Abstracts of Amsterdam 2010 Conference Papers Thursday, May 27, 2010 PARAGONE, SYMBIOSIS: RELATIONS BETWEEN PAINTING AND SCULPTURE IN NETHERLANDISH ART Chair: Lynn F. Jacobs (University of Arkansas) Kim W. Woods, Open University,
[email protected] Early Netherlandish Painting and Sculpture: A Paragone? Early Netherlandish painters faced an artistic world in which painting arguably occupied a less prestigious position than sculpture, metalwork, tapestry and embroidery. Despite his much vaunted position as painter and ‘varlet de chambre’ of Duke Philip the Good of Burgundy, there is no evidence that Jan van Eyck undertook a single large-scale commission from his employer, while the published ducal accounts record large sums spent on other artistic projects. In building their immense reputations, and putting early Netherlandish painting on the cultural map of north-west Europe, Van Eyck, the Master of Flemalle and Rogier van der Weyden all had to establish their art in relation to other media. This paper aims to gather together some visual and documentary threads relating to the relative importance of painting and sculpture up to the mid 15th century. For example, it seems no accident that one of Jan van Eyck’s most virtuoso works, the Annunciation diptych in the Museo Thyssen Bornemisza in Madrid, evokes alabaster statues at exactly the time that fellow Bruges sculptor and ducal employee Gilles de Backere was working on the alabaster tomb of Michelle of France for Philip the Good. What evidence is there for a visual competition with sculpture in early Netherlandish painting? Around the same time, Jacques Daret was commissioned to paint shutters for an alabaster altarpiece for the Abbot of St.