Master of the Legend of Saint Ursula

Provenance :

• Baron Jo van der Elst, Vienna, circa 1930;

• Van der Elst Collection, 1953;

• private collection, Belgium.

There is a distinct charm in the clear legibility of his somewhat...

Provenance :

• Baron Jo van der Elst, Vienna, circa 1930;

• Van der Elst Collection, 1953;

• private collection, Belgium.

There is a distinct charm in the clear legibility of his somewhat archaic compositions, which bring out the highly personal treatment of the figures' physiognomies: with their large foreheads and expressive dark eyes, their modest, tight-lipped smiles, and their long, well drawn hands, the figures of the Master of the Legend of Saint Ursula are highly characteristic.

The luxuriant hair of the female figures, decorously parted in the middle, is generally worn loose and accented by subtle highlights.

Like the Master of the Legend of Saint Lucy, the Master of the Legend of Saint Ursula was fond of celebrating his native Bruges through the recurrent inclusion of the highly distinctive silhouette of the city in the backgrounds of his paintings.

The art of the Master of the Legend of Saint Ursula assumes a particular impact in this small devotional panel in which the sweetness of Memlingesque figures is combined with a dynamic diagonal arrangement that signals a new impulse and suggests the influence of Van der Goes, with his Adoration of the Magi (a work that has been lost but is known through countless copies) from which the figure of the Archangel Michael appears to be directly derived.

The Virgin presides here majestically, wearing the jewelled crown befitting of the Queen of Heaven, and seated on a stone Sedes draped with sumptuous brocade with a delicate Gothic floral motif. She gently and solemnly presents the baby Jesus who is shown completely nude and bathed in an aura of divine light that is reflected in the shimmering armour of the Archangel. The presence of the throne, which obstructs this light, emphasizes that we are looking at the divine light that illuminates those beholding the divine apparition and by extension, metaphorically, all of humanity.

In a gesture that both welcomes and blesses two other figures in the scene, the Christ child discreetly crosses his arms, a position that could also be read as an indirect reference to his ultimate redemption of mankind through the sacrifice of the Crucifixion.

The Archangel Michael, duly covered in the armour of the Warrior Saint, is shown in a position of hesitation that could also be the intermediate stage of a genuflection as he dynamically presents the donor, also in armour. Naturally, the latter is depicted kneeling and praying, on a symbolically smaller scale than the Virgin and the Christ child respectively.

Although nothing is known of the donor's precise identity, judging from his attire, he would appear to have been a member of the bourgeoisie. According to the custom by which the patrons were shown being presented by the saints for whom they were named, his first name would appear to have been Michael, unless the presence of the Archangel here refers to his city of origin (in which case it would have been Brussels, of which Michael is the patron saint) or perhaps to the association of the saint with some brotherhood, guild or association he belonged to. The powerfully characterized physiognomy, evoked with the emphatic shadows typical of the artist's style (this figure in fact recalls that of the French ambassador appearing on the first panel in the eponymous series by this master, dedicated to Saint Ursula), is a tribute to the painter's skill as a portraitist.

One symbolic implication of the scene, the interpretation of which may not be immediately evident, is the way that the gazes of the three peripheral figures converge upon the genitals of the baby Jesus: far from a shocking element, as, exempt from the Original Sin, "genitalia Christi non sunt pudenda", this focus of gaze which appears repeatedly at the end of the 15th century is a way of implicitly underscoring the incarnation of Christ and thus, his double nature as both divine and human, in an age when the Catholic hierarchy strove to combat the resurgence of Monophysite heresy.

The postern and the enclosure that can be seen in the middle ground encircle a lavish flowerbed full of lush vegetation. This instantly defines the space in which the scene takes place as a hortus conclusus, the traditional metaphor associated with the Virgin that refers indirectly to the Immaculate Conception of Christ. Further symbolic references pointing to the Marian virtues are made with the choice of flowers that grow in this garden: the lily for Purity, the carnation for the Suffering that she would willingly endure, etc.

The figure of an old man can be discerned leaning on a staff, no doubt Saint Joseph, whose small scale again emphasizes the distinct hierarchy with which the entire image has been organized, or, in any case, the predominance of the moral perspective within this painting.

An additional example of disguised symbolism can be found in the opposition between the floral and flamboyant Gothic style of the throne and the simple Romanesque arcades with groined vaults of the entrance tower. The stylistic opposition forms an unambiguous expression of the passage from the Old to the New Law that the incarnation of Christ would bring about. The backward-looking choice of the architectural order that is favoured here (the Master of the Legend of Saint Ursula could certainly have chosen to contrast the early efforts of Renaissance art with buildings in the Gothic style), serves to reinforce the vision of a master strongly rooted in tradition who was not yet ready to fully subscribe to the new aesthetic winds that would sweep the Flemish artistic scene at the beginning of the 16th century.

Nevertheless, there are other signs of timid attempts to embrace the newfound laws of perspective: from the oblique presentation of the throne to the perspective generated by the two crosses that respectively adorn saint Michael's lance and crown, not to mention the somewhat comical writhing of the dragon that he is naturally trampling, sketched from a frog perspective.

In the distance, a cityscape is visible which, according to the iconographical logic of the picture, ought to be read as an image of the Jerusalem that awaits the pious patron, but which, with the characteristic silhouette of its belfry, is clearly also a portrait of the city of Bruges, the home city of the artist and no doubt of the patron as well. This treatment is known to recur in the work of this painter and was adopted by an entire generation of Bruges painters, steeped in the pride of belonging to the great commercial and artistic metropolis of the day.

This detail, and the sober serenity of the figures that is reminiscent of the work of Memling, as well as the high degree of chiaroscuro in the flesh, the attention devoted to the botanical element and the tension that is set up between archaic elements and vaguely modernist ones are all aspects that make this panel a precious example of the art of this still relatively little-known painter, the Master of the Saint Ursula Legend.