Anna Eörsi

The incarnation of the Word and of the Form

Some thoughts about St Luke the painter, and about some painters of St Luke

 

 

1. St Luke and the incarnation

            Why did the legend of a saint painter of the Virgin and her child evolve? Why was it exactly St Luke of the evangelists who became the painter of the Madonna? Why did he become their painter of all themes?

            In the literature on the subject there is more or less consensus that the 6th century legend claiming that the first portrait of the divine mother and her child had been painted by a saint upon divine inspiration served the legitimation of the use of images.[1] This is also supported by the first extant documents of the painter legend which belong to the sources of the visual polemics. It is generally maintained that Luke was chosen because the childhood of Jesus is narrated in detail in his gospel.[2]

            The early Virgin and child representations are about the incarnation, the Virgin being merely an attribute of the Word made flesh. The existence of the picture and incarnation mutually presuppose each other. This also applies to the akheiropoietos, too, but the altenative of the Luke-the-painter legend was necessary because the latter – by depicting the child – shifts the stress from the divine origin of the picture to the incarnation itself. I can imagine that it was in a dispute about the dual nature, among the arguments in support of the authenticity of incarnation, that St Luke had also painted the infant Jesus in his human nature.[3]

            I find it rather a naive argument that St Luke was chosed because his gospel says most about Jesus' childhood. It is more meaningful for me that he alone narrated the story of the Annunciation, i.e. of incarnation, which was presumably more important than just an anecdote. The process of painting, the creation of a picture itself is materialization, 'incarnation' in a sense.

            It is perhaps not the only analogy between the two kinds of incarnation what the advocates of visual representation stated: namely, the parallel between the holy icon and the shading of Mary by the Holy Spirit.[4]

            The colour of the flesh, the hue of human complexion is designated in several European languages by words derived, among other things, from caro, carnis 'flesh, body': incarnato (Italian), incarnat (French), encarnado (Spanish), incarnate (English), Inkarnat (German), inkarnaat (Dutch). The first treatise on painting using the term instead of membrana (i.e. skin) is Cennini’s.[5] I do not agree with those who claim that Cennini coined the new term or he lifted it from the theology into the terminology of painting technique.[6]

            There are data proving that this or a similar word was used to denote the colour of the flesh much earlier, e.g. in Spanish, Italian, English and medieval Latin.[7] Writing about the tone of the flesh, Cennini perhaps substituted incarnato, incarnazione for earlier membrana because for him the skin was not merely a hull or surface but the cover or surface of the body. (It is an intriguing analogy that in the late 5th c. B.C. the Greeks introduced a new term to denote the colour of the flesh when speaking about the efforts of painting to produce lifelife representations: άνδρείκεκλον, derived from the word άνδρεία masculinity, power. [8]) The term incarnato for the colour of the flesh was not at all new at the end of the 14th century.

I can imagine that going deeper into linguistic, medical and technology historical researches, one might discover that the association between the theological concept of incarnation and the colour of the flesh is far older, so old that it may have played a role in turning Luke the narrator of the incarnation into the evangelist who painted the incarnation. He was the one to describe the incarnation; under his hands did the relevant image become 'incarnate'.

            It may be a contributory factor to St Luke becoming a painter that he was a physician, the knower of the human body (Kol.4.14.). In the Greek culture of the 5th-4th centuries B.C. medicine and painting were closely interrelated, and these tights bonds survived until the Middle Ages (e.g. in Theophilus). The connection is also evident, among other things, in the conceptualization of the flesh colour. [9]

Besides, the words medicine and pigment were synonymous already in antiquity because of the identity of the ingredients.[10] There are not only general references to the healing power of holy images in Early Christian sources, but sometimes the paint itself was regarded as healing.[11] What is more, some early sources - in most diverse languages - use the derivatives of the Latin word incarnatio to denote a certain drug that helped the healing of wounds, the regeneration of the skin. [12]

(It roots then in time immemorial that from the 14th century on, painters came to be included in the guild of doctors and pharmacists - under the aegis of St Luke.)

            Paint implies colour, and colour - in medicine just as in art - implies life. In most languages, colour is interpreted as a hull, as skin. [13] Medical lingo calls the colouring matter of the skin pigment. In painting and sculpture, as will be discussed later, colour is the token of lifelike rendering. Colour, flesh colour, coloured skin is what gives life to the represented figure.

            Let me sum up what I have said so far: as an evangelist, St Luke was the eye-witness to the incarnation, and as a doctor, he was an expert of the body: he healed body and soul with "pigment"; when he painted a coloured, that is, lifelike portrait of the Virgin and the child, he aimed at the authentic rendering of the Word made flesh, or, in other words, he proved the truth of incarnation.

 

2. The role of colour in the "incarnation" of the picture

            Without trying to give an exhaustive list, I name a few data in support of the important role of the flesh colour in authenticating the representation. In medieval Spanish wood carving workshops, there were four different craftsmen in cooperation: designer, carver, gilder and painter of the flesh: the work of the latter - the encarnadores - was esteemed highest and paid most.[14] This is understandable, as it was up to him whether the image would give the illusion of life or not; his job was the hardest because any detail of a statue: hair, clothes, etc. could be real but its skin could not, therefore its imitation was the real stunt. In 15th-16th century Netherlandish contracts for carved altarpieces separate stress is always laid on the importance of the flesh tone for the lifelikeness of the whole work.[15] In painting, flesh colour is the sign of life, its absence signifies death. "The dead have no colour," Cennini writes.[16] Closely related to all that is the frequent grisaille sculpture imitation in Early Netherlandish painting. With their unsurpassably lifelike yet lifeless - because colourless - painted statues the painters contributed to the paragone polemics, proclaiming the victory of painting over sculpture.[17] In one of the very first tracts arguing for paragone - in Filarete's Trattato di Architettura written between 1461and 1464 - the first and primary argument in support of painting is colour which makes the motif lifelike and real: "For however good they are, the one [sculpture] always seems to be of the material they really are, but what is painted seems to be the actual thing."[18] Soon, in the last quarter of the 15th century, the time arrived when sculptors, especially South German wood carvers working in lime, became capable of denying "the material they really are" and giving the impression of "the actual thing" with their own tools. This turn was also accompanied by monochromy: without using colour, the sculpture gave life to the material by his virtuosic treatment of the material alone. [19] When finally in the 1520s colour sneaked back into grisaille painting and monochromous sculpture, it was again principally for the rendering of the flesh, the skin.[20]

 

3. The colour of some paintings by St Luke

            This all has relevance to our subject because some representations of St Luke the painter expressly refer to the fact that the saint's work was the outcome of quasi incarnation, upon the intervention of the divine sphere, and in several cases it was the colour of his painting that the physician-painter owed to the celestial sphere. The motif also has its background in literature: several variants of the saint's legend say that he only drew the contours of the Virgin and her child (in other versions, of the adult Christ), and the completion of the picture with colours was done by divine intervention.[21] The miraculous origin of the picture is an imitation of the miracle of the incarnation: the divine intervention turns Luke's painting into an akheiropoietos.

