Mabuse
Jan Gossaert, also known as Janin Gosart and by the nicknames Mabuse, El Mabuse and Jan Mabuse (Maubeuge, c. 1478 - Antwerp, 1532), was a Flemish painter who is considered one of the first to bring to Flanders the recipes of the Italian Renaissance and more specifically Romanism.
Biography
Born in Maubeuge (today in France); the name of his hometown – written as Mabuse – has served as a nickname, thus being better known than by his real name and surname: Jan Gossaert ( Gossart according to many French authors).
He adopted the surname of Mabuse after his birthplace, Maubeuge (Mabuse in Dutch). She was inscribed as Jennyn van Hennegouwe when she enrolled in the Guild of Saint Luke in Antwerp in 1503. Nothing is known of her early years, but her youth is believed to have been spent on the French frontier other than at banks of the Scheldt. Without the subtlety or energy of Van der Weyden, she had in common with the great master of Tournai and Brussels that her compositions were usually set against architectural backgrounds.
He painted for various courts in various cities in the Netherlands and Italy, and in this way he learned first-hand the studies on anatomy, perspective and classical motifs that were being made at that time.
But although in his first paintings he depends on the masters of the border with France, he also confesses his admiration for the great painters who first gave Antwerp its shine. In The Adoration of the Magi, a large altarpiece painting transferred from Castle Howard to the National Gallery in London in 1911, he brings together some thirty figures against an architectural background, varied in detail, massive in form and fashionable ornaments. He amazes with his pompous outfits and striking contrasts in tone. His figures, like pieces on a chessboard, are often rigid and conventional. The landscape shown through the colonnades is adorned with towers and spires in the detailed Van der Weyden fashion. It combines in a curious mixture, and not without skill, the sentiment of Memling, the brilliance and characteristic contrasts of color to color the reliefs, the folds of the cloak typical of Van der Weyden, and the marked, although Socratic, molding of the face highlighted in the Works by Quentin Massys.
After residing for some years in Antwerp, Mabuse entered the service of Philip of Burgundy (1464-1524), bastard of Philip the Good, at that time Lord of Somerdyk and Admiral of Zeeland. He had already stood out for a famous painting, a Descent from the Cross , with 50 figures, on the main altar of the monastery of San Miguel de Tongerloo. Philip of Burgundy ordered Mabuse to execute a replica for the Middelburg church; and this painting was valued so much that Dürer, traveling in Flanders at that time, went to Middelburg in 1521 expressly to see it. In 1568 the altarpiece would be destroyed by fire.
In 1508 Mabuse accompanied Philip of Burgundy on his Italian mission to the Pope, and as a result there was a major revolution in art in the Netherlands. It seems that Mabuse studied in Italy mainly the cold and polished works of the Leonardesque school. He not only brought home a new style, but also introduced the fashion of traveling to Italy. And from then until the time of Rubens and Van Dyck it was considered appropriate for all Flemish painters to visit the Italian peninsula. The Flemings grafted Italian mannerisms onto their own works; and some critics are of the opinion that the crossing was so unfortunate that for a century Flemish art lost all trace of originality.
In the summer of 1509 Philip returned to the Netherlands and, retiring to his see at Suytburg in Zeeland, he devoted himself to planning decorations for his castle and commissioning paintings by Mabuse and Jacopo de'Barbari. Being in constant communication with the court of Margaret of Austria in Mechelen, he gave the artists he employed great opportunities for promotion. Barbari was appointed Court Painter to the Regent, while Mabuse received less important commissions. According to the documents, Mabuse painted a portrait of Eleanor of Austria, and other minor pieces, for Charles V in 1516.
The only paintings from this period that he signed were Neptune and Amphitrite from 1516, in Berlin, and the Virgin, with a portrait by Jean Carondelet from 1517, in the Louvre. In both it is clear that Vasari was speaking from hearsay when he mentions the progress Mabuse made in the true method of producing pictures full of nude and poetic mythological figures. It is difficult to find anything more opposite to Italian than Amphitrite, except perhaps his partner Neptune. In later works on the same theme, Hampton Court's Adam and Eve, or its weaker replica in Berlin and Venus and Love (Royal Museums of Fine Arts, Belgium), Brussels), there is more nudity, combined with a realism that is harsh compared to what was done in Italy.
