DOI issue:
Nr. 1
DOI article:Ratkowska, Paulina: The remains of an altarpiece with the legend of St. John the Baptist: an unpublished work of the Franco-Gothic Style in the National Museum in Warsaw
DOI Page / Citation link: https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.18818#0013
the understanding of his manner,very much French Gothic in character. It is seen first of all
in the „classic” figurę Canon with its slender but solid anatomie structure and noble elegance
of the attitudes and gestures. Thick drapery folds only in the lower part of the bodies when
it touches the feet, and its flow is indicated with only a few but masterly strokes. The artist
draws hanched figures of the Saviour and His Disciples, the Angel and St Paul, freely and with
the Gallic feeling for moderation avoiding, as he does, the excessive complication of the arrange-
ment of the garments of the Apostles. We come across almost exclusively Y-like motifs of folds
accentuated by attempts of the painter to achieye the light-and-shadow effect. Fluency of the
contour and the calligraphy of delicate features recall the words of G. Manley Hopkins:10
Air, melody is what strikes me most of all in musie and design in painting”, and both of
these values seem to be joined in the figurę of the maid playing viol, setting with bows in swing-
ing motion as if by the wind. Big, dramatically broken parabolic folds of the tablecloth empha-
size the fragile grace of the royal couple above it. In the compartment with St John the Baptist
broad, almost yertically falling down folds give the figurę the monumental plainness and gravity
which recall some Italian Solutions, as the comparison to the drawing in the Paris manuscript
of Meditationes Vitae Chrisli proves (fig. 21).11 Especially dear to the painter was the motif
of the lancet-like droop of the border of the mantle repeated thrice in the figures of St John
the Baptist and in that of the Youngest Disciple, and it would be tempting to consider it as
an inyention of the artist. The linear conception of the figurę style still enhanced by means
of flatly laid colors is, howeyer, moderated by the chiaroscuro modelling of the rosę and blue
surfaces — howeyer schematic and timid it is. The personages of the Warsaw panels called
into being with a flexible linę populate the compartments in symmetrical (the Baptism, the
Beheading) and rhytmized (Christ with the Apostles, the Feast of Herod) dispositions. Aiming
at the legibility of the representations and adjusting to the exigencies of rather smali place
the master limited the number of the persons showing only the most important. The figures
cover almost the whole surface of the compartments, and the background is in great part
sheltered. Flatly spread between the bands of the inscriptions, like a pattern of a tapestry
without any attempt at the perspectiye handling, they repeat the Solutions known well from
the miniaturę painting of the XIIIth and XIVth centuries. While the compositions on the
left pair of the wings reyeal the predilection for the isocephaly, on the right panel the artist adopted
the scheme of the equilateral triangle (in the scene of the Baptism such a triangle is described
by the heads of the Precursor and the Angel and the right hand of Christ, in that of the Behead-
ing — by the head of Salome, the hand of the executioner raising the sword and the elbow
of St John). In the centre of the triangles the heads of che main participants of the eyent are
situated. Lack of any aichitectural crowning produces an impression of simplicity and intimacy.
This peculiarity as well as the condensation of .he elements within the particular compartments
makes our scenes rese nble such earlier examples as the frontale of St Ursule of the XIIIth
century, now in the Plandiura Collection in Barcelona.12 Linearism of the figurę style, the two-
dimensional composition, the relatiyely considerable role ascribed to the elegant lettering of
the inscriptions produce the highly decoratiye character putting into light the coloristic va-
lues of the work. Howeyer, even beyond this proper sphere of painting the Warsaw panels
betray — in spite of all grieyous damages — the hand of an imaginator highly skilful at his
art. Even if restrained by his graphic and linear tecbnique he knew well how to bestow on
his personages a subtle and differentiated psychological expression. The monumental plain-
ness of the standing Precursor, the ascetic seyerity of his features are next to the aerial me-
10. E. R. Curtius, Europaische Literatur und lateinisches Mittelalter, Bern-Miinchen, 1961, p. 394.
11. Mcditations on tlie Life of Christ. An Illustrated Ms of the XIVth century, Paris, Bibliotheąue Nationale, Ms Ital. 115,
translatcd by Isa Ragusa, completed from the Latin and edited by Rosalie B. Green, Princeton, 1961, fig. 157.
