Constantinople

Had plenty of trouble trying to hold out against various Barbarian invaders

Arrival of the crusaders

at Constantinople
Jean Fouquet 1455
Constantinople
The fourth crusade intended to win back the holy land through an attack on Egypt.
Instead in 1204 the crusaders invaded and conquered Constantinople.
Entry of the Crusaders into Constantinople – Eugene Delacroix 1840
Hagia Sophia
• constructed as a church
between 532 and 537 AD
on the orders of the
Byzantine Emperor
Justinian.
• After the Ottoman Turks
conquered Constantinople
(Istanbul) in 1453, the
Hagia Sophia was
converted to a mosque.
• 1347 - The Black Death wiped out two-thirds of Constantinople's population.
• By 1400 the capital probably had 100,000 residents, about one sixth of what it had
two centuries earlier
With the recapture of Constantinople
in 1261, the final phase of
Byzantine history began, under its
last (and longest-lived) dynasty,
that of the Paleologi.
Genghis Khan and the Mongols
Ottoman empire - From the Mongol invasion to Domination of the east
Byzantium, 1045-1453
Byzantium's last four hundred years. The yellow areas were lost in the late
11th century, the green areas were lost in the 12th and 13th centuries, and
the purple areas were lost in the 14th century. The remaining bits and
pieces (black) were taken by the Ottoman Turks, culminating with the
capture of Constantinople in 1453.
Constantine Paleologis and Mohammed II
Siege of Constantinople 1453
The Flagellation by Piero de la Francesca – Fall of Constantinople
Pope Pius II belatedly tried to
rescue Constantinople from the
Turks by calling for a crusade in
1463.
1491
Lithograph of
Count Vlad
Tepes
Dracula of
Romania.
"Tepes" means
"impaler" . This
print shows the
Count eating
in the midst of
meting out
punishment.
During his
reign, he
impaled 20,000
at a time.
Count "Tepes"
Dracula was
notorious for
unprecedented
punishment
and torture.
Count Dracula – Bram Stoker
• The Duchy of Burgundy had its
heyday under Philip the Bold,
John the Fearless, Philip the
Good and Charles the Bold.
• Between them, they acquired
countless new territories,
through a cunning combination
of astute marriages, timely
purchase and the barely legal
diversion of other people's
inheritances.
• Rogier van der Weyden
received many commissions
from the Court of Burgundy. He
excelled in portrait.
The Duke of Burgundy, Philip the Good, and his son Charles (later to be known as
Charles the Bold), being paid homage by the author of the Chronicles of Hainault.
Van der Weyden's only surviving miniature.
The Netherlands
• In the 15th C was known as
the ‘Low Countries’
• Flanders was the centre of
artistic activity.
• The International Gothic style
developed in two directions
• Both of these could be called
‘Revolutionary’
• One was in the South in
Florence
• The other was in the North
which was more concerned
with a surface reality of truth
to visual experience
• Rather than the Florentine
approach which si best
described as ‘sculptural form’.
• Northern art develops a depth of pictorial reality
never seen before.
• The painting in the north rejected the elegance and
decoration of the International Gothic style.
• They sought to bring the sacred down into our
world. Chose to portray real live domestic interiors
with the commonplace belongings of everyday
human existence.
• A peace with the world and one’s place in it.
Virgin and child before a
fire screen

Simple domesticity is
emphasised by the
wickerwork fire-screen
that provides the halo.

Upper left hand corner

contains a view of the
town as seen through a
window.

