Prof Susie Nash

course description


This special option will consider the design, production, materials, patronage and meaning of painting, sculpture and other arts from c. 1384-1520 in France and the Burgundian Netherlands.

 

The course will start by looking at relevant works of art in London museum and gallery collections and consider techniques of visual and technical analysis in relation to those works. There are two main bodies of evidence that we will grapple with in the first part of the course: physical evidence of the works themselves, which may not be strictly technical, but which often is, and documentary evidence, the written sources, which are richer than one might suppose. These are our two starting points from which we will move on to consider issues of interpretation,  function, audience, and meaning, and how materials were chosen for their meaning.

 

The patronage of Charles V of France, Philip the Bold, Jean de Berry, Philip the Good, Charles the Bold, Mary of Burgundy and Margaret of Austria will feature in various ways, by focusing on one or two of their major artistic projects or commissions, or groups of objects owned by them, chosen for where the visual and documentary evidence is particularly compelling, rich or informative.

 

We will ask how the needs of commemoration and salvation, dynasty and history, as well as splendour, wove together in the conception and execution of these works, and consider the interaction of these patrons with the artists they employed and the images they acquired or had made.

 

Works to be studied will likely include the Parement de Narbonne, Tres Riches Heures by the de Limbourgs, the Holy Thorn reliquary of Jean de Berry, the Chartreuse de Champmol at Dijon including the tomb, portal and Well of Moses by  Claus Sluter; the panel paintings of Jan van Eyck, the Golden Fleece vestments in Vienna, the tomb of Mary of Burgundy in Bruges, manuscripts made for Philip the Good and Charles the Bold,  and Margaret of Austria’s foundation at Brou.

 

Since it is vital to experience at least some of these larger scale sculptural complexes first hand, it is hoped a trip to Paris and Dijon will form part of the course.


language and other requirements


Standard entry requirements.  Although there is a large body of literature in English, a reading knowledge of French or German, will be a great asset in your study of this material.