Enguerrand Quarton

Enguerrand Quarton (or Charonton) (c. 1410 – c. 1466) was a French painter and manuscript illuminator whose few surviving works are among the first masterpieces of a distinctively French style, very different from either Italian or Early Netherlandish painting. Six paintings by him are documented, of which only two survive, and in addition the Louvre now follows most art historians in attributing to him the famous Avignon Pietà. His two documented works are the remarkable Coronation of the Virgin (1453–54, Villeneuve-les-Avignon) and The Virgin of Mercy (1452, Musée Condé, Chantilly). Two smaller altarpieces are also attributed to him.

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(jazz music) Dr. Zucker: We're in the Louvre in Paris looking at a large pieta that we think is by Enguerrand Quarton. Dr. Harris: Right. This is attributed to that artist and that's because it resembles in style a handful of paintings that survived by him. He was an artist who worked in Provence in the south of France. Dr. Zucker: What art historians have tried to do in this case is tried to build an identity for an artist based on any records that exist. In this artist's case, we do have some contracts that exist, although not for this painting. Then we try to look at a painting stylistically and link it to others. Dr. Harris: Once you have a couple of paintings that are firmly established, that makes it easier stylistically to link them. This is a pieta, a subject that is very popular, especially in German Renaissance art. Stylistically it's linked to the artists of the northern Renaissance. We might think about Van Eyck or Campin. Dr. Zucker: Look at the clarity, this precision and the attention to the anatomy of the body. It is attenuated, it still has one medieval tradition, but the way in which the bottom of Christ's ribcage protrudes, the way in which the knees are so carefully rendered, the feet are so carefully rendered. This is an artist that is studying the body. Dr. Harris: It reminds me of Roger van der Weyden, the artist of the northern Renaissance, and the way the figures are very close to us. Some art historians have described this as restrained emotionally. There is emotional depth at Mary Magdalene. She's crying, you see her holding a jar that she anointed Christ's feet with as her attribute. Her head is bent over. This is very reminiscent to me of the interest in emotion that we see in the works of Roger van der Weyden. Dr. Zucker: The Virgin Mary who is in the center in a blue mantle is also beautifully depicted. There's a kind of solemnity, a kind of quiet sorrow. I think that part of the restraint comes from the separation of the figures. They are available to us, but there is so much space between them that they are, in some ways, alone in their sorrow. Dr. Harris: Absolutely. None of the figures reach out to one another like we see in northern Renaissance painting and so some art historians have described this work as having a kind of primitive quality in the way that it's rigid in its composition. Dr. Zucker: Look at John, over by Christ's head and the way that he's so gently lifting the crown of thorns and supporting Christ's head with his other hand, but because the fingers are so delicately articulated, it almost seems as if he's strumming the striations that come from Christ's halo, as it if was a celestial harp. Dr. Harris: Then, on the left, we see the donor in a position that's very typical, kneeling in prayer, but with an attention to the realism of this face. That's a portrait of someone very specific, but who's unidentified, obviously a cleric. Dr. Zucker: It's probably worth pointing out that the painting has layers of grime on it. It was in a church and it's important to remember the churches before the 20th century were illuminated with candles and with oil lanterns and oil that produces soot, which gets all over the surface of the painting. Dr. Harris: I imagine the blues and the greens and the reds are really quite stunning underneath. We do have a sense of a city, back in that left corner, but there's that gold background that simultaneously denies a sense of space. You could interpret that city as the heavenly Jerusalem, which would be a common subject to find in paintings like this in the background, but there's noticeably a dome there and smaller domes, which reminds me of Istanbul. Dr. Zucker: Those are minarets and those minarets actually have crescent moons on the top of them. This is clearly in Islamic context. Dr. Harris: I used the modern word for the city, Istanbul, but that could be in the 15th century what was Constantinople, which just a year or two before this painting's date was taken by the Ottomans. Dr. Zucker: So this might be, in some ways, of contemporaneous account and at least one art historian has suggested that the theme of the pieta would be appropriate to the loss of that important Christian city. Dr. Harris: Pieta simply means the Virgin Mary holding the dead body of her son. Usually surrounded by the figures that we see here. It can be a really awkward composition where a smaller woman holds the large body of a man. It's a little strange in that way, but the artist has dealt with that in a really lovely way by creating this arc of Christ's body that goes from the lower right to the lower left or vice versa. There's a nice, sweeping curve, so we don't notice that disjunction as much. Dr. Zucker: There is tremendous attention, also, to the folds of drapery that fall from the knee of the Virgin Mary that creates the inverted v under Christ's back. Look at the brilliance of those white folds that are revealed on the underside of the Virgin Mary's cloak. That attention to detail can be seen throughout the painting. Look, for instance, at the terrible scoring across Christ's body, from the whips that he endured. That torture is present even in this quiet moment of mourning. Dr. Harris: It almost looks as though Mary's tears have dropped down onto the wound in Christ's side and mixed with his blood. It's deeply moving. We see tooling in the gold that identifies the figures in their halos, which are decorative and stamped into that thin leaf gold background and we also see an inscription around the top of the image on three sides. Dr. Zucker: That creates a kind of frame. Dr. Harris: In thinking about how this painting was made with that gold leaf background, we see the red underneath. Dr. Zucker: That's red clay that's called bole and created a kind of soft, spongy surface that the gold could be laid onto and helped the gold adhere to the surface. It keeps the gold from having a cold quality and it gives it a warm luster. (jazz music)

