and David and
Goliath, Samson and the Lion, and Samson with the Gates

of Gaza (in the Appearance panel).1 The four Evangelists
and Saints Peter and Pau1-—identifiable by their respective
attributes--stand at the jambs of the arches.

The authorship and dating of these altarpieces
have presented some perplexing questions for scholars.

This is not surprising, considering the complex histories
behind the paintings. One of the altarpieces is divided
between the Capilla Real at Granada, Spain, and the Metro-
politan Museum of Art in New York. It was presented to the
Granada Cathedral by Isabella the Catholic (d. 1504)
sometime after 1492. The panels depicting the Adoration
and Lamentation were separated in 1632 and cut off at the
top to be fitted into the frames of doors to a reliquary
constructed for Philip IV.2 The third panel found its way
to New York through a series of private owners.

The other altarpiece, now located in the Gemalde—
galerie der Staatlichen Museen, Berlin-Dahlem, arrived
there from the Charterhouse of Miraflores, near Burgos,
Spain.3 The "Miraflores" altarpiece is almost identical

stylistically with the "Granada-New York" group; in size

29

it is 71 x 43 cm, compared to the slightly smaller

4 The color

"Granada-New York" triptych of 63.5 x 38 cm.
of Mary's robe in the Lamentation panel appears blue in
the "Granada-New York" altarpiece, but red in the "Mira-
flores" triptych.5 Both altarpieces, although triptychs,
are nonclosing. It is believed that the altarpiece now
located in Berlin is the one mentioned by Antonio Ponz
in his Viaje g2 Espafia, written in 1788. Evidently, Ponz
saw an altarpiece of the Virgin in the Miraflores chapel
which fit the description of a painting documented in the
record of the Charterhouse of Miraflores. Ponz quotes
this record:
Anno 1445 donavit predictus rex [Juan II of Castile]
pretiosissimum, et devotum oratorium, tres historias
habens; Nativitatem scilicet Jesu Christi, Descen-
sionem ipsius de cruce, quod alias Quinta Angustia
nuncupatur, et Apparitionem ejusdem ad matrem post
Resurrectionem. Hoc oratorium a Magistro Rogel,
magno et famoso Flandresco fuit depictum.6
Ponz mentions that it is a tradition that Juan II had
received the altarpiece from Pope Martin v.7

Much of the controversy surrounding the dating of

the Altarpiece gf the Virgin is a result of various inter-

 

 

pretations of the Ponz account. It has generally been
accepted that the "Granada-New York" triptych was the
original by the hand of the Master, Roger van der weyden,
and that the "Miraflores" triptych is a copy by Roger's
workshop, completed relatively soon after the original.8

The main problem involves the relation of the altarpieces

30

to each other, and, in turn, to the Charterhouse of Mira-
flores. The idea of a papal gift to King Juan II is
rejected by most critics on the grounds that, since
Martin V died in 1431, Roger would not have qualified as
an independent master at such an early date. In fact,
Roger would have still have been a member of Robert Campin's
shop at that time.9 Destrée adds that since the record of
the Miraflores Charterhouse relates nothing of such a papal
gift, it is highly unlikely that it ever existed: a gift
from such an honorable donor--even if not directly given
by the Pope to the convent--would probably have been
recorded.10
We are left, then, with a terminus 3§£g_gggm, for
the original painting, of 1445, the date of Juan II's gift
to the Charterhouse. A variety of dates has been proposed
for the "Granada-New York" a1tarpiece--the original by
Roger--on both stylistic and iconographical grounds. The
, most popular argument places this work just slightly

earlier than the Werl Altarpiece, suggesting the depen-

 

dence of the painter of this altarpiece on Roger's pose

and gesture of Christ for the figure of John the Baptist.11
Judging from the development of Roger's previous Madonna
paintings in an architectonic setting, which culminates

in the Prado Madonna in Red of 1436-37, and from the

known date of the Werl Altarpiece, 1438,12 we may conclude

 

that the "Granada-New York" altarpiece was executed circa

31

1437-38.13

Panofsky suggests that the two altarpieces
were relatively contemporaneous. That is, no "appreciable"
interval of time could have elapsed between their respec-

14 It seems that this assumption is correct.

tive creations.

The situation is further complicated by the history
of the Charterhouse of Miraflores. Enriquez III of Castile
had a home built in the country near Burgos which he called
"Miraflores."15 Upon Enriquez III's death in 1406, Juan II
acceded to the Castilian throne at the age of two. The
area was ruled peacefully by the King's regent and uncle,
Don Ferdinand el de Antequera, until 1413, when Don
Ferdinand became Ferdinand I of Aragon. The regency was
then less successfully continued by the Queen-mother,
Catherine, until the King attained major status in 1419.
More interested in the arts and leisure pastimes and
courtly spectacles than in his governmental duties, Juan II
happily turned over the affairs of state to Don Alvero de
Lufio, Archbishop of Toledo.16

Juan II was responsible for dedicating "Miraflores"
to the Carthusian order, as both a monastery and a seat

17 For the latter purpose, Juan imported

of learning.
several religious and lay teachers. At the time of receipt
of its Carthusian charter in 1442, the convent's chapel
was named for Saint Francis. It was, in fact, not until

the year 1453 that it was renamed "Santa Maria de Mira-

flores," apparently upon its rededication following a

32

fire which devastated the Charterhouse in 1452. Juan II
died and was buried in the convent's chapel in 1454.18
It appears certain that Juan II commissioned the

Altarpiece g: the Virgin with its ultimate monastic

 

 

audience in mind. Had this been a personal commission,
rather than one for a monastic community, Roger surely
would have included a donor portrait of Juan II within
the framework of the painting, as he included the donor

in later compositions, such as the Bladelin Altarpiece

 

and the Vienna Crucifixion triptych. The Altarpiece 2E.

 

EES Virgin also favors an abstract presentation of Church
doctrine, suitable for the meditation of a religious order
versed in the subtleties of the Christian religion. A
stipulation of the original commission, therefore, was
undoubtedly that it be suitable for use by the Carthusian
monastic order nascent at Miraflores.

From this point on, there is little known concern-

ing the presence of the Altarpiece g: the Virgin in the

 

chapel of the Charterhouse of Miraflores. It is known
that the copy remained at Miraflores until the early
Nineteenth Century, when it appeared in the catalogue of
General d'Armagnac.19 The original remained in the
possession of the royal family, through the period of
ownership by Isabella the Catholic, who bequeathed the

panels to the city of Granada.20

33

Two hypotheses present themselves in View of the
above discussion. One possibility is that Juan II com-
missioned the original altarpiece, circa 1437-38, with its
destination in the Miraflores chapel and its orientation
toward a monastic community in mind. When the painting
finally arrived from Flanders, the King may have been so
pleased with it that he retained the original for himself,
and then commissioned an exact duplicate for the convent's
chapel. This replica would then be the painting documented
by Ponz as donated by Juan II to the Charterhouse in 1445.
This would account for the presence of the copy at Mira-
flores until the early Nineteenth Century, and also for
the original panels remaining in royal hands.21

On the other hand, it might be argued that it was
the original "Granada-New York“ triptych which was given
by Juan II to the Charterhouse at the somewhat late date

of 1445.22

It follows that at some point the "Miraflores"
replica might have replaced the original painting on the
altar of the convent's chapel. It is tempting to hypothe-
size that a copy had replaced the original at Miraflores

by 1454, the year of Juan's death, yet the fact remains
that there is no direct evidence to support such a hypothe-
sis. Scholars have been unable to document either the
date when the "Granada-New York" triptych could have left
the convent, or the date of reinstatement of the chapel's

altarpiece in the form of the "Miraflores" altarpiece.23

34

It could be suggested, on the basis of the above
information, that the fire of 1452 may be the turning point
which we seek to establish the replacement of the original
altarpiece with the copy. Is it not possible that Juan II,
having commissioned the original altarpiece from Roger
and presented it to the Charterhouse of Miraflores in 1445,
reclaimed the original after it was saved in the fire of
1452, and retained it thereafter? The copy could have
arrived for the reopening of the Charterhouse. Perhaps
even the fame of the painting was enough to encourage a
rededication of the convent to the Virgin Mary in 1453.

It is interesting to note that the present-day tympanum

of the chapel portal is decorated with a sculpture of the
Pieta, again perhaps reflecting the position of high esteem
held by Roger's altarpiece.

Owing to the popularity of Flemish works of art in
Spain, and to Juan II's interest in worldly pleasures,
the monarch in either case no doubt chose to withhold
the original painting, and commissioned a duplicate from
Roger's workshop. In any event, the most important
feature of the commissions is the implicit purpose of
the altarpiece as the major devotional picture in a
monastic chapel.

Having placed the Altarpiece gfi the Virgin in its

 

 

historical setting, it shall be seen how its message

unfolds in relation to the Charterhouse of Miraflores

35

and its members. The Carthusian order was a contempla—
tive, monastic sect founded around the area of Grenoble,
France, by Saint Bruno in 1084, and based on the ideal of
a solitary, austere life spent in meditation to attain

24

an eternal union with God. It is accepted that the

Virgin Mary is the foremost patron of each Carthusian
monastery.25 It is therefore not surprising, in light of
this fact, that the chapel of the Charterhouse of Mira-
flores, although originally named for Saint Francis, had
for its altarpiece a triptych of the Virgin, or that it
was rededicated to the Virgin Mary.

The most distinctive feature of the composition

of the Altarpiece gf the Virgin is the use of the arch

 

motif in each of the panels. Birkmeyer, in his study of
the arch motif in Fifteenth Century Netherlandish paint-
ing, has fully traced the development of this motif from
its devotional-symbolic form to a narrative-representational

purpose. He concludes that the arches in the Altarpiece

 

g; the Virgin, typifying the first category, simulate a

 

Gothic cathedral portal, and frame their respective scenes.
Far from being mere frames, however, the arches aid in
defining certain spatial and compositional relationships.
For example, each scene takes place not only directly

under the arch, but also Partially beneath the barrel vault
covering the space immediately behind the arched portal,

thus delineating an area receding into the space beyond

36

the frame of the picture. This is most explicit in the
Lamentation and Appearance panels, where a landscape vista
is visible. It is apparent that the arches serve to open
up a sacred realm to the viewer, one of a spiritual time

and space.26

This concept directly relates to the intent
of actual Gothic church portal architecture and sculpture:
a line of demarcation between the secular world outside

the building and the suspended spiritual realm of the
interior, recalling the association of the Virgin Mary
with the architectural setting in the three earlier Madonna
paintings. In those paintings, the architecture was a

metaphor for Mary as the Church, and the gateway to Heaven.

Roger's triple arch in the Altarpiece gf the Virgin is more

 

 

explicit yet, as the architecture becomes an obvious symbol
for a Gothic portal.
According to Birkmeyer, the ultimate prototype for

Roger's arcuated Altarpiece g; the Virgin is the portal of
27

 

 

the Chartreuse de Champmol, sculpted by Claus Sluter.
Founded by Philip the Bold to serve as a mausoleum for

the Dukes of Burgundy, this Carthusian monastery--an order
so chosen by Philip for its concern for the Office of the
Dead--is of course the same building that has been sug-
gested as the possible original location for the Vienna

Madonna Standing. At the entrance to this ecclesiastical

 

mortuary, the Madonna and Child are represented on the

trumeau, flanked by the donors with their patron saints,

37

on the jambs. The portal is therefore a meaningful
expression of the transition from the secular world of
the living to an eternal kingdom beyond. The Duke and
Duchess are presented to the Virgin Mary in her capacity
as mediatress for each person at the time of judgment.28
There is thus a "correlation of facade as entrance to the
church, church as mausoleum, mortal death to eternal life
with one monumental sculptural group"29: it therefore

expresses the doctrine of the reward of the faithful.

Significantly, Roger's Altarpiece gfi the Virgin

 

 

was commissioned, probably by Juan II, for the chapel of
a Carthusian monastery, the Charterhouse of Miraflores,
which Juan had designated to hold his tomb upon his death.
It seems that Miraflores was not Roger's only documented
association with the Carthusians. In 1449, Roger's son
Corneille entered the Charterhouse of Hérinnes, near
Enghien, where he lived as a monk until his death in

1473.30

Moreover, it is known that Roger himself was a
benefactor of the Carthusian monastery of Scheut, near
Brussels,31 which was founded in 1454 under the name of

Scheut-lez-Bruxelles.32

With an awareness of the pro-
liferation of Carthusian ideas on spirituality, and the
rapid growth of the order in the Fourteenth and Fifteenth
Centuries, notably in Flanders and Holland, we may assume

Roger's association with this order during his career.

He could very well have been familiar with the major

38

theological ideas of the order prior to the commission

of the Altarpiece gf the Virgin, if indeed it is true that

 

 

the Vienna Madonna Standing was executed for the Chartreuse
de Champmol. If we regard the Chartreuse de Champmol as
the paragon of the Carthusian mortuary chapel, it may be
that the same innovative idea which is behind the conception
of the portal of that well—known building at least par-
tially inspired Roger's use of such an arch motif for his
own purpose.