Robert Campin who

lived and worked in
Tournai in Flanders.
1406-44.
The Annunciation - (The Merode Altarpiece). c. 1425.
Spirituality and reality are brought together in Campin’s own world.
Representational painting can now express the sacred. An aura of mystery is
applied to the everyday ordinary objects and places.
The portraits of the donors are in the left panel;
the figure of the female donor, and the servant
behind her, appear to have been added to the
painting after completion by a different artist,
perhaps after the donor married.
The central panel
shows an
Annunciation to
Mary or, strictly, the
moment before, as
Mary is still unaware
of the angel.
A tiny figure of
Christ, holding a
cross, flies down
towards Mary,
representing her
impregnation by
God.
• A scroll and book are in front of Mary, symbolizing the Old & New Testaments, and the
part that Mary and the Christ child played in the fulfilment of prophecy.
• The lilies in the earthenware vase on the table represent Mary's virginity.
• The lion finials on the bench may have a symbolic role .
• The arrangements for washing at the back of the room, which are considered unusual
for a domestic interior, may relate to the similar arrangements of a piscina for the
officiating priest to wash his hands during Mass.
• The sixteen sides of the table may allude to the sixteen main Hebrew prophets; the
table is usually seen as an altar, and the archangel Gabriel wears the vestments of a
deacon.
• On the right hand panel shows an
unusual scene of Joseph as carpenter.
• An insight into a guild practicing
carpenter with the tools of the day in
modern Flanders
• In the right-hand panel, Saint Joseph,
who was a carpenter, is constructing a
mouse trap symbolizing Christ's
trapping and defeat of the devil
• This metaphor used three times by
Saint Augustine: "The cross of the Lord
was the devil's mousetrap; the bait by
which he was caught was the Lord's
death
• "In an alternative view, Joseph is
making wine-making equipment used in
that time, which symbolizes Eucharistic
wine and Christ's passion.
• Mousetrap symbolism may also exist
outside Joseph's window, where
mousetraps are said to be visible
through the shop window, again
symbolizing that Jesus is used as a bait
to capture Satan.
Campin is the first to study the
psychological aspect of an individual.

Portrait of A Woman. c. 1430

Robert de Masmines. c.1425 .

• Chivalry was part of the
medieval concept of
Knighthood
• The basic forms with
emphasis on valour,
honour, courtesy, loyalty,
and chastity,
• Later gave way to
• Courtly love inspired by
Arthurian romances
• The movement towards
unfulfilled desire-love as a
religion.
The Ghent altarpiece Hubert and Jan Van Eyck
the Altarpiece of the Lamb. 

1. Called The Ghent
Altarpiece due to its location
in the Saint Bavo Cathedral in
Ghent, Belgium
2. Hubert and Jan van Eyck (ca.
1390 - 1441)
3. Jan completed the altarpiece
in 1432, six years after his
brother's death,
4. The altarpiece is a polyptych,
a hinged, multi-panelled
painting. 
5. As the folding altarpiece is
opened, it reveals additional
subjects and narratives to its
audience.
6. Made of twenty four panels of
varying sizes and shapes
aligned in two rows, such that
twelve panels are visible with
the altarpiece open, and
twelve when closed.
7. The Ghent Altarpiece (closed). Completed
1432. Tempera and oil on wood,
• The Adoration of the lamb shows sacrificial lamb placed upon the altar, it’s blood being
poured into a chalice.
• Angels surround the Altar carrying reminders of the crucifixion and in foreground the
fountain of life.
• Coming from the 4 corners of the earth are worshippers, diverse collection includes prophets;
martyrs; popes; virgins; pilgrims; knights and Hermits.
• Lush landscape with the celestial city on the horizon outline very much like a Dutch city.
Utrecht Cathedral on the right.
Lower side panels
Next to the central panel we see more
groups of people. The two panels to the
left show the "Just Judges" and the
"Knights of Christ".

On the right we see hermits and

pilgrims, among them the giant Saint
*
Christopher , patron saint of travellers.

