Welcome to the Deep Dive. Today we're diving
into, well, it's one of the great frettles in
art history, really. We're trying to piece together
the life, the identity of a painter who for a
while was arguably the most important artist
in Europe. We're talking about Rochere van der
Weyden. And it's fascinating because, you know,
his fame back then, it was immense. He actually
overshadowed Jan van Eyck for a time, got commissions
from kings, dukes. The whole European elite.
But then somehow, by the mid -18th century, he's
almost completely forgotten. Vanished from the
history books, practically. It is just an incredible
story. Almost unbelievable, this kind of historical
amnesia. And the detective work involved in bringing
him back. Because you look at his status in the
15th century, he's a foundational figure. One
of the Vlamzi primitivum, the early Netherlandish
masters. Right. But almost everything we know
today is pieced together from, well, fragments.
Scattered civic records, stylistic analysis.
It's like reconstructing a giant mosaic with
half the tiles missing. So that's our mission
today, isn't it? We're pulling together these
scattered facts. We want to trace his life, understand
his incredible international success, and really
unpack the, what, century -long confusion that
basically buried his identity and his work. Yeah,
we're going deep into the archives, figuratively
speaking, trying to figure out how someone that
famous could just... And we have to start right
at the beginning with the most base confusion.
His name. Exactly. Because that's where the puzzle
really begins. How does one person end up known
by two completely different names? Roger de la
Pasteur and Roger van der Weyden. And how did
that simple linguistic split manage to obscure
who he was for so incredibly long? Let's get
right into that. The names aren't that different
if you think about the meaning. Pasture and Woyden
both mean meadow or pasture land, right? One's
French, one's Flemish. Precisely. And it tells
you everything about his geography and his career
moves. So we know he was born in Rogele de la
Pasture. That's the French version. Yeah. And
he was born in Tournai. Which is in modern day
Belgium and was a really important artistic center
back then. Absolutely crucial. And this was around...
1399 or 1400. So the French name reflects the
language spoken in Tournai at the time. And his
background. We know he wasn't, like, from peasant
stock. Definitely not. His father, Henri de la
Pasteur, he was a mètre coutelier. A master cutler.
Like making high -end knives and tools. Exactly.
So a respected, successful artisan family. It
gives young Rogier a solid foundation. And later,
we know Henry Elizabeth Goffert. Her father was
a shoemaker. but from Brussels. Okay, so connecting
him to Brussels early on, even through marriage.
Right, and they officially settled in Brussels.
The records show that by October 1435, they're
there. They were probably established there a
bit before that, but that's the official date
we have. And they had children who survived,
which was quite something back then. Four children,
yes. Cornelius, who became a Carthusian monk,
so religious path, then Margaretha, and then
two younger ones, Peter and Jan. who were born
after the move to Brussels. And significantly,
Peter became a painter and Jan a goldsmith. It
really shows the family embedding itself into
the artistic and professional life of Brussels,
doesn't it? And this move, this settling in Brussels,
that's the trigger point for the name change.
Right. He moves from French -speaking Tournai
to the Duchy of Brabant, where Brussels was the
main city. And where Flemish was the language
of administration, of daily life for many. Almost
automatically, Rosalie de la Pasteur gets translated
into its Flemish equivalent, Roger van der Weyden.
So it wasn't him trying to hide or anything complicated.
It was just bureaucracy, linguistic reality.
Pretty much. Standard practice when you move
between linguistic regions. But this clarity
about the name change just throws the next part
into sharper relief, the really confusing stuff
about his apprenticeship. This is the bit that
gets scholars really animated. The aha. Moment.
Or maybe the ha. The fring -ha moment. Why? Because
the records from Tournai, they just don't line
up with how apprenticeships normally worked.
Okay, lay it out for us. What's the timeline
problem? Okay, so November 17th, 1426, there's
a record. The city council of Tournai honors
a maître chargé de la pasture. They give him
this gift, eight pitchers of wine. Which sounds
like a pretty big deal back then, a public honor.
It really was. It strongly suggests he's already
recognized as a master. Maestro usually means
master, either in a craft or maybe even academically.