Although he sees architecture and church portal
sculpture as Roger's primary inspiration, in the manner

outlined above, Birkmeyer does cite the Betrothal gf the

 

Virgin by Robert Campin as a parallel to the use of the

arch motif in Roger's Altarpiece gf the Virgin.33 In

 

 

contrast to Campin's incorporation of the arch with its
imitated sculptural decoration depicting Old Testament
prefigurations of New Testament events into an overall
scene of a more narrative quality, Roger has placed the
arches parallel to the picture plane and decorated each
with scenes immediately relating to the main scene in the
panel. In this way he has heightened the importance of
the subsidiary scenes in relation to the entire altarpiece.
In so doing, Birkmeyer states, Roger has taken an inten-
tional step backwards in Flemish painting, from the more
disguised symbolism of the Campin type to a decidedly

34

obvious symbolism. "He realizes that increasing

39

naturalism will convert religious events into historical

narratives, and answers it, therefore, by monumentalizing

the devotional image."35
Although some basic compositional devices bind the

three panels of the Altarpiece g: the Virgin together--a

 

 

consistent light source from the left, and a symmetrical
overall composition (V-shaped in the left and right panels,
X-shaped in the center pane1)--it is apparent that the
frank frontality of the three main scenes is intended to

36 This

heighten the isolation and individuality of each.
lends a hieratic quality to the altarpiece, further stress-
ing its devotional elements and the presence of a sacred
realm within its confines. The earlier Madonnas by Roger
had achieved a similar, iconic intent.

In borrowing the motif of the Gothic portal and

its use in the Betrothal gf the Virgin by Campin, Roger

 

 

is doing more than synthesizing the diverse elements of
architecture, sculpture, and painting into a coherent
pictorial and devotional unit. He is combining the
essential Christian theme of the Last Judgment with the
doctrine of Mary as the Church. The latter notion is

expressed in the Betrothal by Mary's position in relation

 

to the Gothic arch, and by the idea that at the betrothal
are the beginnings of the Church, and a way opened up

for each believer to enter God's kingdom. These

40

themes, it shall be seen, are crucial to an understanding

of the Altarpiece 9f the Virgin.

 

 

The arch motif remains, however, merely a form of
introduction to the painting, as the principal function
of the triptych is as an altarpiece. This fundamental
purpose necessitates an investigation of the entire
iconographical program, so as to underscore those themes
which are essential to an eventual "horizontal" interpre-
tation of the altarpiece as an entity. To this end, one
must first analyze each panel in a “vertical" manner,
delineating the several levels of meaning which are pre-
sented in each. The first is the historical level, pre-
sented as sculptured scenes in grisaille on the archivolt
and jambs of each arch. The main scenes provide the focal
point for these scenes. The historical level serves as a
preparation, almost a mental exercise, before entrance into
the sacred realm. The second level of meaning consists of
the doctrinal significance of the painting, combining the
Old Testament prefigurations and the inscriptions with the
archivolt grisailles and the major scenes. The third level
involves the liturgical meaning of the altarpiece and its
relation to the liturgical enactment on the altar. In
all these aims, Roger has drawn, as in most of his works,
from the major well-known sources for the life of Christ
and the lives of the saints at the end of the Middle Ages:

the Specuifimxhumanae salvationis, the Meditatationes

 

 

41

Vitae Christi of Pseudo-Bonaventura, the Golden Legend

 

 

of Jacobus de Voragine, and the Biblia Pauperum.

 

The major scene on the left panel, the Virgin Mary
Adoring the Infant Jesus, takes its source primarily from

Pseudo-Bonaventura's account. In the Meditationes, Mary

 

worships the child following the untraumatic birth.
Joseph, too, according to this narrative, worships the
child, then proceeds to make a cushion for Mary to sit
upon.37 The scene Roger depicts occurs somewhat after
this latter incident, as Mary appears seated, worshipping
the child, while Joseph sits sleeping nearby, in a moment
of poignant intimacy for the Holy Family. What is dis-
turbing, however, is the unconventional setting for this
scene-~an ecclesiastical interior, a sacred location--which
contrasts sharply with the historical narrative of sorts,
displayed on the archivolt, which establishes the cycle

of the Birth of Christ: the Annunciation, Visitation,
Nativity, Adoration of the Shepherds, Adoration of the
Magi, and Presentation in the Temple. This contrast is
especially worthy of note if one regards the grisaille
depiction of the Nativity, which is in fact not a Nativity
at all, but another Adoration of the Infant Jesus. The
devotional quality of the main scene is replaced on the
archivolt by a purely historical inclination. Mary is
shown kneeling in adoration, while Joseph stands, in an

equivalent pose of adoration. The original historical

setting is restored: the presence of the ox and the ass

42

38 On the right jamb of the portal

indicates the stable.
stands Saint Luke, the only Evangelist to concentrate an
appreciable portion of his gospel on the Virgin. Luke
stands as a representative of his historical narrative,
certain scenes from which are presented around the arch.39
It is recognizable, of course, that this is not
merely a historical representation of the events surround-
ing the birth of Christ, but also the illustration of the
Incarnation of the Word. The Incarnation traditionally
begins with the Annunciation, as do the archivolt scenes
in Roger's panel. This Annunciation is the first in a
series of annunciations of important Church doctrines on
this altarpiece. The theme of the Annunciation is carried

through the Adoration of the Child scene by the appearance

of the following segment from the Magnificat (Luke 1:46-55)

 

on the border of Mary's robe: "[29] MINUM §T_EXALTAVIT

SPIRITUS MEUS g 135 SALUTARI [MEG] QUIA [RESPE] XIT

HUMILITATEM.ANCILLE SUE E."40 According to Pseudo-

 

 

 

Bonaventura, Mary, in all humility, thanks God for giving
her his son, as she adores the infant. The writer then
gives an exhortation to the faithful to follow the double
examples set by Mary and Jesus at his birth: to live in
meekness, humility, and love of poverty.41
The inscription on the scroll above the scene

verbalizes the example set by Mary: "This woman was

found most worthy and free from all blemish, therefore

43

she shall receive the crown of life; from the First Letter

42 Within this panel, Mary appears robed in

of James."
white, the color of purity.43 Purity, of course, is the
specific attribute of Mary, as she is both physically and
spiritually clean, the model for all Christians.44 Many

of these same ideas were expressed by Roger in the earlier
Prado Madonna ig_§g§. In that panel, Mary was depicted

as pure and humble; the angel similarly descends with

the crown which she merits on the basis of that humility
and purity. Both paintings also refer to the coming of
Christ as the Word of God.

The theme of humility and purity is reiterated by
the slight filtering of light through the two glass windows
in the back of the room. It is known from Millard Meiss's
study that the Virgin was originally conceived of as a
window through which the spirit of God passed to earth;
this was transformed into the image of sunlight through
glass, the unique emblem which symbolizes both the con-
ception and birth of Christ.45 As light penetrates the
glass but does not violate it, so Mary remains yet a
Virgin.46 In this theme, then, there is an intimate
relationship between Mary's humility and purity, and the
Incarnation. The implicit idea that God was enclosed in

4 . .
7 g1ves r1se to one

Mary's body as daylight in a church
of many associations in this altarpiece of Mary as the

Church. This idea is furthered by the little jamb figure

44

of Saint Peter who oversees this scene, serving as a
reminder to the spectator not only that the birth of
Christ means the founding of the Church to come, but also
that Mary i§_that Church, and acts as the protectress for
its faithful members. The drape of honor--similar to the

one in the Vienna Madonna Standinge-suggests Mary's true

 

place of honor as the Church and Queen of Heaven.

In this panel, the viewer is constantly aware that
the birth of Christ inevitably leads to his Passion and
death. The death of Christ is foreshadowed in the pose
of the infant Christ on Mary's lap, a traditional grouping
reminiscent of the Pieta scene, which shall become the

subject of the center panel of the Altarpiece gf the

 

Virgin. The capitals of the two columns in the left
panel are decorated with Old Testament scenes: the
Sacrifice of Abraham and the Death of Absalom. These
scenes can be said to prefigure the death of Christ by

the focus of each on the death of a £22: Abraham's sacri-
fice of his son, and David's lamentation over the death
of his rebellious son, Absalom. Indeed, both of these

Old Testament scenes appear in the Speculum humanae sal-

 

vationis and the Biblia Pauperum in their prefigurative

 

capacities. Both sources treat the sacrifice of Isaac
in general as a prefiguration for the Crucifixion.48
The Biblia Pauperum mentions the biblical tradition that

Isaac carried the wood by which his own sacrifice was to

45

be consummated; the event is seen as a prefiguration for

49 The Death of

the carrying of the Cross by Christ.
Absalom serves the identical former end as a reference

to the Crucifixion. The Biblia Pauperum states that the

 

conspiracy of Absalom against his father is a prefiguration

50 The scene of the

for the betrayal of Christ by Judas.
Presentation, which chronologically completes the archivolt
cycle in the panel, has always carried with it a presenti-
ment both of Christ's demise and the Virgin's sorrow, in
the prophecy of Simeon.51
The doctrine of the Incarnation is an integral part
of the liturgy of the Church, firstly because it comprises
the Christmas season of the Church, the major portion of
the Church year. Although the year begins officially with
the season of Advent, that season is characterized by
anticipation of, and preparation for the coming of Christ.
This attention to the birth of Christ serves further to
help explain the counterclockwise reading of the archivolt
scenes, as they describe a circle when read in such a
manner, alluding both to the individual cycle of the
Christmas season, and to the cyclical nature of the Church
year in general. In specific reference to the rite of
the Mass, this scene of the Adoration of the Infant--who
is the incarnate Word--stands, when the triptych is

situated on the altar, in direct relation to the position

of the Gospel as it is read. This emphasizes our awareness

46

of Christ as the living WOrd, about whom the Gospels are
written. It also makes a liturgical Church doctrine

of the notion of Christ as lgggg which Roger was develop-
ing in the earlier Madonna paintings.

The center panel in the Altarpiece gf the Virgin

 

 

reveals the Virgin Mary seated, grieving over the dead
body of Christ which is draped across her lap. Present
at the event are John, the beloved apostle, and Joseph

of Arimathea. The now-vacant Cross looms in the middle
ground, behind which opens up a broad landscape vista,
with the view of a medieval town in the distance, to
indicate Jerusalem. The sacred-devotional realm, thus
delineated, contrasts, as in the Adoration panel, with

the historical narrative displayed on the archivolt. This
time the Passion of Christ is the subject, consisting of
Christ Taking Leave of Mary, the Announcement of Christ's
Arrest to the Virgin, the Road to Calvary, the Erection
of the Cross, the Crucifixion, and the Entombment. Again
arranged counterclockwise chronologically, the scenes
serve to establish a historical framework. It is sig-
nificant that the archivolt does not relate the traditional
scenes of Christ's Passion--such a significant incident

as the Betrayal is omitted, for example-~but rather is a
compendium of events, during the period of the Passion,
directly related to the suffering of bgth Christ and Mary.

Wherever possible, Mary is shown in a posture of reciprocal

47

suffering with Christ, as can be evidenced in the grisailles

of the Road to Calvary and the Erection of the Cross.52

Originating in the vesperbild--the Northern

 

devotional image of Mary holding the dead Christ on her
1ap--this form of Lamentation, or Pieta, scene is the
tragic counterpart to the Madonna and Child motif, seen

53 In contrast to the tra-

in Roger's Adoration panel.
ditional German iconography, wherein the dead Christ is
usually proportionately smaller than Mary, the Italian
version presents a fusion of the Byzantine "Threnos,"
or last kiss motif, with a Madonna of Humility, showing
the Virgin holding the life-size dead body of Christ.54
Roger's scene cannot unequivocally be called a Pieta,
since the Pieta scene usually shows Mary alone with the
dead Christ,55 yet it is not rightfully a Lamentation at
the tomb: the Cross in the background indicates that the
body has just recently been deposed, and has not been
removed to the tomb. What Roger depicts, therefore, is
a suspended moment in time, partaking neither of corporal
time--it is specifically singled out from the historical
narrative of the archivolt--nor of earthly space. The
Gothic portico just materializes in the area between the
arch and Golgotha, implied by the Cross.