*St Christopher
A thirteenth century legend about a giant who lived
alone along the bank of a raging river.
He would help travellers cross the raging river in
safety, so it happened one day he helped a small
child traveling alone to cross.
After Christopher had performed this service for
some time, a little child asked him to take him across
the river. During the crossing, the river became
swollen and the child seemed as heavy as lead, so
much that Christopher could scarcely carry him and
found himself in great difficulty. When he finally
reached the other side, he said to the child: "You
have put me in the greatest danger. I do not think the
whole world could have been as heavy on my
shoulders as you were." The child replied: "You had
on your shoulders not only the whole world but Him
who made it. I am Christ your king, whom you are
serving by this work." The child then vanished.
Closed view – back panels
1. On week days the wings were
closed, showing the Annunciation
of Mary and donor portraits of
Joost Vijdt and his wife Lysbette
Borluut.
2. At the top of the closed panel
there are two old testament
prophets and two sibyls who
herald the annunciation
3. Her reply is written upside down
(for God to read, not, the viewer)
4. At the bottom are John the Baptist
who holds a lamb and John the
evangelist who holds a chalice
5. They are painted in grisaille
(simulating sculpture)
6. The Cathedral was dedicated to
John the Baptist
7. John the evangelist wrote
revelation , source for the interior
images.
 The development of oil paint
• In the 13th century, oil was used to detail
tempera paintings.
• In the 14th century, Cennino Cennini presented
a painting technique utilizing tempera painting
covered by light layers of oil.
• It is commonly stated and believed (although
the evidence for this is extremely questionable)
that today's technique of oil painting was
created circa 1410 by Jan van Eyck.
• Though van Eyck was not the first to use oil
paint, he was the first artist to have produced a
siccative oil mixture which could be used to
combine mineral pigments. Van Eyck’s mixture
may have consisted of piled glass, calcined
bones, and mineral pigments boiled in linseed
oil until reaching a viscous state.
• Or he may have simply used Sun-thickened oils
(slightly oxidized by Sun exposure). He left no
written statement.
• Antonello da Messina later improved oil paint:
he added litharge, or lead oxide.
• The new mixture had a honey-like consistency
and increased drying properties. This mixture
was known as oglio cotto—"cooked oil."
• Leonardo da Vinci later improved these
techniques by cooking the mixture at a very low
temperature and adding 5 to 10% beeswax,
which prevented darkening of the paint.
• Giorgione, Titian, and Tintoretto each may have
altered this recipe for their own purposes.

1433 Jan van Eyck - Man in a Red Turban


• Since that time, experiments to
improve paint and coatings
have been conducted with other
oils.
• Modern oil paints are created
from
Bladderpod oil
is a seed oil, extracted from the seeds
of the Lesquerella fendleri and other
species of genus Lesquerella, Native to
the plains and mesas of southwestern
United States
is extracted from the seeds
ofLesquerella fendleri and certain
other species in the genu

Vernonia is a genus of about 1000

1. bladderpod, species of forbs and shrubs in the
family Asteraceae. Some species
are known as Ironweed
2. ironweed,
Calendua
3. calendula and pot marigold, is a genus of about
12–20 species of annual or
perennial herbaceous plants in the
4. sandmat, daisy family Asteraceae, native to
the area from Macaronesia east
through the Mediterranean region to
Iran
found in the tropical and
• plants used to increase the subtropical regions of Africa and
resistance or to reduce the the Americas, but also in temperate
drying time. zones worldwide.
Paint In Tubes

• The paint tube was invented in 1841, superseding pig bladders

and glass syringes as the primary tool of paint transport.
• Artists, or their assistants, previously ground each pigment by
hand, carefully mixing the binding oil in the proper proportions.
• Paints could now be produced in bulk and sold in tin tubes with a
cap.
• The cap could be screwed back on and the paints preserved for
future use, providing flexibility and efficiency to painting outdoors.
• The manufactured paints had a balanced consistency that the
artist could thin with oil, turpentine, or other mediums.

• Paint in tubes also changed the way some artists approached

painting.
• The artist Pierre-Auguste Renoir said, “Without tubes of paint,
there would have been no Impressionism.”
• For the Impressionists, tubed paints offered an easily accessible
variety of colors for their plein air palettes, motivating them to
make spontaneous color choices.
• With greater quantities of preserved paint, they were able to
apply paint more thickly.
Pigment

• The color of oil paint derives from the small particles mixed with the carrier. Common
pigment types include mineral salts such as white oxides: lead, now most often
replaced by less toxic zinc and titanium, and the red to yellow cadmium pigments.
• Another class consists of earth types, e.g. sienna or umber.
• Synthetic pigments are also now available. Natural pigments have the advantage of
being well understood through centuries of use but synthetics have greatly increased
the spectrum available, and many are tested well for their lightfastness.

