{The Northern Renaissance [continued (8)] – Rogier van der Weyden}[5th May 1991]

[Redbook9:262-263][19910505:1200h]{The Northern Renaissance [continued (8)] – Rogier van der Weyden}[5th May 1991]

19910505.1200

[continued]

‘Apart from Jan [van Eyck], the artist most often praised in 15th-century [ce] sources is Rogier van der Weyden (c[irca]1399-1464[ce]). After studying under the Master of Flémalle, he settled in Brussels, where he was made Town Painter in 1435[ce]. His artistic aims are readily apparent in his best-known work, the Descent from the Cross* (c[irca]1438[ce]) in the Prado, Madrid. Whereas Jan van Eyck made manifest the objective and immutable qualities of the new realism, Rogier van der Weyden explored its emotive and dynamic possibilities. In this aim he was aided by a brilliant sense of abstract design. The contorted poses of the mourners in his Descent [from the Cross], compressed within a claustrophobic space around the still twin forms of the dead Christ and the unconscious Virgin, convey unbearable anguish. Rogier’s figure-types are generally melancholic and brooding, with long necks, aquiline noses, and sorrowful eyes. That this is true even of his portraits indicates just how essential to his art was the austere sense of tragedy which so impressed his contemporaries. More than any other artist of his generation, Rogier plumbed the psychological and emotional depths of the human spirit.’

**

*(illus[tration] ibid 668)

[not reproduced in ms or ts]

** – ibid [Encyclopaedia of Visual Art 4:] 663

[Immediately following in source text & in ms the extract in the last previous ts entry]

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