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Strossmayerov časoslov - komentar

The Strossmayer Hours is a rare and – within the framework of the Croatian art heritage – an exceptionally valuable and a well preserved work of the 15th-century book illumination. Thanks to several of its features (time and place of origin, stylistic characteristics), the Strossmayer Hours may be described as unique in the Croatian illumination tradition. Since becoming a part of the collection of the Strossmayer Gallery of Old Masters of the Croatian Academy of Sciences and Arts, as a gift of Bishop Josip Juraj Strossmayer (1815–1905) on the festive occasion of the opening of the Gallery on 9 November 1884, it has, until the present date, remained almost entirely unknown to the domestic and completely unknown to the international professional public. Except for several minor reviews, it has not been adequately scientifically researched ; the fundamental issues of the history-of-art nature – a more precise analysis, attribution, datation, provenance and valorisation (along with many other unknown data) – remained therefore open. The Strossmayer Hours contains 209 leaves organised in twenty-eight gatherings. It is bound in red leather, with a golden ornament of a later date ; the dimensions of the covers are 200 x 135 x 40 millimetres, and of the leaves 191 x 130 millimetres. The text and the illuminations of the Strossmayer Hours fill 197 gilt-edged leaves, whilst the first six and the last six leaves are blank. It follows the Parisian structure of books of hours, i.e. the sequence is as follows: the Calendar (f. 1r–f. 12v) ; the Gospel Lessons (f. 14r–f. 21r) ; the Prayers to the Virgin: Obsecro te and O intemerata (f. 22r–f. 29v) ; the Hours of the Virgin (f. 30r–f. 105v) ; the Penitential Psalms and the Litany (f. 106r–f. 124v) ; the Hours of the Cross (f. 126r–f. 133r) and the Hours of the Holy Spirit (f. 134r–f. 139r) ; the Office of the Dead (f. 140r–f. 185r) ; the Suffrages (f. 186r–f. 197v). Except for the blank leaves and the Calendar, which is bound in a separate gathering of twelve leaves, the whole manuscript has been collated per eight leaves / four bifolios. Gatherings are indicated by reclames (Fr. réclame), the role of which was to ensure the proper sequence in binding. The caesura between the two main sections or illuminated hours inside the same gathering is marked by either a blank page or a blank leaf, which are an indication to the fact that there had been systematic endeavours for the manuscript to be organised in a legible and a logical fashion ; the result thereof is that each of the main chapters of the Strossmayer Hours begins at the recto side, i.e. on the right-hand side, and is additionally marked by a blank page on the left-hand side. Such structuring must have been “arranged” subsequently: most probably after the pages had been ruled, yet certainly before the text and illuminations had been written. This becomes evident since on all the leaves of the manuscript (except in the Calendar), on both sides, pages are divided in an identical manner by lines, which are not visible only on the blank pages, but may also be barely discernible (underneath) on the pages with miniatures and borders. This wish for certain chapters of the Strossmayer Hours to be marked and separated in a well laid out sequence finds its confirmation in the completely blank leaf that follows the Calendar, which was subsequently added, since it remains out of the bound gatherings. The text block (except in the Calendar) measures approximately 90 x 60 millimetres ; it varies insignificantly and is defined by two horizontal and two vertical lines that extend to the page bottom. The text was written in sixteen lines within one column. According to the usual practice, the ruling of the Calendar is different – it is composed of eight vertical and eighteen horizontal lines. The text of the Strossmayer Hours has been hand-written in high Gothic minuscule of the ceremonial Pre-Renaissance type. Brown-black ink has in some places been lit up to light brown, whilst otherwise, it is dark, almost black. The differences in ink colour (not only in the impregnation) might be an implication to more than one scribe. The elements of the text that usually help determining the origin of the manuscript speak little of the manuscript’s provenance, as the Hours of the Virgin and the Office of the Dead were written following the use of Rome (Lat. Ad Usum Romanum), while the Litany includes the standard list of saints. The Prayers to the Virgin dominantly use masculine word forms (Et michi fa / mulo tuo impetres, “And obtain for me, thy servant”), leaving thereby the question as to the gender of the owner open (male?). More helpful is the composite Calendar, in which red and blue ink for saints’ days, of which the