Bernard van Orley
Encyclopedia
Bernard van Orley also called Barend or Barent van Orley, Bernaert van Orley or Barend van Brussel, was a Flemish Northern Renaissance
painter and draughtsman, and also a leading designer of tapestries and stained glass. He is counted among a group of painters belonging to the Romanism
school of painting, who has not been given enough attention by the general public.
, where his father Valentin van Orley (ca. 1466-Brussels 1532) was born as an illegitimate child and lost his noble lineage. Bernard and his brother Everard (who would also become a painter) were both born in Brussels.
The painted wing panels of the sculpted Saluzzo retable
are attributed to Valentin van Orley, describing the Life of St. Joseph (ca. 1510). The retable itself is Gothic
in style, but these wing panels already show some characteristic of the Renaissance
style (City Museum of Brussels). The panels of the Life of St. Roch in the Saint James' Church, Antwerp
have been ascribed to Everard van Orley.
In 1512 Bernard van Orley married Agnes Seghers. In 1539, shortly after her death, he married Catherina Helluick. He had in total six children. His four boys followed in the footsteps of their father and also became painters.
1) Valentin van Orley (1466–1532) : Philipp van Orley (ca. 1491-1566) (designer of tapestry cartoon
s); Bernard van Orley (1492?-1542?), painter and tapestry designer; Everard van Orley (born after 1491), painter; Gomar van Orley, painter (active around 1533).
2) Bernard van Orley : Michael van Orley; Hieronymus I van Orley, painter (active around 1567-1602); Giles van Orley, painter (ca. 1535-1553)
3) Giles van Orley (ca. 1535-1553) : Hieronymus II van Orley (painter and decorator)
4) Hieronymus II van Orley : Hieronymus III van Orley, portrait painter, decorator, etcher (documented in 1652); Pieter van Orley (1638-after 1708), miniaturist and landscape painter; François van Orley, history painter; Richard I van Orley
5) Pieter van Orley (1638–1708) : Richard II van Orley (1663–1732), painter and etcher; Jan van Orley (1665–1735), painter and etcher.
, however there are no reliable sources to prove this. At that time, there were only a few painters with some renown in Brussels, such as Van Laethem and painters from the Coninxloo family. It is therefore much more likely that he was initially taught in the workshop of his father, an obscure painter whose name appears as "master" in the "Liggere" (registers) of the Guild of St. Luke of Antwerp and who had several pupils.
Bernard van Orley got his knowledge of the Renaissance style from engravings and a number tapestry cartoons by Raphael for the "Acts of the Apostles", that were present in Brussels between 1516 and 1520. They were to be woven into tapestries for pope Leo X by Pieter van Aalst.
in Vienna, the side panels in the Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium
, Brussels). It recounts the lives of two apostles Thomas and Matthew. It was originally commissioned for a chapel in the Church of Our-Lady-at-the-Zavel (Notre-Dame at the Sablon) in Brussels.
In his early works he continued the traditions of Jan van Eyck
, Roger van der Weyden
and their followers. But then he gradually began integrating the Italianate motifs of the Renaissance, and representing figure types and the spatial relationship such as found in the works of Raphael
.
In 1515 he was asked to take over the commission of a triptych for the Brotherhood of the Holy Cross in a chapel in the Sint-Walburga church in Veurne
. He finished and delivered it in 1522. The left panel is on display in the Royal Museum of Fine Arts of Belgium. The front shows Saint Helena meeting the pope in an architectural setting of Renaissance buildings and Italianate motifs. The back is a grisaille
painting of Christ falling under the Cross. The right panel is on display in the Galleria Sabauda, Turin, showing Charlemagne
receiving the relics of the Passion.
From 1515 on, he and his workshop received many orders for portraits, including from the royal family and from people connected to the court. In 1516 he painted seven portraits of Charles
, who had just become King of Spain, and portraits of his brother Ferdinand, the later King of Hungary, and his four sisters (destined for the King of Denmark).
The 1516 painted copy of the Shroud of Turin
, commonly attributed to Albrecht Dürer, is also sometimes attributed to Bernard van Orley.
By 1517 he was recognized as a master in the Antwerp Guild of St. Luke
On 23 May 1518 he was appointed as the official court painter
to the Regent of the Netherlands Margarete of Austria
, replacing Jacopo d'Barbari.
In this position, he became the head of an important workshop, making him one of the first entrepreneurial artists in Northern Europe. With this workshop he produced paintings and, especially after 1525, became a leading designer of tapestry cartoons and stained glass windows. He held this position till 1527 when he, his family and several other artists, fell in disgrace because of their Protestant sympathies. The family van Orley fled Brussels and settled in Antwerp. Five years later, when he was reinstated by the new Regent of the Netherlands Maria of Austria, he returned to Brussels. After his death in 1541, he was succeeded as court painter by his pupil Michael Coxcie
.
Among his most important paintings is the "Triptych of Virtue of Patience" (Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium
, Brussels), also called the Job altarpiece, commissioned in 1521 by Margaret of Austria to illustrate a poem she wrote about the virtue of patience. The interior panels represent the trials of Job
, while the outer panels recount the parable of Lazarus and Dives
(instead of the usual grisaille paintings of saints). This triptych is completely by the hand of Bernard van Orley. He must have been especially proud of his work as he signed it twice and added his coat of arms and tiwice his monogram BVO and the motto 'ELX SYNE TYT' (each his own time). This relates to his artistic opinion that an artist should be a man fully integrated in his time.
The same museum houses another triptych by the same painter : the "Haneton triptych ". This triptych was commissioned by Philippe Haneton, first secretary in the Secret Counsel of Charles V. The middle panel depicts a poignant pietà
against an archaic golden background, painted in a very personal style with influences of the Flemish Primitives
and Albrecht Dürer
. Bernard van Orley was, together with Jan Gossaert, among the first to introduce strong musculature in Flemish paintings. The left panel shows Philippe Haneton and his sons, and the right panel his wife and her daughters.