Life and career

Quarton was born in the diocese of Laon in northern France, but moved to Provence in 1444, possibly after working in the Netherlands. There he worked in Aix-en-Provence, Arles in 1446, and Avignon, where he was based from 1447 until his death there in about 1466. Provence at this time had some of the most impressive painters in France, to judge by surviving work at any rate, with Nicolas Froment and Barthélemy d'Eyck, who both appear to have collaborated with Quarton; the North had Jean Fouquet however. All were influenced by both Italy and the Netherlands to varying degrees. The Popes and Anti-Popes were no longer living in Avignon, but it remained Papal territory, and the city contained many Italian merchants.

Except for some banners, no works by Quarton for René of Anjou, the ruler of most of Provence, are documented, although René was a keen patron of the arts who employed D'Eyck for many years and patronised several other artists. Many of Quarton's clients were important figures in René's court and administration, like the Chancellor of Provence who commissioned the Missal of Jean des Martins (BnF, Ms nouv. aq. Latin. 2661).

Although the influence of Quarton can be seen strongly in subsequent Provençal painting, and also in some works as far away as Germany and Italy, he was later almost wholly forgotten until the Coronation of the Virgin was exhibited in Paris in 1900, since when both awareness of his importance, and the number of works attributed to him, has steadily increased. The attribution to him of the Avignon Pietà has only been generally accepted since about the 1960s.

The Virgin of Mercy

This work, also known as the Cadard Altarpiece after the donor, uses a motif that is most often found in Italian art, and was developed by Simone Martini a century earlier. The painting has the same plain gold background as the Avignon Pietà, which by this date was unusual, although it also appears in what is now the best-known version of this theme, completed just a few years earlier by Piero della Francesca. The scale of the figures is hieratic; The Virgin and Saint John the Baptist and Saint John the Evangelist tower over the donor and his wife, who are themselves slightly larger than the faithful sheltered by the Virgin's robe. The contract of February 1452 specifies that both Quarton and Pierre Villate will work on the piece, but art historians have struggled to detect two hands in the works as it exists, although Dominique Thiébaut suggests some of the sheltering figures are weaker than the rest of the work, and by Villate. One possibility is that Villate was responsible for a predella now lost.

A recently discovered document of 1466 orders some painted or stained glass for the Town Hall of Arles from a "maître Enguibran" living in Avignon. He may have had help from Pierre Villate, who is documented as fulfilling many commissions for glass, and was also a party to the contract for the Virgin of Mercy. Hardly any work certainly his survives, but it is clear he had a considerable reputation in his day. He was younger than Quarton, but already a master of the Guild in 1452.

