Simon Marmion
Encyclopedia
Amiens
Amiens is a city and commune in northern France, north of Paris and south-west of Lille. It is the capital of the Somme department in Picardy...
, France
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
, died 24 or 25 December 1489, Valenciennes
Valenciennes
Valenciennes is a commune in the Nord department in northern France.It lies on the Scheldt river. Although the city and region had seen a steady decline between 1975 and 1990, it has since rebounded...
) was a French or Burgundian Early Netherlandish painter of panels and illuminated manuscript
Illuminated manuscript
An illuminated manuscript is a manuscript in which the text is supplemented by the addition of decoration, such as decorated initials, borders and miniature illustrations...
s. Marmion lived and worked in what is now France but for most of his lifetime was part of the Duchy of Burgundy
Duchy of Burgundy
The Duchy of Burgundy , was heir to an ancient and prestigious reputation and a large division of the lands of the Second Kingdom of Burgundy and in its own right was one of the geographically larger ducal territories in the emergence of Early Modern Europe from Medieval Europe.Even in that...
in the Southern Netherlands.
Life
Like many painters of his era, Marmion came from a family of artists, and both his father, Jean, and his brother Mille were painters. Marmion is recorded as working at AmiensAmiens
Amiens is a city and commune in northern France, north of Paris and south-west of Lille. It is the capital of the Somme department in Picardy...
between 1449 to 1454, and then at Valenciennes from 1458 until his death. He was patronized by Philip the Good, the Duke of Burgundy
Duke of Burgundy
Duke of Burgundy was a title borne by the rulers of the Duchy of Burgundy, a small portion of traditional lands of Burgundians west of river Saône which in 843 was allotted to Charles the Bald's kingdom of West Franks...
from 1454 when he was one of several artists called to Lille
Lille
Lille is a city in northern France . It is the principal city of the Lille Métropole, the fourth-largest metropolitan area in the country behind those of Paris, Lyon and Marseille. Lille is situated on the Deûle River, near France's border with Belgium...
to work on the decorations for the Feast of the Pheasant
Feast of the Pheasant
The Feast of the Pheasant was a banquet given by Philip the Good, Duke of Burgundy on 17 February 1454 in Lille, now in France. Its purpose was to promote a crusade against the Turks, who had taken Constantinople the year before...
. He was employed by several members of the ducal family, including Charles the Bold and Margaret of York
Margaret of York
Margaret of York – also by marriage known as Margaret of Burgundy – was Duchess of Burgundy as the third wife of Charles the Bold and acted as a protector of the Duchy after his death. She was a daughter of Richard Plantagenet, 3rd Duke of York, and Cecily Neville, and the sister of...
. He was called "the prince of illuminators" by a near contemporary. Three years after his death his widow, Jeanne de Quaroube, married his pupil, the painter Jan Provoost
Jan Provoost
Jan Provoost, or Jean Provost, or Jan Provost was a Flemish painter. He was one of the most famous Netherlandish painters of his generation, a prolific master who left his early workshop in Valenciennes to run two workshops, one in Bruges, where he was made a burgher in 1494, the other...
, who on her death inherited the considerable Marmion estate.
Although best known for his illuminated manuscripts, Marmion also produced portraits and other paintings, altarpiece
Altarpiece
An 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, and decorative work. A famous double-sided altarpiece with several Scenes from the life of St Bertin
Bertin
St. Bertin is a saint and abbot of Saint-Omer.He was born near Coutances. At an early age he entered the monastery of Luxeuil in France where, under the austere rule of St. Columbanus, he prepared himself for his future missionary career...
is in the Gemäldegalerie, Berlin
Gemäldegalerie, Berlin
The Gemäldegalerie is an art museum in Berlin, Germany. It holds one of the world's leading collections of European art from the 13th to the 18th centuries. It is located on Kulturforum west of Potsdamer Platz. Its collection includes masterpieces from such artists as Albrecht Dürer, Lucas...