            In the West, the first St Luke who received the colours from the heavenly sphere is in Johannes von Troppau's evangeliarium of 1368; the illuminator is identified by G. Schmidt with the painter of the missal of Johannes von Neumarkt (fig.1).[22] This rendering is unanimously - but mistakenly - held to be the first representation of the evangelist as painter in the West.[23] The saint has already sketched the composition on a parchment on his easel, but unusually, it does not show the Virgin and child but a Crucifixion of three figures. The work is colourless. The painter looks upwards, as if waiting for the help from heaven to complete the picture with  colours, the token of the illusion of life.

            The painter of the miniature, who worked in the immediate surroundings of Emperor Charles IV and his chancellor, must have known the variant of the Luke legend including the origin of the Sancta Sanctorum icon in Laterano. The story was put down in writing by Nicholas Maniacutius (Pope Eugene III) in the 1140s in his tract about the miraculous cultic image of Rome (that is the first western source that names St Luke as a painter).[24] It claims that after the Ascension, the Virgin and the apostles, missing the bodily presence of Christ, ordered St Luke to paint an image of Christ from memory. The evangelist had made the drawing, then took a little rest; the origin of the colours was supernatural. The Virgin and the disciples were dumbfounded by the realness of the representation. I think it highly likely that the memory of the Roman cult image lived on in the Czech illuminator's St Luke not only in the lack of colours and the upward glance, but also in the theme of his composition. The Sancta Sanctorum icon was one of the most famous cult images in Rome. In its several copies Christ is enthroned between the Virgin and St John, all three shown in full figure.[25] St Luke in the Troppau manuscript is painting a picture in which the full-length figures of Mary and John flank the crucified Christ in the middle — a far more familiar composition in the north —  instead of Christ enthroned.[26]

            In Troppau's illumination, it is the lack of colour that calls attention to the importance of colour. In other pictures, an angel preparing the paint for St Luke alludes to the fact that the picture - itself a representation of the incarnation - becomes incarnate with divine assistance, via the colours.

This motif has not been studied thoroughly, but merely touched on in passing apropos the angel of Derick Baegert's St Luke. Klein speaks about the impact of the German Holy Family representation, while Thürlemann writes about an archaic, "naive-childish spirit". Kühnel identifies the angel with Gabriel, Jászai and Költzsch opine that this motif emphasizes the sacred dimension of the theme.[27] This motif is far from unambiguous because, for one thing, the grinding of pigments is a hard and dirty physical job, which is usually carried out by a junior apprentice or assistant, representing the mechanical handicraft aspect of painting as against its more sublime, intellectually demanding aspect.[28] At the same time, the preparation of paints is a working process of primary importance.[29] Besides, colour is significant because it belongs to the finishing phase of a picture. Therefore, the angel preparing paint for the saint may refer to the stereotype associated with the “St Luke’s Madonnas” that the saint only began painting the picture and it was completed in a miraculous way.

            In a page of Margaret of Escornaix's book of hours made in Guillebert de Mets' workshop around 1445, the angel is not doing what he is supposed to do according to the illuminated text (fig.2).[30] The miniature is the opening picture of the Annunciation, its frame is the “M” of "Missus est angelus gabriel a deo" (Lk 1.26). Gabriel is grinding red pigment instead of forwarding God's message to Mary. To its right, St Luke is sitting behind his easel, to the right of him Mary, in annunziata posture, is standing as the model of the painter. The archangel Gabriel, who as the messenger of God, has a key role in the Incarnation, contributes physically to the incarnation by grinding the paint needed for the colour of the body or blood.[31]

            In Derick Baegert's painting the angel in the back room behind St Luke is also grinding red pigment (fig.3). Unlike the illumination here the context is not that of the Annunciation, but St Joseph sleeping beside the angel also refers to the circumstances of the incarnation. This angel (similarly to many other elements of the picture) belongs to the double frame of reference: on the one side, it alludes to the incarnation, and on the other, it belongs among the many references of the picture to the craft of painting: since colour is the token of lifelikeness, the motif, together with the mirror and the trompe l'oeil fly (which also have importance as religious symbols) signifies the perfect mastery of the painter, the ability to give a perfect illusion of reality.[32] The gesture of Jesus - his index finger held before his mouth - may also have a dual meaning: on the one hand, it calls for silent meditation over the secrets of incarnation,[33] and on the other, it may refer to the secret of this work and to that of  "perfect painting", especially because the motif is reiterated in the picture painted by Luke.

            The St Luke depictions of some 15th century French books of hours also draw a parallel between the emergence of a picture and the incarnation.[34] In the foreground the saint is painting a portrait of the Virgin at prayer, while in the background there is a similar composition of the Annuntiation, rendered in grisaille.

 

4. From St Luke the saint to St Luke the artist

            As is well known, the depiction of St Luke as a painter also offers the chance for the self-definition of the religious painter.[35] The earliest examples practically hardly differ from the writing evangelist: instead of the gospel, the saint is holding his painting in his hands.[36] Somewhat later, the representations of around the 15th century show Luke as the master who is proud of his occupation even if he is still a pious artisan, while from the early 16th century on, the painter is neither a humble saint nor a skilful craftsman, but an artist endowed with the gift of divine inspiration. [37]

            Rogier van der Weyden's St Luke painted about 1435 has a special place in the history of the theme's iconography (fig.4).[38] The painter is kneeling with utter humility in front of the Virgin and the infant; he has made a silver-point drawing of the mother's head on the paper or parchment he is holding; his work is uncoloured.

