The Meeting of Abraham and Melchizedek
Dieric Bouts, also spelled Dirk, Dierick and Dirck (c. 1410/1420, d. 1475) was a Netherlandish
painter.
According to Karel van Mander (Het Schilderboeck, 1604), Bouts was born in Haarlem and
was mainly active in Leuven (Louvain), where he was city painter from 1468. Van Mander confused the issue by writing biographies of both "Dieric of Haarlem" and "Dieric of Leuven,"
although he was referring to the same artist. The similarity of their last names also led to the confusion of Bouts with Hubrecht
Stuerbout, a prominent sculptor in Leuven. Very little is actually known about Bouts' early life, but he was greatly influenced
by Jan van Eyck and by Rogier van der
Weyden, under whom he may have studied. He is first documented in Leuven in 1457 and worked
there until his death in 1475.
Bouts was among the first northern painters to demonstrate the use of a single vanishing
point (as illustrated in his Last Supper). His work has a certain primitive stiffness of drawing, but his pictures
are highly expressive, well designed and rich in colour.
Early Works
Bouts' earliest work is the Infancy Triptych in the Prado (Madrid), dated to
about 1445. The Deposition Altarpiece in Granada (Capilla Real) probably also dates to this period, around 1450-60. A
dismembered canvas altarpiece--now in the Musées Royaux des Beaux-Arts de Belgique (Brussels)[1], the J. Paul Getty Museum (Los
Angeles)[2], National Gallery (London)[3], Norton Simon Museum (Pasadena)[4], and a Swiss private collection--with the same dimensions as the Altarpiece of the Holy Sacrament may
belong to this period. The Louvre Lamentation (Pietà) is another early work.
Major Works: The Altarpiece of the Holy Sacrament and Justice Panels
The Last Supper is the central panel of Altarpiece of the Holy Sacrament,
commissioned from Bouts by the Leuven Confraternity of the Holy Sacrament in 1464. All of the central room's orthogonals (lines imagined to be
behind and perpendicular to the picture plane that converge at a vanishing point) lead to a single vanishing point in the center
of the mantelpiece above Christ's head. However the small side room has its own vanishing point, and neither it nor the vanishing
point of the main room falls on the horizon of the landscape seen through the windows. The Last Supper is the second dated
work (after Petrus Christus' Virgin and Child Enthroned with St. Jerome and St. Francis in Frankfurt, dated 1457) to
display an understanding of Italian linear perspective.
Scholars also have noted that Bouts's Last Supper was the first Flemish panel painting
depicting the events of the Last Supper. In this central panel, Bouts did not focus on the
biblical narrative itself but instead presented Christ in the role of a priest performing a ritual from the liturgy of the
Christian Church - the consecration of the Eucharistic wafer. This contrasts strongly with other
Last Supper depictions, which often focused on Judas's betrayal or on Christ's comforting of John.
Bouts also added to the complexity of this image by including four servants (two in the window and two standing), all dressed in
Flemish attire. Although once identified as the artist himself and his two sons, these servants are most likely portraits of the
confraternity's members responsible for commissioning the altarpiece. The Last Supper was the central part of the
altarpiece in the St. Peter's Church, Leuven.
The Altarpiece of the Holy Sacrament has four additional panels, two on each wing. Because these were taken to the
museums in Berlin and Munich in the 19th century, the reconstruction of the original altarpiece has been difficult. Today it is
thought that the panel with Abraham and Melchizedek is above the Passover Feast on the left wing, while the Gathering of the
Manna is above Elijiah and the Angel on the right wing. All of these are typological precursors to the Last Supper in the central
panel.
After attaining the rank of city painter of Leuven in 1468, Bouts received a commission to paint two more works for the
Town Hall. The first was an altarpiece of the Last Judgment (1468-70), which
exists today only in the two wings with the Road to Paradise and the Fall of the Damned in the Musée des
Beaux-Arts, Lille (France), and a fragmentary Bust of Christ from the central panel in the Nationalmuseum, Stockholm. After this, he
turned to the larger commission for the Justice Panels[5] (1470-75), which occupied him until his death in 1475. He completed one panel
and began a second, both depicting the life of the 11th-century Holy Roman Emperor Otto III. These pieces can now be seen in the Brussels museum. The remaining two Justice
Panels were never completed.