He's got status. OK, so he's a master in 1426.
But then. But then, less than six months later,
March 5th, 1427, the records show a Rosalie de
la Pasteur. Note the slightly different spelling,
maybe indicating younger status or maybe just
inconsistency formally entering the workshop
or Robert Campin as an apprentice, a disciple.
Wait, he goes from being honored as a master
to starting an apprenticeship. At nearly 30 years
old. Exactly. And he's apprenticing alongside
Jacques de Rais. And it gets even weirder. The
records show he only officially gets the title
of master painter from the guild five years later
in 1432. So let me get this straight. Honored
as maestrit in 1426, starts as an apprentice
in 1427, officially becomes a master painter
in 1432. That's completely backwards. It totally
inverts the usual path. Normally you apprentice,
then you become a master, then maybe you get
honored by the city council. So what's the explanation?
If he's already a recognized master, why go back
to square one, apprenticing under Campin? Was
Campin just that prestigious or was it some kind
of legal loophole? Well, Campin was incredibly
prestigious, let's be clear, a major figure.
But most scholars think it was probably more
about the legal side tied to the situation in
Tourney at the time. How so? Tourne was apparently
going through some serious crises in the 1420s.
Political turmoil, economic problems, and the
guilds, the craft organizations, they weren't
functioning properly. Their rules were maybe
in flux or records weren't being kept right.
Okay, so the apprenticeship might not have been
about learning painting skills he probably already
had. Exactly. It might have been more of a legal
formality, a way to get the official guild paperwork
sorted out, maybe under Campin's established
authority, because the normal process was broken.
It's like needing a specific certification to
practice legally, even if you're already an expert.
Administrative theater, as you said. That makes
a certain kind of sense. What about the other
theory? That the wine of honor in 1426 was for
something else, like an academic degree. That's
another possibility people raise. Maybe the maester
title wasn't for painting, but for, say, a master
of arts degree. It's speculative. There's no
direct record saying he got a degree. But it
fits with the kind of art he made later. It does
seem to fit, yes. His work is often incredibly
sophisticated intellectually. The complex symbols,
the way he arranges figures, the sheer emotional
depth. Yeah. It feels like the work of someone
with a broader education than just craft training.
So an academic title could explain that. And
also why the city honored him before his official
painting apprenticeship. Either way, whether
it was legal necessity or prior academic achievement,
the link to Robert Campin is solid. Oh, absolutely.
The stylistic connection is undeniable. You look
at the works of Jacques Deray, his fellow apprentice
under Campin, and you see this clear family resemblance
between Campin's work, Deray's work, and Rogier's
early paintings. The way they handle figures,
light, drapery, it's all connected. Rogier was
definitely Campin's pupil. But he didn't stay
in his shadow for long. Not at all. And this
is what's really remarkable. The analysis suggests
Roger quickly surpassed Campin. He outshone his
master, as the source says. And even more surprisingly,
Roger seems to have later influenced Kant's own
later style. The student influencing the teacher,
that's rare. Incredibly rare. It just shows how
rapidly Rogier developed his own powerful, distinctive
vision. He absorbed the lessons, then forged
something new and compelling, so much so that
even his own master took notice and adapted.
Okay, so Rozier navigates this apprenticeship
maze in Tournai, gets his official master painter
status, and then makes the big move to Brussels
around 1435. And this isn't just changing cities,
it's like flipping a switch on his career. It
just takes off. Instantly. I mean, the very year
he settles there, 1435, he lands this incredibly
prestigious job, official painter to the town
of Brussels, the Stadtschilder. And we really
need to stress how important Brussels was at
this moment. This wasn't some minor town. Not
at all. It was the main residence of the Dukes
of Burgundy. We're talking about the court of
Philip the Good. This was arguably the most powerful,
wealthy, and culturally sophisticated court in
all of Europe in the 15th century. Think extravagance,
think influence, think artistic patronage on
a grand scale. So getting the city painter job
there? That's major league. It's huge. And the
position itself seems to have been created specifically
for him. It wasn't like they were just filling
a vacancy. They wanted Roger van der Weyden.