most important ones were distinguished in gold, are interchanged. The list of saints matches the Parisian group of calendars, published by Paul Perdrizet ; the key difference however lies in one change: the main Parisian feast – 3rd January, dedicated to the city patroness St. Genevieve, has been omitted, and instead, the universal feast – the Octave of St. John the Evangelist – is celebrated. St. Anne is celebrated on her official feast day, 26 July, instead of on the Parisian date, 28 July. The Calendar of the Strossmayer Hours derives thus from the Parisian model, yet by omitting the characteristic Parisian feast days, it excludes Paris as the potential locus of use. On the other hand, emphasising the feast day of St. Eutropius (Fr. Eutrope) on 30 April in gold, though it was celebrated in Paris as well (though not written in gold), indicates the particular importance of this saint and his city of Saintes in the life of the patron of the Strossmayer Hours, and suggests Saintes as the potential locus of use. The Strossmayer Hours contains – contrary to the expectations based on the decoration – the illustration of only one coat of arms, in heraldic terminology: d'az au chevron d'or, accomp. de 3 croissants du mesme, painted on the chest and the left sleeve of a man holding a bell in his hand, in the miniature entitled the Announcement of Death, accompanying the central scene of the Last Communion (f. 140r). The Office of the Dead is the only section of the Strossmayer Hours in which the text of prayers and devotions is not focused on the supplicant, but on the deceased, while the accompanying miniatures refer to persons who commissioned the book, especially if they illustrate realistic funeral scenes. Besides reflecting the ideal model of the Christian death, they also serve as an eschatological reminder, visualising the way to “die well” (Lat. ars bene moriendi). The dual intent – the prayer of the living not only for the dead, but also for their own blessed death – complicates the interpretation of the heraldic insignia shown in the Office of the Dead, since they can belong either to the deceased person, his or her family, or to the person who commissioned the book. A further specific feature of the coat of arms in the Strossmayer Hours is its position on the tunic worn by the herald of death. The custom was for the representatives of confraternities to announce the death of their prominent members (Fr. confrère) by bell tolling in the streets. Here the usual illustration of a confraternity’s patron saint is replaced by the coat of arms. Many families from different parts of France had the same family crest, as referred to in the grand French heraldic catalogue, Grand Armorial de France (1934–1949) ; beside the written sources, miniatures too indicate its general diffusion: e.g. the coat of arms (with violet shield) in the miniature the Burial Scene (Paris, BM, MS. 955, f. 12v) ; the coat of arms (with silver chevron) in the miniature Holy Bishop and the Patron (Paris, BM, MS. 410, f. 306v). Neither of the mentioned comparable coats of arms had been solved in the French heraldic literature ; equally, the identity of the one in the Strossmayer Hours (which may only with a high level of precaution be interpreted as a particular family’s crest) remains an open issue. Though the Strossmayer Hours contains no heraldic insignia that might be an obvious sign of who the patron was, there are indications as to his presence in the evolvement of the manuscript. The list of saints in the Calendar, altered in comparison with the Parisian calendars, narrows – as already mentioned – the circle around the place of the origin of the manuscript (Paris), and, even more accurately, to the precise locus of its use (Saintes?), enabling thereby the localisation of the patron. Moreover, indications as to the patron – a wealthy one, most probably – may be found in the rather large number of illuminated feasts in the Calendar ; the number of illuminations in the prayer book section ; the abundance of gold used ; and the careful choice and order of illuminated pages introducing the main sections and hours of the Strossmayer Hours. All the above-mentioned features define the manuscript not as a standardised work prepared for the market, but rather as a work ordered by an upper-class representative for private use. The history of the manuscript, from its occurrence in Paris to its entering the famous collection of the bibliophile and art lover Henri d'Orléans (1822–1897), Duke of Aumale and the fifth son of the French king Louis-Philippe, remains unknown (his monogram HO with three fleurs-de-lis, a crown and a label is shown on the first and the last illuminated page of the book). Due to being heirless, the Duke bequeathed his collection of illuminated manuscripts and paintings and his Chantilly