Free Carlos

Free Carlos: Annunciation (Anunciação). Portugal, around 1520 (Museu Nacional de Arte Antiga, Lisbon)

With free Carlos ( port. For brother Karl) on off is Flanders originating painter named that in the first half of the 16th century in Lisbon in Portugal worked. Frei Carlos is considered an important representative of the painting of the Portuguese Renaissance . During this period towards the beginning of the 16th century, Portugal experienced an economic and cultural boom under King Manuel I , which is sometimes referred to as the golden Manueline age , with Manueline as its own style.

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Little is known for certain of the biography of Frei Carlos . He probably first worked as a painter in Flanders before emigrating to Portugal. There he entered the Monastery of the Hieronymites of Espinheiro in 1517 , the Convento do Nossa Senhora do Espinheiro near Évora in central Portugal. He called himself then probably free Carlos de Lisboa flamengo ( port. For Brother Karl from Lisbon, the Flame).

Style and meaning

Frei Carlos belongs to the so-called Luso-Flemish school of painting. In art history, this grouping encompasses the Flemish painters of the 15th and 16th centuries who worked in Portugal, including the Portuguese painters inspired by the aesthetic and technical innovations of Flemish painting of their time, such as the master of Lourinhã and Francisco Henriques and theirs Successors are counted. Frei Carlos is considered to be the typical representative of this painting style. His paintings are counted among the best examples of painting from this early Renaissance period in Portugal, as the Flemish painters first brought the Italian Renaissance style via Flanders to Portugal, from whom Portuguese painting adopted natural realism and spatial perspective until around 1530.

Works (selection)

The picture of the Mystical Marriage of Saint Catherine, which he is said to have painted in Flander, is considered to be the first work by Frei Carlos . It is heavily influenced by painting in Bruges at the end of the 15th century, such as the painting by Hans Memling . In addition to his own works, Frei Carlos is said to have created works in collaboration with other Luso-Flemish painters during his time in the monastery of Espinheiro near Évora. He is said to have worked with the master of Lourinhã on a triptych depicting the three sons of the reigning King Manuel or with another painter on a picture of the Lamentation of Christ. The following pictures are listed as works by Frei Carlos.

• Mystical marriage of Saint Catherine . Before 1517, National Gallery, London , inventory number NG5594
• Crucifixion . Around 1520. Groeninge Museum, Groningen , inventory number GRO 0.89.1.I
• Annunciation . Around 1520. Museu Nacional de Arte Antiga, Lisbon
• The risen Christ appears to his mother . 1529. Museu Nacional de Arte Antiga, Lisbon
• Lamentation Christ . Around 1530. Museu Nacional de Arte Antiga, Lisbon
• The good shepherd . Around 1530. Museu Nacional de Arte Antiga, Lisbon
• Marian life . Around 1530. Evora Museum, Evora
• Saint Vincent, patron saint of Lisbon . Around 1530. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York , inventory number 58.145.2
• Triptych of the Infants . Around 1530. Museu Nacional de Arte Antiga, Lisbon

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Vítor Serrão: História da Arte em Portugal - O Renascimento eo Maneirismo (1500-1620) . Lisbon 2001
2. ↑ Hans-Peter Burmeister: DuMont Art Travel Guide Portugal . Cologne 2012, p. 29f.
3. ↑ Birgit Borowski: Baedeker Travel Guide Portugal . Ostfildern 2014, p. 103
4. ↑ Free Carlos . In: Oxford Grove Art The Concise Grove Dictionary of Art . Oxford 2002. On-Line Version, accessed June 2014 (English)
5. ^ David JJ Evens: Portugal. Cadogan guides . London 2007, p. 14
6. ↑ Master of Lourinha . In: Oxford Grove Art The Concise Grove Dictionary of Art . Oxford 2002. On-Line Version, accessed June 2014 (English)
7. ↑ José Alberto Seabra Carvalho: Pintura luso-flamenga em Évora no início do século XVI: O mestre da Lamentaçäo da oficina do Espinheiro Évora, 1988, pp. 95-104

literature

• João Couto: A Pintura Flamenga em Évora no século XVI: Variedade de estilos e de Técnicas na Obra atribuída a Frei Carlos . Évora 1943.
• Túlio Espanca: Património Artístico de Évora . Évora 1957.
• Túlio Espanca: Inventário Artístico de Portugal: Concelho de Évora . Lisbon 1966.
• Adriano de Gusmão: Os primitivos ea renascença . In: João Barreira (ed.): Arte portuguesa: Pintura. Lisbon 1950, pp. 245-251.
• João Couto: A Oficina de Frei Carlos (Volume 4 Nova Colecção de arte portuguesa). Lisbon (no year (1955?)).
• José Alberto Seabra Carvalho: Pintura luso-flamenga em Évora no início do século XVI: O mestre da Lamentaçäo da oficina do Espinheiro . In: Cãmara municipal, Évora (ed.): A Cidade de Évora 71-76 (1988), pp. 95-104.
• José Fernandes Pereira: CARLOS, Free . In: José Costa Pereira (ed.): Dicionário Enciclopédico da História de Portugal, Volume I. Lisbon 1989
• José Alberto Seabra Carvalho: Free Carlos eo Outro - Preposições sobre a Pintura da Oficina do Espinheiro . In: Fernando António Baptista Pereira (ed.): Do Mundo Antigo aos Novos Mundos. Humanismo, Classicismo e Notícias dos Descobrimentos em Évora (1516–1624). Lisbon 1998.
• Vítor Serrão: História da Arte em Portugal - O Renascimento eo Maneirismo (1500-1620) . Lisbon 2001
• José Alberto Seabra Carvalho: Frei Carlos, o pintor no convento . In: Francisco Bilou (ed.): Convento do Espinheiro - Memória e Património, Évora 2006.