I cannot agree with Schaefer who subsumes the work the first category of the saint-artisan-artist trinity without more ado.[39] Undoubtedly, the painting belongs to the tradition of representing the inspired writer-evangelist and not to that of a craftsman working in his workshop. It is an indirect descendant of an illumination in a lectionarium of Regensburg dating from 1267-76. St Luke, with the dove of the Holy Ghost at his ear, is sitting opposite the Virgin, writing the text of "Missus est" on the paper placed on the writing desk between them (fig.5).[40] Weyden's St Luke, however, is no longer a meek believer, and he is also more than an artisan in the service of God.

            Several of the picture's aspects suggest that with this work, Rogier compares his expertise with the great old masters, on the analogy of the legendary rivalry among painters in antiquity. Some scholars opine that he tried to compete with his teacher Robert Campin's lost St Luke which has been reconstructed from copies. [41] It is easily possible, but what is quite certain is that the Brussels painter's St Luke also responds to Jan van Eyck's Madonna of Chancellor Rolin.[42]

(The motif of the two figures - generally identified as Joachim and Anne - standing by the crenellated wall is also taken from the Madonna of Chancellor Rolin. It appears as a possibility to me that, similarly to Jan Gossaert's Prague picture, which was influenced by this painting in several respects, it is again Mary and St Luke in the background: looking at the landscape, Mary is talking to the evangelist. The Legenda aurea narrates the intimate conversation between the two.[43] A more frequently depicted scene of their intimate relationship shows the Virgin dictating to the evangelist, see e.g. fig.5.)

            The art historians of posterity are unwanted and non-competent arbiters in this rivalry of painters: the participants - just like their antique predecessors - must have known exactly who was the better. We are non-competent because we do not know the competition rules, we do not know what considerations the painters were guided by in the 15th century. We choose one aspect and grant our awards accordingly. Taking the stance of anthropological media theory, Christiane Kruse awards the palm of victory to Weyden's St Luke ahead of van Eyck's Madonna.

            My attention is focussed on how the painter destined to paint the holy sphere defines himself. In my view, the next station of this "competition" is marked by Jan van Eyck's Holy Face[44] (fig.6) only surviving in copies: it and Weyden's St. Luke Drawing the Virgin are credos of very humble and at the same time very self-conscious painters. Both were - quite rightly - proud that they were capable of producing cult images with their art, with their wonderful nature-imitating abilities, which were on a par with the ancient akheiropoietos of miraculous genesis. The direct precedents to both include some of the illustrations in the French manuscript of Boccaccio's De mulieribus claris completed at the very onset of the 15th century, which show women painters painting self-portraits, the Virgin or the Holy Face.[45] Several accurate copies were made of both. One solution is better than the other.

            Weyden painted the portrait-icon of the Virgin, van Eyck that of Christ. Both works contain autobiographical references. As for the former: several scholars tend to take Rogier's Luke as an actual self-portrait, others take it as a reference.[46] The drawing and its lack of colours suggest with probability that he knew the legend of the picture being coloured with divine assistance.[47] In the stage of underdrawing, he even planned to add an angel on top of the canopy of the throne: originally, the latter was that Jesus lifted his eyes to.[48]

            It is not the work of this St Luke that is made with divine intervention, as it was in the Troppau miniature. There is no pigment-grinding angel here suggesting that divine powers are at disposal while the master is exercising his craft. No angel is leading the hand of the daughtsman, as in Gossaert's Vienna picture later on. Here, Luke himself is the representative of the heavenly forces. There is subtle uncertainty in Weyden's work, concealing the sharp line between the exact ratio of human and divine creation in the work being made. His self-portrait-Luke is drawing an authentic portrait of the Virgin which appears like a supernatural creation exactly because it is so true to life. I presume that he was aware of the analogy between the incarnation and the emergence of the picture. This is alluded to by the silver-point drawing in his hand, its outlines emerging from "nothingness". It is perhaps also relevant here that when composing the figure of Jesus, he referred severally to the incarnation: not only by the nakedness, but also by his suckling and the emphasis of his loins.[49] (I would put it to intriguing chance, however, that in the chapter on the manners of using incarnazione as flesh colour, Cennini quotes the face of the Virgin. When, however, he writes about the drawing, he mentions twice the tinting of the papers with flesh colour.[50])

            It also applies to Jan van Eyck painting the Holy Face that he is the representative of celestial forces. He all but replaces the Creator by conjuring up almost a perfectly lifelike figure of Christ to the viewer. He paints the face of Christ as he renders the portraits of his contemporaries, encircling him with an imitation marble window-frame and within this frame, he hides all traces of the picture surface and of manual labour: he presents a flesh and blood, lively face. He also stresses his own artistic achievement by adding his personal motto on the frame, together with his signature and exact date.[51] All this turns him into a rival of the Creator: as in days of yore a divine miracle brought the Holy Face to life, so now the miracle of his own art brings it to life.

            What is the frame with the inscriptions in van Eyck's picture is the drawing in Weyden's. The paper or parchment with the uncoloured drawing of the Virgin's face refers both to the legendary picture consummated by miracle and also to Weyden's personal abilities, form-creating gifts. The more so, as in the given age silver-point drawings were no mere props or preparatory phases but valuable, self-contained, autonomous works of art as well. [52] Unlike van Eyck who denied facture, Rogier put an art work in the hand of his alterego. The viewer may compare the work with "reality", with "life" i.e. with the Virgin. In his case, it is this drawing sheet that eliminates as it were the materiality of the whole painting. [53]

            In sum, Rogier van der Weyden - in the disguise of St Luke and in the context of a reference to a legendary miracle - signifies the miracle of his own art. (Several of his earlier works, especially the Deposition in the Prado, are about the magic power of his art, about the power of his painting to revive the statue.[54])

            Both Rogier van der Weyden and Jan van Eyck confront the Sanctity and they bring it to life, incarnate it. Both painters have quasi divine power. Both turn the akheiropoietos into an individual portrait. Both draw an analogy between an icon not made by human hand and the miracle of their own art. In their respective ways, both deal with the genesis of a perfect image corresponding to the divine model. For lack of written art theory, that is how they expressed that they were the heralds a new era: it was now the artist who was to authentically represent, interpret, mediate the mysteries of faith.[55]

 

Epilogue

Research findings of the past decade have revealed that the Early Netherlandish art was characterized by not a duality of symbol and reality but by that of craft and art.[56] The intriguing transition between the latter two is represented by the emblematic theme of St Luke the painter, the most outstanding protagonists of the period are Jan van Eyck and Rogier van der Weyden, and one of its most competent experts is Zsuzsa Urbach, the knower of the craft and art of that-time painting, to whom the author of the present article would like to pay a warmest tribute.