property to the French Institute on 3rd June 1884. Bishop Strossmayer had already owned the Strossmayer Hours as early as at that time, or, more accurately, since 1877, as confirmed by archival research. The concrete date of the purchase (24 April 1877) and the amount paid (1, 800 liras) were mentioned by canon Nikola Voršak (1836–1880), the Bishop’s faithful correspondent from Rome and one of the most important mediators for the acquisition of the works of art for the Bishop’s collection. Bishop Strossmayer had however decided to donate the Strossmayer Hours to the Gallery at its festive opening. On that occasion, in his inaugural speech, he mentioned all the most distinguished works of art and art schools, particularly pointing out the Strossmayer Hours by showing it to the guests and naming it “the pearl in the collection”. The metaphor used by Bishop Strossmayer is a vivid description of the luxury emitting from the Strossmayer Hours. Besides the abundance of gold used, every page of the manuscript was decorated. Illuminated pages (as ”bookmarks”), always at the recto side of the leaf, precede the main sections (except the Calendar and the Suffrages) ; the text itself continues at the verso side. The compositional structure, i.e. the page organisation, is repeated: a larger framed miniature (arched rectangle, 92 millimetres high and 60 millimetres wide) is flanked by a decorative border, the lower and right margins of which interchange with narrative-historiated rectangular borders (cca 39 x 29 millimetres) ; the lower left miniature is of almost square dimensions (cca 39 x 35 millimetres). Historiated initials (Lat. littera historiata) are placed in their own frame of identical width, followed by the first three lines of the text. The central scenes use the standard set of themes for a book of hours, and they are closely related to the text that follows, announcing, completing and explaining it in order to facilitate the reading. Four smaller miniatures continue the narrative of the central scene, but – due to differences in the chronological order – they do not always appear in the same order. The first and the last section of the Book of Hours – the Calendar and the Suffrages – show a different organisational structure of the illuminated pages. The illuminated pages of the Calendar make a homogenous compositional whole. The text block (cca 92 x 63 millimetres) was framed at the inner part of the leaf by a reverse-L-shaped decorative border. The outer margin was formed by three vertically positioned rectangles picturing the feasts (cca 40 x 23 millimetres), while the lower margin was closed by a horizontally positioned rectangular imagery of labours of the months on the recto page and of zodiac signs on the verso page (cca 60 x 33 millimetres). The illustrations of the saints in the Suffrages were incorporated in the text, always along the left margin, but at a different height, and borders on the three outer sides outlined the text. The saints were placed either in nearly a square with an illusionistic “wooden” frame on three sides (cca 40 x 42 millimetres) or in a vertical rectangular frame with an arched top (cca 59 x 41 millimetres). Illuminated pages with text flanked on the outer margin by a decorative border (cca 92 x 26 millimetres) are the final variation. A comprehensive analysis of illuminations as individual works of art, with an indication of stylistic and iconographic parallels and models, revealed strong links to the traditions of two Parisian schools of illumination. The central artistic figures of those schools had to be given names of convenience. While the Master of Jacques de Besançon (Fr. Maître de Jacques de Besançon) was as early as at the end of the 19th century acknowledged as a separate artistic personality, and the first research of his opus is dated then, it was only at the beginning of the 21st century that the Master of Charles the Eight (Ger. Meister Karls VIII) was included into the Parisian illumination milieu of the late 15th century. The miniatures in the Calendar may be described as being similar – to a certain extent – to the manner in which the Master of Charles the Eight had worked. They are characterised by non-uniform proportions of figures that vary in relation to their thematic importance (hierarchical perspective), and sometimes also in relation to the space available. Thus, the unity of proportions had been considered neither within a single page nor within the Calendar as a whole ; moreover, not even within a single frame. It is only the frame that ties a page into a unity as regards its visual aspect. With their size, the figures almost press out the space around them and relate actively to the frame. These are half-length figures ; the upper margin of the miniature often cuts a part of their head, or rather the headdress