Ghosts of a more glorious past

The Absinthe Dream

Nihil Sine Deo

,,Lumea de mâine nu poate exista fără morală, fără credinţă şi fără memorie”

M.S. Regele Mihai I al României

Petrus Christus and the question of an Italian connection: Case study “Madonna Enthroned with Saints Jerome and Francis”

Our image and understanding of Petrus Christus has emerged slowly and hesitantly. Shadowed by his great forerunner Jan van Eyck, until recently Christus’s art was perceived as imitative or rather eclectic. Seen in the context of his age, Petrus Christus has become an important figure of the cultural transformation that happened in fifteenth century Bruges. Unlike van Eyck, who was in the service of the dukes of Burgundy, Petrus Christus found his clientele among the bourgeoisie and foreign merchants who had settled in Bruges. Therefore, in many ways his oeuvre reflects the artistic taste and standard of his age more broadly than van Eyck’s does, making the study of his life and work of particular for the comprehension of Early Netherlandish painting.  
This study focuses on the artist’s mature work, which is marked by his effort to produce fully volumetric forms in an accurately constructed space, the objective being clear communication of the subject to the viewer. Although this may be seen as a natural and logical progression of trends already developing in manuscripts illumination, Christus’s use of focal point perspective originated in his connections with the Italian Renaissance. Particularly, I would like to emphasizes the importance of the Madonna enthrone with Saints Jerome and Francis, not only in Petrus Christus oeuvre, but also in the development of perspective in Early Netherlandish painting. Consequently, the questions that I would like to answer are: Why is this small panel so unique in the history of 15th century art, and what kind of artistic influence was exerted on the painter in order to create such a significant work of art?
In search of Petrus Christus’s Italian connections, every writer has brought his own contribution in trying to elucidate the exact links. Since the greatest achievement that resulted from his southern connections was the introduction of focus perspective in northern painting, I will start with summoning up the two theories that try to explain this occurrence. The first has been suggested by E. Panofsky in his monumental Early Netherlandish Painting (1953) where he argued that Petrus Christus discovered perspective by empirical observation. Consequently, according to Panofsky, Christus discovered by himself that all orthogonals, regardless of the planes in which they run, converge in a single vanishing point and that this vanishing point is the focus of a general horizon. Although this is not my opinion, there is a possibility that this traditional view may be true. Christus could have learned the first steps from the art of Jan van Eyck, which in the Arnolfini's Portrait uses the orthogonals of the floor focusing them on a point very close to the center of the painting. Also these lines that come from the ceiling meet much higher on the panel’s surface. The second theory emphasizes the influence of the Italian artists spreading the single point perspective. This was done either through the intervention of Italian itinerant painters or during Christus’s supposed visit to the Italy. 
The second perspective theory brings forth the problem that concerns Petrus Christus Italian connection involving his working relationship with Antonello da Messina. Did the artist travel South in 1456, or did Antonello da Messina travel North and worked in the artists workshop, as Vasari suggests? It is still unknown whether Christus visited Italy, and brought style and technical accomplishments from the greatest Northern European painters directly to Antonello da Messina and other Italian artists, or whether his paintings were only purchased by Italians. However, I assume that the hypothesis that Antonello da Messina travel north and learned Flemish painting techniques directly from a northern artist, might be true. This trip might have been made by Antonello during 1465-1471, period in which nothing is known about his life, except the fact that his art entered into a new phase of Northern influence in style and iconography. Antonello’s interest in Northern painting and in Christus’s art in particular, may well be stimulated by his teacher Colantonio. The direct link between these great artists may also explain the remarkable stylistic similarities in their works that could even suggest a debatable direct collaboration at some point. Although this is a circumstantial evidence, the clear visual link between some of Antonello’s, late works, such as the Virgin and Child (London National Gallery) and Christus’s Madonna in Half-length (Musee National d’Histoire et d’Art, Luxembourg) reveals typical stylistic assimilations that results from perhaps limited, but profound, encounters. 
Nevertheless, except the issue of perspective, Christus’s answer to Italian art was rather limited and intermittent. It was only brought into play when required by a particular commission, such as Madonna enthrone with Saints Jerome and Francis.
In many ways, Madonna enthrone with Saints Jerome and Francis epitomizes Chistus art. It is a small private devotional panel, the only autograph painting signed and dated that proves Petrus Christus mastery of one point perspective, his profound influence from the art of Jan van Eyck, and his successful integration of Italian pictorial elements that where presumably meant to accommodate his foreign patrons. 