 

Abstract

The parallel between the incarnation of the Word and the materialization of the picture may have contributed to the emergence of the legend that St Luke was the painter of the Virgin. When the saint painted a colourful, i.e. lifelike portrait of the Virgin and her child, he brought to life the incarnate Word authentically, hence proving the truth of incarnation. Some depictions of St Luke the painter clearly suggest that the saint's work assumed its materiality as a result of incarnation, upon the intervention of the celestial sphere. Colour is one of the tokens of reality; in several cases it is colour that the physician-painter owed to the heavenly sphere. These include the illustration in Johannes von Troppau's evangeliarium, and the representations of the painting saint in which an angel helps Luke to grind pigment. Rogier van der Weyden's St Luke paints a portrait of the Virgin which is on a par with the old akheiropoietos of miraculous genesis. The same intention is detectable in Jan van Eyck's Holy Face representation.

 

Keywords:

iconography, Early Netherlandish painting, St Luke as painter, flesh colour, Johannes von Troppau, Derick Baegert, Rogier van der Weyden, Jan van Eyck

 

List of illustrations

Czech painter: St Luke as painter. 1368, Johannes von Troppau's evangeliarium, Vienna, Österreichische Nationalbibliothek, Cod. 1182, fol. 91v detail

Guillebert de Mets' workshop: St Luke and the Virgin. Around 1445, Book of hours of Margaret of Escornaix Bruxelles, Brussels, Royal Library of Belgium ms. IV 1113, fol. 173v.

Derick Baegert: St Luke the painter. 1470-90, Münster, Westfälsches Landesmuseum für Kunst und Kulturgeschichte

Rogier van der Weyden: St Luke as painter. Around 1435, Boston, Museum of Fine Arts

Painter of Regensburg: St Luke and the Virgin. 1267-1276, Oxford, Keble College, Ms. 49, fol. 229r

After Jan van Eyck: Holy Face. After 1438, Berlin-Dahlem, Staatliche Museen Preussischer Kulturbesitz

 

Published: Acta Historiae Artium, 43/2002-3.

 

[1] Holländer, H.: Lukasbilder, in: Lexikon der christlichen Ikonographie, hgg. von E. Kirschbaum, W. Braunfels, Rom Freiburg Basel Wien Bd. IV 1968-76 Bd. III. (1971) Sp. 119; Trenner, F.: Lukasbild, in: Marienlexikon, hgg. R. Bäumer, L. Scheffczyk, Bd. 4., St. Ottilien 1992, 183; Belting, H.: Likeness and Presence. A History of the Image before the Era of Art, Chicago London 1994 trans. E. Jephcott (Munich 1990), 53, 478; Bacci, M: La tradizione di san Luca pittore da Bizanzio all’Occidente in: Luca evangelista. Parola e Immagine tra Oriente e Occidente, Padova, Museo Diocesano 14 ottobre 2000 – 6 gennaio 2001, a cura di G. Canova Mariani, Padova 2000, 103-104 (hereinafter: Luca evangelista).

[2] Dobschütz, E. von: Christusbilder. Untersuchungen zur christlichen Legende, Leipzig 1899, I. 28, II. 275**, 276**; Martin, H.: Saint Luc, Paris 1927, 14; Belting, op.cit. 49; Cormack, R.: Writing in Gold. Byzantine Society and its Icons, London 1985, 126; Asemissen, H. U., Schweikart, G.: Malerei als Thema der Malerei, Berlin 1994, 37; Sander, J.: Gott als Künstler, der Künstler als Heiliger Lukas. Künstlerische Selbstreflexion und Künstlerselbstbildnis im Kontext christlicher Ikonographie, in: Wettstreit der Künste. Malerei und Skulptur von Dürer bis Daumier, hgg. E. Mai, K. Werttengl, München Köln 2002, 74; Büttner, A.: Lukas malt die Madonna, ibid. 232.

[3] A similar argument must have been the first "St Luke's Madonna" as was the first representation of the dead Christ on the cross, or the icon showing St John the Baptist of Kiev. See Belting-Ihm, Ch. – Belting, H.: Das Kreuzbild im ’Hodegos’ des Anastasios Sinaites: Ein Beitrag zur Frage nach den ältesten Darstellung des toten Cruzifixus, in: Tortulae: Studien zu altchristlichen und byzantinischen Monumenten, hg. W. N. Schumacher, Freiburg im Breisgau 1966, 30-39; Corrigan, K.: The Witness of John the Baptist on an Early Byzantine Icon in Kiev, Dumbarton Oaks Papers 42 1988, 1-11. The image of the Virgin as the argument for the incarnation in the visual polemics: Corrigan, K.: Visual Polemics in the Ninth-Century Byzantine Psalters, Cambridge University Press 1992, 76-77, 98, 204.

[4] Kollwitz, J.: Bild III (christlich) in: Reallexikon für Antike und Christentum, vol. II, Stuttgart 1954, Sp. 339; Belting, op.cit. (n.1) 153.

[5] Cennini, C.: Il libro dell’arte o trattato della pittura, cap. XV, XXI, LXVII, CXLVII. Kruse, Ch.: Fleisch werden — Fleisch malen: Malerei als >incarnazione<. Mediale Verfahren des Bildwerdens im Libro dell’Arte von Cennino Cennini, Zeitschrift für Kunstgeschichte 63 2000, 305-323. Membrana: e.g.. Theophilus Presbyter: Schedula diversarum artium, ed. A. Ilg, Wien 1874 , lib.1.

[6] Kruse op.cit. (n.5.) 315; Fend, M.: Inkarnat oder Haut? Die Körperoberfläche als Schauplatz der Malerei bei Ingres und Rubens, in: Pygmalions Werkstatt. Die Erschaffung des Menschen im Atelier von der Renaissance bis zum Surrealismus, Hg. H. Friedel, Köln 2001, 71.