and the halo. In miniatures showing two saints (or figural groups), the margins of the frame cut into the figures and the motives even stronger. The fragmentarity of the chosen frame – as a procedure – links all the miniatures. In book illumination, portraying half-length figures in close-up in narrative scenes was introduced by Simon Marmion (cca 1425–1489), French painter and illuminator, most probably under the influence of a younger panel painter Hugo van der Goes (cca 1440–1482). This innovative solution (in book illumination) had further directly influenced the Flemish and the French illuminators, first and foremost Jean Bourdichon (cca 1457–1521), who integrated Jean Fouquet’s (cca 1425–cca 1478) earlier solution, showing the figures in front of an illusionistic frame with figures in close-up, and thereby combined the French and the Flemish inventions into a formula to become broadly accepted in the French book illumination. Miniatures in the Calendar are further characterised by common typological solutions of narrow range: two ages for males and two ages for females, whereby the illuminator most often portrays old, grey-haired and grey-bearded male figures. A sharp contour borders the austere facial features (oval in female figures, square in male figures). Men are of darker complexion, whilst female figures are of lighter ; figures of both sexes are characterised by round and half-closed eyes, gentle arched eyebrows and narrow noses. The eyebrow bows in males are often wave-like ; in this manner, the illuminator endeavours to achieve their expressiveness and emotional reaction. The faces of the figures bear no distinctive features of the model ; they are most often shown in a half-profile, either left or right. It was on one occasion only that the illuminator had used the typical Italian Renaissance portrait impostation: in the full-profile of Simon, in the miniature St. Simon and St. Judas accompanying the month of October (f. 10v). The figure physiognomies are plump and round: the monolithic mass of clothes covering their bodies emphasises such impression even stronger. The illuminator draws the hair and the clothing drapery in a more marked manner, and frames entire figures by a line. Male and female saints are positioned in either an interior or a landscape ; this varies depending on the decorative principle defining the page design. The impression of the architectural interior was achieved by a simply outlined greyish wall, which is often articulated by adding architectural elements (pilasters and architraves), and at times opened into a spatial niche. The landscapes are pictured by a set of coloured areas, mostly brown-green and blue ; sometimes, the illumination brings a suggestion of an illuminated town in the distance. The landscape is to a certain extent more important in the miniatures with the iconography of labours of the months and zodiac signs, since there is more space left for the landscape there ; however, the space in these miniatures was built in the same fashion as already described. Azure hills with only suggested fortifications are the most common way of presenting the landscape background, describing the distance by applying a simple solution (motives diminishing in the depth), whilst the horizon in the horizontally positioned miniatures is placed relatively low. In describing the architectural interior, slopes of various directions (inconsistent shortenings of perspective) were used, whilst in connection with more demanding impostations and gestures, illogicalities and confusion become more evident. Narrative scenes are simple as regards the details and general as regards the choice of impostation, so that the narrative description is limited to the basic plot or event identification. The drawings are rough, particularly the drawings of animals. The infrared photo of the Aquarius shows that there are no indications as to any changes or corrections having been made in the drawing or the painted parts (It. pentimenti, penitence) ; this is a clear sign not only of the authorship of a trained and technically skilled illuminator, but – most probably – also of the author having used and followed models. A similar manner of figure portrayal in the Calendar of the Strossmayer Hours may be found in the Calendar of the Book of Hours for Charles the Eight (private collection), which had – through the mediation of the bookseller and publisher Antoine Vérard (active 1485–1512) – been illuminated for King Charles the Eight (1470–1498) in the early 1490s ; this is confirmed by the monogram AVR, the King’s name and the device J'aime tant fort une. Though it had earlier been attributed to the Master of the Grand Royal Book of Hours (Fr. Maître des Grandes Heures Royales) (König, 1989), more recently, it was singled out and recognised as an extraordinary