At a first glimpse, this small panel is the most Eyckan of all of Christus paintings, however, in a profound reading they show two different artistic personalities. Upton compares van Eyck’s Lucca Madonna with this picture observing several essential differences between the two. Lucca Madonna has multiple vanishing points which create a space that is mainly unified by light, symmetry and metaphor rather than perspective. It become obvious that Christus had accommodated one of van Eyck’s basic of compositions, in which an interior space opened towards a vast landscape, as exemplified in the Madonna of Chancellor Rolin. Despite this fact, Christus’s Madonna stands in a rational described space and instead of a hieratic vision of the Mother of God we see a human figure within a perspectively correct space. This space around her evokes an unusual proximity that increases the viewer’s understanding of the picture, urging him to look at it as an extension of the real word.  
In this panel the orthogonals of all parallel receding planes do in fact converge towards a single point, making this panel the first correct northern perspective construction. This was established in the controversy generated in 1904 by Kern and Doehlemann over the question of perspective in northern painting. The result of this was the identification of the fourth mention panel with the first dated one point perspective design. Ainsworth examined Christus’s painting by using infrared reflectography and X-radiography, thus revealing the underdrawing which is extremely complete; figures, settings and landscape were all planned, with only minor deviations on the painted layers. Christus made a point at the intersection of the horizontal and vertical axes of the panel near where the horizon would be located. Further on he then drew the throne of the Madonna and the figures creating a continuous space around them by fixing the orthogonals. This was all planed in the underdrawing stage, eliminating the necessity of reworking the design in paint layers to achieve an optical correct space, as van Eyck would have done. This development of perspective is seen by Martens as a clear indication that the artist had gradually learned the principles of perspective. This suggests that his knowledge wasn’t acquired only during a supposed visit to Italy. He probably assimilated the techniques slowly through exposure to Italian ideas, or perhaps guided by Antonello da Messina, or even requests from foreign patrons.
Another specifically Italian influence can be identified in the composition, which is mainly an adaptation of the sacra conversatione. The fact that St. Francisc and St. Jerome where represented in the presence of the Madonna without presenting the patrons - as was standard in Northern versions - suggests a strong Italian influence. Even the fact that one of the saints is Francis, a saint rarely depicted in Netherlandish art at that time, supports the theory that this panel is closely related to Italian art.  
The Madonna enthrone with Saints Jerome and Francis is also interesting for its atmospheric perspective. Lola Gellman suggested the fact that the distant landscape in this panel shows a blurred quality not present in many of the artist’s other productions. A correct atmospheric representation involves the colour of the sky which becomes more lighten as it nears the horizon, the fact that the more distant an object is from the beholder the more it gets a bluish tint of the atmosphere, and the more distant the object is the more its contour become blurred. 
Even though Petrus Christus earlier works do not show a very crucial dependence on Italian art it appears that sometime before 1457 he came in close contact with Italian artistic ideas. Nonetheless this painting emerges as the product of the artist’s own deliberate response to Italian art. 

In this short essay, I have tried to outline the essential ideas that are going to constitute the final paper for this course. I have not reached a proper conclusion in this essay because the problem is much more complex to be exhausted so quickly. The Madonna enthrone with Saints Jerome and Francis has also another side that must be exploited. I think it’s a mistake to view the painting only through the Italian Connection, and to see it only as a result of an imported rationalization of space. One must see it also as an artistic accomplishment, as the artist’s attitude to the formal and devotional values of Bruges and the legacy of Jan van Eyck. Thus, the painting turns out to be a the first proper synthesis between Italian Renaissance achievements of construzione legittima, focal point perspective and the Early Netherlandish achievements of realism, illusionism and oil paint. 

BIBLIOGRAPHY:

1. Ainsworth, Maryan W. Petrus Christus: Renaissance Master of Bruges. New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1994.
2. Myers, Marshall Neal; Observations on the origins of Renaissance perspective :: Brunelleschi, Masaccio, Petrus Christus, 1978
3. Panofsky, Erwin. Early Netherlandish Painting. London: Harper Collins, 1971
4. Upton, Joel M. Petrus Christus: His Place in Fifteenth-Century Flemish Painting. University Park and London: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1990.