Inherent in the Lamentation scene is the com—

passionate nature of the Virgin Mary. The emotive quality

of the scene is emphasized by its juxtaposition with the

48

serene flanking scenes of the Adoration and the Appearance

of Christ to his mother,56

and by its stark frontality.
Mary's personal grief is central to this scene. By
Roger's time it had become an accepted theological tra-
dition to consider the Passion of Christ to be paralleled

by the compassion of the Virgin. As early as the Twelfth

 

Century, there was increased emphasis in Christian writings
on Mary's own suffering at the Cross, due in part to the
more important role played by Mary in the Christian

religion.57

This is especially evident in the appearance
of the motif of the Seven Sorrows of the Virgin, which
correspond to seven of Christ's Stations of the Cross.
These sorrows have traditionally been likened to thrusts

of a sword into Mary's heart.58

Thus, Mary herself came
to be regarded as an active participant in the act of
redemption.59 According to Otto von Simson, the term

co-redemptio had been employed in relation to Mary in the

 

early Fourteenth Century, but the formulation of a single

concept combining compassio and co-redemptio arises con-

 

 

temporaneous with Roger, in the writings of Bernardine of
Siena (d. 1444) and Denis the Carthusian, who stresses
Mary's active role in the act of redemption, through her
compassion, that is, her suffering at the foot of the
Cross, and spoke of her with the epithet, Salvatrix

Mundi.60

 

49

The Speculum humanae salvationis was probably

 

Roger's immediate source for the expression of the notion
of compassion in reference to Mary, yet he undoubtedly
drew also from a long tradition of mystical writings on

61 It is precisely in the scene of the Lamen-

the topic.
tation where the Speculum first elaborates on the theme of
compassion:
The last chapitle tofore / told cristis
passionne
Heres now his moderes doel / and rewth-
fulle compassionne.62
Later, the Speculum speaks of Mary's heart pierced by her
compassion, of her head compassionately pierced by the
crown of thorns, and of a "swerde of sharpest tongues"
63

piercing her soul.

The Speculum humanae salvationis also refers to

 

the role of Mary parallel to that of Christ, in the

redemptive work. Following Christ's descent into Limbo

the Speculum says:

Herd nowey crist ouercome / the feende be
his passionne

Heres how our ladye ouercome / hym be
compassionne.64

But especially in the Lamentation chapter the author of
the Speculum requests an eternal life for all the faithful
together with Christ, following the example of Mary.65

Otto von Simson has, it seems accurately, characterized

50

the relationship of the theological doctrine of co-
redemption to the Fifteenth Century Christian in the

following words:

If Mary was believed to have partaken of Christ's
sacrifice because of her poignant share in his
sufferings, it was not the abstract theological
doctrine that moved the late Middle Ages but its
meaning in terms of human experience. Or rather,
the doctrine had to be lived to become effective.
In order to earn the fruits of Passion and Com-
passion, the faithful must be able to relive them
empathically.66

Roger expressed the very same sentiment in his Escorial

Deposition, executed at roughly the same time as the
67

 

Altarpiece g: the Virgin.

 

 

This, then, is Roger's instructive message in the
center panel of the Altarpiece gf,thg Virgin: imitate
Mary68 in her humility, suffering, and compassion, and
she will, with her power as protectress of and mediatress
for men at the Judgment, lead men to eternal life with
God. This theme, as the corresponding one in the Adoration
panel, is reiterated in the inscription on the scroll held
by the angel: "This woman was most faithful in the
Passion of Christ, therefore there is given to her the
crown of life; from the Second Chapter of Revelation."69

Saint Matthew stands on the left jamb of the arch,
indicating that the historical and doctrinal pivotal event,

the death of Christ, occurs within, and that the Old

Testament prophecies have been fulfilled. (Matthew, it

51

is to be remembered, wrote for the Jews and makes frequent
reference in his Gospel to the Old Testament prophecies.)
In contrast, John the Evangelist appears on the left jamb.
The one Evangelist believed to have witnessed the actual
events of the Passion of Christ, he steps outside of him-
self, from the scene within the arch, to record the events
and their significance for history. This further empha-
sizes the historicity of the grisaille scenes on the arches.
Yet if one recalls the tendency to regard John the Evan-
gelist and John, author of the Book of Revelation, as one
and the same, this figure also points to the pivotal impor-
tance of the death of Christ, in its forward-looking sig-
nificance as a prelude to the Resurrection and ultimately
the Second Coming of Christ. On the one hand, Matthew
represents the old order of the Old Testament, and on

the other, John represents the eternal new order to come.
This theme is embellished by the background motifs. A
capital depicts the Expulsion of Adam and Eve from Para-
dise, a scene which looks back to the original sin neces-

70

sitating the sacrifice of Christ, looks to the present

as a prefiguration of the Lamentation (referring to the

l and looks

grief of Adam and Eve over the death of Abel),7
to the future when Christ and Mary will be enthroned as
the new Adam and Eve. Perhaps, too, the medieval town in
the distant landscape background hints at the vision of

the Heavenly Jerusalem proposed by John in the Book of

52

Revelation. The vision of the New Jerusalem, equated with
the Church, would denote another reference to Mary in her
capacity as the personification of the Church.

In terms of liturgical significance, the scenes
of the center panel comprise the second great portion of
the Church year--the Passion cycle—-stopping short of the
Resurrection. The Lamentation is an obvious allusion to
the sacrifice of the Mass and the sacrament of the Eucharist.
As no coincidence, this portion of the altarpiece would be
situated in direct relation to the position of the Eucharis-
tic comestibles on the altar, and in turn to the act of
consecration--the most sacred part of the Mass-~which occurs
before the altar. The stark Cross in the center of the
panel could almost act as the Cross at the back of the
altar, by its frontal position. The Passion of Christ,
then, not only occupies a period of time in the cycle of
the entire Church year, but also occurs continually on
a daily basis, in the sacrifice of the Mass. The single
stylized vegetal capital with a pattern of grapes which
appears in each of the three panels in the altarpiece
alludes to the Passion of Christ as it is celebrated in
the daily cyclical ritual of the Mass, in the sacrament
of communion.

Expectedly, the Eucharistic symbolism of the panel
includes the Virgin Mary. In mariological thought, the

Virgin was likened not only to the tabernacle of the

53

Eucharist, but also to the altar table itself, upon which

72

the Eucharistic elements were placed. As the holy

receptacle of the divine Christ in human form at the
Incarnation, Mary was also viewed as the mystical vessel

73

which housed the body and blood of Christ. Thomas a

Kempis, in the Imitation g: Christ, likens the faithful

 

person partaking of the sacrament to the Virgin Mary at
the moment she conceived--or received Christ--in her body:

0 Lord my God, my Creator and my Redeemer, I do

desire to receive Thee this day, with such

affection, reverence, praise and honour, with

such gratitude, worthiness and love, with such

faith, hope and purity, as Thy most holy Mother,

the glorious Virgin Mary, received and desired

Thee, when . . . the Angel . . . declared unto

her glad tidings of the mystery of the Incar-

nation. .
Therefore, our imitation of Mary's humility and purity may
be extended to include our participation in the celebration
of the Mass. It must be remembered, also, that it is
through the communion of the faithful that the principal
work of redemption is carried out on a continuing basis.
One must again regard the Virgin Mary in her capacity as
a redemptress almost equal in significance to Christ as
a redemptor.75

The Passion and death of Christ lead invariably

to his Resurrection, a scene greatly elaborated in the

right-hand panel of Roger's Altarpiece gf the Virgin.

 

The main scene is instantaneously recognizable as

54

atypical in Christian iconography: the Appearance of
Christ to Mary following the Resurrection. Equally
unusual is the relegation of the Resurrection itself to
the middle distant landscape background. The Appearance
takes place in an ecclesiastical setting almost identical
to the setting of the Adoration in the left—hand panel.
Again, the scene is juxtaposed with the archivolt scenes,
where Roger attempts to historicize the miraculous events
from the Resurrection through the death of the Virgin:
the Three Maries Taking Leave of the Virgin to go to the
Tomb, the Ascension, Pentecost, the Annunciation of the
Virgin's Death, the Death of the Virgin, and the Coronation
of the Virgin.

The viewer is introduced, via Saint Mark on the
left jamb, to the sacred realm beneath the arch. Mark's
gospel, we shall recall, ends abruptly at the tomb, when
the angel announces to Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of
James, and Salome that Christ has risen from the dead
(Mark 16:1-8). The scenes of the Resurrection and the
Appearance of Christ to his Mother on Roger's panel form
a completion to Mark's Gospel. Doctrinally, of course,
these scenes mark a new beginning--a rebirth, as it were——
and one is reminded of the, "I am the Alpha and the Omega,
the beginning and the end," of Revelation 21:6. The

Resurrection marks the actual fulfillment of the promise

55

of redemption, and for this reason the theme of the third
panel is theologically the most important of the three
presented on the altarpiece.

The question is, however, why did Roger choose the
unconventional scene of the Appearance to illustrate so
crucial a concept in Christian doctrine as redemption?
James D. Breckenridge has studied extensively the icono-
graphical sources for the scene, and has concluded that
Roger's unusual presentation of the Resurrection and
Appearance scenes possibly indicates that he combined

two iconographical sources: the Meditationes of Pseudo-

 

Bonaventura, and a Spanish type specifically of Catalan
origin.76
Although the scene is not related in any canonical
or apocryphal gospel, the early Church had found ambiguous
gaps in scripture where it was possible to assume at least
Mary's passive presence at certain events in the life of
Christ. In fact, as the Virgin Mary's cult grew in
importance in the Church, it became increasingly more
objectionable for her to be omitted from the major gospel

events.77 One of these events was the Resurrection.

Jacobus de Voragine states in the Golden Legend that "it

 

is the common belief that Our Lord appeared first of all

to the Virgin Mary."78

The legend related by Pseudo-
Bonaventura represents this tradition that Christ

appeared first to Mary, following the Resurrection, and

56

it is generally accepted that Roger used this immediate

79 In this account, Mary

literary source for his painting.
remains at home while Mary Magdalene, Jacob, and Salome
take leave of her to go bearing ointments to the tomb of
Christ. Mary is mournfully praying to God, asking that her
son Jesus be restored alive, when he appears to her in
“alther whiteft [sic] clothes" and greets her. Mary
spontaneously kneels, asking if it is really Jesus. He
kneels also, and they embrace and kiss, after which they
sit together and Jesus tells his mother of his descent

into hell to deliver the righteous after the Crucifixion.80
Roger obviously does not adhere strictly to this source.
His setting is more ecclesiastical than domestic. And
Christ approaches cautiously, perhaps representing a slight
conflation of this event with the Ngli_mg tangere scene.81
Christ wears red in Roger's scene, instead of white. This
is probably a reference to medieval mystery plays in which
Jesus would be dressed in a violet tunic during his life,
but would always wear a red cloth following the Resur-
rection. Since the mystery plays were presented with the

82 it is likely that Roger was

same costumes everywhere,
familiar with this tradition, and indeed Christ appears
dressed in red both in the Resurrection scene itself and
in the Appearance scene.

Despite these differences, it seems unmistakable

that Roger's main source for his composition was the

57

83 In the upper left grisaille

Pseudo-Bonaventura account.
group on the archivolt, the Three Maries take leave of
Christ's mother, and they reappear in the distant background
of the landscape as they approach the tomb. They have left
Mary alone to pray, unaware of the fact that by the time
they are to reach the tomb, it will have already been
vacated. Meanwhile, Mary has noticeably been surprised
while praying, and tears are still fresh on her face.
Curiously, though, the actual scene of the Resur-
rection is shown in the background. Its presence there may
be explained by Roger's attempt to make it explicit that
Christ appeared figgt to the Virgin Mary, as he is shown
in the Virgin's dwelling. The tomb in the background has
been recently vacated, before the Three Maries reach it.
But more precisely, it seems, the Resurrection is there to
accommodate the uniquely Spanish variant of the scene,
probably upon the donor's request, or in consultation with
theologians helping Roger with the project.84 This
Spanish type seems to bear no relation to that of Pseudo-
Bonaventura. Instead, it adds Mary to the Resurrection
scene itself, by depicting her looking through a window
or doorway adjacent to the garden of the Resurrection.85
In regard to Roger's composition, the Spanish viewer may
conclude that Mary had witnessed the Resurrection through

the open doorway at the back of the room, prior to Christ's

appearance to her. But, to be consistent with the spirit

58

of the other two major scenes on the altarpiece, and with
the quality of surprise on the face of the Virgin, the
Appearance of Christ to Mary was probably intended by
Roger to remain suspended in space and time: it is a
single instant existing independently of the Resurrection
scene in the background of the picture, and only dependent
on it in a symbolic way.

This use of the Appearance, rather than the Resur-
rection, as the main focus of attention in this panel,
is for the purpose of presenting the Virgin Mary again
as the focal point for contemplation and to emphasize her
compassionate role, this time specifically in redemption.
Roger, we recall, presents his complex theme on three
levels: (1) the exemplary life of the Virgin Mary; (2)
Mary's role as mediatress and protectress for each man
at his own individual moment of judgment; and (3) the
role of the Church--where Mary is seen as the Church--in
the redemptive process and eternal life. Each of these
levels has been dealt with in one way or another already
in the thematic study of the left and center panels of the

Altarpiece g: the Virgin.

 

 

The first category, the exemplary life of the
Virgin, has been anticipated in the two previous panels
by emphasis on Mary's humility and endurance. The end
result, here shown in the scene of the Appearance, is the

answer to Mary's prayers and hopes--the resurrected Christ.

59

The ultimate result of her perseverance is seen in the
upper right archivolt scene, where she is shown enthroned
for eternity by the side of her son. The inscription on
the scroll held by the angel also indicates the worthiness
of Mary to be invested with life eternal: “This woman
persevered, conquering everything, therefore has been
given to her a crown; from the Sixth Chapter of Reve-

86 This is a reminder to the faithful that in

lation."
imitating Mary's example they, too, can earn a place in
eternal life with Christ, that their prayers will be
answered and their hopes fulfilled.