The triptych "The Last Judgment" (Koninklijk Museum voor Schone Kunsten Antwerpen), painted on commission by the almoners of the Cathedral of Our Lady, Antwerp
in 1525, is one of his best works through its originality and his mastership. The paintings in grisaille on the back were executed by Peter de Kempeneer, who was, at that time, an apprentice in the workshop of Bernard van Orley.
The Altarpiece of Calvary in the Onze-Lieve-Vrouwekerk
in Bruges, dates from 1534. It was commissioned by Margaret of Austria originally for the funeral monument in the church of Brou in Bourg-en-Bresse
in Burgundy. The side panels were finished much later by Marcus Gerards the Elder and brought to Bruges by Margaret of Parma
, regent of the Netherlands under king Philip II of Spain
. The central part represent the Calvary, the left panel the Crown of Thorns
, the Scourging of Christ and Christ carrying the Cross. The right panel depicts the Pietà
and the Limbo
of the Just.
His portraits were more subdued and thoughtful, such as his portraits of Charles V
and Margarete of Austria
. He usually represents his subjects in a seated static position, their expressionless faces without much psychological depth or feelings. His workshop produced several copies of these portraits, especially the portrait of Charles V. They were offedred as gift to visitors or courtiers.
He represents saints usually in a full-length portrait, such as his "Mary with Child and John the Baptist" (Museo del Prado, Madrid, inv nr 1932) with behind them in the background an open colonnade, a baldachin
or a set of trees. This type of composition can be found in many 16th century paintings.
Bernard van Orley often signed his paintings, especially in his early period before 1521, with the coat of arms of the Seigneurs d'Orley : argent
two pallets gules
. It had been contended that these are the signature of his father Valentin
When Albrecht Dürer
visited the Netherlands in 1520 in order to be present at the coronation of the new emperor, Charles V, he called Barend van Orley flatteringly "the Raphael of the Netherlands". Dürer, who stayed as a guest in the house of Bernard van Orley between 27 August and 2 September 1520, also painted a portrait which some scholars identify with van Orley's. Dürer had a profound influence on Van Orley who would in his later works try to find a synthesis between him and other Renaissance master, Raphael.
Some important pupils of his were Michael Coxcie
, Pieter Coecke van Aelst
and Pieter de Kempeneer, who continued in the style of Romanism
. Other pupils, such as Lancelot Blondeel
and Jan Vermeyen
continued in the tradition of painter-designer of their master.
Together with Jan Gossaert and Quentin Matsys
, Bernard van Orley is regarded as one of the leading innovators of the 16th century Flemish painting, by adopting the style and manner of the Italian Renaissance. His paintings are executed with great care about minute details and stand out by their brilliant colours.
Tapestries were held in much higher esteem than paintings, and were more expensive. At this period, they were often woven with gold and silver thread. They had additional value as decoration and insulation for the large, bare and cold walls of palaces and church choirs.
Barend van Orley had already started designing tapestries in his youth, but after 1530 he seemed to have stopped painting altogether and applying himself solely to cartoons for tapestries and designs for stained-glass windows.
One of the first tapestry cartoons ascribed to him were the four cartoons for the "Legend of Our-Lady-on-the-Zavel (Legend of Notre-Dame on the Sablon)" (1516–1518), commissioned by Frans van Taxis. One of them represents the patron and two emperors : Maximilian I
and his father Frederick III
. This is an allusion to the postal contract obtained by Frans van Taxis, giving him a monopoly for the postal system between Brussels and the rest of the empire. The style of these tapestries were still traditional with an overcrowded composition set in a two-dimensional plane.
From the 1520s on, his tapestries began more to resemble woven paintings, more in line with the aesthetics of the Renaissance, as can be seen in his two Passion series (one set in the Royal Palace of Madrid
, the other set dispersed over several museums) and the Lamentation (National Gallery of Art
, Washington, D.C.). These tapestries, some woven by Peter de Pannemaker, show clearly the influence of the tapestry cartoons of Raphael
and the work of Dürer in the rendering of the figure types. Since Dürer had been a guest in the house of van Orley at the time the contracts for these tapestries were signed, it cannot be excluded that the two artists have discussed the design. First the first time in Passion tapestries, the figures receive a dramatic weight through their large size and through their position in the foreground
He became a member of the Brotherhood of St. Sebastian in the church of St. Gaugericus. More than half of the members of this brotherhood were weavers by profession.
In his later years (1521–1530) he made the twelve small cartoons (also called with their French name petits patrons), perhaps with the help of Jan Geethels, for his best-known tapestry series "The Hunts of Maximilian", one tapestry for each month (Louvre
, Paris). They were commissioned by emperor Charles V or someone at the imperial court. It took two years and sixty weavers to realize them. These hunts took place in the wide vicinity of Brussels or in the Sonian Forest
. In those cartoons rigidity of the composition is making way for a greater dynamism. He displayed his creative talent for depicting large-scale scenes of imaginary hunts within a realistic, picturesque, minutely detailed landscape. Bernard van Orley sought for this the help of specialists in the matter and consulted the Livre de Chasse (Hunting manual) by Gaston Phoebus
With those cartoons he, and also Johannes Stradanus
, set the example for their followers by opening up new paths in Italianism with his classic breadth and ease in transforming the rendering of landscapes., successfully integrating it into Netherlandish traditional modes. This dynamism would reach its peak in the Baroque
style, especially by Peter Paul Rubens. The iconography
of hunting parties would be greatly imitated by the tapestry workshops of the Leyniers family, - especially Everaert Leyniers (1597–1680) - the leading dyers and weavers in Brussels for over four hundred years.