[7] Corominas, J. – Pascual, J. A.: Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico vol. I. Madrid 1984, p.878: a document of 896 is referred to; Ugo Panziera: Trattati, 1330, Giovanni Villani: Cronica, 1348 (by courtesy of Gianpaolo Salvi); Kuhn, S. M. – Reidy, J.: Middle English Dictionary, vol. 7. Ann Arbor 1968, p.142: 1349; Dictionary of Medieval Latin from British Sources, vol. I, London, 1975. p.1287, 1349; Glossarium latino-germanicum mediae et infimae aetatis e codicibus manuscriptis et libris impressis, conc L. Diefenbach, Francofurti ad moenum 1857: “incarnatus”, i.e. “leibfarb”, nl. “lijf verwe”, “incarnaet”. In the earliest treatise on painting in German the name of the flesh colour is libvar (Leibfarbe?) (The Strassburg Manuscript: a medieval painter’s handbook, transl. V. and R. Borradaille, London 1966, 56-58.) German borrowed the word Inkarnat from French only in the 18th century.

It would be relevant to know how long “carnation” has been called by this name: “The English carnation refers to the rosy colour of skin, but has also been interpreted as the incarnation of Christ..” (Segal, S.: Flowers and Nature. Netherlandish Flower Painting of Four Centuries, The Hague 1990, 69.)

[8] Lepik-Kopaczyñska, von W.: Die Inkarnatsfarbe in der antiken Malerei, Klio. Beiträge zur alten Geschichte 41 1963, 98 – 99, 120-121.

[9] Lepik-Kopaczyñska op.cit. 97, 108.

[10] Dictionnaire des antiquités grecques et romaines par Ch. Daremberg, E. Saglio, IV, Paris 1907, 472; Paulys Realencyclopädie der klassischen Altertumswissenschaft, Neue Bearb. beg. von G. Wissowa, 39,1., Stuttgart 1941, 1232-3; Totius latinitatis lexicon Aegidii Forcellini, Prato 1858-79, t. 4, 669. (See e.g. Pliny: Natural History IX, 62, 64.)

[11] Kitzinger, E.: The Cult of Images in the Age before Iconoclasm, Dumbarton Oaks Papers 8 1954, 107, 147.

With reference to sacred images of healing power some scholars presumed that his medical profession must also have played a role in St Luke's becoming a painter: Eisler, C.: Portrait of the artist as St. Luke, Art News 58 1959, 28; Kann, A.: Rogier’s St. Luke: Portrait of the Artist or Portrait of the Historian? In: Rogier van der Weyden, St. Luke Drawing the Virgin. Selected Essays in Context ed. C. Purtle, Turnhout 1997 (hereinafter: Purtle) 18.

[12] See cited loci in the dictionaries listed in note 7.

[13] Mengis, C.: Farbe, in: Handwörterbuch des deutschen Aberglaubens, hgg. von E. Hoffmann-Krayer, H. Bächtold-Stäubli, Bd. 2, Berlin Leipzig 1929-30, 1189. Latin color is a synonym of both pigmentum, and medicamentum: Thesaurus linguae latinae vol. 3, Leipzig 1910, col. 1714.

[14] Dieulafoy, M.: La statuaire polychrome en Espagne, Paris 1908, 72.

[15] Jacobs, L. F.: Early Netherlandish Carved Altarpieces, 1380-1550, Cambridge University Press 1998, 92-93.

[16] Cennini op.cit. (n.5.) cap. CXLVIII: “Il morto non ha nullo colore.” In Stefan Lochner's Last Judgment, the colour of the damned is grey: they become petrified at the gates of hell (Cologne, Wallraf-Richartz-Museum, see Brinkmann, B.: Jenseits von Vorbild und Faltenform: Bemerkungen zur Modernität Stefan Lochners, in: Stefan Lochner, Meister zu Köln. Herkunft – Werke – Wirkung, hg. F. G. Zehnder, Köln 1993, 90).

[17] Preimesberger, R.: Zu Jan van Eycks Diptychon der Sammlung Thyssen-Bornemisza, Zeitschrift für Kunstgeschichte 54 1991, 459-489; Sander, J.: Malerei und Bildhauerkunst im Dialog. Gemalte Skulptur und bemalte Skulptur, in: uõ: “Die Entdeckung der Kunst”. Niederländische Kunst des 15. und 16. Jahrhunderts in Frankfurt, Frankfurt am Main 1995, 144. Cf. De Vos, D.: Rogier van der Weyden. The Complete Works, Antwerpen 1999, 42-43 on the importance of the sculpture colouring activity of Early Netherlandish painters (“No matter how brilliant a statue may have been, it was the painter who brought it to life. He had to be a master animator….”) See also note 53.

[18] Antonio Averlino Filarete: Trattato di architettura, XXIII, fol. 181r. ed. A.M. Finoli e L. Grassi, 2 vols. Milano 1972, vol. 2, p. 664; Gilbert, C. E.: Italian Art 1400-1500, Sources and Documents, Englewood Cliffs, N.J. 1980, 90.

[19] In the literature of the theme, I think, this important aspect of monochromy connected to the paragone has not been emphasized enough. Krohm, H.: The Sources of Riemenschneider’s Art; Marincola, M.: The Surfaces of Riemenschneider, in: Tilman Riemenschneider, Master Sculptor of the Late Middle Ages, National Gallery of Art and The Metropolitan Museum of Art 1999-2000, exh. cat. ed. J. Chapuis, Washington, New York 2000, 63-66; 108-116, with earlier bibliography.

[20] Taubert, J.: Zur Oberflächengestalt der sog. ungefassten spätgotischen Holzplastik, Städel-Jahrbuch N.F. 1 1967, 119-139.

[21] Madonna: Dobschütz op.cit. (n.2.) 278**; Eisler op.cit. (n.11.) 55; Lavin, I.: Addenda to “Divine Inspiration”, The Art Bulletin 56 1974, 590; Schröter, E.: Raffael und der Heilige Lukas. August Wilhelm Schlegels »Legende vom Heiligen Lukas«: Wirkung und Quellen – Kunstgeschichte und Poesie im Dialog, Zeitschrift für Kunstgeschichte 69 1999, 431; to the adult Christ see note 24.

