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GOSSAERT, Jan (Mabuse)
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Jan Gossaert (Gossart),
called Mabuse, Flemish painter, draughtsman and engraver. He was
born in 1478, most probably Maubeuge (now in France) in the
Burgundian province of Hainaut. It was under the name
"Jennyn Van Henegouwe" (John of Hainaut) that he was
received as a master of the Guild of St Luke at Antwerp in 1503.
We do not know where he was apprenticed, and his early career is
largely obscure. The composition and nature of certain of his
religious paintings suggest he may have trained in Bruges,
perhaps with Gérard David. But he also seem to have been one of
the first representatives of what we may call Antwerp mannerism,
as can be seen in his signed drawing, The Mystic Marriage of St
Catherine. In 1508, Mabuse travelled with Philip of Burgundy,
the admiral of Zeeland, whom Margaret of Austria had sent to
Rome as her envoy to Pope Julius II. They interrupted their
journey to visit Trento, Verona, Mantua and Florence, where
Mabuse discovered the luminous art of the Quattrocento, and the
splendours of classical Antiquity. On his return, he continued
to study and paint for several years (1509-1516), without being
able to make full use of his Italian discoveries. During this
period, he received many commissions on religious subjects, for
which he drew on the iconographical and technical resources of
the Flemish tradition, the inventions of the Italian
renaissance, and the inspirational example of Dürer. His Christ
in the Garden of Olives is one of the first northern nocturnes,
and its violent intensity owes something to both Dürer and
Mantegna. When he moved to Souburg at the end of 1515, Mabuse
finally found the place where he could express himself as an
artist of the Renaissance and fully exploit his experience in
Rome. There he was encouraged by the prince and humanist Philip
of Burgundy, who drew him into his plan to construct an
Italian-style palace decorated with figures from classical
mythology. It was thus that Mabuse came to paint life-size
secular nudes, a subject for which there was no precedent in the
former provinces of Burgundian Flanders. As Guicciardini was to
say, in 1567: 'John of Hainaut was the first to bring the art of
representing historical and poetical subjects with nude figures
from Italy to the countries of the North." The following
year, Mabuse, following Philip of Burgundy's instructions,
decorated Ferdinand the Catholic's funeral hearse with nude
figures and martial trophies in the classical vein. And later,
in 1527, he painted one final work on a mythological subject, a
large-scale work, using sober and elegant architectural motifs
as the setting for its subject. Mabuse always devoted much of
his time to drawing. He was particularly attracted to pen and
ink drawing, more so than to drawing in pencil. His oeuvre
includes many projects for engravings, paintings and stained
glass windows. Dürer was always his master in this domain, and
it was apparently Dürer's stay in the Netherlands in 1520 and
the consequent diffusion of his prints, that inspired Mabuse to
make his only engravings: two with burin, one etching and two
woodblock prints. Mabuse also painted many portraits. By their
rigorous psychological analysis he is surely one of the most
talented northern artists to have practised this genre. His
finest works in this respect are probably the Man with Rosary
and The Old Couple, in the National Gallery, London, along with
The Children of Christian II of Denmark. Usually, he would paint
his sitters against a dark background. After 1525, he began to
use a slab of coloured marble as backdrop, and provide a
trompe-l'oeil frame of the kind that can be seen in certain
Florentine portraits. Mabuse's art was intensely personal and
innovative. Although it had virtually no impact on his
contemporaries, it was to profoundly influence the subsequent
generation of painters. After his death in 1532, his fame began
to spread through Italy, and during the 17th and 18th centuries
he was also considered a major artist in the Southern
Netherlands, despite the many transformations that the art of
the North was about to undergo. |
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![](http://www.fineart-china.com/admin/images/GOSSAERT,%20Jan%20(Mabuse)2.jpg)
| Diptych of Jean Carondelet sdg
GOSSAERT, Jan (Mabuse)2.jpg |
1517 Wood, 43 x 27 cm (each)
Mus¨¦e du Louvre, Paris |
Height Wideth
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