12. Post, op. cii., fig. 124.
7
in the „classic” figurę Canon with its slender but solid anatomie structure and noble elegance
of the attitudes and gestures. Thick drapery folds only in the lower part of the bodies when
it touches the feet, and its flow is indicated with only a few but masterly strokes. The artist
draws hanched figures of the Saviour and His Disciples, the Angel and St Paul, freely and with
the Gallic feeling for moderation avoiding, as he does, the excessive complication of the arrange-
ment of the garments of the Apostles. We come across almost exclusively Y-like motifs of folds
accentuated by attempts of the painter to achieye the light-and-shadow effect. Fluency of the
contour and the calligraphy of delicate features recall the words of G. Manley Hopkins:10
Air, melody is what strikes me most of all in musie and design in painting”, and both of
these values seem to be joined in the figurę of the maid playing viol, setting with bows in swing-
ing motion as if by the wind. Big, dramatically broken parabolic folds of the tablecloth empha-
size the fragile grace of the royal couple above it. In the compartment with St John the Baptist
broad, almost yertically falling down folds give the figurę the monumental plainness and gravity
which recall some Italian Solutions, as the comparison to the drawing in the Paris manuscript
of Meditationes Vitae Chrisli proves (fig. 21).11 Especially dear to the painter was the motif
of the lancet-like droop of the border of the mantle repeated thrice in the figures of St John
the Baptist and in that of the Youngest Disciple, and it would be tempting to consider it as
an inyention of the artist. The linear conception of the figurę style still enhanced by means
of flatly laid colors is, howeyer, moderated by the chiaroscuro modelling of the rosę and blue
surfaces — howeyer schematic and timid it is. The personages of the Warsaw panels called
into being with a flexible linę populate the compartments in symmetrical (the Baptism, the
Beheading) and rhytmized (Christ with the Apostles, the Feast of Herod) dispositions. Aiming
at the legibility of the representations and adjusting to the exigencies of rather smali place
the master limited the number of the persons showing only the most important. The figures
cover almost the whole surface of the compartments, and the background is in great part
sheltered. Flatly spread between the bands of the inscriptions, like a pattern of a tapestry
without any attempt at the perspectiye handling, they repeat the Solutions known well from
the miniaturę painting of the XIIIth and XIVth centuries. While the compositions on the
left pair of the wings reyeal the predilection for the isocephaly, on the right panel the artist adopted
the scheme of the equilateral triangle (in the scene of the Baptism such a triangle is described
by the heads of the Precursor and the Angel and the right hand of Christ, in that of the Behead-
ing — by the head of Salome, the hand of the executioner raising the sword and the elbow
of St John). In the centre of the triangles the heads of che main participants of the eyent are
situated. Lack of any aichitectural crowning produces an impression of simplicity and intimacy.
This peculiarity as well as the condensation of .he elements within the particular compartments
makes our scenes rese nble such earlier examples as the frontale of St Ursule of the XIIIth
century, now in the Plandiura Collection in Barcelona.12 Linearism of the figurę style, the two-
dimensional composition, the relatiyely considerable role ascribed to the elegant lettering of
the inscriptions produce the highly decoratiye character putting into light the coloristic va-
lues of the work. Howeyer, even beyond this proper sphere of painting the Warsaw panels
betray — in spite of all grieyous damages — the hand of an imaginator highly skilful at his
art. Even if restrained by his graphic and linear tecbnique he knew well how to bestow on
his personages a subtle and differentiated psychological expression. The monumental plain-
ness of the standing Precursor, the ascetic seyerity of his features are next to the aerial me-
10. E. R. Curtius, Europaische Literatur und lateinisches Mittelalter, Bern-Miinchen, 1961, p. 394.
11. Mcditations on tlie Life of Christ. An Illustrated Ms of the XIVth century, Paris, Bibliotheąue Nationale, Ms Ital. 115,
translatcd by Isa Ragusa, completed from the Latin and edited by Rosalie B. Green, Princeton, 1961, fig. 157.
12. Post, op. cii., fig. 124.
7