Originally, of course, the miraculous ending was associated with the legend of the “St Luke’s Madonnas”, see Holländer op.cit. (n.1.) 119; Trenner op.cit. (n.1.) 184 etc.

[22] Vienna, Österreichische Nationalbibliothek, Cod. 1182, fol. 91v.: Out of the twelve scenes from the saint's life this is the second. Trenkler, E.: Das Evangeliar des Johannes von Troppau. Handschrift 1182 der Österreichischen Nationalbibliothek, Klagenfurt–Wien 1948, 55; G. Schmidt: Johannes von Troppau und die vorromanische Buchmalerei – vom ideellen Wert altertümlicher Formen in der Kunst des vierzehnten Jahrhunderts, in: Studien zur Buchmalerei und Goldschmiedekunst des Mittelalters, Festschrift für H. Usener, Hgg. von F. Dettweiler et al., Marburg an der Lahn 1967, 277 and  n. 37: the painter's chef d'eouvre is Prague, Archiv Pražského hradu, kapitulní knihovna, cim. 6. The iconographically highly inventive master was the first assistant of Johannes von Troppau in preparing the Vienna book.

[23] Earlier is the miniature in Venice's Biblioteca Marciana Cod. Lat. III, 111 (=2116) fol. 166v. (Venetian workshop, between 1335 – 1445, see Mariani Canova, G.: La miniatura nei libri liturgici marciani, in: Cattin, G.: Musica e liturgia a San Marco, testi e melodie per la liturgia delle ore dal XII al XVII secolo, vol. I. Venezia, 1990, No 14, tav. 91.) In this sanctorale illustration St Luke is putting the last brushstrokes on a Virgin at prayer depicted without her child. As far as I know, the literature on St Luke the painter ignored this representation, although Kaftal published it (Kaftal, G.: Iconography of the Saints in the Painting of North East Italy, Firenze 1978, col. 638, fig. 799.).

[24] Dobschütz op.cit. (n.2) I. 67; Klein, D.: St. Lukas als Maler. Ikonographie der Lukas-Madonna, Berlin 1933, 9, 10; Kraut, G.: Lukas malt die Madonna: Zeugnisse zum künstlerischen Selbstverständnis in der Malerei, Worms 1986, 20; Belting op.cit. (n.1) 65, 500; Wolf, G.: Salus Populi Romani. Die Geschichte römischer Kultbilder im Mittelalter, Weinheim 1990, 61, 321; Kruse, Ch.: Rogiers Replik. Ein gemalter Dialog über Ursprung und Medialität des Bildes, in: Porträt – Landschaft – Interieur. Jan van Eycks Rolin-Madonna im ästhetischen Kontext, Hgg. Ch. Kruse, F. Thürlemann, Tübingen 1999, 174. (connecting it to Troppau's miniature, but only in that Luke paints from memory); Schröter op.cit. (n.21) 430.

[25] To the copies: Garrison, E. B.: Italian Romanesque Panel Painting. An Illustrated Index, Florence 1949 Nos 280, 299; Bacci, M.: Trittico del Salvatore, in: Luca evangelista (op.cit. n.1.) 302.

[26] The attempts at interpreting the Crucifixion are not convincing so far, see King, C.: National Gallery 3902 and the theme of Luke the Evangelist as artist and physician, Zeitschrift für Kunstgeschichte 48 1988, 251, n.4. I know of one more example of Luke painting a Crucifixion, which confirms my presumption. In Marguerite de Foix's book of hours (London, Victoria and Albert Museum, Salting Bequest No 1222 fol. 15, Klein op.cit. 27, 30) the text of Christ's apotheosis is accompanied by this representation with the words “gloria tibi domine” below it, while above the Crucifixion painted by Luke an angel is hovering holding a banderole with the words “laus domini”. The allusion to the circumstances of commissioning the picture of Christ is clear here. I haven't seen a colour reproduction of the miniature.

[27] Derick Baegert, Münster, Westfälsches Landesmuseum für Kunst und Kulturgeschichte, inv. 62 WKV, and Stolzenhain, parish church, between  1470-90.

Klein op.cit. (24.j.) 53; Jászai, G.: Notizien zu Derick Baegerts Altarbild “Der Evangelist Lukas malt die Muttergottes”, Das Kunstwerk des Monats, Westfälsches Landesmuseum für Kunst und Kulturgeschichte Münster, 1986 junius; Kühnel, H.: Die Fliege – Symbol des Teufels und der Sündhaftigkeit, in: Aspekte der Germanistik, Festschrift für Hans-Friedrich Rosenfeld zum 90. Geburtstag, hg. von W. Tauber, Göppingen 1989, 289; Thürlemann, F.: Das Lukas-Triptychon in Stolzenhain. Ein verlorenes Hauptwerk von Robert Campin in einer Kopie aus der Werkstatt Derick Baegerts, Zeitschrift für Kunstgeschichte 55 1992, 548 (in his view, the picture was painted after Robert Campin's original); Költzsch, G.-W.: Der Maler und sein Modell. Geschichte und Deutung eines Bildthemas, Köln 2000, 51.

[28] E.g. Alphonse X (the Wise): Las Cántigas, after 1265, Escorial, Biblioteca Real, Ms T.I.I., fol. 192r: colouring of sculpture; Boccaccio: De mulieribus claris, 1401-2, Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale, fr. 12420, fol. 86: Thamar painting a picture of the Madonna; 15th century Flemish illuminator: Zeuxis in Kroton, Gent, Bibliothèque de l’Université, ms. 10, fol. 40v; Antonius Koberger(?): St Luke, woodcut, Nürnberg, 1488 etc.

[29] Theophilus begins the preface to his tract with these words: “Sensim per partes discuntur quaelibet artes. /Artis pictorum prior est factura colorum./Post ad mixturas committat mens tua curas.” (op.cit. n.5. 3.)

Intriguing are the social relations on a miniature in the Dover Bible showing the illumination of an initial in the second half of the 12th century (Cambridge, Corpus Christi Library, MS 3-4, II, fol. 241v, Egbert, V. W.: The Mediaeval Artist at Work, Princeton 1967, Pl. VII). Below the lower stem of the letter “S” the painter is working dressed relatively elegantly, while on the other side of the letter stem the pigment grinder in working clothes towers above him on a somewhat larger scale.