Devotional Panels and Portraits
Many of Bouts' authentic works are small devotional panels, usually of the Virgin and Child. An early example is the
Davis Madonna in New York (Metropolitan
Museum of Art), excellent copies of which exist in the Bargello in Florence and the
Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco. This composition follows the
formula of the miraculous icon of Notre-Dame-des-Grâces in Cambrai (France). The Salting Madonna in the National Gallery (London) is the largest and most ambitious of
these Marian pictures. In the realm of portraiture, Bouts expanded upon the tradition established by Robert Campin, Jan van Eyck, Rogier van der Weyden, and Petrus Christus. His dated
1462 Portrait of a Man in the National Gallery
(London) is the first instance of a sitter shown in three-quarter view before a discernable background with a glimpse of
the landscape out the window. Also widely attributed to Bouts is the Portrait of a Man in the Metropolitan Museum of Art
(New York), which resembles some of the figures in the artist's late Justice Panels of 1470-75. Other portraits associated with
Bouts, such as those in Washington (National Gallery of Art) and Antwerp
(Royal Museum of Fine Arts), are more problematic.
The Munich Problem(s)
Two Boutsian works in the Alte Pinakothek in Munich have perplexed scholars for
generations. One is the so-called Pearl of Brabant Triptych, which writers as early as 1902 tried to separate from Bouts' authentic works.
Recent research seems to refute this attempt. The other is a pair of panels from an altarpiece depicting the
Passion--respectively showing the Betrayal of Christ and the Resurrection. For a long time these were considered
some of Bouts' earliest works, but dendrochronological evidence now places them around
the time of his death in 1475. Schöne's 1938 invention of a "Master of the Munich Betrayal" is a more appropriate
attribution.
Other Works
The Last Supper and Justice Panels are the only works known to be definitely done by Bouts. The remaining panels from
the Last Judgment Altarpiece (datable to 1468-70) and the Martyrdom of St. Erasmus Triptych (before 1466) are also
fairly secure attributions. Aside from these, a number of other paintings have been attributed to him, including:
Dieric the Younger and Aelbrecht
Bouts was married twice and had four children. His two daughters went to convents, and his two sons became painters who
carried the Bouts workshop into the mid-16th century. Little is known of the elder son, Dieric the Younger, although he appears
to have continued in his father's style until his early death in 1491. The younger brother, Aelbrecht (or Albert), did likewise, but in a style that is unmistakably his own. His distinctive work
propelled Boutsian imagery into the 16th century.
See also
External links
Wikimedia Commons has media related to:
References
- This article incorporates text from The Modern World Encyclopædia: Illustrated
(1935); out of UK copyright as of 2005.
- Paul Heiland, Dirk Bouts und die Hauptwerke seiner Schule (Potsdam, 1902).
- Max J. Friedländer, Die altniederländische Malerei, vol. 3 (Berlin, 1925); Eng. trans. as Early Netherlandish
Painting, vol. 3 (Leiden and Brussels, 1968).
- Ludwig von Baldass, "Die Enwicklung des Dieric Bouts," Jahrbuch der Kunsthist. Samml. Wien, n.s., 6 (1932):
77-114.
- Wolfgang Schöne, Dieric Bouts und seine Schule (Berlin and Leipzig, 1938).
- M. J. Schretlen, Dirck Bouts (Amsterdam, 1946).
- J. Francotte, Dieric Bouts (Leuven, 1951-52).
- Erwin Panofsky, Early Netherlandish Painting (Cambridge, MA, 1953).
- Valentin Denis, Thierry Bouts (Brussels and Amsterdam, 1957).
- Dieric Bouts, exh. cat. (Brussels and Delft, 1957-58).
- Dieric Bouts en zijn Tijd, exh. cat. (Leuven, 1975).
- Dirk Bouts (ca. 1410-1475): Een Vlaams primitief te Leuven, exh. cat. (Leuven, 1998).
- Maurits Smeyers, Dirk Bouts, Schilder van de Stilte (Leuven, 1998).
- Anna Bergmans, ed., Dirk Bouts: Het Laatste Avondmaal (Tielt, 1998).
- Catheline Périer-D'Ieteren, Dieric Bouts: The Complete Works (Brussels, 2006).
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