Another famous set of tapestries were commissioned by Henry III of Nassau-Breda
at about 1528-1530. They were to glorify the ancestors of the House of Nassau
. The tapestries were lost in a fire in 1760, but the cartoons still exist (Metropolitan Museum, New York). These tapestries were among the first to unite equestrian portraiture with more informal group portraiture.
The Battle of Pavia
is another set of seven tapestries on display in the Capodimonte museum
(Naples, Italy), while the seven small cartoons are owned by the Louvre
, Paris. Van Orley showed to the viewer in grand-scale scenes a detailed historical authenticity with lifesize figures within imagined surroundings.
The tapestry Hercules carrying the Heavenly Spheres was commissioned by king John II of Portugal
in 1530 and can be seen in the Royal Palace of Madrid
. The armillary was a symbol of the king of Portugal.
in Brussels depict members of the House of Habsburg
(Charles V
and his wife Isabella of Portugal
), Charlemagne
and Elisabeth of Hungary
and scenes from the Legend of the Miraculous Host, while the windows in the southern transept Louis II of Hungary and Bohemia
and his wife Maria of Austria, sister of Charles V, kneeling in front of a vertical Trinity
with St Louis
and the Virgin with Child. These windows mark a change in style. The dynasty is still embedded in a religious framework, but this time the donor is emphasized and no longer the venerated saint. It is even no longer deemed necessary to legitimize the position of the sovereign by a genealogical tree, as Philip the Handsome
, the father of Charles V, is not represented. These windows can be ascribed with certainty to drawings by Bernard van Orley. They were executed by the master glass-worker Jean Haeck.
He also designed the stained-glass windows for the St Rumbolds Cathedral, Malines depicting Margarete of Austria
and her third husband Philibert II, Duke of Savoy
and Christ entering Jerusalem. These windows were destroyed during the religious troubles between 1566 and 1585. In 2004 an unpublished coloured drawing of these windows has been discovered in Valenciennes
The Sint-Bavokerk
in Haarlem
, Holland, has also a set of stained-glass windows by van Orley, depicting the donor Joris van Egmont, bishop of Utrecht and his patron saint Martin
.
Northern Renaissance
The Northern Renaissance is the term used to describe the Renaissance in northern Europe, or more broadly in Europe outside Italy. Before 1450 Italian Renaissance humanism had little influence outside Italy. From the late 15th century the ideas spread around Europe...
painter and draughtsman, and also a leading designer of tapestries and stained glass. He is counted among a group of painters belonging to the Romanism
Romanism (painting)
Romanism was the style of painting of a group of artists in the late 15th and early 16th century from the Netherlands who began to visit Italy and started to incorporate Renaissance influences in their work. The greatest artist in the style was Jan Mabuse...
school of painting, who has not been given enough attention by the general public.
Family
His family came originally from Luxembourg, descendants from the Seigneurs d'Ourle or d'Orley. His branch of the family then moved to the Duchy of BrabantDuchy of Brabant
The Duchy of Brabant was a historical region in the Low Countries. Its territory consisted essentially of the three modern-day Belgian provinces of Flemish Brabant, Walloon Brabant and Antwerp, the Brussels-Capital Region and most of the present-day Dutch province of North Brabant.The Flag of...
, where his father Valentin van Orley (ca. 1466-Brussels 1532) was born as an illegitimate child and lost his noble lineage. Bernard and his brother Everard (who would also become a painter) were both born in Brussels.
The painted wing panels of the sculpted Saluzzo retable
Retable
A retable is a framed altarpiece, raised slightly above the back of the altar or communion table, on which are placed the cross, ceremonial candlesticks and other ornaments....
are attributed to Valentin van Orley, describing the Life of St. Joseph (ca. 1510). The retable itself is Gothic
Gothic art
Gothic art was a Medieval art movement that developed in France out of Romanesque art in the mid-12th century, led by the concurrent development of Gothic architecture. It spread to all of Western Europe, but took over art more completely north of the Alps, never quite effacing more classical...
in style, but these wing panels already show some characteristic of the Renaissance
Renaissance
The Renaissance was a cultural movement that spanned roughly the 14th to the 17th century, beginning in Italy in the Late Middle Ages and later spreading to the rest of Europe. The term is also used more loosely to refer to the historical era, but since the changes of the Renaissance were not...
style (City Museum of Brussels). The panels of the Life of St. Roch in the Saint James' Church, Antwerp
Saint James' church, Antwerp
St. James' Church in Antwerp, Belgium, is built on the site of a hostel for pilgrims to Santiago de Compostela. The present building is the work of the Waghemakere family and Rombout Keldermans, in Brabantine Gothic style...
have been ascribed to Everard van Orley.
In 1512 Bernard van Orley married Agnes Seghers. In 1539, shortly after her death, he married Catherina Helluick. He had in total six children. His four boys followed in the footsteps of their father and also became painters.
Genealogy of the family van Orley
Bernard van Orley belonged to a large family of painters, starting with his father:1) Valentin van Orley (1466–1532) : Philipp van Orley (ca. 1491-1566) (designer of tapestry cartoon
Cartoon
A cartoon is a form of two-dimensional illustrated visual art. While the specific definition has changed over time, modern usage refers to a typically non-realistic or semi-realistic drawing or painting intended for satire, caricature, or humor, or to the artistic style of such works...
s); Bernard van Orley (1492?-1542?), painter and tapestry designer; Everard van Orley (born after 1491), painter; Gomar van Orley, painter (active around 1533).
2) Bernard van Orley : Michael van Orley; Hieronymus I van Orley, painter (active around 1567-1602); Giles van Orley, painter (ca. 1535-1553)
3) Giles van Orley (ca. 1535-1553) : Hieronymus II van Orley (painter and decorator)
4) Hieronymus II van Orley : Hieronymus III van Orley, portrait painter, decorator, etcher (documented in 1652); Pieter van Orley (1638-after 1708), miniaturist and landscape painter; François van Orley, history painter; Richard I van Orley
5) Pieter van Orley (1638–1708) : Richard II van Orley (1663–1732), painter and etcher; Jan van Orley (1665–1735), painter and etcher.