[30] Book of hours of Margaret of Escornaix Bruxelles, Brussels, Royal Library of Belgium ms. IV 1113, fol. 173v. ld. Smeyers, M.: Flemish Miniatures from the 8th to the mid-16th Century, Leuven 1999, p.248. fig.22.

[31] Cf. Kruse op.cit. (n.5) 325, apropos Cennini: “Das rote Pigment ist der Stoff, aus dem der Maler das Leben macht. Er darf bei der Anmischung von incarnazion nicht fehlen.”

The sacred and prophane spheres were also commingled in everyday practice: Bishop Grosseteste of Lincoln expressed his regret in a letter of 1238 that some people had used the stone of the altar table to refine paint (Egbert op.cit. n.29. 46).

[32] For a similar interpretation of the pigment grinder, see: Eörsi, A.: “Puer, abige muscas!” Remarks on Renaissance Flyology, Acta Historiae Artium 42 2001, 17.

Another St Luke with the a pigment grinding angel: Jan de Beer, London, British Museum (c.1520); idem, Milano, Brera.

[33] Thürlemann op.cit. (n.27) 541-2. (I cannot accept the analogy with Domenico di Bartolo. In my view, the finger held before the mouth and sucking have different connotations.)

[34] Klein op.cit. (n.24) 64-66. The first example I know of is: Jacques Coeur's book of hours before 1456, München, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, Clm. 10103, fol.12 (Költzsch op.cit. n.27, Abb. 37). This motif was often used by the Colombe workshop, e.g. Hungarian Academy of Sciences, K429, fol. 15r. (Tóvizi Á.: Egy Jean Colombe mûhelyében készült hóráskönyv a Magyar Tudományos Akadémia gyûjteményébõl [A book of hours made in Jean Colombe's workshop, in the collection of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences], diploma dissertation, Budapest 2001, 42; plates 14 - 17).

[35] Panofsky, E.: Early Netherlandish Painting: Its Origin and Character, Cambridge Mass. 1953, 253; Schaefer, J. O.: Saint Luke as painter: from saint to artisan to artist, in: Artistes, Artisans et production artistique au Moyen Age, Colloque international, org. par X. Barral i Altet, vol. I-III, Paris, 1986, vol. I. 413-420; Kann op.cit. (n.11) 15 etc.

[36] The earliest known example is: Homilies of Gregory of Nazianzos, Constantinople, 3rd quarter of the 11th c. (Jerusalem, Library of the Greek Patriachate, Cod. Panagiou Táphou 14, fol. 106v.)

See also Klein op.cit. (n.24) 20, 23-25, 29-30 on the interrelations of St Luke the writer and St Luke the painter as types. He ranges the Troppau illumination with the type of “painter sitting by the writing stand”, ibid. 29-30.

[37] E.g. Jan Gossaert, Vienna, Kunsthistorisches Museum No 754, c.1520; Marten van Heemskerck, Haarlem, Frans Hals Museum, 1532.

[38] Boston, Museum of Fine Arts, Inv. No. 93.153. De Vos op.cit. (n.18.) No 8 with earlier bibliography and a list of accurate reproductions; Schlie, H.: Bilder des Corpus Christi. Sacramentales Realismus von Jan van Eyck bis Hieronymus Bosch, Berlin 2002, 302-307.

[39] Schaefer op.cit. (n.36) 416.

[40] Oxford, Keble College, Ms. 49, fol. 229r. Parkes, M. B.: The Medieval Manuscripts of Keble College Oxford. A descriptive catalogue with summary descriptions of the Greek and Oriental manuscripts, Oxford 1979, 227-242. A similar but later composition is: Master of Villahermosa: Museo de Bellas Artes de Valencia, Colección Real Academia de San Carlos inv. No 248, c.1370. Let me note here that another panel of the same altarpiece (inv. No 249) shows a rarely depicted scene in which the Virgin descending from Heaven is handing her portrait over to St Luke. (Typologically, it is a precedent to Troppau's solution in that the whole work, and not only the colours, are given to Luke from heaven.)

[41] Thürlemann op.cit. (n.27) 560 (relying on Baegert); Borchert, Till H.: Rogier’s St. Luke: The Case for Corporate Identification, in: Purtle (op.cit. n.11) 76-77 (on the basis of Baegert, referring to the rivalry of Zeuxis – Parrhasios), idem 79 (on the basis of his picture at Colyn de Coter Vieure). (In this and the next note, I only refer to studies whose authors hypothesize actual painters' contests.)

[42] Kruse op.cit. (n.24) 167-185 (with references to the Protogenes – Apelles competition); Borchert op.cit. (n.41) 77-80; It cannot be precluded that Weyden was in rivalry with both, or that his work represents the third round of a tournaments, provided that Chancellor Rolin's Madonna was a response to Campin's St Luke. (To the latter: Rivière, J.: Réflexions sur les Saint Luc peignant la Vierge flamands; de Campin à Van Heemskerck, Jaarboek van het Koninklijk Museum voor Schone Kunsten, Antwerp 1987, 39).

[43] “…he turned to her as to the ark of the testimony and from her received sure knowledge about many things , above all about matters that concerned her alone, such as the angel’s annunciation of the birth of Christ and similar things, which Luke alone relates in his gospel.” Jacobus de Voragine: The Golden Legend, transl. W. G. Ryan, Princeton 1993, vol. II. 254. (However, I disagree that this text compiled between 1261-1266 could be used as an argument in support of the emergence of the painter's legend, e.g. Sander op.cit. loc.cit. n.2.)

[44] Berlin-Dahlem, Staatliche Museen Preussischer Kulturbesitz No 528, 1438; Brügge, Stedelijk Museum voor Schone Kunsten No 3, 1440, München, Bayerische Staatsgemäldesammlungen, Newcastle-upon-Tyne, Miss J. Swinburne Collection. (Dhanens, E.: Hubert und Jan van Eyck, Antwerpen 1980, 293, 389.) My thoughts on Jan van Eyck's Holy Face relies principally on: Koerner, J. L.: The Moment of Self-Portraiture in German Renaissance Art, Chicago London 1993, Part One, chapters 4-6.