The second category-~Mary's redemptive role for
each individual-~13 intimately connected to the first.
That is, by leading a life of faith and humility, the
faithful person will merit Mary's protection and mediation
in his favor at the moment of his death. In Roger's panel
the idea of ggfredemption is expressed by Mary's reciprocal
response to Christ's gesture of raised hands. Here we

are again reminded of Denis the Carthusian's epithet for

Mary as the Salvatrix Mundi, to refer to her compassionate

 

role in the redemption of the righteous.

The third level of meaning, encompassing the role
of the Church in the redemptive process and in eternal
life, is introduced by the use of the symbol of the
ecclesiastical architectural setting to indicate not

only that Mary is i3 the Church, but that she is the Church.

60

The ecclesiastical setting is only now fully revealed to
the viewer--the cloth of honor in the Adoration panel has
been removed--just as the founding of the Church occurred
in the days after Christ's Resurrection. This theme is
embellished by the presence on the jamb of the figure

of Saint Paul, in his capacity as an original father of
the Church. The empty pedestal above the doorway leading
into the landscape is also a reference to the Church. As

it is likewise used in the Friedsam Annunciation, this
87

 

niche waits for Christ. Unborn in the Annunciation

painting, Christ is risen in Roger's panel, to take his

place as the "keystone," or founder and head of the Church.
The Old Testament scenes on the capitals of the

columns, in turn, serve to stress the power of the Church

over the forces of the devil. They are types presented

 

in the Speculum humanae salvationis and the Biblia Pauperum
as prefigurations for New Testament events. David's
victory over Goliath is a prefiguration for the temptation
of Christ, according to the Speculum,88 and for Christ's

victorious descent into Limbo, in the Biblia Pauperum.89

 

In both sources the story of Samson and the Lion prefigures
Christ's descent into Limbo and his triumph there over the
devil in order to free the righteous.90 Again in both
sources, the tale of Samson carrying off the gates of

Gaza serves to prefigure Christ's Resurrection, and in

the Speculum it is made clear that the Resurrection of

61

Christ is equated with man's redemption.91 Each one of

these themes, however, may also be applied to the Church.
It shall endure, victorious over evil, and its faithful
members shall partake of eternal life: they shall be
resurrected, or born anew, at baptism first of all, and
after death at the Last Judgment. The viewer is reminded
again of the inscription on the scroll held by the angel,
which may now be read as the Church having "persevered,
conquering everything." In Christian thought, the Church
will always endure; it will never turn to dust, just as
Mary was assumed bodily into Heaven and never turned to
dust. Christ has conquered the flesh in his Resurrection
and his Ascension; Mary has conquered the flesh in her
Assumption; and the Church, at the Second Coming, will be
established to reign eternally as the New Jerusalem.

In the Carthusian rite of the Mass, the participant
is asked, after the Communion, to re-contemplate the
Incarnation, when the celebrant reads the prologue to the

Gospel of John:92

"In the beginning was the WOrd, and the
Word was with God, and the WOrd was God," etc. With this,
the Mass participant is reminded that Christ is born as
the WOrd, sacrificed each day in the Mass, and born anew
to be sacrificed the next day. Thus, the Mass is the
active reliving of the redemptive process.

As a whole, the scenes depicted on this panel

complete the cycle of the Church year proposed in the

62

previous two. As much as they indicate a completion,

they also signify a new beginning, consistent with the

theme of the Resurrection. The faithful viewer will think
once again of the Incarnation. It had been suggested, in
the Fourth Century, by Saint Ambrose of Milan, that Christ's
resurrection from his tomb symbolically repeats his birth.93
Saint Jerome has written of a similar concept and elaborated
it to say that both Mary's womb and the tomb of Christ were
the purest of containers for the body of Christ; neither

94 In subtle

were used either before or after Christ.
reference to this point of view, there are two annunci-
ations on this panel: the angel at the tomb in the back-
ground of the main scene will very shortly announce the
resurrection of Christ to the approaching figures of the
Three Maries, while on the archivolt Mary is notified of
her imminent death. It is interesting to note that the
angel in this latter scene is not Gabriel, who announced
the Incarnation, but rather Michael, traditionally the
archangel of judgment and triumph over the devil. Mary
is therefore being given her eternal role, as the Church,
in judgment and conquering of evil.

As we have seen, all three panels of Roger's

Altarpiece g£ the Virgin strongly emphasize Mary's role

 

 

in each of the major series of events presented: the
Incarnation, the Passion, and the Resurrection. Signifi-

cantly, the last scene chronologically on the

63

altarpiece-~the Coronation of the Virgin which appears

on the upper right archivolt of the right-hand panel--
holds a crucial place in mariological cult doctrine, and
within this doctrine is almost equal in importance to the
Resurrection itself. The scene of Mary's glorious Coro-
nation, though not in the canonical biblical texts, is
recounted in an apocryphal source, which has been popu-

larized in the Golden Legend.95 Roger depicts Mary

 

crowned by the Trinity, a motif which appeared when the
Virgin Mary reached the height of her theological impor-
tance.96 This motif is symbolically repeated in the
triple crowns held by the angels in the three arches.

The Coronation expresses again the value of Mary's
central role in the redemptive process. It is essential
to this doctrine to remember that Mary shares equally in
the glory, as well as the suffering of Christ. The faith-
ful, in turn, are exhorted to share in Christ's suffering
through contemplation of his Passion and through active
participation in the Mass, and to emulate and imitate the
exemplary life of the Virgin Mary. Only in doing this
will they be able to attain eternal glory, through the
intercession of the Virgin. This theme is visually
expressed by the upward movement of the viewer's eyes as
he contemplates the three final scenes of the archivolt,

97

those relating to Mary's Assumption. This theme is

64

particularly appropriate for the members of the Carthusian
order, as those members generally spent their lives in
silent contemplation of union with the divine.

The Altarpiece g: the Virgin assumes a broader

 

 

interpretation when considered in terms of the mystical-
religious feeling of the time. Although the chief vehicles
of religious experience in the Carthusian community were
silent meditation and the celebration of daily Mass in the
solitude of the monk's cell, it was not contrary to the
aims of the order for the monastic community to perform

98 It is equally not unusual,

works of a more public type.
then, for an altarpiece in a Carthusian monastery to bear

a theme relating to the universal Church and to the mission
of that Church.

The relationship of Roger van der Weyden to the
Carthusian writers and to the mystics of the Late Middle
Ages may seem tenuous and at best hypothetical, yet it is
highly likely that Roger was aware of the currents of
religious thought circulating in the North of Europe
during the Fifteenth Century. Denis the Carthusian,
Roger's almost exact contemporary (1402-03 - 1471), was a
theologian and prolific mystical writer who lived in both
Belgium and Holland. Seeking a union with God through
eternal love and wisdom, Denis's writings can be associated

with earlier mystical trends of thought.99

65

He was probably most influenced by the writings of
Pseudo-Dionysus, but was also attentive to the writings
of Jan van Ruysbroek and the German mystics, advocating
the contemplative life in search of divine illumination.100
It is interesting to note that the group known as the
Brethren of the Common Life seem to have been equally
attentive to both the teachings of the Carthusians and
those of Ruysbroek. Gerhard Groote, the founder of the
Brethren, made a special pilgrimage to visit Ruysbroek.
And several of the leaders of the Brethren-~including
Groote--spent some time at a Carthusian monastery.101 It
appears that these mystical-~and quite ascetic--religious
attitudes were probably well known throughout the Nether-
lands by the Fifteenth Century.102 Moreover, the ideas
of Ruysbroek and the Carthusians seem to be mutually com-
patible.

The type of spiritual contemplation advocated by

Ruysbroek leads to rebirth for the soul of the holy person.

In The Sparkling Stone, he says: "For we must die to sin

 

and be born of God into a life of virtue, and we must
renounce ourselves and die in God into an eternal life."103
The drama of the Resurrection, then, is an integral part
of the theological basis of his mysticism. Ruysbroek
speaks not only in terms of an exemplary life for each

man so that he will merit life after death, but also in

an apocalyptic sense of being reborn at the Last Judgment

66

into an eternal life as one with God. Ruysbroek suggests
that the faithful person do this by pious meditation.
And, if the person goes about this in the most humble way,
he may be able to achieve the unity of his soul with God,
even during his life, which is the ultimate reward for his
faith:

But when we transcend ourselves, and become, in

our ascent toward God, so simple that the naked

love in the heights can lay hold of us, where

love enfolds Tove, above every exercise of virtue--

that is, in our Origin of which we are spiritually

born--then we cease, and we and all our selfhood

die in God . . . and find a new life within us:
and that is eternal life.104

In The Spiritual Espousals, Ruysbroek speaks of

 

three comings of Christ: first, his historical coming,
in order to redeem mankind; second, the daily coming of
Christ "in every loving heart"; and third, his coming

105

in judgment at the hour of death. If we bear in mind

that Roger's Altarpiece gf the Virgin is conceived as a

 

 

spiritual exercise of sorts, comprising the salient points
of Church doctrine, we are able to read into Roger's
altarpiece the three comings of Christ. The first panel,
depicting the Adoration of the Infant Jesus by the Virgin
Mary, refers to the event known as the Nativity, or
Christ's historical birth, and therefore alludes to
Ruysbroek's notion of the first coming of Christ.

Roger's second panel, we shall recall, deals with

the Passion and death of Christ, and the Eucharistic

67

significance of his act of suffering. Ruysbroek empha-
sizes Christ's inner "humility, charity and suffering in

106

patience," as a call for compassion on the part of the

faithful in order to attain union with God. Indeed, for
Ruysbroek compassion is one of the highest virtues,107
corresponding to much of the Marian mysticism of the
Fourteenth and Fifteenth Centuries. The interrelated

concepts of Passion and Compassion which Roger has

expressed in the center panel of the Altarpiece gf the

 

Virgin correspond to the second coming of Christ which

occurs every day in the hearts of the faithful in the

Eucharistic celebration of the Mass, which is the com-

memoration of the sacrifice of Christ on the Cross.
Roger's right-hand panel alludes to the Parousia

in its focus on the events surrounding the Resurrection

of Christ. In the emphasis on judgment in both Roger's

panel and in Ruysbroek's notion of the third coming of

Christ, there is an apocalyptic quality: Christ will come

again as judge, and Mary--as his Bride-~will intercede

for the faithful. It must be remembered that through

all three of Roger's panels Mary shares the principal role

with Christ.108

U1timately--on the upper right archivolt--
she appears in a Coronation scene which is also a mystical
marriage uniting human flesh--Mary was assumed bodily

into Heaven--with the triple Godhead. Mary's identifi-

cation with the Church in the altarpiece is assured by the

68

obvious symbolism of the ecclesiastical architecture,
repeating the same general imagery he had used thrice
before in the earlier Madonna pictures of the 1430's.
It is part of Roger's genius that, although we are able
to relate each of his panels to one of the three comings
of Christ expressed by Ruysbroek, Roger is still able to
infuse each panel with an eternal quality, which lends
itself to a wide scope of interpretation.

The concept of Mary as the Church has a specific
meaning in relation to the Book of Revelation and, in

turn, in regard to Roger's Altarpiece gf the Virgin.

 

 

It is apparent that Roger intended the viewer to con-
template the meaning of this book of the New Testament,

as he carefully chose passages from Revelation to be
adapted to the Virgin Mary and placed on the scrolls
borne by the angels above the scenes of the Lamentation
and the Appearance of Christ to his mother. It is likely,
in fact, that Roger expected the viewers of the altar-
piece to be familiar with the original texts of all

three inscriptions on the triptych, and that they should
be able to extrapolate a deeper message from the work as
a whole, on the basis of these. This seems highly probable,
considering that the audience for the altarpiece was a
monastic community, educated in theology. One recalls
that the inscription over the Adoration panel reads:

"This woman was found most worthy and free from all

69

blemish, therefore she shall receive the crown of life."109

Adapted from James 1:12, the original text reads: "Blessed
is the man who endures trial, for when he has stood the
test he will receive the crown of life which God has pro-
mised to those who love him." Those who "endure trial"
recall the Christian martyrs so greatly praised in the
Book of Revelation, as the faithful person is asked to
withstand all tests in order to merit the reward of eternal
life.

The inscription over the Lamentation scene serves
to expound upon this apocalyptic theme. It is from
Revelation 2:10. Roger's inscription reads: "This
woman was most faithful in the Passion of Christ, there—
fore there is given to her the crown of life";110 yet
the Revelation passage states: "Behold the devil is
about to throw some of you into prison, that you may be
tested, and for ten days you will have tribulation. Be
faithful unto death and I will give you the crown of life."
The passage directly refers to Christ, and also to Mary,
her perseverance and ultimate union with God. The "test"
for Mary was the death of her Son; but she endured the
trial, and, as seen in the right panel of the altarpiece,
her hopes were fulfilled and her faith rewarded by the
visit of the resurrected Christ. This inscription, too,
asks that the faithful imitate Mary's perseverance so that

they might be rewarded with eternal life. But this time,

70

the urgency and seriousness of the message is stressed.
The faithful person is told to “be faithful unto death,"
thus emphasizing that the time for judgment to come is
approaching.

