Settings and Subjects in Early Netherlandish Painting

Behind the Scenes: Accessing the Divine in Early Netherlandish Art
My proposed research within the parameters of the "Settings and Subjects" project will explore how different settings to Early Netherlandish portraiture/depictions of the Virgin demonstrate, and in some cases directly impact, the perceived or desired relationships between the sacred subjects of these paintings and the artists/patrons/communities that sourced them. The aim of the study would be, predominantly, to explore how variances in settings to sacred subjects affect/demonstrate viewers' reception of them. During the fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries, medieval devotional trends with images and icons at their core were at their apex, arriving at an iconoclastic climax with the Renaissance and Protestant Reformation that spread through Northern Europe. Early Netherlandish Art sits upon a fascinating precipice between the medieval devotional mindset and early modern modes of expression, and the relationship between 'setting' and 'subject' is a significant avenue through which to explore this convergence. An aspect of this research could focus on cultural contact with the East, specifically in form of Byzantine icons, alongside wider contemporary socio-political issues such as the Council of Ferrara-Florence. A typical setting for Byzantine icons is an abstract gold background, stressing the divine quality of the figures they depict, and visually abstracting sacred subjects from any accessible earthly location. Whereas specific locations can simultaneously estrange/engage a viewer, an abstract background arguably allows a recognisable image to be easily transferred into local "visual dialects".

I would like to approach this study by comparing paintings that encompass a Byzantine stylistic tradition of mid-length portraits with gold abstract background (NG711 & NG712), alongside those that use Byzantine icons as their subject's foundation, but present these within settings of varying detail. NG3066 and NG6514 both seem to use the Italo-Byzantine 'Cambrai Madonna' as an iconographic prototype, but place the Virgin and Child within vastly different settings. One is abstract, the other generously articulated within a domestic interior, a window allowing a glimpse to world outside, and the fire burning - an action that is unfolding and existing within time. The latter emphasises with more vivacity that divine truths can be found within the world, rather than only outside of it. Maryan W. Ainsworth stresses that Byzantine icons 'were believed not only to be originals from the East but also to have been miraculously created...or painted by St. Luke himself'. As such, the recently procured Bouts' 'St. Luke Drawing the Virgin' would also form a central focus for my study, and is one of many reasons this project excites me particularly, alongside the sheer variety of settings exhibited through the National Gallery's collection. The narrative quality that the "heavily articulated background" of the Bouts' piece, emphasises the intercessory nature of art and the artist. We see a consecutive relationship between subject and painting unfold: from the posing Virgin, to the first-hand portrait, to the replicated painting in the studio, leading out of the interior to the world outside. This potentially exhibits a crucial function of religious art: to form a trail from the sacred subject that can be retraced through anagogical progression.