Apprenticeship
It is sometimes presumed that Bernard van Orley completed his art education in Rome in the school of RaphaelRaphael
Raffaello Sanzio da Urbino , better known simply as Raphael, was an Italian painter and architect of the High Renaissance. His work is admired for its clarity of form and ease of composition and for its visual achievement of the Neoplatonic ideal of human grandeur...
, however there are no reliable sources to prove this. At that time, there were only a few painters with some renown in Brussels, such as Van Laethem and painters from the Coninxloo family. It is therefore much more likely that he was initially taught in the workshop of his father, an obscure painter whose name appears as "master" in the "Liggere" (registers) of the Guild of St. Luke of Antwerp and who had several pupils.
Bernard van Orley got his knowledge of the Renaissance style from engravings and a number tapestry cartoons by Raphael for the "Acts of the Apostles", that were present in Brussels between 1516 and 1520. They were to be woven into tapestries for pope Leo X by Pieter van Aalst.
Paintings
One of his earliest signed works dates from 1512 : the "Triptych of the Carpenters and Masons Corporation of Brussels", also called the Apostle Altar (the central panel in the Kunsthistorisches MuseumKunsthistorisches Museum
The Kunsthistorisches Museum is an art museum in Vienna, Austria. Housed in its festive palatial building on Ringstraße, it is crowned with an octagonal dome...
in Vienna, the side panels in the Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium
Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium
The Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium , is one of the most famous museums in Belgium.-The museum:...
, Brussels). It recounts the lives of two apostles Thomas and Matthew. It was originally commissioned for a chapel in the Church of Our-Lady-at-the-Zavel (Notre-Dame at the Sablon) in Brussels.
Jan van Eyck
Jan van Eyck was a Flemish painter active in Bruges and considered one of the best Northern European painters of the 15th century....
, Roger van der Weyden
Roger van der Weyden
Rogier van der Weyden or Rogier de le Pasture was an Early Flemish painter. His surviving works consist mainly of religious triptychs, altarpieces and commissioned single and diptych portraits. Although his life was generally uneventful, he was highly successful and internationally famous in his...
and their followers. But then he gradually began integrating the Italianate motifs of the Renaissance, and representing figure types and the spatial relationship such as found in the works of Raphael
Raphael
Raffaello Sanzio da Urbino , better known simply as Raphael, was an Italian painter and architect of the High Renaissance. His work is admired for its clarity of form and ease of composition and for its visual achievement of the Neoplatonic ideal of human grandeur...
.
In 1515 he was asked to take over the commission of a triptych for the Brotherhood of the Holy Cross in a chapel in the Sint-Walburga church in Veurne
Veurne
Veurne is a city and municipality in the Belgian province of West Flanders. The municipality comprises the town of Veurne proper and the settlements of Avekapelle, Booitshoeke, Bulskamp, De Moeren, Eggewaartskapelle, Houtem, Steenkerke, Vinkem, Wulveringem, and Zoutenaaie.-Origins in the 15th...
. He finished and delivered it in 1522. The left panel is on display in the Royal Museum of Fine Arts of Belgium. The front shows Saint Helena meeting the pope in an architectural setting of Renaissance buildings and Italianate motifs. The back is a 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...
painting of Christ falling under the Cross. The right panel is on display in the Galleria Sabauda, Turin, showing Charlemagne
Charlemagne
Charlemagne was King of the Franks from 768 and Emperor of the Romans from 800 to his death in 814. He expanded the Frankish kingdom into an empire that incorporated much of Western and Central Europe. During his reign, he conquered Italy and was crowned by Pope Leo III on 25 December 800...
receiving the relics of the Passion.
From 1515 on, he and his workshop received many orders for portraits, including from the royal family and from people connected to the court. In 1516 he painted seven portraits of Charles
Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor
Charles V was ruler of the Holy Roman Empire from 1519 and, as Charles I, of the Spanish Empire from 1516 until his voluntary retirement and abdication in favor of his younger brother Ferdinand I and his son Philip II in 1556.As...
, who had just become King of Spain, and portraits of his brother Ferdinand, the later King of Hungary, and his four sisters (destined for the King of Denmark).
The 1516 painted copy of the Shroud of Turin
Shroud of Turin
The Shroud of Turin or Turin Shroud is a linen cloth bearing the image of a man who appears to have suffered physical trauma in a manner consistent with crucifixion. It is kept in the royal chapel of the Cathedral of Saint John the Baptist in Turin, northern Italy. The image on the shroud is...
, commonly attributed to Albrecht Dürer, is also sometimes attributed to Bernard van Orley.
By 1517 he was recognized as a master in the Antwerp Guild of St. Luke
On 23 May 1518 he was appointed as the official court painter
Court painter
A court painter was an artist who painted for the members of a royal or noble family, sometimes on a fixed salary and on an exclusive basis where the artist was not supposed to undertake other work. Especially in the late Middle Ages, they were often given the office of valet de chambre...
to the Regent of the Netherlands Margarete of Austria
Margarete of Austria
Margaret of Austria was, by her two marriages, Princess of Asturias and Duchess of Savoy, and was appointed Governor of the Habsburg Netherlands from 1507 to 1515 and again from 1519 to 1530.-Early life:...
, replacing Jacopo d'Barbari.
In this position, he became the head of an important workshop, making him one of the first entrepreneurial artists in Northern Europe. With this workshop he produced paintings and, especially after 1525, became a leading designer of tapestry cartoons and stained glass windows. He held this position till 1527 when he, his family and several other artists, fell in disgrace because of their Protestant sympathies. The family van Orley fled Brussels and settled in Antwerp. Five years later, when he was reinstated by the new Regent of the Netherlands Maria of Austria, he returned to Brussels. After his death in 1541, he was succeeded as court painter by his pupil Michael Coxcie
Michael Coxcie
Michiel Coxie, Coxie also spelled Coxcie or Coxien, Latinised name Coxius was a Flemish painter who studied under Bernard van Orley, who probably induced him to visit the Italian peninsula....