(with two sections in the National Gallery (London). There is a Mass of Saint Gregory
Mass of Saint Gregory
The Mass of Saint Gregory is a subject in Roman Catholic art which first appears in the late Middle Ages and was still found in the Counter-Reformation. Pope Gregory I The Mass of Saint Gregory is a subject in Roman Catholic art which first appears in the late Middle Ages and was still found in...
in Toronto, and a Lamentation of Christ
Lamentation of Christ
350px|thumb|Lamentation by [[Giotto di Bondone]] in the [[Scrovegni Chapel]]The Lamentation of Christ is a very common subject in Christian art from the High Middle Ages to the Baroque. After Jesus was crucified, his body was removed from the cross and his friends and family mourned over his body...
in the Metropolitan Museum of Art
Metropolitan Museum of Art
The Metropolitan Museum of Art is a renowned art museum in New York City. Its permanent collection contains more than two million works, divided into nineteen curatorial departments. The main building, located on the eastern edge of Central Park along Manhattan's Museum Mile, is one of the...
, three works in Philadelphia, and several others elsewhere. Stylistically he lies between his French and Flemish contemporaries, with a Flemish innovation in composition and landscape. His perspective is usually technically sound, but the proportions of his figures are often awkward, and their poses rather stiff.
Manuscripts
His masterpiece, a Grandes Chroniques de FranceGrandes Chroniques de France
The Grandes Chroniques de France is a royal compilation of the history of France, its manuscripts remarkably illuminated. It was compiled between the thirteenth and fifteenth centuries, beginning in the reign of Saint Louis, who wished to preserve the history of the Franks from the coming of the...
, is now in the Russian National Library
Russian National Library
The National Library of Russia in St Petersburg, known as the State Public Saltykov-Shchedrin Library from 1932 to 1992 , is the oldest public library in Russia...
, St Petersburg. This has 25 large miniatures (215 x 258 mm) and 65 smaller ones, ranging in style from brilliantly-coloured battle-scenes to some in an innovative near-grisaille
Grisaille
Grisaille is a term for painting executed entirely in monochrome or near-monochrome, usually in shades of grey. It is particularly used in large decorative schemes in imitation of sculpture. Many grisailles in fact include a slightly wider colour range, like the Andrea del Sarto fresco...
style, with just touches of subdued colour. The illustrations reflect the text, which is an unusual version stressing Netherlandish events, and apparently intended to justify Philip the Good's claim to the French throne. The same library has a medical text with a fine presentation miniature with another portrait of Phillip the Good, and heraldic borders.
His manuscript of The Visions of Tondal in the Getty Museum (1475) is another important work, and he also produced many more conventional Books of Hours and other manuscripts; his most elaborate book of hours is the Huth Hours (ca. 1480) in the British Library
British Library
The British Library is the national library of the United Kingdom, and is the world's largest library in terms of total number of items. The library is a major research library, holding over 150 million items from every country in the world, in virtually all known languages and in many formats,...
, with 24 full-page miniatures, and 74 smaller ones. In a book of hours now in Naples, known as la Flora he painted 22 full-page miniatures that pioneered close-up small groups of a few figures seen at half-length, which represent "his most distinctive illumination and perhaps his greatest achievement". The Morgan Library
Morgan Library
The 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 Huntington Library also have fine books of hours by Marmion.
Victoria and Albert Museum
The Victoria and Albert Museum , set in the Brompton district of The Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea, London, England, is the world's largest museum of decorative arts and design, housing a permanent collection of over 4.5 million objects...
in London (1475-81) is, with pages 11 x 7.6 cm (4 3/8 x 3 in.), an example of the fashion for very small but lavish books of hours. Here the borders are especially fine, in some cases going beyond the usual flowers and foliage to include ones showing collections of ivory and enamel plaques, and other pilgrim's souvenirs arrayed on shelves. The book appears to have been made without a specific owner in mind, as there is none of the usual heraldry
Heraldry
Heraldry is the profession, study, or art of creating, granting, and blazoning arms and ruling on questions of rank or protocol, as exercised by an officer of arms. Heraldry comes from Anglo-Norman herald, from the Germanic compound harja-waldaz, "army commander"...