Pigments for sale at a market

stall in Goa, India.
Cennino Cennini

authored Il libro dell'arte, often

translated as The Craftsman's
Handbook.
At first thought to be written in the
early 15th century, the book is a
"how to" on Renaissance art.
It contains information on
pigments, brushes, panel painting,
the art of fresco, and techniques
and tricks, including detailed
instructions for underdrawing,
underpainting and overpainting in
egg tempera.
Cennini also provides an early, if
somewhat crude, discussion of
painting in oils.

important for dispelling the myth,

propagated by Giorgio Vasari and
Karel Van Mander, that oil painting
was invented by Jan van Eyck
The use of light in the ‘Annunciation’
1. Light illuminates everything it touches diffused to
symbolise the presence of God seen as light.

2. The upper church is dark solitary window depicts

God the father.

3. Below are 3 bright windows that depict Trinity and

Christ the light of the world.

4. Streams down to the virgin as the HS comes to

overshadow her.
• In the floor tiles David's
slaying of Goliath, foretells
Christ's triumph over the
devil.
• Behind this, Samson pulls
down the Temple of the
Philistines.
• To the left, Delilah is
cutting Samson's hair
• The death of Absalom and
possibly that of Abimelech
are identified by some art
historians, although only
tiny sections are visible.
• Astrological symbols in
between
It has been suggested that Mary
has been given the features of
Isabella of Portugal, wife of
Philip the Good, Duke of
Burgundy, who may well have
commissioned the painting
from van Eyck,
“Arnolfini Marriage’

1. the solitary candle

2. The convex mirror

3. the carved framed

4. The mirror’s
reflection

5. Dog

6. Shoes.
Symbolic Candle
1. A flame burning in bright daylight?
2. Could be a bridal candle
3. God’s all seeing eye
4. Or devotional?
5. Alternative theory
6. Alternatively, in Margaret Koster's theory that the painting is a memorial portrait
7. The single lit candle on Giovanni's side contrasts with the burnt-out candle whose
wax stub can just be seen on his wife's side.
8. In a metaphor commonly used in literature, he lives on, she is dead.
the circular mirror that hangs on the wall behind the couple.

• The mirror is the focal point of the whole composition.

• It has often been noted that two tiny figures can be seen reflected in it, their
image captured as they cross the threshold of the room.
• They are the painter himself and a young man, perhaps arriving to act as
witnesses to the marriage.
• The essential point, however, is the fact that the convex mirror is able to absorb
and reflect in a single image both the floor and the ceiling of the room, as well as
the sky and the garden outside, both of which are otherwise barely visible
through the side window.
• The mirror thus acts as a sort of hole in the texture of space. It sucks the entire
visual world into itself, transforming it into a representation.

• It is uncertain that the picture depicts an actual marriage ceremony. The Lain
inscription on the back wall, 'Jan van Eyck was here/1434', has been interpreted
as the artist's witness to their marriage, but may simply attest to his authorship
of the painting,his creation of 'here'.
There is a carved figure of Saint
Margaret,
• Patron saint of pregnancy and
childbirth, as a finial on the bedpost.
• Saint Margaret was invoked to
assist women in labour and to cure
infertility.
• The figure could also represent
Saint Martha the patroness of
housewives.
• From the bedpost hangs a brush,
symbolic of domestic care.
• Furthermore, the brush and the
rosary (a popular wedding gift)
appearing together on either side of
the mirror may also allude to the
dual Christian injunctions ora et
labora (pray and work).
• According to Jan Baptist Bedaux,
the broom could also symbolize
proverbial chastity; it “sweeps out
impurities
The small dog in the
foreground is an
emblem of fidelity and
love.