.
Among his most important paintings is the "Triptych of Virtue of Patience" (Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium
Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium
The Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium , is one of the most famous museums in Belgium.-The museum:...
, Brussels), also called the Job altarpiece, commissioned in 1521 by Margaret of Austria to illustrate a poem she wrote about the virtue of patience. The interior panels represent the trials of Job
Job (Biblical figure)
Job is the central character of the Book of Job in the Hebrew Bible. Job is listed as a prophet of God in the Qur'an.- Book of Job :The Book of Job begins with an introduction to Job's character — he is described as a blessed man who lives righteously...
, while the outer panels recount the parable of Lazarus and Dives
Lazarus and Dives
The Parable of the rich man and Lazarus is a well known parable of Jesus which appears in one of the Four Gospels of the New Testament....
(instead of the usual grisaille paintings of saints). This triptych is completely by the hand of Bernard van Orley. He must have been especially proud of his work as he signed it twice and added his coat of arms and tiwice his monogram BVO and the motto 'ELX SYNE TYT' (each his own time). This relates to his artistic opinion that an artist should be a man fully integrated in his time.
The same museum houses another triptych by the same painter : the "Haneton triptych ". This triptych was commissioned by Philippe Haneton, first secretary in the Secret Counsel of Charles V. The middle panel depicts a poignant pietà
Pietà
The Pietà is a subject in Christian art depicting the Virgin Mary cradling the dead body of Jesus, most often found in sculpture. As such, it is a particular form of the Lamentation of Christ, a scene from the Passion of Christ found in cycles of the Life of Christ...
against an archaic golden background, painted in a very personal style with influences of the Flemish Primitives
Early Netherlandish painting
Early Netherlandish painting refers to the work of artists active in the Low Countries during the 15th- and early 16th-century Northern renaissance, especially in the flourishing Burgundian cities of Bruges and Ghent...
and Albrecht Dürer
Albrecht Dürer
Albrecht Dürer was a German painter, printmaker, engraver, mathematician, and theorist from Nuremberg. His prints established his reputation across Europe when he was still in his twenties, and he has been conventionally regarded as the greatest artist of the Northern Renaissance ever since...
. Bernard van Orley was, together with Jan Gossaert, among the first to introduce strong musculature in Flemish paintings. The left panel shows Philippe Haneton and his sons, and the right panel his wife and her daughters.
Cathedral of Our Lady, Antwerp
The Cathedral of Our Lady is a Roman Catholic cathedral in Antwerp, Belgium. Today's see of the Diocese of Antwerp was started in 1352 and, although the first stage of construction was ended in 1521, has never been 'completed'. In Gothic style, its architects were Jan and Pieter Appelmans...
in 1525, is one of his best works through its originality and his mastership. The paintings in grisaille on the back were executed by Peter de Kempeneer, who was, at that time, an apprentice in the workshop of Bernard van Orley.
The Altarpiece of Calvary in the Onze-Lieve-Vrouwekerk
Church of Our Lady, Bruges
The Church of Our Lady in Bruges, Belgium, dates mainly from the 13th, 14th and 15th centuries.Its tower, at 122.3 meters in height, remains the tallest structure in the city and the second tallest brickwork tower in the world The Church of Our Lady in Bruges, Belgium, dates mainly from the 13th,...
in Bruges, dates from 1534. It was commissioned by Margaret of Austria originally for the funeral monument in the church of Brou in Bourg-en-Bresse
Bourg-en-Bresse
Bourg-en-Bresse is a commune in eastern France, capital of the Ain department, and was capital of the former province of Bresse . It is located north-northeast of Lyon.The inhabitants of Bourg-en-Bresse are known as Burgiens.-Geography:...
in Burgundy. The side panels were finished much later by Marcus Gerards the Elder and brought to Bruges by Margaret of Parma
Margaret of Parma
Margaret, Duchess of Parma , Governor of the Netherlands from 1559 to 1567 and from 1578 to 1582, was the illegitimate daughter of Charles V and Johanna Maria van der Gheynst...
, regent of the Netherlands under king Philip II of Spain
Philip II of Spain
Philip II was King of Spain, Portugal, Naples, Sicily, and, while married to Mary I, King of England and Ireland. He was lord of the Seventeen Provinces from 1556 until 1581, holding various titles for the individual territories such as duke or count....
. The central part represent the Calvary, the left panel the Crown of Thorns
Crown of Thorns
In Christianity, the Crown of Thorns, one of the instruments of the Passion, was woven of thorn branches and placed on Jesus Christ before his crucifixion...
, the Scourging of Christ and Christ carrying the Cross. The right panel depicts the Pietà
Pietà
The Pietà is a subject in Christian art depicting the Virgin Mary cradling the dead body of Jesus, most often found in sculpture. As such, it is a particular form of the Lamentation of Christ, a scene from the Passion of Christ found in cycles of the Life of Christ...
and the Limbo
Limbo
In the theology of the Catholic Church, Limbo is a speculative idea about the afterlife condition of those who die in original sin without being assigned to the Hell of the damned. Limbo is not an official doctrine of the Roman Catholic Church or any other...
of the Just.
His portraits were more subdued and thoughtful, such as his portraits of Charles V
Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor
Charles V was ruler of the Holy Roman Empire from 1519 and, as Charles I, of the Spanish Empire from 1516 until his voluntary retirement and abdication in favor of his younger brother Ferdinand I and his son Philip II in 1556.As...
and Margarete of Austria
Margarete of Austria
Margaret of Austria was, by her two marriages, Princess of Asturias and Duchess of Savoy, and was appointed Governor of the Habsburg Netherlands from 1507 to 1515 and again from 1519 to 1530.-Early life:...