in the borders and the choice of saints' days included in the calendar is generalized for Bruges and Northern France - by this period books of hours could be bought ready-made, but not usually of this quality. The only full-page miniature without borders in the book is an unusual scene of Heaven and Hell, opposite a Last Judgement on the facing page. The lower two thirds show a fiery hellish landscape, while above naked figures cross a narrow bridge over a lake to a grassy park-like heaven - if they can evade the devils with hooked poles in the water, who try to grab them. Many scenes in the Getty Tondal, and a large Dream of Charles the Bald
Charles the Bald
Charles the Bald , Holy Roman Emperor and King of West Francia , was the youngest son of the Emperor Louis the Pious by his second wife Judith.-Struggle against his brothers:He was born on 13 June 823 in Frankfurt, when his elder...
in the Petersberg Chroniques also contain striking images on these themes, anticipating those of Hieronymous Bosch.
Identity questioned
Between the late 19th century and the mid-20th century, art historians attributed various works to Marmion. However from 1969, a scholarly counter-movement lead by art historian Antoine de Schruyver suggested that Marmion's body of work came from a number of hands. At its largest figures, Marmion's oeuvre amounts to some 40 each of manuscripts and panel paintingPanel painting
A panel painting is a painting made on a flat panel made of wood, either a single piece, or a number of pieces joined together. Until canvas became the more popular support medium in the 16th century, it was the normal form of support for a painting not on a wall or vellum, which was used for...
s, but though his life and his reputation are both covered by contemporary documentation, he cannot clearly connected by documents to specific surviving works - most of the biographical documentation relates to his ownership of real estate property.
The circumstantial evidence is strong: the abbot
Abbot
The word abbot, meaning father, is a title given to the head of a monastery in various traditions, including Christianity. The office may also be given as an honorary title to a clergyman who is not actually the head of a monastery...
at Saint-Omer
Saint-Omer
Saint-Omer , a commune and sub-prefecture of the Pas-de-Calais department west-northwest of Lille on the railway to Calais. The town is named after Saint Audomar, who brought Christianity to the area....
(near Valenciennes) who commissioned the St. Bertin altarpiece, Guillaume Filastre, also commissioned the Petersberg Chroniques and another MS by the same artist. Marmion is recorded as producing a breviary
Breviary
A breviary is a liturgical book of the Latin liturgical rites of the Catholic Church containing the public or canonical prayers, hymns, the Psalms, readings, and notations for everyday use, especially by bishops, priests, and deacons in the Divine Office...
ordered by Philip the Good between 1467 and 1470, and a detached miniature in the Metropolitan Museum of Art
Metropolitan Museum of Art
The Metropolitan Museum of Art is a renowned art museum in New York City. Its permanent collection contains more than two million works, divided into nineteen curatorial departments. The main building, located on the eastern edge of Central Park along Manhattan's Museum Mile, is one of the...
(Lehman Collection) may come from this.
Further reading
- Kren, Thomas, ed. Margaret of York, Simon Marmion, and The Visions of Tondal. Malibu, CA, J. Paul Getty Museum, 1992.
Short books on individual MS:
- Kren, Thomas, and Wieck, Roger. The Visions of Tondal from the Library of Margaret of York, J. Paul Getty Museum, Malibu, 1990, ISBN 978-0-89236-169-4
- Thorpe, James. Book of Hours: Illuminations by Simon Marmion, Huntington Library Press; New edition 2000, ISBN 0873281306
External links
- Simon Marmion at Artcyclopedia
- Marmion in the pages of Getty Museum
- Getty Tondal miniatures only (full turn the pages at Getty link above)
- Louvain University Library Information and Bibliography (in French)