[45] E.g. Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale, fr. 12420, fol. 86: Thamar painting the Virgin, fol. 101v: Marcia painting a self-portrait; Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale, fr. 598, fol. 92: Irene painting the Holy Face, etc. See Legner, A.: Ikon und Porträt in: Die Parler und der Schöne Stil 1350-1400. Europäische Kunst unter den Luxemburgern, 3, Hg. von A. Legner, Köln, 1978, 220-221.

[46] Eisler, C. T.: New England Museums. Les Primitifs Flamands. Corpus de la Peinture des Anciens Pays-Bas Méridionaux au Quinzième Siècles, 4, Bruxelles 1961, 73 (research literature between 1902 and 1953), 85 (own opinion); Panofsky op.cit. (n.35) 253-4; Panofsky, E.: “Facies illa Rogeri Maximi Pictoris”, in: Late Classical and Mediaeval Studies in Honor of Albert Mathias Friend, Jr, ed. by K. Weitzmann, Princeton 1955, 399-400; Schaefer op.cit. (n.35) 416; Marrow, J. H.: Artistic Identity in Early Netherlandish Painting: The Place of Rogier van der Weyden’s St. Luke Drawing the Virgin in: Purtle op.cit. (n.11.) 54, 57.

[47] Georgel, P., Lecoq, A-M.: La peinture dans la peinture, Dijon 1982, 64-65; Kraut op.cit. (n.24) 20; Wettstreit op.cit. (n.2) p.77. n.43.

[48] Faries, M.: The Infrared Studies of Rogier van der Weyden’s St. Luke Drawing the Virgin in Boston: Stages of Investigation and Perception, in: Purtle op.cit. (n.11) 91-92; Kann op.cit. (n.11) 15 etc.

[49] Steinberg, L.: The Sexuality of Christ in Renaissance Art and in Modern Oblivion, New York 1983, 21-23, 121, 127-130 ff.

The very first Netherlandish treatises also derive the flesh colour from the word body: e.g. Vandamme, E.: Een 16e – eeuws Zuidnederlands receptenboek, Jaarboek van het koninklijk Museum voor Schone Kunsten Antwerpen 1974, 128: “Om karnaijsien te maken” (16th c.).

[50] Cennino Cennini op.cit. (n.5) cap. LXVII (face of the Virgin in a fresco), cap. XXI.:”Come de’tignere le carte di color d’incarnazione”) see cap. XV, too. It is generally believed that the early Netherlandish painters did not know Cennini's tract, but there are similarities to be discovered between the two. See e.g. Marshall White, E.: Rogier van der Weyden, Hugo van der Goes, and the Making of the Netherlandish St. Luke Tradition, in: Purtle op.cit. (n.11) 42-43; Borchert op.cit. (n.41) 75, 80.

[51] Berlin: АΛΣ ΙXH XAN Joh(ann)es de eyck me fecit et (com)pleviit anno 1438, 31 Januarij; Newcastle: ΑΣΛ ΙXH XAN Joh(ann)es de eyck Inventor anno 1440 30 Januarij. The motto (“as I can”) might as well be the inscription on the Weyden picture: the same mixture of pride and humility as characterizes the St Luke of of the Brussels painter.

[52] Westfehling, U.: Zeichnen in der Renaissance. Zeichnen Techniken Formen Themen, Köln 1993, 111. See also Borchert op.cit. (n.41) 77: “…the silverpoint…implies a skilled sovereignty, since drawing with a silverpoint, contrary to painting itself, did not allow correction of accidental mistakes.”…“In representing St. Luke using the silverpoint, Rogier likely intended to show the mastery of painterly skills as a claim for himself.”

Disegno as the common basis of various arts cannot be taken into account here yet. (The first use of the concept in this sense is in Filarete's Trattato written between 1461 and 1464. As for representations of St Luke as painter, it is Jan Gossaert's picture painted around 1515, now in the National Gallery in Prague, that this meaning of drawing is implied for the first time).

It is with justification that Kruse established the analogy between this drawing of the Virgin and the grisaille Holy Face on the sudarium of the outer panel of Memling's Floreins altarpiece (Brugge, Memlingmuseum): “Die Zeichnung als Bildmedium bringt…die vorgebliche Authentizität des Porträt-Originals als versteckte Pointe des modernes Malers zum Ausdruck, denn sie verweist auf sich selbst als Medium der Biderfindung.” (Kruse, Ch.: Eine gemalte Kunsttheorie im Johannes-Veronika-Diptychon von Hans Memling, Pantheon 54 1996, 47).

[53] The imitation of a picture, drawing, carving, textile, etc. within a painting is supposed to proclaim the superiority of painting and is to be interpreted in the context of  the paragone. See above, n.17 and e.g. Wittmann, B.: Der gemalte Witz: Giovan Francesco Carotos “Knabe mit Kinderzeichnung”, Wiener Jahrbuch für Kunstgeschichte 50 1997, 199.

[54] Deposition: Madrid, Prado; The Virgin in a niche, Madrid, Museum Thyssen-Bornemisza; The Virgin in a niche, Vienna, Kunsthistorisches Museum, Durán Madonna, Madrid, Prado. Concerning the Viennese Virgin,  Belting writes about Bildwunder and “Inkarnation im Bild” (Belting, H. – Kruse, Ch.: Die Erfindung des Gemäldes. Das erste Jahrhundert der niederländischen Malerei, München 1994, 84).

[55] The next stages of this "painting competition" or “art theory in painting” are: Dürer: Self-portrait (Munich, Alte Pinakothek) 1500: Holy Face as self-portrait, and Heemskerck: St Luke (Haarlem, Frans Halsmuseum) the painter as the representative of ars and ingenium; 16th c. painter: St Luke painting the Virgin (Roma, Accademia di San Luca): Raffaello as divino artist.

[56] E.g. Preimesberger op.cit. (n.17) 459-489; Belting-Kruse op.cit. (n.54) passim; Sander op.cit. (2, n.17); Schlie op.cit. (n.38) 295-301 etc.

A tiny piece of information relevant to the theme of this paper: contracts about the colouring of late medieval statues reveal that the word werkelijc both meant “real” and “skilful” (Jacobs op.cit. loc.cit. n.15).