. He usually represents his subjects in a seated static position, their expressionless faces without much psychological depth or feelings. His workshop produced several copies of these portraits, especially the portrait of Charles V. They were offedred as gift to visitors or courtiers.
Baldachin
A baldachin, or baldaquin , is a canopy of state over an altar or throne. It had its beginnings as a cloth canopy, but in other cases it is a sturdy, permanent architectural feature, particularly over high altars in cathedrals, where such a structure is more correctly called a ciborium when it is...
or a set of trees. This type of composition can be found in many 16th century paintings.
Bernard van Orley often signed his paintings, especially in his early period before 1521, with the coat of arms of the Seigneurs d'Orley : argent
Argent
In heraldry, argent is the tincture of silver, and belongs to the class of light tinctures, called "metals". It is very frequently depicted as white and usually considered interchangeable with it...
two pallets gules
Gules
In heraldry, gules is the tincture with the colour red, and belongs to the class of dark tinctures called "colours". In engraving, it is sometimes depicted as a region of vertical lines or else marked with gu. as an abbreviation....
. It had been contended that these are the signature of his father Valentin
When Albrecht Dürer
Albrecht Dürer
Albrecht Dürer was a German painter, printmaker, engraver, mathematician, and theorist from Nuremberg. His prints established his reputation across Europe when he was still in his twenties, and he has been conventionally regarded as the greatest artist of the Northern Renaissance ever since...
visited the Netherlands in 1520 in order to be present at the coronation of the new emperor, Charles V, he called Barend van Orley flatteringly "the Raphael of the Netherlands". Dürer, who stayed as a guest in the house of Bernard van Orley between 27 August and 2 September 1520, also painted a portrait which some scholars identify with van Orley's. Dürer had a profound influence on Van Orley who would in his later works try to find a synthesis between him and other Renaissance master, Raphael.
Some important pupils of his were Michael Coxcie
Michael Coxcie
Michiel Coxie, Coxie also spelled Coxcie or Coxien, Latinised name Coxius was a Flemish painter who studied under Bernard van Orley, who probably induced him to visit the Italian peninsula....
, Pieter Coecke van Aelst
Pieter van Aelst
Pieter van Aelst or Pieter Coecke van Aelst was a Flemish painter. He studied under Bernaert van Orley and later lived in Italy before entering the Antwerp Guild of painters in 1527. In 1533, he travelled to Constantinople for one year in a failed attempt to establish business connections for...
and Pieter de Kempeneer, who continued in the style of Romanism
Romanism
Romanism was a word used as a derogatory term for Roman Catholicism in the past when anti-Catholicism was more common in the United States and the United Kingdom...
. Other pupils, such as Lancelot Blondeel
Lancelot Blondeel
Lancelot Blondeel was a Flemish painter established at Bruges.-Works:* Triptyque avec les saints Côme et Damien, Bruges, Sint-Jacobskerk...
and Jan Vermeyen
Jan Vermeyen
Jan Vermeyen was a goldsmith in Antwerp around 1580. He was one of the favorite artists of Emperor Rudolph II. His most famous work is the private crown of the emperor, which came later into use as Imperial Crown of Austria....
continued in the tradition of painter-designer of their master.
Together with Jan Gossaert and Quentin Matsys
Quentin Matsys
Quentin Matsys was a painter in the Flemish tradition and a founder of the Antwerp school. He was born at Leuven, where legend states he was trained as an ironsmith before becoming a painter...
, Bernard van Orley is regarded as one of the leading innovators of the 16th century Flemish painting, by adopting the style and manner of the Italian Renaissance. His paintings are executed with great care about minute details and stand out by their brilliant colours.
Tapestries
Barend van Orley had already started designing tapestries in his youth, but after 1530 he seemed to have stopped painting altogether and applying himself solely to cartoons for tapestries and designs for stained-glass windows.
One of the first tapestry cartoons ascribed to him were the four cartoons for the "Legend of Our-Lady-on-the-Zavel (Legend of Notre-Dame on the Sablon)" (1516–1518), commissioned by Frans van Taxis. One of them represents the patron and two emperors : Maximilian I
Maximilian I, Holy Roman Emperor
Maximilian I , the son of Frederick III, Holy Roman Emperor and Eleanor of Portugal, was King of the Romans from 1486 and Holy Roman Emperor from 1493 until his death, though he was never in fact crowned by the Pope, the journey to Rome always being too risky...
and his father Frederick III
Frederick III, Holy Roman Emperor
Frederick the Peaceful KG was Duke of Austria as Frederick V from 1424, the successor of Albert II as German King as Frederick IV from 1440, and Holy Roman Emperor as Frederick III from 1452...
. This is an allusion to the postal contract obtained by Frans van Taxis, giving him a monopoly for the postal system between Brussels and the rest of the empire. The style of these tapestries were still traditional with an overcrowded composition set in a two-dimensional plane.
From the 1520s on, his tapestries began more to resemble woven paintings, more in line with the aesthetics of the Renaissance, as can be seen in his two Passion series (one set in the Royal Palace of Madrid
Royal Palace of Madrid
The Palacio Real de Madrid is the official residence of the King of Spain in the city of Madrid, but it is only used for state ceremonies. King Juan Carlos and the Royal Family do not reside in the palace, choosing instead the more modest Palacio de la Zarzuela on the outskirts of Madrid...
, the other set dispersed over several museums) and the Lamentation (National Gallery of Art
National Gallery of Art
The National Gallery of Art and its Sculpture Garden is a national art museum, located on the National Mall between 3rd and 9th Streets at Constitution Avenue NW, in Washington, DC...
