The Burning Bush

[kavery]

The Burning Bush
1476
Wood, 410 x 305 cm
Cathedrale Saint Sauveur, Aix-en-Provence
Нашла очень интересную картину Николаса Фромена (FROMENT, Nicolas), на которой изображен ветхозавтный сюжет о Моисее и горящем кусте. Картина была написана по заказу Рене Анжуйского (Кстати, очень интересная личность был этот смый Рене, может напишу о нем как-нибудь).

Уникальность картины состоит в том, что по библейскому сюжету Моиссею я вляется из куста Бог, а на этой картине мы видим Деву Марию с младенцем Иисусом. Настолько сильно было почитание Марии в средние века.
Так же мне ранее невстречалася такой символ как зеркало, в руках у Мадонны. Интересно, каково значение этого символа.?



This work of Froment's maturity, which is indeed an epitome of his whole oeuvre, was commissioned by King René of Provence. This central panel of the triptych represents Moses before the Burning Bush; the figures kneeling in prayer on the wing are the donor and his wife, Jeanne de Laval, accompanied by saints (not reproduced here). In this work the painter has abandoned the occasional crudities of The Raising of Lazarus; only in the countenance of Moses are there reminiscences of the more rigid portraiture of the earlier altarpiece. Moses is struck with astonishment at the vision before him and the appearance of the angel. The vision occupies the upper centre of the picture: amidst a great circle of flaming rose bushes the Madonna appears in a richly draped mantle, holding the Child. Christ holds a mirror in his hand, in which both of them are reflected. The picture contains a number of emblematical representations. The combination of a number of unusual elements side by side is characteristic of mediaeval symbolism. It is evidence of the extraordinary cult of the Virgin in the Middle Ages that it is she who appears before Moses, and not God, as in the Old Testament.



The picture is mainly Gothic in concept and in its copious use of symbol as well as the choice of vision as the principal theme. The second half of the fifteenth century was already a period of transition, in which the new style began to make itself increasingly felt particularly in the works of any painter influenced by a visit to Italy. A closer look at the background behind the Burning Bush reveals a typically Tuscan landscape. The buildings, the trees, the meandering roads, together with the use of the perspective are all similar to those of contemporary Florentine painters; it is nonetheless much more probable that the decisive impact was not due to the study of Tuscan works of art but to actual walks taken among the Tuscan hills.


Вид триптиха целиком. На боковых панелях изображены Рене Анжуйский и его вторая жена Жанна де Лаваль (Jeanne de Laval).