Portrait of a Man, c. 1435. 40.7cm x 28.1cm. National Gallery
Portrait of a Woman, c. 1435. 40.6cm x 28.1cm. National Gallery
Robert Campin (c. 1375 – 26 April 1444), now usually identified with the Master of Flémalle (earlier the Master of the Merode Triptych, before the discovery of three other similar panels),[1] was a master painter who, along with Jan van Eyck, initiated the development of Early Netherlandish painting, a key development in the early Northern Renaissance.[2]
While the existence of a highly successful painter called Robert Campin is relatively well documented for the period, no works can be certainly identified as by him through a signature or contemporary documentation. A group of paintings, none dated, have been long attributed to him, and a further group were once attributed to an unknown "Master of Flémalle". It is now usually thought that both groupings are by Campin, but this has been a matter of some controversy for decades. [3]
A corpus of work is attached to the unidentified "Master of Flémalle,"[4][5] so named in the 19th century after three religious panels said to have come from a monastery in Flémalle. They are each assumed to be wings of triptychs or polyptychs, and are the Virgin and Child with a Firescreen now in London, a panel fragment with the Thief on the Cross in Frankfurt, and the Brussels version of the Mérode Altarpiece.[6]
Campin was active by 1406 as a master painter in Tournai, in today's Belgium, and became that city's leading painter for 30 years. He had attained citizenship by 1410. His fame had spread enough by 1419 that he led a large and profitable workshop. He had an extra-marital affair with a woman named Leurence Pol, led to his imprisonment. Yet he maintained his standing and workshop until his death in 1444.[7]
The early Campin panels shows the influence of the International Gothic artists the Limbourg brothers (1385–1416) and Melchior Broederlam (c. 1350 – c.1409), but display a more realistic observation than any earlier artists, which he achieved through innovations in the use of oil paints. He was successful in his lifetime, and the recipient of a number of civic commissions. Campin taught both Rogier van der Weyden (named in these early records as Rogelet de la Pasture, a French version of his name) and Jacques Daret.[8] He was a contemporary of Jan van Eyck, and they met in 1427. Campin's best known work is the Mérode Altarpiece of c 1425–28.
^Rousseau, Theodore. "The Merode Altarpiece". The Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin, Vol. 16, No. 4, 1957. pp. 117–129
^Hagopian (1986), pp. 93–112
^Campbell, Lorne. "Robert Campin, the Master of Flémalle and the Master of Mérode". The Burlington Magazine, Volume 116, No. 860, Nov. 1974. 634–646
^Fragments remain probably from some wall-paintings for which he was paid in 1406-7. See Campbell (1998), 72
^Jacobs, 33
^Reuterswärd, Patrik. "New light on Robert Campin". Konsthistorisk Tidskrift, 67:1, 1998
RobertCampin (c. 1375 – 26 April 1444), now usually identified with the Master of Flémalle (earlier the Master of the Merode Triptych, before the discovery...
Margaret and St. Ansanus by Simone Martini, 1333 The Mérode Altarpiece by RobertCampin, late 1420's The Garden of Earthly Delights, Triptych of the Temptation...
rebuilt during the 200 years that followed; today he is known, with RobertCampin and van Eyck, as the third (by birth date) of the three great Early...
However, early Netherlandish painting with artists like Van Eyck and RobertCampin in the early and mid-15th century were the first to make oil the usual...
much of his life. Daret spent 15 years as a pupil in the studio of RobertCampin, alongside Rogier or Rogelet de le Pasture (assumed by scholars to be...
Brussels, all in present-day Belgium. The period begins approximately with RobertCampin and Jan van Eyck in the 1420s and lasts at least until the death of...
range also attached to that name. Examples include Hugo van der Goes, RobertCampin, Stefan Lochner and Simon Marmion. List of anonymous masters Pseudepigrapha...
travelled to Tournai to attend a banquet in his honour, also attended by RobertCampin and Rogier van der Weyden. A court salary freed him from commissioned...
of meaning uncovered by modern iconographical research in works of RobertCampin such as the Mérode Altarpiece, and of Jan van Eyck such as the Madonna...
and developments in oil-painting technique by Belgian artists such as RobertCampin, Jan van Eyck, Rogier van der Weyden and Hugo van der Goes led to its...
as those of Flemish old masters like Bruegel, Rogier van der Weyden, RobertCampin, Anthony van Dyck, Jacob Jordaens, and Peter Paul Rubens, making it...
pages 258-280; https://archive.org/details/didjesuslive100b00meaduoft. Robert E. Van Voorst. Jesus outside the New Testament. 2000 ISBN 978-0-8028-4368-5...
truths in the manner of other Northern Renaissance figures, such as the poet Robert Henryson, and that the images rendered have precise and premeditated significance...
tradition for which the Arnolfini Portrait and the Mérode Altarpiece by RobertCampin represent the start (in terms of surviving works at least). Since then...
by Konrad Witz; Death of RobertCampin 1443 in art 1442 in art 1441 in art – Death of Jan van Eyck 1440 in art – RobertCampin completes The Annunciation...
Dürer, 1504 At work in the Mérode Altarpiece, 1420s, attributed to RobertCampin and his workshop Discovering his wife pregnancy and doubting her faithfulness...
cards is illustrated in an early 15th-c painting of the Annunciation by RobertCampin, which stages the event in a bourgeois home; above the fireplace, a...
style and tempera panel paintings and altarpieces gained importance. RobertCampin, c. 1425 Jan van Eyck, 1434 Rogier van der Weyden, c. 1435 Hugo van...
painted by his master RobertCampin or his workshop. It closely resembles, in theme and tone, the figure of Saint Barbara in Campin's Werl Altarpiece, and...
interest in classicism had a great impact in the north. Painters like RobertCampin and Jan van Eyck made use of the technique of oil painting to create...
1387) March 9 – Leonardo Bruni, Italian humanist (b. 1374) April 26 – RobertCampin, Flemish painter (b. 1378) May 20 – Saint Bernardino of Siena, Italian...
Portrait by Jan van Eyck and the left wing of the Werl Altarpiece by RobertCampin. The image on a convex mirror is always virtual (rays haven't actually...
supplier of tapestry. The art of painting flourished too: Jacques Daret, RobertCampin and Rogier van der Weyden all came from Tournai. It was captured in...
Global Information
