NAIL - Netherlandish Art In London

In Belgium there is going to be a new event: Rogier Van Der Weyden in Context. It is being held in late October 2009, and you can find more details here.

Introduction

Most visitors to this modest website will probably already know that London and its artistic institutions are the custodian of some of the most important works from the 15th century Netherlandish creative outpouring. In particular, works such as Jan Van Eyck’s Arnofilini twin portrait at the national gallery in Trafalger Square or the so-called “Seilern Triptych” by the ‘Master of Flemalle’ (Robert Campin and studio (?)) at the Courtauld Institute within Somerset House on the Strand are internationally renowned works.

Also, they are both oil paintings and it is true that London has a wonderfully rich holding of paintings from this time and place, particularly in the National Gallery. However the studio system of the 15th century and, to an extent, artistic taste, did not so overtly valorise oil painting but instead allowed painting to take its place in a guild-legislated and mediated rich mix of banners, sculpture (much of it painted or “poly-chromed”), fabrics, metalwork, ceramics and the like.

Often someone who we treasure as a painter would be commissioned to design , over see or directly create other objects of appreciation and artistic worth and although “design” and the novel manipulation or deployment of stock image, patterns, themes and forms, underpinned much of their activity for both secular and religious patrons, these different arts tend to enrich and inform our appreciation and understanding of the others..

Unfortunately many of these art forms have suffered grievously over the centuries. It would be easy to blame this upon the iconoclastic destructions of the subsequent centuries but other factors come into play, such as their ephemeral nature and changes in taste- our galleries’ basements are filled with objects once highly esteemed but now out of favour and fashion, while some wonderful but domestic objects were at best valued for the intrinsic worth of their materials or not anticipated to have lasting worth and were accordingly cast aside or lost along the way. A work of art competes in a brutal marathon race as the “canon” forms and reforms over the years. In this regard the holdings of 15th century Netherlandish art in London have had a mixed fortune.

On the one hand London has many wonderful works to set beside its more well-known holdings of oil paintings. On the other hand, most of these works are institutionally separated from their contemporaneous sister arts and crafts and in some cases are not readily available to the lay enthusiast to look at and admire. With this website it is hoped that the enthusiast of this art and visitor to London will gain an opportunity to know more about and appreciate more deeply London’s unique holdings of 15th Century Netherlandish art.