and impressive manuscript in the forming of a new opus and a new artistic personality. In 2004, Ina Nettekoven named the illuminator the Master of Charles the Eight, and recognised the Book of Hours, the page structure of which imitates the early printed exempla of books of hours, not as a prototype, but as a derivative of the Grandes Heures Royales (printed for Anne de Beaujeu on 20 August 1490). Due to similar formation principles, the illuminator was identified as assistant (Fr. associé) in the workshop of the Master of the Apocalypse Rose (Ger. Meister der Apokalypsenrose). The fact that the Master of Charles the Eight had been chosen to illuminate the Royal order may – with a high level of probability – be explained by the role of the bookseller (in this case, Antoine Vérard) and the assumption that the illuminator had been active as an independent master. The typological solutions and the formative principles followed in the Calendar of the Book of Hours for Charles the Eight (Fig. 5) are almost identical to those followed in the Calendar of the Strossmayer Hours. Nevertheless, the aberrations are noticeable in a more concretely defined framing and the manner of picturing landscapes, whereby the miniatures in the Zagreb Calendar seem closer to painting, whilst the ones in the Book of Hours for Charles the Eight are characterised by a stronger linear drawing, which is primarily visible in framing green hills and picturing a town in the background. The miniatures in the Calendar of the Strossmayer Hours might therefore only with a lot of precaution near those in the Calendar of the Book of Hours for Charles the Eight. The compositional and iconographic features and the figure typology of other miniatures in the Strossmayer Hours are the proof of the authorship of the Master of Jacques de Besançon, an outstandingly productive artist, whose school had dominated the Parisian book illumination scene in the last two decades of the 15th century. In the period between cca 1480 and 1498, he had illuminated numerous liturgical, theological and secular works (mostly, however, books of hours and missals) for patrons from a wide social span: he was rather popular with the wealthy aristocracy and bourgeoisie, and was receiving orders also from the French and English Royal circles. He was an associate and the successor of the school of Master François (Maître François, active 1460–1480), from whom he took over the spatial and compositional solutions ; thereby, he followed the main Parisian book illumination line, spreading from Master Boucicaut (active 1390–1430) and Master Bedford (active 1405–1450?) to Master Jean Rolin (1440–1465). The Master of Jacques de Besançon introduced no major stylistic changes to this acknowledged and routine tradition ; certain characteristics however distinguish his style from Master François’s: more elongated figures with softer and smoother features, a palette lighter and richer in gold, and a more static quality of composition. They reveal the strive for monumentalism that had emerged probably under the influence of panel painting and as an answer to the increasing popularity of multipliable media in book production, which had forced the illuminator to retain the position of a master with works exclusive enough to enable him to keep his wealthy upper-class clients. A further major segment in the artist’s biography was working for Antoine Vérard, the leading Parisian bookseller and publisher active at the turn of the century, who had applied the mediaeval type of illumination (on parchment) to the modern printing technique, yet continuing to organise the making of illuminated manuscripts, mostly for wealthy patrons. The Master of Jacques de Besançon held on to the traditional illumination technique (his school was evidently established and renowned enough, so that he was not forced to be tested in a new medium) ; he had illuminated the dedication pages for Vérard, which undoubtedly assured him additional orders, as well as richly illuminated manuscripts. The most obvious proof of the illuminator’s “art of getting along” in the times when printed books gradually started replacing hand-written and illuminated books, and at the same time the answer to the challenge posed by the competition, becomes visible in his artistic manner: by repeating well known and very often tested compositional solutions, he managed to create a uniform, easily recognisable, solid and tradition-based work ; such standardisation procedure accelerated his production of a very popular “product” at the time – the book of hours – remaining thereby present and popular in the Parisian market. The Master of Jacques de Besançon differentiates figures by age and gender, yet he groups them by type. The faces of young girls and women are oval, eyes round and half-closed, eyebrows