Welcome to Grand Dukes of the West
The story of Valois Burgundy is one of the most exciting of the Late Middle Ages. The four Valois Dukes of Burgundy used political intrigue, calculated splendor, economic power, and good old-fashioned violence to forge a state out of the many Duchies and Counties between France and the Holy Roman Empire. During Burgundy’s height its Dukes were seen by many as the equals of Kings and Emperors and their court was at the center of Western Europe’s cultural and political development. And then it all fell apart. Please join me as I explore the history and legacy of this forgotten kingdom.
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Episode 64: Jan van Eyck and the Northern Renaissance
The Adoration of the Mystic Lamb, the centerpiece of the Ghent Altarpiece. The Dukes of Burgundy presided over one of the great flowerings of Art and Culture in the Later Middle Ages. While the Northern Renaissance was not a purely Burgundian phenomenon, the Burgundian Court and the Cities of the Burgundian Low Countries were at the Center of advances in Painting, Music, Building and more.
The Duke of Burgundy, the Burgundian Nobility, and the rising Bourgeoisie, all commissioned art at a greater scale than ever before and they cultivated some of the best artists of the age in the process.
Time Period Covered: 1400s
Painters: Jan van Eyck, Rogier van Der Weyden, Robert Campin
Composers: Guillaume Dufay, Gilles Binchois, Antoine Busnois
Writers: Georges Chastellain, Michaut Taillevent, Jean Molinet, Antoine de la Salle, Olivier de la Marche, Philippe de Commynes
Artistic Movements: Early Netherlandish Painting, Brabantine Gothic Architecture, Burgundian/Franco-Flemish School of Music, Grands Rhetoriquers
The Arnolphini Portrait and the Mirror:
The Ghent Altarpiece:
Other works by Jan van Eyck:
Left: Portrait of a Man (Thought to be a Self Portrait), Center: The Madonna of Chancellor Rolin, Right: Portrait of Baldwin de Lannoy
Rogier van der Weyden’s Last Judgement:
Brabantine Gothic Buildings:
Guiallaume Dufay (Left) and Antoine Busnois (Right). Below are two recordings by the artists, Se La Face Ay Pale by Dufay (Top) and Quant Ce Vendra by Busnois (Bottom). Both are performed by Asteria Musica.
Sources
Van Eyck by Till-Holger Borchert
Jan Van Eyck Within His Art by Alfred Acres
Early Netherlandish Painting: Its Origins and Character by Erwin Panofsky
Northern Renaissance Art: Painting, Sculpture, the Graphic Arts from 1350 to 1575 by James Snyder
The Northern Renaissance by Jeffrey Chipps Smith
The Mirror of the Artist: Northern Renaissance Art in Its Historical Context by Craig Harbison
All the World’s a Stage: Art and Pageantry in the Renaissance and Baroque Edited by Barbara Wisch and Susan Scott
Burgundian Verse Sung by Warwick Edwards
Music in the Middle Ages and Renaissance by Harold Gleason
Philip the Good by Richard Vaughan
The Promised Lands by Wim Blockmans and Walter Prevenier
The Burgundians by Bart van Loo
The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians Volume 3
The Oxford History of Western Music
The Cambridge History of Literary Criticism Volume 3
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