And the plan was for the job to just end when
he died. Apparently so. It shows how much they
valued him personally. They weren't just hiring
a functionary. They were securing the services
of a sutra star for the city's image and prestige.
And this status, this official position, it clearly
translated into financial success. The records
show he was doing very well for himself. Oh,
definitely. We have documents showing he owned
properties, made investments. He accumulated
significant wealth, which tells you the demand
for his paintings among the elite must have been
intense. He was clearly charging top prices and
getting them. But he wasn't just hoarding his
wealth. There's evidence of philanthropy, too.
Yes, and that's important for understanding his
social standing. He wasn't just seen as a craftsman.
Records confirm he gave generously to the poor.
And between 1455 and 1457, he actually served
as an administrator for a local hospital and
charitable foundation called Turkistan. So managing
charity funds, taking on civic responsibilities.
That suggests a higher status, right? More than
just a painter for hire. Exactly. It points to
him being a respected member of the community,
perhaps bridging that gap between artisan and,
well, maybe something closer to the intellectual
class. It fits with that earlier idea of a possible
academic background, too. Now let's talk about
who is buying his paintings. We know he's tight
with the Burgundian court. Yes, Philip the Good
himself. His family members, the courtiers, that
was his home base, his primary network, painting
their portraits, creating devotional works for
them. That secured his local power base. But
his client list went way beyond Burgundy. This
is where his international fame really kicks
in. Absolutely. His reputation just exploded
across Europe. We know for a fact his works were
being exported very early on to major centers
like Italy and Spain. We're talking about foreign
aristocrats, royalty. And we have concrete examples,
like the Miraflores Altarpiece. That's a key
piece of evidence, commissioned by King Juan
II of Castile, the King of Spain. He then donates
it to the Miraflores Monastery near Burgos in
1445. And the crucial part is the paperwork survived.
The deed of gift, yes. And it explicitly describes
the altarpiece as the work of the great and famous
Flandresco Roquel. So there you have it. a royal
document from 1445, authenticating a specific
work and confirming his international fame under
his name. It's gold dust for art historians.
His connections in Italy are also really telling.
There's mention he might have gone to Rome, maybe
for the Jubilee year in 1450. Yes, there's a
strong possibility he made a pilgrimage to Rome
around 1450. He might have been in Italy a bit
earlier too, perhaps 1449. But what's really
interesting is the analysis suggests this trip.
It didn't really change his painting style. Which
is kind of counterintuitive. You'd think going
to Italy, seeing Italian Renaissance art, would
have a massive impact. You would, wouldn't you?
But it seems Rogier was already such a dominant
artistic force, so confident in his own style,
that he wasn't really looking for new influences.
He was arriving in Italy not as a student, but
as a celebrated master whose work was already
known and admired there. His influence was already
flowing south. And we know the biggest names
in Italy were patrons. The Este family in Ferrara,
the Medici in Florence. Exactly. These weren't
minor nobles. They were the absolute power players,
the driving forces behind the Italian Renaissance.
And they were actively commissioning and collecting
Roger van der Weyden. They saw his northern realism
and emotional intensity as something essential,
something powerful. Nothing quite demonstrates
his status like that story about the Duchess
of Milan, though. A Bianca Maria Visconti. Ah,
yes, the Zanetta Bugato incident. It's just astonishing
when you break it down. So the Duchess of Milan
wants her court painter, this guy is Zanetta
Bugato, to get some training from the best. She
wants him to apprentice with Rogier in Brussels.
Right. But apparently Rogier is either too busy
or perhaps just not inclined to take on another
apprentice easily. So what happens? The Duchess
has to pull strings, big strings. She gets the
Duke of Burgundy involved. She gets the Dauphin
of France, the future King Louis XI involved.
They both apparently have to write letters, use
their diplomatic influence. Just to persuade
Roger van Weyden to accept one apprentice from
the Milanese court into his workshop. It's unbelievable
leverage for an artist. It really is. It tells
you he wasn't just an artist. He was operating
at the level of international diplomacy. his
workshop, his time, his teaching. It was a valuable
commodity that required negotiation between rulers.