, Washington, D.C.). These tapestries, some woven by Peter de Pannemaker, show clearly the influence of the tapestry cartoons of Raphael
Raphael
Raffaello Sanzio da Urbino , better known simply as Raphael, was an Italian painter and architect of the High Renaissance. His work is admired for its clarity of form and ease of composition and for its visual achievement of the Neoplatonic ideal of human grandeur...
and the work of Dürer in the rendering of the figure types. Since Dürer had been a guest in the house of van Orley at the time the contracts for these tapestries were signed, it cannot be excluded that the two artists have discussed the design. First the first time in Passion tapestries, the figures receive a dramatic weight through their large size and through their position in the foreground
He became a member of the Brotherhood of St. Sebastian in the church of St. Gaugericus. More than half of the members of this brotherhood were weavers by profession.
In his later years (1521–1530) he made the twelve small cartoons (also called with their French name petits patrons), perhaps with the help of Jan Geethels, for his best-known tapestry series "The Hunts of Maximilian", one tapestry for each month (Louvre
Louvre
The Musée du Louvre – in English, the Louvre Museum or simply the Louvre – is one of the world's largest museums, the most visited art museum in the world and a historic monument. A central landmark of Paris, it is located on the Right Bank of the Seine in the 1st arrondissement...
, Paris). They were commissioned by emperor Charles V or someone at the imperial court. It took two years and sixty weavers to realize them. These hunts took place in the wide vicinity of Brussels or in the Sonian Forest
Sonian Forest
The Sonian Forest is a forest that lies across the south-eastern part of Brussels, Belgium.The forest lies in the Flemish municipalities of Sint-Genesius-Rode, Hoeilaart, Overijse and Tervuren, in Uccle, Watermael-Boitsfort, Auderghem and Woluwe-Saint-Pierre in the Brussels-Capital Region and in...
. In those cartoons rigidity of the composition is making way for a greater dynamism. He displayed his creative talent for depicting large-scale scenes of imaginary hunts within a realistic, picturesque, minutely detailed landscape. Bernard van Orley sought for this the help of specialists in the matter and consulted the Livre de Chasse (Hunting manual) by Gaston Phoebus
Gaston III of Foix-Béarn
Gaston III/X of Foix-Béarn, also Gaston Fébus or Gaston Phoebus was the 11th count of Foix, and viscount of Béarn . Officially, he was Gaston III of Foix and Gaston X of Béarn.-Early life:...
With those cartoons he, and also Johannes Stradanus
Stradanus
Giovanni Stradano or Jan Van der Straet or van der Straat or Stradanus or Stratesis was a Flanders-born mannerist artist active mainly in 16th century Florence.-Biography:...
, set the example for their followers by opening up new paths in Italianism with his classic breadth and ease in transforming the rendering of landscapes., successfully integrating it into Netherlandish traditional modes. This dynamism would reach its peak in the Baroque
Baroque
The Baroque is a period and the style that used exaggerated motion and clear, easily interpreted detail to produce drama, tension, exuberance, and grandeur in sculpture, painting, literature, dance, and music...
style, especially by Peter Paul Rubens. The iconography
Iconography
Iconography is the branch of art history which studies the identification, description, and the interpretation of the content of images. The word iconography literally means "image writing", and comes from the Greek "image" and "to write". A secondary meaning is the painting of icons in the...
of hunting parties would be greatly imitated by the tapestry workshops of the Leyniers family, - especially Everaert Leyniers (1597–1680) - the leading dyers and weavers in Brussels for over four hundred years.
Another famous set of tapestries were commissioned by Henry III of Nassau-Breda
Henry III of Nassau-Breda
Count Henry III of Nassau-Dillenburg-Dietz , Lord of Breda, Lord of the Lek, of Diest, etc. was a count of the House of Nassau....
at about 1528-1530. They were to glorify the ancestors of the House of Nassau
House of Nassau
The House of Nassau is a diversified aristocratic dynasty in Europe. It is named after the lordship associated with Nassau Castle, located in present-day Nassau, Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany. The lords of Nassau were originally titled Count of Nassau, then elevated to the princely class as...
. The tapestries were lost in a fire in 1760, but the cartoons still exist (Metropolitan Museum, New York). These tapestries were among the first to unite equestrian portraiture with more informal group portraiture.
The Battle of Pavia
Battle of Pavia
The Battle of Pavia, fought on the morning of 24 February 1525, was the decisive engagement of the Italian War of 1521–26.A Spanish-Imperial army under the nominal command of Charles de Lannoy attacked the French army under the personal command of Francis I of France in the great hunting preserve...
is another set of seven tapestries on display in the Capodimonte museum
Museo di Capodimonte
The National Museum of Capodimonte is located in the Palace of Capodimonte, a grand Bourbon palazzo in Naples, Italy. The museum is the prime repository of Neapolitan painting and decorative art, with several important works from other Italian schools of painting, and some important Ancient Roman...
(Naples, Italy), while the seven small cartoons are owned by the Louvre
Louvre
The Musée du Louvre – in English, the Louvre Museum or simply the Louvre – is one of the world's largest museums, the most visited art museum in the world and a historic monument. A central landmark of Paris, it is located on the Right Bank of the Seine in the 1st arrondissement...
, Paris. Van Orley showed to the viewer in grand-scale scenes a detailed historical authenticity with lifesize figures within imagined surroundings.
The tapestry Hercules carrying the Heavenly Spheres was commissioned by king John II of Portugal
John II of Portugal
John II , the Perfect Prince , was the thirteenth king of Portugal and the Algarves...
in 1530 and can be seen in the Royal Palace of Madrid
Royal Palace of Madrid
The Palacio Real de Madrid is the official residence of the King of Spain in the city of Madrid, but it is only used for state ceremonies. King Juan Carlos and the Royal Family do not reside in the palace, choosing instead the more modest Palacio de la Zarzuela on the outskirts of Madrid...
. The armillary was a symbol of the king of Portugal.