The Coronation of the Virgin

The Coronation of the Virgin is a common subject in art but the contract for this work specifies the unusual representation of the Father and Son of the Holy Trinity as identical figures (very rare in the 15th century, though there are other examples), but allows Quarton to represent the Virgin as he chooses. Around the Trinity, blue and red angels are deployed similar to those in Fouquet's Melun diptych (now Antwerp).^[1] The depiction of Rome (left) and Jerusalem (right) in the panoramic landscape below is also specified in the contract; the donor had been on a pilgrimage that included both cities. Beneath this Purgatory (left) and Hell (right) open up, and in the centre the donor kneels before a Crucifixion. On the extreme left a church is shown in "cut-away" style, containing a Mass of Saint Gregory. Quarton was given seventeen months from the contract date to deliver the painting by September 29, 1454. As is usual, materials were carefully specified; elements of the language used appear to come from the dialect of Quarton's native Picardy, suggesting much of the final draft was by him. The contract has been described as "the most detailed to survive for medieval European painting".^[2]

Like many of Quarton's landscape backgrounds, this depicts the Provençal landscape in a style derived from Italian painting, whilst his figures are more influenced by Netherlandish artists like Robert Campin and Jan van Eyck, but with a severity and elegance that is French alone, as is the geometrical boldness of his composition. His very strong colours have little shading, and his lighting is "harsh, even merciless".^[3] The landscape includes perhaps the first appearance in art of Mont Sainte-Victoire, later to be painted so often by Cézanne and others (some sources also mention Mont Ventoux).^[4] The painting remained for more than three centuries in the monastery Chartreuse du Val de Bénédiction, Villeneuve-lès-Avignon, for which it was commissioned by a local clergyman, Jean de Montagny. Since 1986 it is part of the collection of the Musée Pierre-de-Luxembourg [fr] in the same town.

The Pietà of Villeneuve-lès-Avignon

The Pietà, where the dead Christ is supported by his grieving mother, is one of the most common themes of late-medieval religious art, and this is "perhaps the greatest masterpiece produced in France in the 15th century."^[5] The curved back form of Christ's body is highly original, and the stark, motionless dignity of the other figures is very different from Italian or Netherlandish depictions. Before the painting was generally attributed to Quarton, some art historians thought the painting might be by a Catalan or Portuguese master. The bare background landscape falls away to a horizon broken by the buildings of Jerusalem, but instead of a sky there is plain gold leaf with stamped and incised haloes, borders and inscriptions. The clerical donor, portrayed with Netherlandish realism, kneels to the left. The painting came from Villeneuve-lès-Avignon, just across the Rhône from Avignon, and is sometimes known as the "Villeneuve Pietà".

Other attributions

Some other attributions have been proposed by Luc Ta-Van-Thinh (2002):

"Pierre de Luxembourg seeing the Christ crucified", painting on wood (musée du Petit Palais d'Avignon)
"Saint Siffrein", painting on wood (musée du Petit Palais d'Avignon)
"The Coronation of the Virgin, between Saint Siffrein and Saint Michael", triptych on wood (old cathedral of Saint-Siffrein of Carpentras)
"Saint Siffrein between saint Michael and saint Catherine of Alexandria", glass in the old cathedral of Saint-Siffrein of Carpentras

Illuminated manuscripts

A number of miniatures in illuminated manuscripts have been ascribed to Quarton, whose style has many distinctive features, in colouring, modelling and iconography. François Avril of the BnF has been a significant figure in these attributions, the first of which was made in 1977. In 1444 a document relating to Quarton was witnessed by him and Barthélemy d'Eyck in Aix, and from around this period dates an unfinished Book of Hours in the Morgan Library, on which they worked closely together, with some miniatures apparently drawn by d'Eyck and painted by Quarton, who also did others all by himself.

Another Book of Hours, in the Huntington Library is rather later, but variable in quality. A large and sumptuous missal in the BnF, dated 1466, with two full-page miniatures, three smaller, and many historiated initials, shows Quarton's fully developed style, as do two large miniatures added to the famous earlier Boucicaut Book of Hours by Quarton, probably in the 1460s. Some miniatures of quality from a further Hours in Namur complete those currently attributed to him.

Notes

^ Image:Fouquet Madonna.jpg
^ Dominique Thiébaut: "Enguerrand Quarton", Grove Art Online. Oxford University Press, October 5, 2007, [1]
^ Walther & Wolf, p.360.
^ Sterling, Charles, Enguerrand Quarton: le peintre de la Pietà d'Avignon, p.63, 1983, Ministère de la culture, Editions de la Réunion des musées nationaux, ISBN 2711802299, 9782711802296
^ Lucie-Smith, Edward: A Concise History of French Painting, p. 26, Thames & Hudson, London, 1971.

References

Walther, Ingo F. and Wolf, Norbert, Masterpieces of Illumination; pp 360–61; 2005, Taschen, Köln; ISBN 3-8228-4750-X
Main source: Enguerrand Quarton Online