The fruit on the widow

sill probably for fertility
and/or the fall from
paradise

Even the shoes stand

for the sanctity of
marriage
1. Charles the Bold surprising
David Aubert, a miniature
with an unusual variant of
the presentation portrait
2. Probably alluding to
Alexander the Great, who
surprised one of his artists
in similar fashion.
3. The rear wall seems to refer
to the Arnolfini Portrait of
forty years earlier,
containing many of the
same objects, in particular
the painted inscription on
the wall. Before 1472.

4. Marriage could take place in

private rather than in Public
in 15th Flanders
5. The signature reads “Jan
van Eyck was present”
6. It may be interpreted as a
witness to the event.
 Jan Van Eyck,
Madonna del
cancelliere Rolin, 1439
Parigi Louvre

1. The donator of this

painting is Nicolas
Rolin, Chancellor of
Burgundy and Brabant.
2. Despite his humble
background, he was
highly intelligent and
eventually rose to hold
the highest offices of
State.
3. For over forty years he
was Philip the Good's
right-hand man, and
one of the principal
architects of the
monarch's success.
1. On the right is the seated figure of
the Virgin. Wrapped in a voluminous
red robe, she is presenting the Infant
Jesus to the chancellor while a
hovering angel holds a magnificent
crown above her head.
2. The figures have been brought
together in the loggia of an Italianate
palace.
3. The three arches through which the
space opens out behind them seem
rather large in relation to their
immediate surroundings. They give
first onto a small garden with lilies
and roses symbolizing Mary's
virtues.
4. Slightly farther back are two small
figures, one standing at an oblique
angle to the viewer and the other
with his back to us.
5. Near them are two peacocks,
symbols of immortality, but perhaps
also of the pride to which such a
powerful man as Chancellor Rolin
might well succumb.
1. The townscape that stretches out beyond
the loggia.
2. Crenelated battlements indicate that the
palace is in fact a fortress, built on the edge
of an escarpment.
3. Below, a broad meandering river with an
island in its midst flows through the heart of
a city.
4. The humbler areas of the town lie to the left,
behind Chancellor Rolin.
5. On the right, behind the Virgin, are the
wealthy quarters, with a profusion of
buildings, dominated by an imposing Gothic
church.
6. Countless tiny figures are flocking towards
this part of town, across the bridge and
through the roads and squares.
7. Meanwhile on the river, boats are arriving
and putting into shore. It is as if all mankind,
united by faith, were travelling in pilgrimage
towards this city and its cathedral.
8. In the distance, the horizon is closed off by
snow-capped mountains which fade into the
distance.
• A chancellor in the Middle Ages
Combined the functions of Minister
of Finance, Home and Foreign
Affairs and others.

• His employer, Philip the Good was

a vassal of the King of France, but
infinitely richer and more powerful
than the unfortunate Charles VII.

• Through a series of judicious

marriages and annexation of lands
after victories, the Dukes of
Burgundy, from the days of John
the bold, built up vast spheres of
influence, a patchwork of regions
and races extending around the
Kingdom of France in a crescent
from just north of Lyons to just
south of Amiens and from there to
northern modern Holland.

• Philippe-le-Bon entrusted the

management of this vast domain to
Nicolas Rolin.
• There was nothing to indicate that the
Rolins, a modest family from Autun,
were destined for such greatness.
• Nicolas needed unrelenting
determination and persistence to
successfully ascend the social ladder.
• As Councillor to Jean-Sans-Peur and,
after 1422, Chancellor to Phillipe-le-
Bon, Nicolas Rolin showed himself to
be not only an able administrator but
also a canny politician who
succeeded in extricating the Duchy of
Burgundy from an alliance with the
English which became onerous after
the glorious progression of Joan of
Arc and the change in fortune of
Charles VII.
• He was also one of the authors of the
Treaty of Arras, the instrument which
reconciled France and Burgundy and
ended the Hundred Years' War.
jean fouquet charles vii of france
Tournai
During the 15th C Arras and Tournai were important
centers for the profitable tapestry industry
The Devonshire hunting Tapestries were woven on
the looms of Tournai
The Devonshire Hunting Tapestries