The most perplexing of the inscriptions-~that over
the Appearance scene--when deciphered serves to illuminate
the apocalyptic role of Mary as the Church, and as the
Bride of Christ. Roger's inscription reads: "This woman
persevered, conquering everything, therefore there has
been given to her a crown."111 Yet the original biblical
text, Revelation 6:2, is enigmatic when placed in the con—
text of the altarpiece: “And I saw, and behold, a white
horse, and its rider had a bow; and a crown was given to
him, and he went out conquering and to conquer." The
mysterious motif of the rider of the white horse appears
once again in the Book of Revelation, in Chapter 19:11-13:

Then I saw heaven opened, and behold a white horse!
He who sat upon it is called Faithful and True,

and in righteousness he judges and makes war. /
His eyes are like a flame of fire, and on his

head are many diadems; and he has a name inscribed
which no one knows but himself. / He is clad in a

robe dipped in blood, and the name by which he
is called is the Word of God.

It appears that the identity of the rider of the white
horse, in both Revelation l9 and 6 is Jesus Christ.112
The title of the rider is “The WOrd of God," which is a

reference to Christ. Further, the passage encompasses

71

both the Incarnation and Passion, the latter by the

allusion to Christ's death in the image of the "robe

dipped in blood." Christ himself also deserves the titles,
"Faithful and True," in regard to his faithfulness to God,
his Father. What Roger is saying by changing this apocalyp-
tic vision of Christ to Mary in his inscription, is that
both Christ and Mary will conquer together at the end of

the era.

The role played by the faithful is also illuminated
by further investigation of Roger's inscription from
Revelation 6:2. The second appearance of the rider of the
white horse is prefaced by an extraordinary set of nuptials.
In Revelation 19:7-8, the multitudes glorify the Lamb with
the following words:

"Let us rejoice and exult and give him
the glory,

for the marriage of the Lamb has come,

and his Bride has made herself ready; /

it was granted her to be clothed with
fine linen, bright and pure“--

for the fine linen is the righteous deeds

of the saints.

Deciphered, this scene represents the mystical marriage

of Christ to his Church, symbolized in Roger's altarpiece
by none other than the Virgin Mary. The "righteous deeds
of the saints" signifies, in contemporary terms, the con—

113

tinued faith of the members of the Church, and in this

case of the Charterhouse of Miraflores.

72

The certainty of Roger's apocalyptic message to
the faithful is intensified in light of the Speculum

humanag salvationis and the Biblia Pauperum. Both sources

 

 

end with a discussion of the Last Judgment. The Biblia
Pauperum, in its final section on the Reward of the
Righteous, refers the reader to the all-important

114 There, the

Chapter 21 of the Book of Revelation.
reader finds a discussion of the New Jerusalem. John
writes:

And / he said to me, “It is done! I am the

Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end.

To the thirsty I will give water without price

from the fountain of the water of life. / He

who conquers shall have this heritage, and I

will be his God and he shall be my son."

(Revelation 21:6-7)
And the angel says to John, "Come, I will show you the
Bride, the wife of the Lamb" (Revelation 21:9), referring
to the Holy City Jerusalem, that is, the Church. This
notion of the "water of life" and the theme of conquer-
ing115 relate directly to Roger's inscription above the
Appearance panel. An order may now be established,
according to which it can be understood that Christ has
suffered, endured trial, and attained eternal life with
his Father, followed in imitation by Mary, and, finally,
by the faithful members of the Church. This last idea

is ultimately stated in the Christian interpretation

of the Old Testament passages cited in the Biblia Pauperum

73

as prefigurations for the Reward of the Righteous. In an
excerpt from the Song of Songs (4:7), the bridegroom
addresses his spouse, saying that she will be crowned.
The passage from Isaiah (6:10) similarly alludes to a

bridegroom and a coronation. The Biblia Pauperum inter-

 

prets this for the reader, that Christ is the Bridegroom,
and the bride is the soul of the righteous person.116
There is an obvious reference here to the trend in
religious thinking of which Ruysbroek was but one

exponent.

NOTES--CHAPTER II

lPanofsky, Earl Netherlandish Painting, I,
pp. 261, 262, and 2 .

 

2Wehle and Salinger, A Catalogue gf Early Flemish
Paintings, p. 30.

 

 

 

3Davies states that this triptych is said to have
left Miraflores during the Napoleonic Wars, and that it
fell into the possession of General d'Armagnac. (See
Davies, Rogier van de£_Weyden, p. 214.)

 

4Panofsky, Earlnyetherlandish Painting, I, p. 461,
note 3 to p. 259.

 

5Roger van Schoute, La Chapelle Royale de Grenade,
Vol. VI of Les Primitifs Flafiands. I. Corpus 33 a
Peinture des Andiens Pa s-Bas Méfididnaux au QuIKzIEme
SiECIe (Brussels: OP 1cations du Centre National de
RecHerches "Primitifs Flamands," 1963), p. 92.

 

 

 

 

6Antonio Ponz, Viaje de Espafia, Vol. XII (1788),
pp. 57ff, cited by Davies, Rogfer van der Weyden, p. 214.

 

7

Jules Destrée, Roger de la Pasture van der We den,
Vol. I (Paris: Les Editions GT—vEE Oest, I930Y,_§T 95.
Panofsky (Early Netherlandish Paintin , I, p. 461, note 3
to p. 259) discusses Ponz's carefuI d1scrimination between
the actual Church record and the "belief" that it had
originally been a papal gift to Juan II.

 

8Panofsky prefers to call the altarpieces "genuine
duplicates"; that is, both were made in Roger's workshop,
and not separated by a great interval of time, the "Granada-
New York" work being the first of the two, and by Roger
himself. (Panofsky, Earl Netherlandish Painting, I,
p. 461, note 3 to p. 2 . FriedISfider (Early Netherlandish
Painting, II, p. 13) speaks of the two altarpieces asvbeing
exact and contemporaneous duplicates: "Whatever date is
assigned to the Miraflores altarpiece . . . applies to
the Granada altarpiece as well." And Leo van Puyvelde

 

 

74

75

makes a stylistic case for calling the altarpieces
"replicas" rather than "original" and “copy." ("Les
Primitifs Flamands a l'Exposition de Bruxelles," Revue
Bel e d'Archéologie et d'Histoire de l'Art, V [October,

, 3121T’ See al§3 J. Taubert,_"Die Beiden Marienal-
tare des Rogier van der Weyden," Pantheon, II (1960),
67ff.

 

 

9This theory is corroborated by Panofsky (Early
Netherlandish Painting, I, p. 247) who states that Roger
Ieft Campin's workshop on August 1, 1432. See also Paul
Lafond, Roger van der Weyden, Collection des Grands
Artistes dés Pays-Bas (Brussels and Paris: Librairie
Nationale d'Art et d'Histoire G. Van Oest et Cig, 1912),
p. 18. Nevertheless, some scholars have insisted on an
early date for the altarpiece, to accommodate such a papal
gift. But few recent writers would agree with this.
(Cf. A. J. Wauters, "Roger van der Weyden - I," Burlington
Magazine, XXII [October, 1912 - March, 1913], 76.)

 

 

 

10Destrée, Roger 93.13 Pasture, I, p. 96.

11Van Schoute (Schoute, La Chapelle Ro ale de
Grenade, p. 93) designates WinkIEr, FriedIander (ofIgi-
naIIy), Beenken, and Panofsky as among those scholars who
have held this opinion concerning the approximate date of
the original.

12Panofsky, Early Netherlandish Painting, I, p. 173.

 

l3Ibid., p. 258.

l4Ibid., p. 461, note 3 to p. 259.

15"Miraflores (Cartuja de Nuestra Sefiora de),"
Enciclopedia Universal Ilustrada Europeo-Americana, n.d.,
voI. XXXV, p. 789.

 

160. W. Previté-Orton and Z. N. Brooke, eds., The
Cambrid e Medieval History, V01. VIII: Th3 Close 2: E53
MiddIe Ages (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, I936),
p. 479.

 

17It would not be unusual, in light of Huizinga's
treatise, for a king so given to worldly enjoyments to
dedicate a monastery to such a world-denying order as the
Carthusians. (See J. Huizinga, The Waning 2: the Middle

 

 

76

Ages (Second ed.; Doubleday Anchor Books; Garden City,
N.Y.: Doubleday and Company, Inc., 1954), pp. 9—31
(Chapter I, "The Violent Tenor of Life“).

 

18"Miraflores," Enciclopedia Universal: XXXV,
p. 789.

199:. Note 3 (DaVieSr 59.21-19.11 3.92 991‘. MEI
p. 214).

20A. J. Wauters ("Roger van der Weyden - I,"
p. 82) states that the "Granada-New York" triptych passed,
upon the death of Juan II in 1454, to Enriquez IV, then
ultimately to Enriquez's daughter, Isabella.

21Davies (Rogier van der Weyden, p. 215) cor-
roborates the notion that—it was the copy which was given
to the convent in 1445. However, Davies insists Juan II
never owned the original at all, which seems highly
unlikely.

 

22Destrée, Roger fig 1a Pasture, I, p. 96, and
Van Schoute, L3 ChapeIIe RoyEIe d2 Grenade, p. 93.

 

23Hippolyte Fierens-Gevaert (Histoire de la
peinture flamande des origines a la fig du XVe‘EiEEle,
V61.72: ESE Eggtinuateurs ggg YEETE ck TFaEIE'and
Brussels: Les Editions G. van Oest, 27-29], p. 36)
makes the statement that the Miraflores convent received
the replica of the altarpiece in the year 1455, but
unfortunately gives no source for this assertion. I know
of no other scholar to support this.

 

 

 

24B. DuMoustier, "Carthusian Spirituality," Th3
New Catholic Encyclopedia, Prepared by an editorial staff
at The CatholiE University of America, Washington, D.C.
(New York: McGraw-Hill Book Company, 1967), V01. III,
pp. 161-62.

 

25Archdale A. King, Liturgies gf the Religious
Orders (Second ed.; London: Longmans, Green and Co.,
, p. 31.

 

 

26Birkmeyer, "The Arch Motif," p. 3.

77

27For a discussion of church portals Roger was
probably most familiar with, see Birkmeyer, "The Arch
Motif," p. 13, note 78, and the bibliography mentioned
therein.

28Birkmeyer, "The Arch Motif," p. 12.

291bid., p. 13.

30Theodore H. Feder, "A Reexamination Through
Documents of the First Fifty Years of Roger van der Wey-
den's Life," Art Bulletin, XLVIII (September-December,
1966), 430.

 

31Otto G. von Simson, "'Compassio' and 'Co-
redemptio' in Rogier van der Weyden's 'Descent from the
Cross,'" Art Bulletin, XXXV (1953), 14-15, and note 40,
where the reader is referred to Destrée, Roger de 12
Pasture, I, p. 68. —

 

32’ . . ’ .
E. de Moreau, S. J., H1sto1re de l'Egl1se en

Bel i ue, Vol. IV: L'Eglise aux Pa s—Ba§_SOus es dEEs
de’Bourgogne gt Charles-quint 1378-I559 (Brussels:
LTEdItion Universelle, S.A., 1949), p. 277.

 

 

 

 

33Birkmeyer ("The Arch Motif," p. 10, note 54)
states that Winkler (Die Altniederlandische Malerei,
Berlin, 1924, p. 75) was the first to take note 0f—this
source. Panofsky (Earieretherlandish Painting, I, p. 155)
states that Roger entered the workshop of Robert Campin
in 1427. We must remember that the Betrothal of the
Virgin was executed some years before that datET'EEEording
to Panofsky prior to the Dijon Nativity (p. 160), which
he dates 1420-25 (p. 159).

 

 

 

 

34Birkmeyer, "The Arch Motif," pp. 10-11.

3SIbid., p. 15.

36Schoute, La Chapelle Royale g2 Grenade, p. 90.

 

37(Pseudo-)Bonaventura, The Mirrour gf the Blessed
Lyf, trans. Nicholas Love before 1410, edfflby Lawrence F.
Powell (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1908), p. 47.

 

78

38Schoute, E3 Chapelle Royale g2 Grenade, p. 90.

 

39Birkmeyer, "The Arch Motif," p. 4.

4oSchoute, L3 Chapelle Royale g2 Grenade, p. 93.
The words of the Magnificat continue on Mary's robe
through the three panels of the altarpiece.

 

41(Pseudo-) Bonaventura, The Mirrour of the
Blessed Lyf, p. 47. Many Church writers'have-TeIt_that,
after EhE—Birth of Christ, Mary would not first be con-
cerned with the child's physical welfare, but would rather
want to worship him as God. For example, the Fourth
Century Ephraim Syrus speaks of Mary humbly praising the
child before offering him milk. (See Hirn, Sacred Shrine,
p. 358 and p. 533, note 17, where Ephraim Syrus is cited:
Opera, ed. Assemani, Syriace et latine, ii, p. 416, quoted
in Augusti, Denkwfirdigkeiten, i, p. 256.)