thin, nose narrow, lips tiny, and skin marble-cold. By their beauty and grace, they imitate the typical Parisian physiognomies. The skin colour in the male figures is darker ; the nose is long and the nostrils wide ; the chin is distinctive, providing them with a degree of roughness ; the illuminator varies their age by using different hair and beard colours. Young men and angels have a feminine quality about them, with physiognomies and skin colour similar to women’s. The hands and fingers have been done unskilfully, as soft compact masses outlined by a contour ; thanks however to long and thin proportions, they leave an impression of refinement. The author uses a clear contour to shape the body of a character. This drawing-like style is important for the whole plastic modelling, which he achieves by using lines of different thickness, whereby an effect of tonal values is achieved (“lighter” where thinner, “darker” where thicker). The clothing mostly covers the bodies, yet not entirely repressing the sense of volume, as the rhythm of the drapery (though slightly stylised) to the major part follows and takes part in the shaping of the bodily curves. The illuminator demonstrates certain knowledge of the anatomy of the nude human body (most often in semi-nude) ; the stylisation is present here to a certain extent, but there is no sensuality. The figures are mostly well proportioned, with only occasional clumsiness where more demanding impostations are involved. The clothing varies, demonstrating the typical clothing repertoire of the late 15th century, whilst the members of the clergy wear vestments characteristic for individual hierarchical levels. Changes in fashion in the last two decades of the 15th century are best visible in the clothes that are worn by the representatives of the upper class, soldiers and female saints of noble birth. They are primarily reflected in the change of the shoe form: shoes had become wide and square, contrary to the earlier long and pointed toe shoes. The neckline on women’s clothes had become of a square form, the skirts touch the floor still revealing bodily curves (with the drapery occasionally twisting between the legs), and the waist had been lowered. Men wear trousers similar in form to “leggings” and short tunics, on occasion with the sleeves cut (for practical reasons), and narrow-brimmed hats on their heads. The illuminator paints halos in two manners: either as a golden ring with a distinguished margin or as a golden circle. Characteristic for the space description is an elevated viewpoint that accentuates the already strong and swift convergence of the architectural lines in depth, and an “evasive” sense of perspective. In arranging the interior, the artist continues combining two traditional solutions: the doll's house scheme and the interior by implication ; the advantages thereof had already been combined by Master Boucicaut at the beginning of the 15th century (he had not only influenced his immediate successors, but had also dominated the Parisian school of illumination and even wider, across the whole of North-West Europe). He isolated the frontal aperture of the “opened-up” interior of the doll’s house and thereby transformed it into a “diaphragm”: an archway or doorway, apparently overlapped by the picture frame, which seems to interpose itself between this frame and the picture space, thus cutting out a “field of vision” from the context of reality. Our illuminator used the same procedure ; in order to achieve the illusion of depth, he used the lines of walls, vaults or ceilings, and furniture arranged in space, with edges converging into the depth, having however no knowledge of Alberti’s laws of perspective (he used “two-point” or “horned” perspective, with one edge parallel to the picture plane, instead of with one surface parallel to the picture plane, which was typical for the Gothic masters). His interiors are shallow and rather steep, almost as the space in the works of the Master of Flémalle (active 1420–40), which resembles that of a photograph taken with a wide-angle lens. In the arched endings of the central scenes showing the interior, there is usually a hanging cone in the centre of the arch, and a barrel vault or ceiling behind it. The decoration of the arch is in gold, and its forms and lace-like structure suggest the use of the Gothic lexis. Though this is a simple move into illusionism (illusionistic frame), it may still, in accordance with contemporary examples, be marked as a spatial suggestio

Strossmayerov časoslov; biskup Josip Juraj Strossmayer; Strossmayerova galerija starih majstora Hrvatske akademije znanosti i umjetnosti; časoslov; sitnoslikarstvo petnaestoga stoljeća u Parizu; Majstor Jacquesa de Besançona; Majstor Karla VIII.; Henri d'Orléans

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