Both Paintings depict a conventional subject in western iconography: the story of the Annunciation. The kneeling Virgin raised her head from the open book as the Archangel Gabriel enters and informs her that she will become the mother of Christ Child, the son of God.
Setting and Illusion of Space
Rogier situated his scene within a contemporary Netherlandish domestic setting. The frame of the actual paintings corresponds to the doorframe of the room. This creates an illusion of the spectator being a part of the scene, as if standing in the doorway and looking down on the figures.
This illusion is enhanced by the vase placed on the threshold that corresponds to the lower edge of the actual painting. The vase thus marks the extension of the picture plane into the viewer's space. This creates a sense of immediacy and intimacy.
Fra Carnevale set his scene in a courtyard opening onto the arcade and continuing into the enclosed garden on the left, while on the right there is a view of further interior. The complex and grandiose ornamental setting is more to the Italian taste. The sense of space is much greater than in the Rogier in terms of space within the painting as well as the distance between the viewer and the picture plane.
Fra Carnevale's Single-Point Perspective
Carnevale's painting is divided into several distinct zones created by the architectural setting. This is reminiscent of the more conventional altarpieces where the individual figures were allocated separate spaces within an architectural feature. Here, the Virgin and Gabriel are placed in front of a series of arches and are each perspectively aligned with an arch.
The pictorial space is perspectively accurate, although Carnevale avoided the tiled floor which was a conventional device for indicating perspective, perhaps with the intention to demonstrate his mastery. The orthogonals are easy to locate and so is the vanishing point which coincidesw precisely with the door leading into a landscape.
From there the viewer is drawn to the dove descending in front of the central column. The regular rhythm of the receding columns, arches and trees creates an illusion of space. Clearly Carnevale was familiar with perspective and attempted to master it.
Rogier van der Weyden's Netherlandish Perspective
Rogier divided his pictorial space vertically into two distinct segments. The figure of the Virgin on the right is aligned with the bed in the background and the round window above it, while the figure of Gabriel on the left is in alignement with the square window above his head. The simplicity of the interior enhance a convincing pictorial space.
The Columba Triptych was painted around 1450, at the time when the idea of single-point perspective started to penetrate into the North from Italy. Rogier's painting present an illusion of three dimensional space convincing enough, however, the space is not an accurate perspectival construction. The lack of orthogonal lines makes it difficult to identify the vanishing point. Rather, there is a general area to which the sophisticated interplay of pictorial elements point. This area focuses around the dove.
The contrasting approach of Fra Carnevale and Rogier van der Weyden in handling perspective indicates that the great artistic invention of the fifteenth century was modified according to varying priorities of artists.
Fra Carnevale constructed his perspectival grid with mathematical precision. Rogier's treatment of the composition suggests that he must have been aware of the latest developments in painting, but the application of perspective was subject to different artistic priorities. Rogier's use of perspective is empirical rather than calculated.
Sources:
- Woods, Kim: Making Renaissance Art, Volume 1, Yale University Press, 2007
- Nash, Susie: Northern Renaissance Art, Oxford University Press, 2008
Zuzana Minarikova - I live in London and work in publishing in Bloomsbury which is an exciting part of London, full of museums, galleries, bookshops and ...