That completely explains why the Italian scholars,
the humanists like Filarete and Bartolomeo Faccio,
were writing about him in such glowing terms
in the 1450s and 60s. Calling him the greatest,
the most noble of painters. It wasn't just hype.
His reputation was genuinely immense, built on
these kinds of high -level connections. And of
course... the power of the art itself. Okay,
so we've established his incredible status. Let's
talk about the paintings themselves. What actually
defines the van der Weyden style? What makes
his work so distinctive and influential? Well,
I think the first thing that strikes you is this
unique combination of intense emotion, real pathos,
and sharp naturalism. He's observing from life,
right? Using models. Absolutely. Meticulously.
You see incredible detail in textures, fabrics,
faces. It feels very real, very observed. But
he doesn't just copy reality. He heightens it,
especially the emotion. His figures, particularly
in religious scenes like the crucifixion or the
lamentation, they express profound grief. Tears,
dramatic gestures. Yes. But crucially, they always
maintain a sense of dignity, a kind of statuesque
gravity, even in their sorrow. It's not uncontrolled
hysteria. It's deep, resonant human suffering
presented with artistic control. You mentioned
statuesque. That's a recurring description for
his figures, isn't it? It is, particularly in
his larger works, the triptychs. The figures
have a solidity, a sculptural quality. They feel
substantial. weighty this gives his compositions
a kind of monumental feeling even when depicting
intense movement or emotion and color his use
of color is often highlighted oh definitely he
uses rich warm colors often quite saturated but
it's not just bold color it's incredibly nuanced
combined with the expressions it creates this
very sympathetic feeling drawing you right into
the scene and technically there's something specific
about his tonal range yes this is where you see
the real technical mastery He used an unusually
wide variety of tones within a single painting.
Experts who've studied his best works closely
point out that he rarely repeats the exact same
shade or tone twice on the canvas. Even for something
like white cloth? Even the whites. If you look
at, say, the different linens or garments in
The Descent from the Cross, each white area is
subtly different, varied in tone. It avoids any
flatness, any visual boredom. That level of control
over color and light is just extraordinary. It
shows a profound understanding of optics, almost
obsessive attention to detail. Now besides the
big religious works, he was also a master portraitist.
That requires a different skill set, doesn't
it? Especially when painting the powerful elite.
Completely different. Portraiture for clients
like the Burgundian court wasn't just about likeness.
It was about image crafting, about propaganda,
really. Flattery was part of the job description.
Absolutely. The goal, as one source puts it,
was to give the sitter a handsomeness or beauty
or interest or intelligence they might not have
been blessed with in life. Harsh, but probably
true. So how did he achieve that? What were his
techniques for idealizing his sitters? Well,
he typically used the half -length, half -profile
format. It's intimate, but still formal. And
then he'd subtly refine their features. Like
adjusting the facial structure. Exactly. He often
enlarged the eyes slightly, making the sitter
look more intense, more intelligent, maybe more
soulful. He would sharpen the contours of the
face, giving it better definition. And a really
common trick seems to have been strengthening
the jawline. Ah, the strong jawline. Signifies
authority. Confidence. Precisely. It gives that
sense of aristocratic bearing, of power and decisiveness,
regardless of what the person actually looked
like. It's this combination of subtle adjustments
that creates that idealized, powerful presence
you see in his famous portraits. Like Philip
the Good, his wife Isabella of Portugal, or their
son Charles the Bold. You look at those portraits
and you see power. Exactly. That's the image
he was paid to create. Now, despite this incredible
output and skill, we keep coming back to the
fact that pinning down specific works definitively
is tricky. But we do have some anchors. You mentioned
the descent from the cross earlier. Yes, that's
considered the defining work, probably painted
around 1435, right as he's moving to Brussels.
It's the painting that really announced his arrival
as a major force, perhaps the most influential
Norse painting of its time. It's emotional power,
the composition. It set a benchmark. And then
there's that fascinating case of the painting
that got cut up, the Magdalene reading. Ah, yes.
