Bulletin du Musée National de Varsovie (11.1970)

Paulina Ratkoiuska

THE REMAINS OF AN ALTARPIECE WITH THE LEGEND OF ST JOHN
THE BAPTIST: AN UNPUBLISHED WORK OF THE FRANCO-GOTHIC
STYLE IN THE NATIONAL MUSEUM IN WARSAW

The role of Spain i a the formation of Gothic parel painting in Western Europę is not wholly
explained. It is, however, beyond any doubt that richly preserved materiał just here allows
most conveniently to tracę the penetration into Romanesque painting on wood of a new aesthetic
tendency born in France, to follow its uneasy way to the victory, its compromises, failures
and never ceasing progress. Froin this point of view the most interesting chapter of Gothic
art of the Iberian peninsula seems to be what is usually called — for predominance of French
influences — the Franco-Gothic style. Chronologically, it covers the close of the XIIIth and
the first half of the next century to give place — after its XlYth century climax — to Italo-
Gothic art shaped under preponderant influence of Italian masters and perceptible in Spain
sińce the second quarter of the century. Geographically, it covers Catalonia and Yalencia,
Aragon, Nayarre and, partly, Castile, Northern and Southern parts of Western Spain reaching
up to Mohammedan Granada. As Ch. R. Post stated in his monumental book on the history
of Spanish painting1 the qualities of the new style ,,are those that are generally definitiye of
contemporary Gothic painting throughout Europę. From the evolutionary standpoint, the
most obvious innovation is the renunciation of Romanesque stylization. The Occidental ten-
dencies to naturalism that had harmoniously coalesced with many Romanesque conventions
now shake off the partnership and begin to gain the upper liand. The forms and draperies are
studied from actual life rather than from earlier Christian or Byzantine models. The austerity
of the Romanesque commences to yield to a morę human conception of art, in which there is
greater appreciation of the realities, the emotions, the intimacies and the amenities of life. The
heavy, often black outlines that had been used in the XIIth century to define forms tend to
give way to morę delicate contours and a rudimentary attempt to indicate shadow prophecies
the subsequently achieved modelling in three dimensions”. This style based mainly on the
achieyements of French miniaturę and stained glass of the XIIIth and the XIVth centuries,
and the degree of adherence to the models followed decided often — although not always —
on artistic value of newly created local works. The examples of Franco-Gothic painting in
European collections are rare enough. Ali the morę attention must be paid to three panels
acquired after the Second World War by the Department of Mediaeyal Art of the National
Museum in Warsaw,2 the works which the present author would like to appreciate as belong-
ing to the best specimens of the style (fig. 1 — 7).

The panels painted most probably with tempera on gesso layer coyering beech ground are
polychromed on both sides what indicates that they were parts of a retable. AU the three were
cut at the top losing thus the upper compositions — this is proyed by the fragment preseryed

1. Ch. R. Post, A History of Spanish Painting, II, Cambridge, Mass., 1930, part III. The Franco-Gothic Style, p. 3 ff.

2. No inv. 218/1; the restauration of the panels has been done by Miss Maria Wodzińska.