Art: The Smell of Blood & Roses

The artist is generally supposed to reflect his time, but the old saw does not apply to the start of the 15th century. At that time, the Hundred Years’ War was still raging, and Europe had yet to recover from the ravages of the plague. The Holy Roman Empire was hardly still an empire, and the church was grievously split between a Pope in Rome and another at Avignon. It was, in short, a time of disunity and violence—the very opposite of much of its art.

Last week Vienna’s Museum of Art History had on view more than 600 items from 14 nations touching every phase of late 14th century and early 15th century art. The display was sponsored by the Council of Europe, which for the past seven years has been trying to prove, through a series of ambitious exhibitions, that Europeans have always had a common culture. The exhibitions have ranged from rococo to Romanesque to the romantic, and each year a different city has played host. In a sense, the Vienna show —”European Art Around 1400″—is the most complex, for the period forms a cultural valley between the spiritual peak of the Gothic cathedral and the humanism of the later Renaissance. Yet the council has achieved a notable success: for all its diverse elements, the art of Europe around 1400 had an undeniable unity.

Facade of Elegance. It seems incredible that it should be so, for at first glance, the exhibition looks like a hopeless hodgepodge. There are polyptychs, triptychs and diptychs. an endless assortment of Madonnas. Pietàs in wood, stone and plaster, drinking horns and jewelry, tapestries and armor, brilliantly illuminated books, stained glass, portraits of princes, busts of prelates, ceremonial swords, hand-painted playing cards, gleaming sets of royal knives and forks.

There are some famous names, such as Donatello and Van Eyck; but most of the artists are anonymous, known only by such evocative titles as the “Master of the Frankfurt Garden of Paradise” or the “Master of the Hours of Rohan.” The masters reported their share of cruelties and martyrdoms: but to a much larger extent, the exhibition reflects the courtly dolce vita of an age that, out of fear of the future, idealized the past and hid the present behind a facade of elegance. The Dutch historian Johan Huizinga summed up the period best when he said, “It bore the mixed smell of blood and roses.”

From Code to Cult. Though the merchant princes were beginning to make their appearance, church and court were still the major patrons. The great lords were losing their feudal powers to the state, and as if feeling the threat, they retreated into a world almost of make-believe. They made a cult of the ancient code of chivalry in which the most ignoble action could be described as a deed of honor. Etiquette was rigorous, and manners so sacred that a noble Alphonse and a lordly Gaston could spend hours politely protesting that the other should go first. Though convulsed with change, society tried to fix every person in his proper “estate” or “order,” down to the “four estates of body and mouth”—the breadmakers, cupbearers, carvers and cooks. Everything was ritual, and as can be seen in the little drawing of Dutch High Society (see color), fashion has rarely demanded such exaggerated sleeves or sweeping trains or spellbinding headgear.

If earlier Gothic art had been monumental, with the cathedral at its climax, the waning Middle Ages preferred something less overpowering. Statues could be lifesize: but the medallion, the illuminated manuscript, and the small drawing were especially coveted. Even the church altars were made small enough to be carried from place to place. It was the time of the international “soft style,” in which the lords asked only that art be fluid, with flowing garments, elegant gestures, and rich detail. The artists of the period, though rarely achieving a title more illustrious than varlet de chambre, were only too happy to oblige.

Jean to Giovanni. For all the lordly efforts at keeping things in their place, European art around 1400 was in constant flux. Noble collectors exchanged works, and artists were imported and exported as never before. The Avignon Pope established an enclave of Italian artists in France; the Holy Roman Emperor Charles IV, who was also king of Germany, catalyzed a mingling of German and Bohemian influences when he established a residence in Prague. It is often impossible to tell just where an art work came from or what was the nationality of its creator. The ivory Martyr, with her liquid grace, could have come from any number of places. The Kneeling Prophet resembles the work of André Beauneveu of Valenciennes, who worked in both France and Flanders. The cultural exchange between France and Lombardy was so brisk that artists simply renationalized their names: Jean d’Arbois was also Giovanni d’Arbosio, and Giovanni Alcherio was equally recognized as Jean d’Auchier.

The Heures de Rohan (see color) was probably made for Yolande of Aragon, the niece of the Duc de Berry, the paragon of a noble collector. He once kept an envoy from England waiting three weeks because he was too engrossed with a project of his court painter to be interrupted. He had an illuminator at every one of his many châteaux, once had a young girl kidnaped for the bed of one of his. artists. When this eccentric traveled, he took with him his most valuable tapestries—along with his swans and bears. But, happily, the Duc de Berry had taste, and the exquisite books of hours that he loved so much were perhaps the most representative masterpieces of this semifictional world.