Yeah. Magdalene reading. It's now in the National
Gallery in London, and it's just exquisite, a
fragment, showing Mary Magdalene deeply absorbed
in a book. It's considered one of the absolute
jewels of 15th century painting, the detail,
the calm intensity, the light. It's breathtaking.
But for centuries, it was just that. A beautiful
fragment. Exactly. An isolated piece. But then
through some brilliant art historical detective
work, mostly in the later 20th century, scholars
started noticing connections. They looked at
the wood grain, the scale, the style. And linked
it to other fragments. And two small heads, one
of St. Catherine and one of St. Joseph, which
are now in the Gulbenkian Museum in Lisbon, Portugal.
By analyzing the wood and the composition, they
proved conclusively that the London Magdalene
and the two Lisbon heads were all originally
part of the same, much larger altarpiece. Wow.
So a big painting, probably depicting the Virgin
and Child with various saints, was just chopped
up. Sadly, yes. Yeah. Dismembered and sold off
as smaller, more marketable pieces sometime before
1811. It's a tragic story of an artwork's destruction,
but also a triumph of scholarship, literally
piecing the evidence together across museums
in different countries to understand the original
work. It's a reminder of how much might have
been lost, which brings us to the biggest loss
of all, the work that should have guaranteed
his fame forever, the Brussels Town Hall Commission.
The justice of Trajan and Herkenbald. Yes, this
was his massive civic project. commissioned for
the Golden Camir, the Golden Chamber of the Brussels
Town Hall. And when you say massive, you mean?
We're talking colossal for panel painting at
that time. Four huge panels, each one likely
measured about 4 .5 meters high, maybe 15 feet.
Just imagine lining a room with paintings that
size. Incredible. And they weren't just decoration,
were they? They had a specific purpose. A very
important civic function. They depicted historical
and legendary examples of justice stories about
the Roman Emperor Trajan and a local duke, Herkenbold,
rendering impartial justice. They were meant
as moral guides, as reminders, for the aldermen
and judges who conducted city business and dispensed
justice in that very room. When did he paint
these? He worked on them over a period, likely
between 1439 and the early 1440s, maybe finishing
around 1450. And we know he signed at least two
of the panels. So a signed, monumental, centrally
located, officially commissioned work, how could
that not secure his legacy? Because it was destroyed,
utterly obliterated. When? How? During the French
bombardment of Brussels in 1695, Louis IV's troops
bombarded the city, causing catastrophic fires
that destroyed a huge part of the historic center,
including the town hall and these masterpieces
inside it. Gone forever. So we only know about
them from written descriptions. Primarily, yes.
People who saw them before 1695 wrote about them.
Albrecht Dürer famously saw them on his visit
in 1520 and was apparently deeply impressed.
Bazzari mentioned them too. And we have some
visual evidence from later copies, most notably
a large tapestry now in Bern, Switzerland, which
copies parts of the compositions. But the originals
lost. It's hard not to think how different things
might have been if that work had survived. It
was irrefutable proof of his genius, right there
in the heart of Brussels. Exactly. That destruction
created a huge void. You take away his most visible
documented public work, you add the confusion
over his name we talked about, and suddenly it
becomes much easier for his identity and body
of work to get muddled over time. That's really
the seed of the attribution crisis. This centuries
-long confusion where historians just couldn't
quite figure out who painted what or even who
he was. Right. Because for a long time, there
wasn't a single surviving painting that could
be absolutely 100 % tied to him, based only on
documents. from the 15th century itself. The
links were often circumstantial or came from
later records. So modern scholarship had to basically
rebuild his catalog from the ground up using
a few key works as anchors. Precisely. The work
of scholars like Lorne Campbell and Dirk DeVos
has been crucial here. They focused on identifying
the handful of works where the provenance, the
chain of ownership and documentation was strongest.
These became the touchstones. And which ones
are they? The core authenticated works? There
are three main ones that are generally accepted
as the bedrock. First, the Descent from the Cross,
the one now in the Prado Museum in Madrid. That's
the one with the amazing survival story, right?
