Robert Campin

Background

Robert Campin was born circa 1375 in Valenciennes, Nord, Hauts-de-France, France.

Career

Robert Campin is first recorded in 1406, when he became a free master in Tournai. In 1410 he acquired citizenship in that city. In 1423 he was elected dean of the painters' guild and also chosen one of Tournai's three city councilors, a post he retained until 1428.

In 1432 Campin was charged with adultery; the sentence was banishment from Tournai for a year and a pilgrimage to the south of France. The personal intervention of the daughter of the Count of Holland, however, caused the sentence to be commuted to the payment of a small fine. This unusual action is generally interpreted as an indication of Campin's great artistic importance. The Tournai records further state that Campin took two apprentices in 1427: Jacquelot Daret and Rogelet de le Pasture. The latter pupil is usually identified with the great Rogier van der Weyden.

Perceiving a close stylistic proximity between the works of Rogier and the Master of Flémalle, some historians have grouped all the paintings under Rogier's name. Most authorities, however, are able to identify two distinct artistic personalities and to discern a clear master-pupil relationship between Campin and Rogier.

Among the earliest works attributable to Campin is a small Nativity (ca. 1420). In this panel, which shows one of the first uses of oil as a binding medium for pigments, he combines a mastery of weighty, material forms with the strong illusion of three-dimensional space. His robust and earthy sense of realism is revealed in both the figures and the landscape setting, through which he achieves an unprecedented degree of physical actuality and dramatic immediacy. Further advances in illusion and expression are also seen in the fragmentary Betrothal of the Virgin (ca. 1420).

Of Campin's surviving works, the so-called Mérode Altarpiece (ca. 1426) is generally considered his masterpiece. Investing each natural object in the painting with symbolic meaning, he has succeeded in presenting sacred and metaphysical events in terms of a thoroughly plausible earthly reality. A one-point perspective is employed for the first time in northern painting to organize the setting and provide compositional unity. Inconsistent lighting and active patterning of the surface at the expense of pictorial unity, however, produce minor disharmonies. The Virgin and Child before a Fire Screen (usually dated ca. 1428) reveals more fully than any other work Campin's uncompromising spirit of materialism. In an attempt to eliminate all unreal conventions he has even employed a domestic fire screen to suggest a halo for the Virgin. In the final phase of his career Campin appears to have fallen under Rogier's influence.

The Von Werl Altarpiece (1438) shows the slender and idealized figure types of Rogier as well as the influence of his richer and warmer color scheme. Among the few surviving portraits attributable to Campin, the panels of A Gentleman and a Lady are his finest. Strongly plastic and palpably real, these pictures represent major advances in characterization and individualization for the art of portraiture.

Achievements

• Robert Campin has been identified with the Master of Flémalle on stylistic and other grounds. Characterized by a naturalistic conception of form and a poetic representation of the objects of daily life, Campin’s work marks a break with the prevailing International Gothic style and prefigures the achievements of Jan van Eyck and the painters of the Northern Renaissance. His influence was further extended by his pupil Rogier van der Weyden.

Works

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  • Triptych: The Two Thieves with the Empty Cross, The Entombment, The Resurrection

    1415

  • Portrait of a Woman

    1430

  • The Nuptials of the Virgin - St. James the Great and St. Clare

    1420

  • Virgin and Child in an Interior

    1435

  • Werl Altarpiece - St. John the Baptist and the Donor, Heinrich Von Wer

    1438

  • The Mérode Altarpiece - The Annunciation

    1428

  • Blessing Christ and Praying Virgin

    1424

  • The Liturgical Vestments of the Order of the Golden Fleece - The Cope of Saint John

    1442

  • Mass of Saint Gregory

    1415

  • Holy Trinity Gold, silver and silk embroidery, pearls, glass beads and velvet applique on linen, 112 x 64 cm Vienna, Kunsthistorisches Museum

    1433

  • Saint Veronica Displaying the Sudarium

    1430

  • The Mérode Altarpiece

    1428

  • Virgin and Child Before a Firescreen

    1440

  • Madonna and Child Before a Fireplace

    1430

  • Madonna and Child

    1430

  • Samian Sibyl

  • Crucifixion

    1425

  • Madonna and Child in a Garden

  • Mourning Trinity (Throne of God)

    1435

  • Adoration of Shepherds

    1420

  • Werl Altarpiece - St. Barbara

    1438

  • Virgin and Child

    1410

  • Trinity of the Broken Body

    1410

  • The Liturgical Vestments of the Order of the Golden Fleece - The Cope of the Virgin Mary

    1442

  • Madonna by a Grassy Bank Oak

    1425

  • The Mérode Altarpiece - Joseph as a medieval carpenter

    1428

  • Saint John the Baptist

    1415

  • The Nuptials of the Virgin

    1420

  • The Annunciation

    1430

  • Werl Altarpiece

    1438

  • The Annunciation

    1430

  • The Mérode Altarpiece - The Donors

    1428

  • Portrait of a Man

    1430

  • The Crucified Thief

    1410

  • Holy Virgin in Glory

    1430

Membership

Robert Campin was a member of the Tournai Guild of Saint Luke.

Connections

Robert Campin was married to Elisabeth van Stokkem. The couple was childless.

Spouse:

Elisabeth van Stokkem

pupil:

Rogier van der Weyden

References

• Robert Campin This substantial study is full of colour images that celebrate the work of Robert Campin, the 15th-century master of early Netherlandish painting, whose achievements have been largely overlooked through history, particularly because he rarely signed his works, and has been overshadowed by the van Eyck brothers.
  2002
• Robert Campin The nineteen studies presented here provide a range of new research from leading scholars which will provide a fresh basis for assessing Campin's oeuvre. New technical studies of several of the most important pictures in the Campin group allow a reassessment of the internal coherence of the group itself, while other studies examine a range of contemporary material in order to pose new questions concerning sources, iconography and influence and shed new light on the status of many works associated with Campin.
  1996