CHARONTON, Enguerrand

This manuscript contains a missal, a liturgical book containing the fixed and movable liturgical texts for the ecclesiastical year. It was produced for Jean des Martins, chancellor of Provence, for his private chapel in the Gothic cathedral of Aix-en-Provence. Five full-page sophisticated miniatures adorn the canon of the mass, two of them depict the themes of the Maiestas Domini, showing Christ in Majesty surrounded by the four symbols of the evangelists and a depiction of the Crucifixion. These miniatures are executed in a uniform style and appear to have been done by a single hand, whereas the somewhat varying quality of the 28 historiated initials suggests the collaboration of assistants. The principal miniatures of the Missal are by Enguerrand Charonton.

Set before a crystal-like rocky landscape with the skyline of Jerusalem in the background, the Crucifixion scene on folio 292r includes two monumental figures, the Virgin and St John the Evangelist, standing at the foot of the Cross. The scene is therefore a so-called three-figural Crucifixion, eliminating the otherwise usual crowd of assisting figures and all the accessories so typical of this genre. The miniature, like the others in the present manuscript, betrays the Flemish influence in the manner of Rogier van der Weyden.

The figures, which might have been taken from Gothic sculpture, are placed before a chased golden background. To the left of the middle distance is the view of a small town with spires, to the right austere mountains. The suffering figure of the Virgin dominates the painting. No longer young, her pallid face is immobile in its grief. Her blue mantle covers her head, revealing a white veil, and spreads out in huge folds to her feet. In a strange pose, the back arched, the body rigid, Christ, a white cloth wrapped across his loins, appears to be floating on her lap. A young St John bends in loving tenderness above him, with the kneeling donor beside St John. On the right the mourning, pitiful figure of St Mary Magdalen completes the diagonal line arching over the Virgin and St John to the donor. The yellow-lined red cloak of the Magdalen extends around her in a great curve. Her left hand holds the vase of ointment, with the right she presses the edge of her cloak to her eye.

Its concentrated emotion, dramatic force and religious content make this painting the supreme manifestation in mediaeval art of the tragedy of Christ, only softened by the tender expression on St John’s face. The Virgin’s sorrow is profound and austere, almost unbending; the Magdalen’s is softer, more womanly. This masterpiece has been claimed for many schools, including the Catalan and Portuguese, but it seems almost certain that the painter was the French Charonton. With this work the master enriched French and European painting with one of the finest representations of the Pietà in existence.

The detail shows the head of Christ.

The whole tragedy of this picture is concentrated in the figure of Christ. The beard and moustache are dark, the lips half open, the eyes closed; and the dead head compels the spectator’s attention through its very poignancy.

The detail shows the head of the donator.

In this composition the donor kneels apart from the central tragedy of the composition. The head is painted as a portrait from real life: the hair is greyish, the bones gaunt on the clean-shaven face, the skin stretched tight over them. His forehead is wrinkled, the nose a little broad, the line of the lips firm. The eyes, directed away from the central tragedy and looking into the far distance, make it clear that the donor himself was not a participant in the event pictured here, an event that had occurred fifteen hundred years earlier. The artist has successfully presented the portrait of a man who had not himself been present at the Crucifixion, who knew of it at one remove, only as recounted to him, and who had recreated the tragedy in his inner self.

From the surviving contract we know the name of the man, Jean de Montagnac, who commissioned this painting, Charonton’s chef d’oeuvre, the exact date when it was painted, and the painter’s name. The Coronation of the Virgin is the central scene of this enormous, elaborate composition.

The decorative figure of the Virgin, floating in gold and red brocade in the middle distance, is flanked by God the Father and by Jesus, both depicted as men of the same age, with the same facial characteristics and clothes. On their right and left a multitude of smaller figures of the blessed angels, young children, monks, bishops, kings and popes, and the common folk adore the heavenly scene before them. Below, in a long miniature scene, Christ is raised up on high on the cross with the donor kneeling at its foot. To the right and left of the crucifix, in a horizontal landscape of sea and hills, are two walled towns, representing imaginary views of Jerusalem to the right and Rome to the left. The latter incorporates certain easily recognizable buildings of mediaeval Villeneuve-les-Avignon. The towns are respectively flanked by two subsidiary scenes of the Burning Bush and the Mass of St. Gregory; and below again the whole composition is completed by a more roughly sketched representation of tiny figures of the blessed and the damned at the Last Judgment. The Madonna is perhaps the most typically French creature in mediaeval French painting, a lovely woman with narrow eyes, a delicate face and slightly long nose.

There are innumerable tiny details in this painting which charm, there is a mastery in the individuality of each of the human characters, a skill in the creation of the landscape, and great powers in the monumental fusion of numerous elements in the composition that combine to fill the onlooker with admiration, particularly as colours, forms and details all serve to focus attention on the inner meaning of the painting.

The decorative figure of the Virgin is flanked by God the Father and by Jesus, both depicted as men of the same age, with the same facial characteristics and clothes. The picture shows Jesus.

The Madonna is perhaps the most typically French creature in mediaeval French painting, a lovely woman with narrow eyes, a delicate face and slightly long nose.

On their right and left of the central figures a multitude of smaller figures of the blessed angels, young children, monks, bishops, kings and popes, and the common folk adore the heavenly scene before them.

Of the two known authentic works of Charonton The Virgin of Mercy (Madone de Mis�ricorde) was commissioned by the royal physician Jean Cadard. It is a study for the great composition of the Coronation of the Virgin. St. John the Baptist and the kneeling donor, and St. John the Evangelist and the donor’s wife, occupy the left and right hand sides of the composition. In the centre the Madonna, in a gold brocade robe, extends the protection of her blue mantle to the churchmen and laymen sheltering beneath it. When the painting was transferred from wood to canvas the golden background was somewhat damaged. The standing figures divide the composition into three vertical areas - the spaces between them being filled by the kneeling figures. The different sizes of the figures produce a well-balanced rhythm. The gentle charm of the faces and the serene mood of the whole give this picture a particular attraction.