 

 

42Translated by Panofsky, Early Netherlandish

 

43Ibid., p. 261.

44Hirn, Sacred Shrine, p. 436.

45Millard Meiss, "Light as Form and Symbol in
Some Fifteenth-Century Paintings," Art Bulletin, XXVII
(1945), 177 and note 7 where he refers to Saint Fulgen-
tius, quoted by Livius, The Blessed Vir in in the Fathers
g£_the First Six Centuries, London, I999, pT—138:

 

 

 

 

46See Panofsky, Early Netherlandish Paintin , I,
p. 144, and Meiss, "Light as Form and Symbol," p. I36
and note 4.

47Hirn (Sacred Shrine, p. 343) cites the Seventh

Century Venantius Fortunatus, who compared Mary to a
Church with daylight shining through its windows: "Lumine

lena micans, imitata est aula Mariam. / Illa utero lucem,
glansi; e; 1s§a giem." (Quoted 5y H1rn from FdrtfifiatfigT'
De Leontio episco o, Patr. Lat. lxxxviii, col. 79, in
Sacred Shrine, p. 532, note 24. In addition, Saint
Brigitte (Revelations [Uppenbarelser], i, p. 3) gives a
detailed description of God entering "the body of the
Virgin just as the sun shines through the purest stone
or glass" (Hirn, p. 344 and p. 532, note 27).

 

 

 

 

 

79

48See text of the Biblia Pauperum, as presented
in its entirety in an appendix of A. N. Didron, Christian
Iconography, trans. E. J. Millington, appendices By
Margaret Stokes (New York: Frederick Ungar Publishing
Co., 1965), vol. II, p. 419, and Speculum Humanae Sal-
vationis (London: Privately printed from a manuscfipt in
the possession of Alfred Henry Huth, 1888), Chapter XXII,
p. 80.

 

 

 

49Biblia Pauperum, in appendix of Didron,
Christian Iconography, Vol. II, pp. 418-19.

 

 

5°Ibid., p. 419.

51Hirn, Sacred Shrine, p. 381, where this event
is discussed as the beginning of the type for Mary known
as the "mater dolorosa." According to Hirn, the sorrow
of Simeon's prophecy was a "first station on the way of
her suffering."

 

 

52The scenes of the Road to Calvary and the
Erection of the Cross are both recounted in the Pseudo-
Bonaventura account.

53Millard Meiss, "The Madonna of Humility," Art
Bulletin, XVIII (December, 1936), 253.

54Panofsky, Earieretherlandish Painting, I,
pp. 261-62.

 

55Réau, Iconographie dg’l'Art Chrétien, Vol. II
Part Two, p. 103.

 

 

56Destrée, Roger g2 i3 Pasture, I, p. 97.

57Hirn, Sacred Shrine, p. 392.

 

58Réau, Iconographie d3 l'Art Chrétien, V01. II
Part Two, p. 58. The Speculum humanae salvatiOnis also
includes the Seven Sorrows.

 

 

 

59Hirn, Sacred Shrine, p. 393.

 

80

60Simson,,(“Compassio' and 'Co-redemptio,'"
p. 14, note 36) refers to 22 Dignitate gt Laudibus B. V.
Mariae, II, 23 (Opera Omnia, XXXVI, Tournai, 1908, p. 99).
Pseudo—Bonaventuraihad made use of this notion, when in
the scene of the Crucifixion, Christ speaks to God the
Father about his mother: "My fader/ e knowth how my moder
is turmentid for me: I fchulde [sic onely be crucified
and nouat fche but loo now fche hongeth on the croff
with me." ([Pseudo-] Bonaventura, The Mirrour of the
Blessed Lyf, p. 240). _—'-__'

 

 

 

 

 

61For a discussion of this tradition, see Otto
G. von Simson, "'Compassio' and 'Co-redemptio,'" pp. 9-16.

62Speculum Humanae Salvationis, Chapter XXVI,

 

p. 92.

63Ibid., Chapter XXX, p. 105.

64Ibid., Chapter xxx, p. 105.

65Ibid., Chapter xxvr, p. 95.

66Simson, "'Compassio' and 'Co-redemptio,'" p. 15.

67Ibid., p. 9ff. See also Blum, Early Nether-
1andish Tri t chs, for chapter on the Edelheer Altarpiece,
By a follower of Roger van der Weyden.

 

681n terms of "imitating," Otto von Simson draws
attention to the writings of Thomas a Kempis in relation
to the art of Roger van der Weyden. (Simson, ”'Compassio'
and 'Co-redemptio,'" p. 14 and note 39.) See Thomas a
Kempis, Of the Imitation of Christ, Vol. XLIX of The
W0rld's CIaSEics (London:_-Oxford University Pres§7_1903).

 

69Translated by Panofsky, Early Netherlandish
Painting, I, p. 260.

7OIbid.

71Speculum Humanae Salvationis, Chapter XXVI, p. 93.

 

72Hirn, Sacred Shrine, p. 460.

 

81

73In a similar way, Jan van Eyck conceives of Mary
as the altar, by placing her, in the Madonna of Can0n van
der Paele and the Dresden Tri t ch, at the po§ition in the
Church wfiere the aItar sHouId Be Iocated.

 

74It is quite likely that Roger was familiar with
the ideas expressed in Thomas a Kempis's book. His book
seems to have been a compendium of ideas of many thinkers
of the time. (Albert Hyma, The Christian Renaissance
[Second ed.; Hamden, Connecticut: Archon Books, 1965],
pp. 50-51.) Although Thomas a Kempis was a member of the
group known as the Brethren of the Common Life, it is
possible that Roger was aware of their intellectual output.
A house of the Brethren was founded in 1422 in Brussels,
one in Ghent in 1429, and one in Louvain in 1433. (Moreau,
L'Eglise SE Belgigue, Vol. IV, p. 284.) Their members
often joined August1nian monasteries (Hyma, p. 47), and
worked at copying manuscripts and editing books to earn
their means of subsistance (Moreau, p. 285). Roger may
have come into contact with their ideas through any of
these means.

 

75Hirn, Sacred Shrine, p. 73.

 

76James D. Breckenridge, "'Et Prima Vidit': The
Iconography of the Appearance of Christ to His Mother,"
Art Bulletin, XXXIX (1957), 24.

 

77Ibid., p. 10.

78Ibid., p. 16 and note 44: see Golden Legend
gf Jacobus de Voragine, trans. and adapted from Latin'by
Granger Ryafi_and HeImut Ripperger (London: Longmans,
Green and Co., 1941), p. 221.

 

79Breckenridge, "'Et Prima Vidit,'" p. 9 and
Panofsky, Early Netherlandish Painting, I, pp. 262-63.
For a discuss1on_5f the earIy proponents of this tra-
dition, see Breckenridge, p. 9ff.

 

80(Pseudo-) Bonaventura, The Mirrour g: the
Blessed Lyf, pp. 261-64.

 

81Panofsky, Early Netherlandish Painting, I, p. 263.

 

82

 

82Emile Méle, L'Art Religieux de la Fin du M0 en
Age 33 France (Paris: Librairie Armand-CEIin, 1922),
p. 6 .

83According to Breckenridge ("'Et Prima Vidit,'"
p. 17) Saint Brigitte mentions this scene of Pseudo-
Bonaventura's in her Revelations, and Ludolf the Car-
thusian of Saxony (Vita Jesu Christi) says basically the
same thing .

 

 

84This is the general opinion held by Breckenridge,
Ibid., p. 24.

85Ibid., p. 21.

86Translated by Panofsky, Earleretherlandish
Painting, I, p. 260.

 

87Erwin Panofsky, ”The Friedsam Annunciation and
the Problem of the Ghent Altarpiece," Art Bulletin, XVII
(1935), 450, and Panofsky, Early NetherIandisH Painting,
I, p. 134.

 

88Speculum Humanae Salvationis, Chapter XIII,

 

p. 52.

89Biblia Pauperum, in appendix of Didron,
Christian IconograpHy, II, p. 421.

 

 

908 eculum Humanae Salvationis, Chapter XXIX,
p. 103, and BiEIia Paupgrum, in appendix of Didron,
Christian Iconography, II, p. 421.

 

 

91Speculum Humanae Salvationis, Chapter XXXII,
pp. 111-13, and Biblia Pauperum, in appendix of Didron,
Christian Iconography, II, p. 421.

 

 

 

92King, Liturgies g; the Religious Orders, p. 57.
This particular part of the Mass would only be practiced
in the common Mass celebrated in the main chapel, but not
by the single monk celebrating Mass in the privacy of his
cell.

93Breckenridge, "'Et Prima Vidit,'" p. 15.

83

94Hirn, Sacred Shrine, p. 337 and p. 531, note 8,
where Saint Jerome is quoted from Epistola 48,‘A§'Pamma-
chium, pro libris contra Jovinianum (Patr. Lat. xxii,

coI. 510?:

 

 

 

95Réau, Iconographie dg_l'Art Chrétien, V01. II
Part Two, p. 621.

 

 

96Réau (Ibid., p. 623) states that the development
within the cult of Mary, of her role in the Coronation
began with her being crowned simply by an angel; she rose
in importance to being crowned by Christ, then by God the
Father alone, and finally by the entire Trinity.

97Panofsky, Early Netherlandish Painting, I, p. 261.

 

983. DuMoustier, "Carthusian Spirituality," New
Catholic Encyclopedia, Vol. III, p. 161.

 

99"Denis the Carthusian,“ New Catholic Encyclo-
pedia, Vol. IV, pp. 764-65. Otto von Simson generalIy
agrees that Roger must have had some contact with Denis's
writings ("'Compassio' and 'Co-redemptio,'" p. 9ff).

 

looMoreau, L'Eglise en Belgique, IV, p. 350.

101Hyma, Christian Renaissance, pp. 91-92.

 

102For a point of view similar to mine, see Simson,
"'Compassio' and 'Co-redemptior'" P- 9ff-

103Ray C. Petry, Late Medieval Mysticism, V01. XIII
in The Library pf Christ1an Classics (Lond0n: SCM Press,

1957), p. 396.
104

 

 

Ibid., p. 307.

105Ruysbroek, §piritual Espousals, p. 52.

 

106Ibid., p. 57.

107Ibid., p. 68.

84

108Réau suggests that the legend of Mary's life
has little, if any, historicity to it. He says that it
is conceived of as an imitation of the life of Christ.
She was conceived free from original sin, like Christ;
she was taken bodily into heaven, just as Christ; and
Thomas doubted her Assumption, just as he had doubted
Christ's Resurrection. Also, both Christ and Mary preside
at the Last Judgment to intercede for sinners. (Réau,
Iconographie de 1' Art Chrétien, Vol. II Part Two, p. 57. )
The idea 18 that men —sHEEId emulate the exemplary, sin-
free life of Mary.

 

109Translated by Panofsky, Early Netherlandish

 

llOIbid., p. 260.

lllIbid. Cf. Wehle and Salinger, A Catalogue of
Early Flemish Paint1ng, p. 32, where they propose a dif:
ferent reading of the Latin inscription, thus translating
the passage in the following way: "This woman fulfilled
all things triumphantly; therefore a crown was given unto
her."

 

 

112The Oxford Annotated Bible, Revised Standard
Version, ed. By Hefbert GT May and Bruce M. Metzger
(College ed.; New York: Oxford University Press, 1962),
p. 1496, note to Rev. 6:2.

 

113Ibid., p. 1508, notes to Rev. 19:7-8.

114Biblia Pauperm in appendix of Didron,
Christian Iconography, II, pp. 429- 30.

 

 

115Pseudo-Bonaventura related the same idea of
conquering in his scene of the Annunciation. The angel
Gabriel says that Christ will be the "grete conquerour
in my tily the deuel ouercomynge" (The Mirrour of AAA
Blessed Ayf, p. 28). '_—

 

116Biblia Pau erum, in appendix of Didron,
Christian Iconograpfiy, II, pp. 429-30.

 

CHAPTER III

PATRONAGE AND THE SAINT JOHN ALTARPIECE

In order to bring the Altarpiece g£ the Virgin into

 

 

correct perspective in relation to Roger's complete oeuvre,
it is necessary to search his known works for other
examples of an arched framework. One such work is the

Seven Sacraments Altarpiece in Antwerp.1 Although Mary

 

is present in the center panel, and is shown fainting--
in compassionate suffering--at the foot of the Cross, the
emphasis of this painting is quite different from the pre-
viously discussed paintings. The theme of the Church has
expanded beyond the symbol of Mary, and the theological
doctrines for which she stands, to include the sacraments
and their execution. This altarpiece, specifically dealing
with the seven sacraments, is conceived within an arched
format to indicate that the sacraments are the basis upon
which has developed the Church as a congregation.