That's the one. Its history is incredibly well
documented, tracing back through Spanish royal
collections from the 16th century. And yes, the
story is that when the ship carrying it to Spain
was wrecked, the panel itself was packed so well,
probably in a waterproofed quaint, that it actually
floated and was recovered largely undamaged.
Incredible. A testament to good packing, I guess.
It may be a sign of its perceived importance
even then. It certainly added to its mystique.
Okay, so that's number one. What's the second?
The second is the Triptych of the Virgin. which
is also known as the Mare Flores Altarpiece,
the one we mentioned earlier, now in Berlin.
Commissioned by the King of Spain. Exactly. And
the key here is that 1445 deed of gift from King
Juan II, specifically naming the artist as the
great and famous Flandresco Rogel. That contemporary
royal documentation is incredibly strong. And
the third anchor piece. That's the Crucifixion
Triptych, which is now in the Escorial Palace
near Madrid. Its provenance connects it directly
back to Rogier himself. It was documented as
a donation by Rogier to the Charterhouse of Chute,
a monastery just outside Brussels where he had
connections, possibly where his son Cornelius
was a monk. So... These three works, the Prado
Descent, the Brüllenmeer Flores, and the Escorial
Crucifixion, they form the undisputed core. They
form the foundation upon which the rest of his
attributed work is largely built, using stylistic
comparison and other, slightly less direct, evidence.
They are the fixed points. Okay, so with these
anchors established now, let's go back and trace
how the confusion got so bad before this clarity
emerged. How did historians actually manage to
lose track of this guy? It really started with
a simple but hugely influential mistake made
by Giorgio Vasari. The Italian art historian.
His Lives of the Artists from 1568 was like the
Bible of art history for centuries. Exactly.
And Vasari, writing about this famous Flemish
painter, mistakenly called him Ruggiero da Brugia.
Rogier of Bruges. Wrong city. Van der Weyden
was based in Brussels, not Bruges. Completely
wrong city. But because Vasari was so influential,
that geographical error stuck. It planted the
idea that the great Rogier was associated with
the Bruges. So then when later historians like
the Dutch writer Carol van Mender came along.
Right. Van Mender writing his Schilder book in
1604, he knew that the famous painter Rogier
van der Weyden lived and worked in Brussels.
He had local knowledge, Brussels records. So
he had... conflicting information. Vasari saying
Bruges, his own sources saying Brussels. Exactly.
And van Mander couldn't easily reconcile it.
Maybe he thought Vasari couldn't possibly be
wrong. So he came to what seemed like a logical
conclusion at the time, but was historically
disastrous. He decided there must be two different
painters. Yes. He basically listed them separately.
He essentially concluded there must have been
two major artists, both named Rogier, one based
in Bruges, following Vasari, and one based in
Brussels. The identity was officially split in
two. Wow. Just based on one geographical mistake
by Vasari. It's like a game of historical telephone.
It really is. One error gets repeated, then interpreted,
then leads to another layer of confusion. And
it didn't stop there. It got even more complicated.
How? Well, later on in the 19th century, an archivist
found some records suggesting that the Brussels
Rogier, our Rogier, had died earlier than people
had previously thought. This messed up Van Mander's
timeline even more. So now the dates don't fit
either Van Mander theory. Right. Which led another
historian, Alfred Mickels, to propose yet another
theory. He suggested there were two painters,
but maybe it was a father and son, both named
Rogier, working one after the other. Okay, so
now we potentially got Rogier of Bruges, Rogier
of Brussels, father, and Rogier of Brussels,
son. Three Rogier. It was getting completely
out of hand. Yeah. And then to add one final
layer of stylistic confusion, the whole Maitre
de Flamel issue emerged. Oh. Oh, the Master of
Flamal. This was an anonymous name given to a
group of paintings, right? Yes. In the late 19th
century, art historians grouped together these
powerful, quite realistic paintings, often with
robust sculptural figures in detailed domestic
settings. And since they didn't know the artist,
they gave him this name, the Master of Flamal,
based on a mistaken provenance for some of the
works. And how did that connect to Rogier? Because
stylistically, these Flamel works shared certain
qualities with Roget's known early paintings.