1. Four magnificent Flemish

tapestries dating from the mid-
fifteenth century.
2. These enormous works, each
over 3 metres wide, depict men
and women in fashionable dress
of the early fifteenth century
hunting in a forest.
3. The tapestries formerly
belonged to the Duke of
Devonshire.
4. The tapestries depict a Deer
Hunt, Falconry, a Swan and
Otter Hunt and Boar and Bear
Hunt.
5. The hunt was a particularly
powerful theme and would have
been a familiar pastime to many
of the high-born individuals and
families who owned tapestries.
6. Hunting was both a stylized
sport and an important source
of the only meats considered
noble Boar and Bear Hunt, The Devonshire Hunting
Tapestries, late 1420
 Rogier van der Weyden

Belgian Northern Renaissance

Painter
1400 – 1464
• 1427 - 'Rogelet de le Pasture'
entered the workshop of Robert
Campin
• After he settled in Brussels Rogier
began a prosperous career that
would make him the most famous
painter in Europe at the time he
died in 1464.
• Different properties and
investments are documented and
witness his material prosperity.
• The portraits he painted of the
Burgundian Dukes, their relatives
and courtiers, point to his good
relations with the richest and
most powerful sovereigns in
Europe.

Saint George and the Dragon

Rogier van der Weyden ,
Deposition (The Descent from
the cross)
• He is known as the master of
expressing human emotion
• Perhaps ‘The Deposition’ is the
best example of this.
• The handling of a dead person is
an emotional experience and this
the dead Christ makes it even more
so.
• The Holy mourners spread across
the frieze
• Christ and his mother echo the
same pose, he falls helpless in
death, she falls helpless in a
mother’s grief
• All kinds of grief are explored here,
from the controlled and grave
anguish of John the Baptist in red
on the left
• To the anguished abandonment of
Mary Magdalene on the right
• All painted with the microscopic
observance of detail that is so
characteristic of the Northern
Renaissance.
panel portrait from the period before about 1450 is the Portrait of a Young
Woman.
The close-up view of a man reading, is unique in early Netherlands' painting.
However, it is not really a portrait. A 16th-century inscription, now removed,
described the man as Saint Ivo
1. He lays out his portrait panels
as clear, geometrically
structured compositions
within the basic pattern
designed by Jan van Eyck,
showing the sitter for the
portrait three-quarter face,
either head and shoulders or
half length, in front of a
uniform, usually dark
background.
2. This is very noticeable in the
late Portrait of a Lady.
3. Her unadorned clothing and
downcast gaze suggest
modesty
4. Her unnaturally high looking
forehead was in fact fashion
5. Hair from the front of the
forehead was plucked out.
6. This portrait is believed to be
of Marie de Valengin,
illegitimate daughter of Philip
the Good.
Hugo van der Goes (c.1440/1445-
1482)
• Records from 1480 state him as
being born in Ghent.
• Since he was granted the title of
master painter in Ghent in 1467,
he must have been born around
1440-1445.
• As early as 1477, he gave up his
workshop and became a lay
brother at the Red Monastery near
Brussels, where he died in 1482
after a severe mental illness.
• The Portinari Altar (1476-78) is
his only authenticated surviving
work, around which others can
nevertheless be grouped with
some certainty.
• The Fall of Adam. (left side of a
diptych) Before 1470
• He aparently produced paintings on a large scale
• This Portinari piece is in the Uffizi in Florence
• It was commissioned by a Florentine banker , Tommaso Portinari
• He lived in Bruges and acted as the Flanders agent for the Medici family
• The dimensions of the painting measure over 2.5m
• The work shows two different scales which can look puzzling
• This was a common device in painting in which the important characters were
given larger scale
1. Saints and the Donor family
2. The Two large figures of St Margaret
and St Mary Magdalene are presenting
Portinari’s wife, Maria and their
daughter.
3. St Margaret. (patron saint of childbirth)
can be identified by the dragon she
stands on
4. The legend describes her being
swallowed by a dragon but burst out of
it.
5. Mar Magdalene is shown carrying a jar
of ointment which became customary in
identifying her and reflects a story in
the new testament .