Stained glass
At the end of his life he also started designing stained-glass windows . The windows in the northern transept of the St. Michael and Gudula CathedralSt. Michael and Gudula Cathedral
The St. Michael and St. Gudula Cathedral is a Roman Catholic church at the Treurenberg hill in Brussels, Belgium. In French, it is called Cathédrale Saints-Michel-et-Gudule and in Dutch Sint-Michiels- en Sint-Goedelekathedraal, usually shortened to "Sint-Goedele".In 1047, Lambert II, Count of...
in Brussels depict members of the House of Habsburg
Habsburg
The House of Habsburg , also found as Hapsburg, and also known as House of Austria is one of the most important royal houses of Europe and is best known for being an origin of all of the formally elected Holy Roman Emperors between 1438 and 1740, as well as rulers of the Austrian Empire and...
(Charles V
Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor
Charles V was ruler of the Holy Roman Empire from 1519 and, as Charles I, of the Spanish Empire from 1516 until his voluntary retirement and abdication in favor of his younger brother Ferdinand I and his son Philip II in 1556.As...
and his wife Isabella of Portugal
Isabella of Portugal
Isabella of Portugal was a Portuguese Princess and Holy Roman Empress, Duchess of Burgundy, and a Queen Regent/Consort of Spain. She was the daughter of Manuel I of Portugal and Maria of Aragon. By her marriage to Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor, Isabella was also Holy Roman Empress and Queen...
), Charlemagne
Charlemagne
Charlemagne was King of the Franks from 768 and Emperor of the Romans from 800 to his death in 814. He expanded the Frankish kingdom into an empire that incorporated much of Western and Central Europe. During his reign, he conquered Italy and was crowned by Pope Leo III on 25 December 800...
and Elisabeth of Hungary
Elisabeth of Hungary
Elizabeth of Hungary, T.O.S.F., was a princess of the Kingdom of Hungary, Countess of Thuringia, Germany and a greatly-venerated Catholic saint. Elizabeth was married at the age of 14, and widowed at 20. She then became one of the first members of the newly-founded Third Order of St. Francis,...
and scenes from the Legend of the Miraculous Host, while the windows in the southern transept Louis II of Hungary and Bohemia
Louis II of Hungary and Bohemia
Louis II was King of Hungary, Bohemia and Croatia from 1516 to 1526.- Early life :Louis was the son of Ladislaus II Jagiellon and his third wife, Anne de Foix....
and his wife Maria of Austria, sister of Charles V, kneeling in front of a vertical Trinity
Trinity
The Christian doctrine of the Trinity defines God as three divine persons : the Father, the Son , and the Holy Spirit. The three persons are distinct yet coexist in unity, and are co-equal, co-eternal and consubstantial . Put another way, the three persons of the Trinity are of one being...
with St Louis
Louis IX of France
Louis IX , commonly Saint Louis, was King of France from 1226 until his death. He was also styled Louis II, Count of Artois from 1226 to 1237. Born at Poissy, near Paris, he was an eighth-generation descendant of Hugh Capet, and thus a member of the House of Capet, and the son of Louis VIII and...
and the Virgin with Child. These windows mark a change in style. The dynasty is still embedded in a religious framework, but this time the donor is emphasized and no longer the venerated saint. It is even no longer deemed necessary to legitimize the position of the sovereign by a genealogical tree, as Philip the Handsome
Philip I of Castile
Philip I , known as Philip the Handsome or the Fair, was the first Habsburg King of Castile...
, the father of Charles V, is not represented. These windows can be ascribed with certainty to drawings by Bernard van Orley. They were executed by the master glass-worker Jean Haeck.
He also designed the stained-glass windows for the St Rumbolds Cathedral, Malines depicting Margarete of Austria
Margarete of Austria
Margaret of Austria was, by her two marriages, Princess of Asturias and Duchess of Savoy, and was appointed Governor of the Habsburg Netherlands from 1507 to 1515 and again from 1519 to 1530.-Early life:...
and her third husband Philibert II, Duke of Savoy
Philibert II, Duke of Savoy
Philibert II , surnamed the Handsome or the Good, was the Duke of Savoy from 1497 until his death.-Biography:...
and Christ entering Jerusalem. These windows were destroyed during the religious troubles between 1566 and 1585. In 2004 an unpublished coloured drawing of these windows has been discovered in 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...
The Sint-Bavokerk
Sint-Bavokerk
The Grote Kerk or St.-Bavokerk is a Protestant church and former Catholic cathedral located on the central market square in the Dutch city of Haarlem...
in Haarlem
Haarlem
Haarlem is a municipality and a city in the Netherlands. It is the capital of the province of North Holland, the northern half of Holland, which at one time was the most powerful of the seven provinces of the Dutch Republic...
, Holland, has also a set of stained-glass windows by van Orley, depicting the donor Joris van Egmont, bishop of Utrecht and his patron saint Martin
Martin of Tours
Martin of Tours was a Bishop of Tours whose shrine became a famous stopping-point for pilgrims on the road to Santiago de Compostela. Around his name much legendary material accrued, and he has become one of the most familiar and recognizable Christian saints...
.
External links
- Barent Van Orley - Catholic Encyclopedia article
- http://193.190.214.109/webopac/List.csp?SearchT1=VAN+ORLEY&Index1=Index24&Database=2&SearchMethod=Find_1&SearchTerm1=VAN+ORLEY&OpacLanguage=dut&Profile=Default&RequestId=524300_3&QueryId=524300_3&Source=SysQR&PageType=Start&PreviousList=Level1&WebPageNr=1&NumberToRetrieve=10&WebAction=NewSearch&StartValue=0&RowRepeat=0&ExtraInfo=&ItemNr=Collection in the Royal Museums of Fine Arts of BelgiumRoyal Museums of Fine Arts of BelgiumThe Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium , is one of the most famous museums in Belgium.-The museum:...
, Brussels] - Paintings in other museums
- Guy Delmarcel The Passion Tapestries of Margaret of Austria (c. 1518-1524) - New Data and Documents