That Roger is focusing on different elements in
Church doctrine from those expressed in the three Madonna

paintings of the 1430's and the Altarpiece pf the Virgin

 

 

is evident by the nature of an altarpiece depicting scenes
from the life of Saint John the Baptist. The scenes on
this triptych are contained within a triple arch format,

85

86

similar to that of the Altarpiece g; the Virgin. For a

 

 

long time, this work was thought to post-date the Altarpiece

pf the Virgin by only a short time, with some scholars

 

even going so far as to say that the Saint John Altarpiece
also came out of the convent of Miraflores.2 It was not
until G. Hulin de Loo noted in 1938 that the costumes on
the figures in the Saint John Altarpiece preclude a date
of earlier than 1445,3 that scholars began to focus on a

date significantly later than that of the Altarpiece g:

 

the Virgin, the original of which has been dated circa

 

1437-38.4 Panofsky has suggested a date of between 1452
and 1455,5 subsequent to Roger's trip to Italy in 1450,
which is documented by Bartolomeo Fazio in his biography
of Gentile de Fabriano.6 It seems, according to Theodore
H. Feder, that Roger travelled to Rome in the Jubilee Year
of 1450 in order to obtain indulgences for the soul of his
daughter who died in 1449 at the age of eighteen.7 While
in Italy, it is assumed that Roger journeyed to several
important centers of artistic production, notably Florence,
and that, while there, he came under the influence of
certain compositional innovations of the early Italian
Renaissance which are evident in his works after that
date.8 Although Panofsky implies that it is solely this
contact with Italian art which dictates the forms and style

in Roger's Saint John Altarpiece,9 it seems that this is

 

only partially true. It appears that the patronage of

87

the altarpiece played a far greater role in determining
subject matter and style of the altarpiece than has been
previously suggested.

The three panels of the altarpiece--a nonclosing
triptych now located in the Gemaldegalerie der Staatlichen
Museen, Berlin-Dahlem—-depict three major scenes in the
life of John the Baptist, each set before, and partially
under, a Gothic arched portal displaying grisaille archi-
volt scenes of subsidiary events in the Baptist's life,
in conjunction with selected scenes from the life of
Christ. Each panel measures 77 x 48 cm.10

The left panel depicts the Birth, or more precisely
the Naming of John the Baptist. Zacharias is shown writing
the name of the child, having been rendered dumb at the
annunciation of John's birth. The Virgin Mary--the only
haloed figure in the altarpiece--is shown holding the
newly named child. The middle ground reveals a Flemish
domestic interior, where Saint Elizabeth is in bed,
attended by a maid-servant. Through a narrow doorway in
the background can be seen two ladies, seemingly discussing
the joyous birth. The center panel illustrates the Baptism
of Christ by John, assisted by a single angel. In the sky,
an image of God the Father appears, holding a scroll-like

1 ("And lo, a voice

inscription based on Matthew 3:171
from heaven, saying, 'This is my beloved son, with whom I

am well pleased.'“). The dove of the Holy Spirit hovers

88

in the sky between God the Father and Jesus. The background
opens up on a broad landscape vista. The main scene in the
third panel depicts the Decapitation of Saint John and

the receiving of the head of the saint by the daughter of
Herodias. Two court attendants appear in a hallway in

the middle ground, which leads to the banquet hall where
Herod and Herodias are shown feasting, as Salome kneels

and presents the head to them. Throughout the three panels,
the archivolt scenes can be read chronologically in a
clockwise fashion from lower left to lower right; this is
in strict contrast to the counterclockwise arrangement

chosen by Roger for the archivolt scenes in the Altarpiece

 

35 the Virgin.

 

The choice of subject matter in Roger's altarpiece--

that is, scenes from the life of John the Baptist--seems

to have been determined by the work's patron. A number of
scholars have identified the patron as one Baptiste (or
Battista) del Agnelli, who is said to have given an altar-
piece painted by Roger van der Weyden and depicting the

life of John the Baptist to the church of St-Jacques in
Bruges in the year 1476. He is designated as a merchant

12 Duclos, writing in 1910 on the history and

of Pisa.
character of the city of Bruges, confirms that Roger's

Saint John Altarpiece had stood on Baptiste del Agnelli's
13

 

altar in that church. In the year 1521, Dfirer recorded

a work by Roger in St-Jacques, but did not specify its

89

subject.14

This information, however, leaves little doubt

that Baptiste del Agnelli was the donor of the altarpiece.
Although the donor himself--due to lack of docu-

mentation--may not appear to have been highly renowned in

international circles, he seems to have come from a family

of well-known wool merchants in Pisa. We know of a Giovanni

dell'Agnello (d. 1378), head of this mercantile family,

who became doge of Pisa, and was banished from the city

in the 1360's by its citizens for his despotic rule. In

1370, he was allowed tentatively to return to Pisa. He

15 If Baptiste

spent the remainder of his life in Genoa.
was a descendant of Giovanni dell'Agnello, there are two

obvious reasons for his having commissioned an altarpiece
of Saint John the Baptist: (1) the saint is his personal
name saint; and (2) John the Baptist is stipulated as the
patron saint of wool merchants.16 It seems, then, that

the commission was made on the part of the donor, indepen-

dent of any organization.

As regards the donation of Roger's Saint John

 

Altarpiece to the church of St-Jacques in Bruges, an

 

interval of approximately twenty years elapsed between
the suggested date of execution of the altarpiece in the
1450's and the alleged date of its appearance in the
church in 1476. It is known that during a twenty-year
period roughly paralleling the above interval, the church

17

of St-Jacques was being renovated and enlarged. It is

90

difficult indeed, without documentation, to determine the
original purpose of the commission, but it is possible that
Baptiste del Agnelli had the donation of an altar or
chapel in mind when he ordered the altarpiece, but retained
it instead in his home in Bruges until reconstruction of
the church was completed.

It is evident, from the above information, that the

circumstances under which the Saint John Altarpiece was

 

commissioned are distinctly different from those surround-

ing the execution of the Altarpiece pi the Virgin. And

 

 

although both altarpieces share the triple arch format,
they are quite different in general conception. First,

Birkmeyer has remarked that in the Saint John Altarpiece

 

Roger has expanded the arch motif to represent a believable

18

church facade. This is consistent with the expansion of

this motif in the Seven Sacraments Altarpiece to represent

 

a believable church interior. In the Saint John Altarpiece

 

Roger has also arranged the archivolt scenes, as previously
mentioned, in chronological order in a clockwise fashion.
They are to be read from left to right, across the entire
altarpiece, as one would read a book, thus attaching a
certain rationality and element of worldly logic to their
arrangement. The increased movement of the figures within
the panels, and the amplification of space into multiple
interiors likewise adds a certain element of a narrative

approach to the work, which was absent in the Altarpiece

 

gi the Virgin.

 

91

The principal factor determining these differences
between the two works, which tend toward increased
naturalism and rationality of presentation in the Saint

John Altarpiece, has previously been said to be the

 

influences of Roger's Italian trip and consequent encounter

with the southern Renaissance.19

This may have been one
influence on Roger, but it seems that one must look to the
commission for the chief determinant. Roger had executed

the Altarpiece pi the Virgin in a purely devotional-

 

 

symbolic manner. The significance of the main event in
each panel was embellished by means of the typological
parallels on the capitals within the scene, and by its
relation to the historical framework of the archivolt
scenes. In these respects, the altarpiece was able to
make a direct appeal to the Carthusian monastic community
for which it was commissioned, as has been seen. This
world-denying sect would naturally relate most easily to
the restrained forms and esoteric message of this altar-
piece.

Contrarily, the Saint John Altarpiece was executed

 

for a private lay individual, an international wool mer-
chant. He would seemingly have been a man of worldly
character and material interests, rather than the ascetic
orientation of the Carthusian community at Miraflores.
With the increased naturalism and attention to a more

realistic portrayal of the natural world in the Saint

92

John Altarpiece, Roger is appealing to the world-accepting

 

nature of the donor, Baptiste del Agnelli. He has placed
his message in the guise of pictorial naturalism, rather
than devotional symbolism.

Despite this fundamental difference in represen-
tation in the two altarpieces, the fact remains that Roger
has chosen in both to use the motif of the arch, which he
had developed in the three earlier Madonna paintings cited
above. There appears to be no doubt that in both of these
triptychs the arch serves as a compositional device used
to isolate the main scene in each panel as an image for
devotional worship and contemplation. The arch also serves
in both as a symbol for the Church.

Yet in the Saint John Altarpiece, Roger treats the

 

theme of the Church on three levels: (1) the founding of
the Church, and the transition from Old Law to New Law;
(2) the mission of the Church, and the overcoming of evil
and temptation; and (3) the sacraments and liturgy. The
theme of the founding of the Church is present in the
figure of John the Baptist, who is both the last of the
prophets and the precursor of the Messiah, Christ. The
mission of the Church is proclaimed in scripture when
Jesus sends the Apostles to various parts of the world to
preach the Word of God, at the Pentecost. The Apostles
are pictured on the jambs of the arched frame; they are

depicted literally within the framework of the Church.

93

Roger is stressing in this altarpiece the idea that the
Church will prevail in the end by resisting the temptations
of the devil, and ultimately destroying his power. Half

of the archivolt scenes in the center panel are devoted

to the temptations of Christ by the devil, and the right
panel stresses the fact that, although bodily dead, John
lives eternally, having resisted the forces of evil,
embodied in Herod and his family. The altarpiece is
replete with symbols referring to the sacraments of
Baptism and the Eucharist, and through these-~particular1y

20 The theme

the Eucharist--re1ates to Church liturgy.
of the sacraments in this painting is an outgrowth of the

ideas presented in the Seven Sacraments Altarpiece. In

 

the Saint John Altarpiece, Roger is involved with the

 

message of each man's active role in fulfilling the pur-
pose of the Church on earth, as well as his passive, inner
life of mystical contemplation of union with God to achieve
salvation and eternal life.

The concept of Mary as a metaphor of the Church,
so prominent in the earlier works studied in this paper,
has now been relegated to the position of a subordinate
theme in the painting. The Virgin stands in the scene
of the Naming of John the Baptist-—and it is unusual for
her to be portrayed in this event21--seemingly representing
the Church, which is given a graphic symbol in the simu-

lated architecture. It is consistent with Roger's mode

94

of presentation in the Saint John Altarpiece that he has

 

chosen to present the idea of Mary as the Church in the
disguise of an event in John's life. The concept is no
longer presented as an obvious symbol, as it had been in

the Altarpiece pi the Virgin.

 

 

One may therefore conclude that although Roger is
dealing with the theme of the Church in the Saint John

Altarpiece, he is not particularly working with the con-

 

cept of Mary as the Church. The abstract doctrine of Mary
as the Church had been especially appropriate as the sub-
ject for an altarpiece to be contemplated daily by the
community of Carthusian monks at Miraflores. But the

private commission of the Saint John Altarpiece deals not

 

only with an individual donor, but also with the indi-
vidual believer as a faithful member of the community in
a parish church, and the sacramental means to attain the
rewards of eternal life.

Further, it is to be noted that in the §E£EEMEQEE

Altarpiece Roger has dropped the familiar formula which

 

assures the viewer's association of the visual symbols
with Mary as the Church. This formula is the presence

of the Virgin Mary within an ecclesiastical architectural
setting, depicted with the adult or infant Christ, and
shown with her attribute of the crown, indicating that
she is the Queen of Heaven. It is therefore not the

ecclesiastical architectural setting alone which marks

95

the work as a reference to Mary as the Church, but a
familiar combination of certain specific symbols.
As far as can be seen, then, the Gothic approach

to the Altarpiece pi the Virgin contrasts with the more

 

 

naturalistic approach in the Saint John Altarpiece insofar

 

as each is a function of its particular circumstances of
commission. It is an indication of Roger's imagination
and ability that he dealt with complicated doctrines and
complex symbols so as to make each commission unique and

infinitely meaningful.

NOTES--CHAPTER III

lSee Davies, Rogier van der Weyden, pp. 195-96,
and Panofsky, Early Netherlandish Painting, I, pp. 282-84.

 

 

2Destrée (Roger de la Pasture, I, p. 98), Lafond
(Ro er van der Weyden, pT—22T, and Friedlander (Earl
Ne erlandish Painting, II, p. 60) are all of the op1nion
that the Saifit J6hn Altarpiece was executed in close
temporal proximity to the Altarpiece of the Vir in. The
theory that it came from MirafIOres iE—dIEEusseg again by
both Destrée (pp. 100-01) and Lafond (p. 24), and both
mention the lack of documentation to support such a theory.
Most recently, Martin Davies (Rogier van der We den, p. 200)
refers his reader to Valerian von Loga in_PEuss1an Jahrbuch,
XXXI, 1910, p. 56, for a presentation of thi§Utheory,‘5ut
it is apparent that no evidence has been discovered to sus-
tain such a theory.

 

 

 

 

 

 

3G. Hulin de Loo, "Roger van der Weyden,"
Biographie Nationale . . . §g_Belgique, Brussels, XXVII
, col. 236.

 

4Dated by Panofsky, Early Netherlandish Painting,
I, p. 264.

 

5Ibid., p. 282.

