Gerard David (c. 1460 – August 13, 1523) was an Early Netherlandish painter and manuscript illuminator known for his brilliant use of color.
He was born in
OudewaterOudewater is a municipality and a town in the Netherlands, in the province of Utrecht.-Population centres :The municipality of Oudewater consists of the following cities, towns, villages and/or districts: Hekendorp, Oudewater, Papekop, Snelrewaard....
, now located in
UtrechtUtrecht is the smallest province of the Netherlands, and is located in the center of the country. It is bordered by the Eemmeer in the north, Gelderland in the east, the river Rhine in the south, South Holland in the west, and North Holland in the northwest...
. He spent his mature career in Bruges, where he was a member of the painters' guild. Upon the death of
Hans MemlingHans Memling was a German-born Early Netherlandish painter.- Life and works :...
in 1494, David became Bruges' leading painter.
David had been completely forgotten when in the early 1860s he was rescued from oblivion by William Henry James Weale, whose researches in the archives of Bruges brought to light the main facts of the painter's life and led to the reconstruction of David's artistic personality, beginning with the recognition of David's only documented work, the
Virgin Among Virgins at Rouen.
Gerard David (c. 1460 – August 13, 1523) was an Early Netherlandish painter and manuscript illuminator known for his brilliant use of color.
Life
He was born in
OudewaterOudewater is a municipality and a town in the Netherlands, in the province of Utrecht.-Population centres :The municipality of Oudewater consists of the following cities, towns, villages and/or districts: Hekendorp, Oudewater, Papekop, Snelrewaard....
, now located in
UtrechtUtrecht is the smallest province of the Netherlands, and is located in the center of the country. It is bordered by the Eemmeer in the north, Gelderland in the east, the river Rhine in the south, South Holland in the west, and North Holland in the northwest...
. He spent his mature career in Bruges, where he was a member of the painters' guild. Upon the death of
Hans MemlingHans Memling was a German-born Early Netherlandish painter.- Life and works :...
in 1494, David became Bruges' leading painter.
David had been completely forgotten when in the early 1860s he was rescued from oblivion by William Henry James Weale, whose researches in the archives of Bruges brought to light the main facts of the painter's life and led to the reconstruction of David's artistic personality, beginning with the recognition of David's only documented work, the
Virgin Among Virgins at Rouen. There is now documentary evidence for the following: that David came to Bruges in 1483, presumably from
Haarlem', in the past usually Harlem in English, is a municipality and a city in the Netherlands. It is also the capital of the province of North Holland, the northern half of Holland, which at one time was the most powerful of the seven provinces of the Dutch Republic.Haarlem had a total population 148...
, where he had formed his early style under Albert van Oudewater; he joined the guild of St Luke at Bruges in 1484 and became dean of the guild in 1501; in 1496 he married Cornelia Cnoop, daughter of the dean of the
goldsmithA goldsmith is a metalworker who specializes in working with gold and other precious metals. Since ancient times the techniques of a Goldsmith have evolved very little in order to produce items of jewelry of quality standards. In modern times actual Goldsmiths are rare...
s' guild; he became one of the town's leading citizens; he died on August 13, 1523 and was buried in the
Church of Our LadyThe Church of Our Lady in Bruges, Belgium, dates mainly from the 13th, 14th and 15th centuries.Its tower, at 122,3 meters in height, remains the tallest structure in the city and the second tallest brickwork tower in the world The Church of Our Lady in Bruges, Belgium, dates mainly from the...
at Bruges.
Work
(Note: Many work locations are as of 1911 and may be out of date)
In his early work, David had followed Haarlem artists such as Dirck Bouts, Albert van Oudewater and
Geertgen tot Sint JansGeertgen tot Sint Jans , also known as Geertgen van Haarlem, Gerrit van Haarlem, Gerrit Gerritsz, Gheertgen, Geerrit, Gheerrit, or any other diminutive form of Gerald, was an Early Netherlandish painter from the northern Low Countries in the Holy Roman Empire...
, though he had already given evidence of superior power as a colourist. To this early period belong the
St John of the Kaufmann collection in
BerlinBerlin is the capital city and one of sixteen states of Germany. With a population of 3.4 million within its city limits, Berlin is Germany's largest city. It is the second most populous city and the eighth most populous urban area in the European Union...
and the Saltings
St Jerome. In Bruges he studied and copied masterpieces by the
Van EyckVan Eyck , also Van Eijk is a Dutch surname meaning "of Eyck" or "of Eijk" . Several important families and persons had this surname:-Van Eycks :...
s, Rogier van der Weyden, and
Hugo van der GoesHugo van der Goes was a Flemish painter. He was, along with Jan van Eyck, Rogier van der Weyden, Hans Memling and Gerard David, one of the most important of the Early Netherlandish painters....
. Here he came directly under the influence of Memling, the master whom he followed most closely. It was from him that David acquired a solemnity of treatment, greater realism in the rendering of human form, and an orderly arrangement of figures.
