I. Artistic Works of King René.
René’s first efforts as a designer and painter were exhibited upon the walls of his prison-chamber at Tour de Bar, near Dijon, 1431-1435. Thence forward he decorated the walls and stain-glazed the windows of his various castles and palaces—Bar-le-Duc, Nancy, Angers, Saumur, Reculée, Tarascon, Marseilles, and Aix. Every bastide and maison inhabited by his Queens and himself was also similarly adorned, and many coloured church windows were due to his gentle art. Alas that so few vestiges of these admirable labours remain! French mobs are proverbial for iconoclastic propensities, and no land has suffered more than France from the suicidal mania of her sans-culottes.
To fresco-painting, portraits, and glass-staining, the Royal artist added miniatures and penmanship. His “style” was formed and developed successively under such personal tuition as that of the brothers Van Eyck and Maistre Jehannot le Flament. Later on Jean Focquet of Tours and Nicholas Froment influenced him. A letter is extant of King René, addressed in 1448 to Jan Van Eyck, in which he asks for two good painters to be sent to Barrois.
Visits to Rome, Florence, Naples, Milan, and other art cities of Italy, very greatly enlarged René’s métier. Intercourse with Fra Angelico da Fiesole, Fra Filippo Lippi, Paolo Ucello, the Della Robbia, and many other Tuscan artists, quickened his natural talent and guided his eye and hand. Leon Battista Alberti, Francesco Brunellesco, and Cennino Cennini, and their works in materia and literature, produced great results in the receptive faculties of the King-artist. At Naples he came in contact with Colantonio del Fiore, Antonio Solario—Il Zingaro—and Angiolo Franco, and gathered up what they taught.
Besides these immense advantages as a personal friend of great ruling Italian families, the Medici, the Pazzi, the Tornabuoni, the Visconti, the Sforza, the Orsini, and many others, René had opportunities enjoyed by very few. His own amiable individuality and his ample knowledge were the highest credentials in the pursuit of art and craft. René witnessed the consecration of the Duomo of Florence and the completion of the guild shrine of Or San Michele, and he was enrolled as an honorary member thereof. At Florence also he was thrown in contact with world famous scrivani—writers and illustrators of manuscript. The subsequent excellence of French miniaturists was largely due to King René’s example and encouragement.
René’s more considerable paintings, which have been preserved, are as follows:
1. The Burning Bush, part of an altar triptych, at the Cathedral of Aix. Projected and begun by the King, it was finished by Nicholas Froment, 1475-76, and for it the artist received no more than 70 gulden (see illustration).
2. Souls in Purgatory, an altar-piece (7 × 5½), originally in hospital chapel at the Chartreuse of Villeneuve les Avignon. It is really a “Judgment,” with Christ and saints above the clouds, and twenty-four little figures in and out torment. The building was destroyed in 1793.
3. La Divina Commedia, an altar-piece (8 × 6), in the church of the Célestins at Avignon in distemper. It was due to René’s vision of his mistress, Dame Chapelle, upon the day of her death, which shocked him so greatly that he painted this composition to remove the painful impression he thus experienced.
4. Saint Madeleine preaching, now in the Hôtel Cluny. It was a whimsical conceit connecting the story of the sisters of Lazarus with René and his Queen Jehanne. It is conventional in treatment but finished most beautifully (see illustration).