6Quoted by Panofsky (Ibid., p. 272). On page 467,
note 2 to page 272, Panofsky refers the reader to Fazio's
Latin text as printed in Winkler, p. 189.

7Feder, "A Reexamination Through Documents," p. 430.

8For discussions of Italian influences on Roger
in the Saint John Altar iece, see Panofsky, Early Nether-
landish Paintin , I, p. 279 and Heribert Meurer, "Ewei
antike vorBiIder und die rfickenfigur im Johannes-altar des
Rogier van der Weyden," Wallraf-Richartz Jahrbuch (West-
deutsches Jahrbuch fur KunstgeschiChte), XXXI (I969),

P. 2§5ff.

 

 

 

 

96

97

9Panofsky, Early Netherlandish Painting, I, p. 281.

 

10Davies, Rogier van der Wgyden, p. 200. There is
an almost exact duplicate of the altarpiece in the Stfidel-
aches Kunstinstitut in Frankfort, but this copy is, accord-
ing to Panofsky, one-third smaller than the original.
(Panofsky, Early Netherlandish Painting, I, p. 278.)

 

 

llDavies (Rogier van der Weyden, p. 200) tells us
that the inscription is based on MattHew 3:17, but does
not tell us Roger's specific words. I have not as yet
been able to determine the exact inscription on the panel.

 

12Panofsky (Early Netherlandish Paintin , I, p. 471,
note 2 to p. 278) refers to WinkIer, 1913, p. 1 3, who in
turn has taken the information concerning the alleged
donation from Weale. Unfortunately, according to Panofsky,
Weale gives no source for his information.

 

13Ad. Duclos (Bruges. Histoire et Souvenirs, Bruges,
1910, p. 482) also unhappin mentiOns nS—source for his
information, but it possibly could have been Weale, writing
in 1908. Therefore, we still have no evidence that Duclos
was writing from a primary source, although it seems that
way since he cites no secondary source.

 

14Davies, Rogier van der Weyden, p. 200.

 

15"Giovanni dell'Agnello, doge de Pisa," Dizionario
Enciclgpedico Italiano, Rome, 1956, V, pp. 411-12.

 

 

16Réau, Iconographie g3 l'Art Chrétien, Vol. II
Part Two, p. 436.

 

 

17Meurer gives the dates of this renovation as 1457
to 1479 (Meurer, "Zwei antike vorbilder," p. 233), whereas
Duclos (Bru es, p. 480) states that it occurred between
1459 and .

18Birkmeyer, "The Arch Motif," p. 16.

199:. Notes 7 and 8.

98

20This symbolism is most obvious in the scene of
the decapitation, or sacrifice of John the Baptist, where
his head is placed on a paten-shaped plate.

21For a study of this scene, see Marilyn Aronberg
Lavin, "Giovannino Battista: A Study in Renaissance
Religious Symbolism," Art Bulletin, XXXVII (June, 1955),
p. 87ff.

 

CONCLUSION

The history of the several works under scrutiny
in this thesis demonstrates the dependence of the Altar-

piece gi the Virgin upon certain elements which were

 

worked out by Roger van der Weyden in the Thyssen Madonna

$2.32 Aedicula, the Vienna Madonna Standing, and the Prado

 

Madonna i2.§§§° I shall maintain that, from the earliest
stages of his work as an independent artist, Roger van der
Weyden was incorporating complex concepts involving the
role of the Church in the redemptive process into his
Madonna paintings, and that, in fact, all four of these
works were specifically conceived with the notion of Mary
as the Church in mind.

There seems to be a sort of "formula" at work,
according to which Roger has indicated to his viewer that
the theme of each of his paintings is Mary as the Church.
The first element of this formula is that Mary be shown
as both the Mother of God and the Queen of Heaven, or
the mystical spouse of Christ. She must also be enclosed
within a painted ecclesiastical architectural framework,
which is related to her in a direct way through simulated
sculptural decoration depicting episodes in her life, or

indirectly by the situation of the Madonna within a niche,

99

100

SE a living statue. In either case, the identification
of the architecture with the Virgin Mary represents her
identity as the eternal Church.

It is evident, from the similar themes of the
paintings discussed, that Roger's principal intent was
to give visual reality to the doctrine of Mary as the
Church. But we must realize that this doctrine takes on

a broader aspect in the Altarpiece gi the Virgin, the

 

 

latest of the works in question. In this painting, Roger
has first expanded on the elements presented in the earlier
Madonna paintings. The architectural motif has become
more complex visually, with the appearance of the triple
arch and the multiplicity of archivolt scenes which
elaborate on the themes of the main scenes in each panel.
It has also become more complex conceptually, representing
the passage from temporal and spatial reality into a sacred
realm.

Roger has also expanded upon the themes of Mary
as Mother of God and Queen of Heaven. A separate panel
is given over to the Nativity of Christ, with special
emphasis on the doctrine of the Incarnation. Christ's
Passion is now explicitly included in the altarpiece, in
the presence of the Lamentation scene as the event of
primary importance in the center panel. And the theme of
Mary as the mystical bride of Christ is treated in the

right-hand panel, through emphasis on Mary's role in the

101

Resurrection of Christ, and her coronation as the Queen
of Heaven. The crown motif which was present in the three
earlier Madonna paintings, is elaborated upon in the

Altarpiece pi the Virgin. Retaining the angel holding the

 

 

crown which descends from the keystone of the arch in the
Prado Madonna ip_§pp, Roger has multiplied this motif
threefold, and has placed an inscription with each, indi-
cating qualities of the Virgin which illustrate her worthi-
ness to merit the "crown of life." This carries through
a further notion first seen in the Madonna $2.322: there
are certain characteristics of Mary which qualify her for
the honor of receiving this crown, and that if one wishes
to gain eternal life, as did Mary, one must learn to imitate
these characteristics and live one's life accordingly.

The significant difference from the other three

paintings which appears in the Altarpiece pi the Virgin

 

is the introduction of the dominant theme of the com-
passion--and, by implication, the co-redemptive power--

of the Virgin Mary. The Altarpiece pi the Virgin and the

 

Escorial Dpposition, executed in close temporal proximity,

 

both strongly express this notion of Mary's compassion,

yet it is the Altarpiece pi the Virgin alone which incor-

 

 

porates this idea into a painting which focuses specifi-
cally on Mary as the Church.
An understanding of the basic themes shared by

the Thyssen Madonna ip pp Aedicula, the Vienna Madonna

102

Standing, and the Prado Madonna i2.§2§ inevitably leads
to the raising of certain questions concerning his
sources and influences. It has been seen that Gothic
architecture and architectural sculpture have exerted
a strong influence on Roger, both due to the preponderance
of its forms in the North of Europe, and to the presence
of Roger in the workshop of Robert Campin, himself a
painter whose plastic conception of figures and use of
grisaille indicate an affinity for contemporary sculpture.
The appearance of a number of Eyckian motifs in
these paintings raises the question, however, as to whether
Roger may have had the opportunity to visit the workshop
of Jan van Eyck, perhaps soon after he left the workshop
of Robert Campin on, according to Panofsky, August 1, 1432.
The Thyssen Madonna ip pp Aedicula, painted, presumably,
while Roger was still a member of Campin's workshop, shows
a close association stylistically and conceptually with
the art of that master. However, the Eyckian features

which appear in the Vienna Madonna Standing--which was

 

probably painted after Roger's departure from Campin's
workshop--suggest an acquaintance with the art of Jan van
Eyck that surpasses exposure to only one work by that
artist: in other words, it seems that Roger had come
into contact with several of Jan van Eyck's works in

the short time following his departure from Campin's

studio and the creation of the Vienna Madonna Standing.

 

103

Roger may have had a strong desire to visit the shop of
that well-known artist, and could have fulfilled that

desire, perhaps after seeing the Ghent Altarpiece ip situ.

 

As we have seen, the occurrence of Eyckian motifs in

Roger's works is not limited to the Madonna Standipg, in

 

Vienna. The Prado Madonna ip Red also demonstrates
Eyckian influence. In addition, we might note that there
is little doubt of the Eyckian influence on two inter-

mediary paintings by Roger, the Louvre Annunciation and

 

the Saint Luke Painting the yirgin, in the Boston Museum
1

 

of Fine Arts, both executed approximately 1434-35.

The segment of works studied in this thesis indi-
cates a strong theological influence. Roger's early
familiarity with the subtleties of Church doctrine, and
the compounding of those basic Church themes in the

Altarpiece pi the Virgin indicate that he was well-educated

 

 

in contemporary theology. The theme of the mystical mar-
riage of Christ to his Church was so predominant in the
mystical thinking of the writers of the Fourteenth and
Fifteenth Centuries, that to consider Roger's insistent
employment of this theme in his paintings a parallel
development would be a mistake. He must have been versed
in many of these writings, and through his contemporaries,
perhaps, had learned of the ideas of earlier mystics.

This was probably facilitated by a relatively close

association with the Carthusian order, in his work and

104

life, and perhaps by some contact with the Brethren of the
Common Life, whose organizations were omnipresent in
Flanders in the Fifteenth Century, and who themselves

were in close contact with the Carthusians. Roger could
very likely have worked with theologians on the creation

of the Altarpiece pi the Virgin, and perhaps one or two

 

 

were assigned to the project.

A further question raised by these four paintings
is that of patronage. It has been demonstrated in this
thesis that the significant discrepancy between the

patronage of the Altarpiece pi the Virgin and that of the

 

 

Saint John Altarpiece was the single most important factor

 

to determine the subject, forms, and composition of the
paintings. Although ultimately the themes of both altar-
pieces relate to the Church, it is significant that for
the world-denying sect of the Carthusians at Miraflores
the triptych displays an abstract theme in an essentially
Gothic mode of presentation to appeal to the inner neces-
sities and contemplative life-style of that group. In
like fidelity to the commission, the subject matter of

the Saint John Altarpiece was chosen to suit the donor,

 

Baptiste del Agnelli, whose name saint is John the
Baptist. The increased naturalism in forms and compo-
sition within this altarpiece, and the employment of a

more disguised symbolism conform to the secular nature

105

of the patron and to his worldly temporal and spatial
orientation, while all the time retaining the message
of the Church.

The fact of the suitability of the Altarpiece pi

 

the Virgin for use in a monastic community and the absence

 

of the dominant theme of Mary as the Church in the Saint

John Altarpiece may cause us to speculate on the possibility

 

that the patronage of the three earlier Madonna paintings,
which have been discussed, may hear something in common

with that of the Altarpiecp_pi the Virgin, to which they

 

 

are closely related in form, content, and date. It is
interesting, in this respect, to note K. M. Birkmeyer's
suggestion that the Vienna Madonna gianding may have been

executed for the Chartreuse de Champmol.2 If this is

 

indeed true, is it possible that the Thyssen Madonna ip AA
Aedicula and the Prado Madonna $2.529 could have been
created for monastic patrons? This question, of course,
may never be answered, but owing to the significant role
played by the patron in Roger's works, it is an interesting
suggestion to consider, and one certainly within the realm
of possibility.

The four works by Roger van der Weyden which have
been studied in this thesis have proved themselves to be
of great value, when considered as a unit, in a study of
the development of that artist. These four works have

pointed to certain influences on the evolution of the

106

artist's style and content which may be seen to operate

in subsequent works by Roger. They further contribute

to an eventual understanding of the role of patronage in
the other masterpieces of intimate spirituality created by
Roger van der Weyden. That study is yet in its early

stages.

NOTES--CONCLUS ION

lSee Panofsky, Early Netherlandish Painting, I,
p. 253, where he suggests Roger's presence in Bruges
between 1432 and 1436.

 

2Birkmeyer, "Notes on the Two Earliest Paintings,"
p. 331. Birkmeyer also raises the somewhat shakier possi-
bility that the Thyssen Madonna in an Aedicula was also
perhaps created for the CHartreuEE HE CHampmoI.

107

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ILLUSTRATIONS

114

0.

 

 

an;

* «‘14 ~..\
.

 

Madonna in an

 

 

 

 

Lugano.

Thyssen Collection,

Illustration 1: Roger van der Weyden.
Aedicula.

115

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mamHU

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fiayflzyfi‘ J g

116

I

 

Betrothal'2£ the Vir in.

 

1n.

Robert Camp
Prado, Madrid.

3:

Illustration

117

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- .‘1_ - ..‘. . rhfi’
.. “v-11!" rm .

 

Illustration 4: Roger van der Weyden. Madonna Standing.
Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna.

 

118

 

Illustration 5: Jan van Eyck. Madonna in 3 Church.
Gemaldegalerie der Staatlichen
Museen, Berlin-Dahlem.

119

 

Illustration 6: Roger van der Weyden. Madonna in_Red.
Prado, Madrid.

120

 

 

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.cmwmsz ammofiaummum Hop mfluwammopamfimw
.cwcmwz Hop cm> Homom ”h cofluwuumsHHH

 

121

 

' 0 0.51;-

Illustration 8: Roger van der Weyden. Appearance of Christ
to his Mother. Right panel of "Miraflores"
Altarpiece.

 

 

122

 

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123

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