That intense realism, the emotional weight, the
northern character, there was clearly a connection.
So people started thinking maybe the master of
Flamel was Roget, just an earlier phase of his
work. That was a dominant theory for quite a
while. It seemed plausible that this powerful,
slightly rougher style was Roger before he developed
his more elegant, refined manner. It muddied
the waters even further, trying to define Roger's
early development. What was the key difference
stylistically that eventually helped separate
them? Well, the Flamel works, which we now know
are by Robert Campa and his teacher, they tend
to have heavier, more block -like figures, very
sculptural, very solid, often packed into quite
crowded, detailed spaces. Roger, even early on,
tends to streamline those forms a bit, makes
them more elongated, more graceful, and injects
that distinctive, refined pathos, that elegant
sorrow. But the overlap, especially in their
shared focus on realism, made it hard to untangle
for decades. So who finally cut through all this
confusion? Rogier, the Flamel mix -up. It happened
in stages. A big breakthrough came in 1913. The
Belgian scholar, Georges Houlin de Loup, convincingly
argued, and eventually proved, that the master
of Flamel was, in fact, Robert Campin, Rogier's
teacher. Okay, so that removed one layer of confusion.
Campin was Campin, not Roger. Right. And then
the final synthesis, the grand unification, really
came with Erwin Panofsky. The famous art historian,
his big book on early Netherlandish painting.
Exactly. Published in 1953. Panosky meticulously
reviewed all the evidence, the names, the dates,
the stylistic links, Vasari's error, Van Mander's
confusion, the Campin connection, and he laid
out the definitive case. Despite all the historical
noise, all the records ultimately pointed to
one single monumental artist. Rogier de la Pasteur,
born in Tournai, who became Rogier van der Weyden
when he moved to Brussels. One man, two names.
One man, two names. Panosky finally put the ghost
of multiple Rogiers to rest. It's just amazing
it took until the mid -20th century to definitively
sort that out. But now that he's been, well,
historically reassembled, his importance is undeniable.
He's considered the most influential northern
painter of the entire 15th century. Without a
doubt. His impact was just... Enormous. That
style we talked about, that vigorous, subtle,
expressive painting, as the sources call it,
it just spread everywhere. Across Northern Europe,
obviously. Deep into France, Germany. Carried
by artists who trained with him or saw his work
or saw copies. But also, as we saw, significantly
into Spain and Italy, thanks to those high -level
commissions and his sheer reputation. He essentially
set the template for religious emotion in Northern
art for generations. And it wasn't just his overall
style. He actually introduced specific new ways
of depicting things, new iconographies. Yes,
he was a real innovator in terms of what was
painted and how. Panofsky highlights a couple
of key things. First, Rogier really pushed the
idea of depicting patrons within the sacred scene,
not just kneeling off to the side, but sometimes
actually participating in the event, like in
the Madonna and Child with Saints fragments we
discussed. It blurred the lines between the viewer's
world and the holy past. Making religion more
immediate, more personal. Exactly. And related
to that, he popularized a specific format, the
devotional diptych. Two panels hinged together.
Right. Typically, one panel would show the Virgin
Mary, often half -length, sometimes nursing the
Christ child, and the other panel would be a
portrait of the person who commissioned it, shown
in prayer. facing the Virgin. Ah, creating this
very direct personal connection between the worshiper
and the divine. Precisely. It was a portable,
intimate format for private devotion, and it
became incredibly popular thanks to Roger. He
essentially standardized it. And even influenced
how specific saints or stories were depicted.
Yes, down to the details. The example given is
Saint Jerome pulling the thorn from the lion's
paw. It wasn't a new story, but Roger seems to
have reformulated it. given it a particularly
compelling visual form that then got copied widely.
He had a knack for creating these definitive
images. So his influence flowed through his own
workshop, obviously, but also through other artists
who copied or adapted his style. Definitely.
His workshop must have been highly productive,
training assistants and spreading his methods,
while proving direct master -pupil relationships
is often tricky with the records we have. Hans
Memling is usually considered his greatest successor.
