The Limbourg Brothers: Early Netherlandish Masters

The Limbourg Brothers - Les très riches heures du Duc de Berry: Janvier (January) - 1412-16 - Illumination on vellum, 225 x 136 mm - Musée Condé, ChantillyThree Flemish brothers were the most famous of all late Gothic manuscript illuminators. Pol, Herman, and Jehanequin de Limburg. They were all born after 1385, in what is now The Netherlands, and had all died by 1416. These amazing artists synthesized the achievements of contemporary illuminators into a style characterized by subtlety of line, painstaking technique, and minute rendering of detail. The brothers worked together and, although the most celebrated appears to have been the eldest brother, Pol, it is difficult to distinguish their individual styles.

In about 1400, the brothers were apprenticed to a goldsmith in Paris, and between 1402 and 1404 Pol and Jehanequin were working for the duke of Burgundy in Paris, possibly on the illustration of a Bible moralisée, now in the Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris.

The Limbourg Brothers - Les très riches heures du Duc de Berry: Aout (August) - 1412-16 - Illumination on vellum, 225 x 136 mm - Musée Condé, ChantillySome time after Burgundy’s death in 1404, they entered the service of his brother, the duke de Berry, and it was for him that their most lavishly illustrated books of hours (the popular form of private prayer book of the period) were produced. The Très Riches Heures du duc de Berry, considered their greatest work, is one of the landmarks of the art of book illumination and ranks among the supreme examples of the International Gothic style. It is essentially a court style, elegant and sophisticated, combining naturalism of detail with overall decorative effect. An awareness of the most progressive international currents of the time, particularly those deriving from Italy, suggests that at least one of the brothers visited there. The Très Riches Heures was left unfinished in 1416 but was completed about 1485 by Jean Colombe.

The Limbourg brothers were among the first to render specific landscape scenes with accuracy. Their art did much to influence the course that Early Netherlandish art would take during the 15th century.

A Visual Feast - Snow in the Middle Ages - (and beyond)

Allegory of Winter by Ambrogio Lorenzetti, fresco at the Palazzo Publico in Siena, c. 1338-1340 (click photo for larger image)A Snowball Fight in a Book of hours, second quarter of the 16th-century (click photo for larger image)Details from the January fresco at Castello Buonconsiglio, c. 1405-1410 (click photo for larger image)The Census at Bethlehem by Pieter Bruegel the Elder, 1566 (click photo for larger image)Here are some wonderful images for you to enjoy! The folks of the Middle Ages were well acquainted with snow! See more images like these at Retronaut.

Ambrogio Lorenzetti was an extraordinary Sienese painter whose most brilliant achievement was a fresco series on good and bad government that occupies three walls of the room in the Palazzo Pubblico. A “Book of Hours” refers to an illuminated Christian devotional book that was particularly popular in Northern Europe during the Middle Ages. Castello Buonconsiglio refers to a castle built for defensive purposes on a rocky hill, which was originally home to a Roman fortress.

Pieter Bruegel the Elder is considered by some to be the greatest Flemish painter of the sixteenth century. He is particularly well-known for his witty depictions of peasant life--and is definitely one of the fathers of genre painting.

Software Could Reconstruct Medieval Mosaics

“Experimental software developed to reassemble Cold War documents may soon shed light on the mysteries surrounding around 5,000 medieval stained-glass fragments from Coventry Cathedral, as well as on the work of John Thornton, one of England’s greatest stained-glass artists.”

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The Magic of the Middle Ages

S. Benedetto rescues the monks from under the landslide of a fallen wall. (Stories of St. Benedict) - c. 1300, From the Church of St. AgneseSan Nicola in Carcere (Italian, "St Nicholas in prison") is a titular church in Rome near the Forum Boarium in rione Ripa. The Basilica di Sant'Agnese Fuori le Mura (Basilica of St. Agnes Outside the Walls) is a 7th century church in Rome. It is one of the traditional stational churches of Lent. Frescoes from these churches had been hidden away since the 15th-16th centuries. They were discovered ca. 1850-60--but found to be in quite poor condition. In 1923, attempts to clean the frescoes failed. But cleaning began again in 1999--with greater success--and the paintings were finally exhibited in 2002.

Walters Art Museum Receives $265,000 NEH Grant to Digitize Over 100 Flemish Manuscripts

Flemish, Beaupre Antiphonal: Musician Angels and the Harrowing of Hell (detail), 1290, ink, paint and gold on parchment, 48.1 x 34.6 cm, The Walters Art Museum, Baltimore, Gift of the William R. Hearst Foundation, 1957 (W.759.2R) (click photo for larger image)The digitalization of these illuminated medieval manuscripts will be an extraordinary gift to all of us. We will be able to view exquisite works of art that also happened to be “best sellers” in the Middle Ages!

BALTIMORE, MD.- The National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) has granted the Walters Art Museum $265,000 for a three-year project to digitize, catalog and distribute 113 illuminated medieval manuscripts from Flanders, present-day northeastern France and Belgium. This project, Imaging the Hours: Creating a Digital Resource of Flemish Manuscripts, will digitize 45,000 pages of text with over 3,000 pages of illumination from the 13th through 16th centuries.

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