Happily, Mabuse was capable of greater achievements. His Saint Luke Painting the Virgin in Prague, with a variant in the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna, the Virgin in the Baring Collection in London, and the numerous versions of The Mocking of Christ (Ghent and Antwerp), all of them prove that traveling had left many of Mabuse's fundamental qualities unaltered. His figures still retain a stony character; its architecture is rich and varied, and its tones are strong. However, the bright contrasts of garish hues are replaced by more sober grays; and a cold mist, the vanishing of the Milanese, dominates the surfaces. Normally this feature tends to be annoying, but when it appears rarely, the master shows a brilliant palette combined with a smooth surface and incisive profiles. In this way he achieves paintings such as the Virgins of Munich and Vienna (1527), a young woman weighing pieces of gold (Berlin), and the portraits of the children of the King of Denmark at Hampton Court.
It is considered that it was around 1528 when Mabuse finished the portraits of the three children of King Christian II of Denmark: Juan, Dorothea and Cristina, who became part of the Henry VIII collection. These portraits are identical to those of three children at Hampton Court, long known and copied as portraits of Prince Arthur, Prince Henry and Princess Margaret of England. One of the copies at Wilton, inscribed with the forged name of Hans Holbein and the false date of 1495, has often been cited as proof that Mabuse went to England in the reign of Henry VII; but the claim does not hold up.
At the time these portraits were made, Mabuse was living in Middelburg. But at intervals he lived in other places. When Philip of Burgundy became Bishop of Utrecht, and settled in Durstuede Castle, in 1517, he was accompanied by Mabuse, who helped decorate his lord's new palace. On Philip's death in 1524, Mabuse designed and erected his tomb in the church of Wijk bij Duurstede. He eventually retired to Middelburg, where he entered the service of Philip's brother, Adolf, Lord of Veeren.
Karel van Mander's biography accuses Mabuse of being habitually drunk; but this must be an exaggeration or totally false. Van Mander seems more accurate in describing the artist's splendid appearance when, clad in gold brocade, he accompanied Lucas von Leyden on a pleasure tour of Ghent, Mechelen, and Antwerp in 1527. Mabuse's works are those of a hardworking and patient artist.; the large number of surviving paintings proves with facts that he was productive and that he did not waste time like a libertine. His daughter's marriage to the Leuven painter Henry van der Heyden proves that he had a home, and that she did not habitually live in taverns, as Van Mander suggests. His death in Antwerp is recorded in an engraved portrait of Jerome Cock.
Work
He combined elements typical of the Italian Renaissance (chiaroscuro, perspective, classical Greco-Roman paganism motifs), with the liveliness and technical precision of Flemish painting, thus creating a particular synthesis with the Nordic Renaissance. However, such a fusion is less successful than that achieved by Dürer, and his result is more dramatic and ornamental than convincing, in terms of perspective and composition. The exquisite execution, with multiple glazes, is explained by the select clientele, of the nobility, who commissioned works. Unlike most authors of his time, he did not used to sell his works on the open market, but only for a few clients, so they maintain a high quality and degree of finish.
Notable works include his Self-portrait (c. 1515-20; Currier Museum of Art, Manchester, New Hampshire), Portrait of Francisco de los Cobos (Getty Center, Los Angeles), The Adoration of the Magi (c. 1515-20, National Gallery, London), Saint Luke Painting the Virgin (c. 1515, Kunsthistorisches Museum Vienna), Neptune and Amphitrite (1516, Gemäldegalerie, Berlin), The Metamorphosis of Hermaphroditus and Salmacis (c. 1520, Boymans Van Beuningen Museum, Rotterdam), Saint John and the Child Jesus kissing, Christ between the Virgin and Saint John the Baptist, The Virgin and Child (c. 1527, Museo del Prado, Madrid), La Sagrada Familia (Museo de Bellas Artes de Bilbao), Adam and Eve (Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid) and Dánae (Munich, Alte Pinakothek).
He painted numerous versions of Adam and Eve under the influence of Dürer as well as portraits of personalities of the time such as Juana I of Castile (Juana la Loca).
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