Even if we can't definitively prove Memling studied
directly under Roger. Right. The documentation
isn't airtight. But stylistically, Memling clearly
inherits Roger's grace, his compositional sense,
his approach to portraiture. He carries that
torch forward. But maybe even more important
for spreading the style widely was Martin Schongauer.
The German engraver? Yes. Schongauer was a brilliant
painter and engraver. And he deeply admired van
der Weyden. He translated Rogier's compositions,
his figure types, his emotional intensity into
copperplate engravings. Which could be printed
and distributed far and wide. Exactly. Engravings
were like the mass media of the 15th century.
Schongauer's prints circulated all over Europe,
Germany, France, Italy, Spain. They were hugely
influential, ensuring that the van der Weyden
look became the dominant visual language across
the North, even for artists who never saw an
original painting. It's incredible. The source
material suggests that basically every major
Northern artist of the later 15th century, except
maybe Petrus Christus, who followed van Eyck,
shows some trace of Roger's influence. It's a
powerful claim, but it speaks to just how foundational
his art became. He set the agenda. And yet. We
have to come back to this baffling mystery. Despite
being the dominant influence setting the style
for a century, his fame just evaporates. It's
one of the strangest trajectories in art history.
As we said, he actually eclipsed Van Eyck in
popularity during his own lifetime and for decades
after. His fame was solid through the 15th, 16th,
you know, the early 17th century. But then...
Then tastes change. Dramatically. The high renaissance
in Italy, then the Baroque. The artistic mood
shifts. European taste moves away from Rogier's
intense Gothic pathos, his sharp realism combined
with spiritual intensity. They start favoring
maybe more classical balance, more overt drama
of the Baroque, different kinds of subjects.
His style just fell out of fashion. Completely.
So completely that by the mid 1700s, he was,
as the sources say, almost totally forgotten.
It wasn't just that his name was confused. People
just weren't looking at his kind of art anymore.
It seemed old fashioned, maybe too severe or
too overtly emotional in a way they didn't appreciate.
So it took another couple of centuries for that
appreciation to return. Yes, basically the 19th
and early 20th centuries, starting with scholars
digging in archives, rediscovering records, then
the careful stylistic analysis, the untangling
of the Kampen connection, and finally Panofsky's
synthesis. It was a slow, painstaking process,
piece by piece, to rebuild his reputation and
understand his true significance. Hashtag outro,
Gabins. So when you pull it all together, what's
the takeaway on Roger van der Weyden? We followed
him from tournée with that confusing apprenticeship
and the name change to becoming the star painter
of Brussels, the stadtschilder dealing with kings
and dukes across Europe. He was a master of technique,
that incredible color, the way he conveyed deep
emotion, the subtle flattery in his portraits.
But his phenomenal success, his international
status, it all got buried under layers of historical
accidents, confused records, Vasari's mistake.
the destruction of key works, and just the shifting
sands of artistic taste. But today, thanks to
all that scholarly detective work, he's firmly
back where he belongs, standing alongside Robert
Campin and Jan van Eyck as one of the absolute
pillars, the three greats of early Netherlandish
painting. His story is just such a powerful reminder
of how fragile fame can be, how easily even a
massive historical figure can be obscured by
time and misinformation. He reached the absolute
pinnacle of success in his day, yet his identity
basically had to be reconstructed centuries later.
It's quite humbling, really. Which leads us to
a final thought, something for you, the listener,
to consider. We talked about that huge lost masterpiece,
The Justice of Trajan and Herkenwald. Four enormous
panels praised by everyone who saw them, holding
pride of place in the Brussels Town Hall for
over 200 years. That visual anchor of his public
achievement. Exactly. So here's the question.
If that single, massive, undeniable work hadn't
been destroyed in that bombardment in 1695, if
it had survived, standing there as constant visible
proof of his genius and status, would Roji Randorhabban's
reputation have ever faded? Would historians
have been forced to figure out the name Confusion
much, much sooner, simply because the evidence
of his greatness was too big to ignore?