Another master was to influence him later in life, when in 1515 he visited
Antwerp||-||-||-||}Antwerp is a city and municipality in Belgium and the capital of the Antwerp province in Flanders, one of Belgium's three regions. Antwerp's total population is 472,071 and its total area is , giving a population density of 2,308 inhabitants per km²...
and was impressed with the work of
Quentin MatsysQuentin Matsys was a painter in the Flemish tradition and a founder of the Antwerp school. He was born at Leuven, where he was trained as an ironsmith...
, who had introduced a greater vitality and intimacy in the conception of sacred themes. David's
Pietà in the
National Gallery, LondonThe National Gallery in London, founded in 1824, houses a rich collection of over 2,300 paintings dating from the mid-13th century to 1900 in its home on Trafalgar Square...
, and the
Descent from the Cross in the Cavallo collection
ParisParis is the capital of France and the country's most populous city. It is situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
(Guildhall, 1906), were painted under this influence and are remarkable for their sense of dramatic movement. But the works on which David's fame has rested most securely are the great
altarpieceAn altarpiece is a picture or relief representing a religious subject and suspended in a frame behind the altar of a church. The altarpiece is often made up of two or more separate panels created using a technique known as panel painting. It is then called a diptych, triptych or polyptych for two,...
s he painted before his visit to Antwerp: the
Marriage of St Catherine, at the
National Gallery, LondonThe National Gallery in London, founded in 1824, houses a rich collection of over 2,300 paintings dating from the mid-13th century to 1900 in its home on Trafalgar Square...
; the triptych of the
Madonna Enthroned and Saints of the Brignole-Sale collection in
GenoaGenoa is a city and an important seaport in northern Italy, the capital of the Province of Genoa and of the region of Liguria. The city has a population of about 610,000 and the urban area has a population of about 900,000...
; the
Annunciation of the Sigmaringen collection; and above all, the
Madonna with Angels and Saints, which he painted without asking a fee from the Carmelite Nuns of
SionSion may refer to:* A transliteration of ZionIn geography:*Sion, Switzerland, the capital of the canton of Valais*Sion, Gers, a municipality in France*Sion, Mumbai, a suburb of Mumbai*Sion, Netherlands, part of Rijswijk in South Holland...
at Bruges, and which is now in the
RouenRouen is the historical capital city of Normandy, in northern France on the River Seine, and currently the capital of the Haute-Normandie region. Once one of the largest and most prosperous cities of medieval Europe, Rouen was the seat of the Exchequer of Normandy in the Middle Ages...
museum.
Only a few of his works have remained in Bruges:
The Judgment of Cambyses,
The Flaying of Sisamnes and the
Baptism of Christ in the town museum, and the
Transfiguration in the Church of Our Lady. The rest were scattered around the world, and to this may be due the oblivion into which his very name had fallen; this, and the fact that, for all the beauty and the soulfulness of his work, he had nothing innovative to add to the history of art. Even in his best work he had only given newer variations of the art of his predecessors and contemporaries. His rank among the masters was renewed, however, when a considerable number of his paintings were assembled at Bruges for a 1902 exhibition of the early Flemish painters.
He also worked closely with the leading manuscript illuminators of the day, and seems to have been brought in to paint specific important miniatures himself, among them a
Virgin among virgins in the
Morgan LibraryThe Morgan Library & Museum is a museum and research library in New York City, USA. It was founded to house the private library of J. P. Morgan in 1906, which included, besides the manuscripts and printed books, some of them in rare bindings, his collection of prints and drawings...
, and a portrait of the Emperor Maximilian in Vienna. Several of his drawings also survive, and elements from these appear in the works of other painters and illuminators for several decades after his death.
Legacy
At the time of David's death, the glory of Bruges and its painters was on the wane: Antwerp had become the leader in art as well as in political and commercial importance. Of David's pupils in Bruges, only
IsenbrantAdriaen Isenbrandt or Adrien, Isenbrant, Ysenbrant, Ysenbrandt or Hysebrant , was a Flemish Northern Renaissance painter, who from documentary evidence was clearly a significant artist of his period, but to whom no specific works can be clearly documented...
, A. Cornelis and Ambrosius Benson achieved importance. Among other Flemish painters,
Joachim PatinirJoachim Patinir, also called de Patiner , was a Flemish Northern Renaissance history and landscape painter from the area of modern Wallonia...
and
Jan MabuseJan Mabuse was the name adopted by the Flemish painter Jan Gossaert; or Jennyn van Hennegouwe , as he called himself when he matriculated in the guild of St Luke, at Antwerp, in 1503.Nothing is known of his early life, but his works suggest that he stood in his first period under the influence of...
were to some degree influenced by him.
Eberhard Freiherr von Bodenhausen published in 1905 a very comprehensive
monographA monograph is a work of writing upon a single subject, usually also by a single author. It is often a scholarly essay or learned treatise, and may be released in the manner of a book or journal article. It is by definition a single document that forms a complete text in itself...
on Gerard David and his School (Munich, F. Bruckmann), together with a
catalogue raisonnéThe typical catalogue raisonné is a monograph giving a comprehensive catalogue of artworks by an artist.The essential elements of a catalogue raisonné are that:
a. it purports to be an exhaustive list of works
b. for a defined subject matter
...
of his works, which, after careful analysis, are reduced to a total of forty-three paintings.
External links