Master Francke

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Master Francke (also called Frater Francke , * around 1383 on the Lower Rhine , † around 1436 in Hamburg ) was a Dominican and painter.

life and work

There is hardly any documentary evidence of the life of Master Francke, but it can be roughly understood from later references. As Hermann von Kerssenbrock reports in his story of the so-called Anabaptists in Münster (from 1567), Francke was a Dominican from Zutphen . He belonged to the same order as his contemporary painter Fra Angelico .

In Paris Francke studied artes liberales and painting in the workshops of the illuminators . For reasons of style criticism, Francke's training in a Paris scriptorium is conceivable.

Francke's title mester ("Magister"), mentioned in a document in 1424 , suggests that he studied theology in Paris . It was in keeping with the tradition of the Dominican order to enable gifted brothers to train in painting and to free them from other tasks. According to this, it is also possible that Brother Francke did not complete his studies in theology and that the Magister was not a university degree but a kind of honorary title.

The copy of a purchase contract for an altarpiece shows that Francke entered the Dominican monastery of St. Johannis in Hamburg in 1424 at the latest. Helmut R. Leppien estimates that Francke lived in Hamburg for about twenty years, starting around 1420. Leppien thinks that Francke's development has turned away from the current trend. In Hamburg itself, Francke's art was without a direct precursor. Master Bertram had already died around 1415. Master Francke's artistic activity remained without a successor in the Hanseatic city, although the Dominican monastery was in the middle of the network of relationships between the city's social forces. This can be seen, among other things, from the fact that the brotherhoods of the British and Flemish drivers owned chapels in the now defunct Church of St. John's.

The merchants of the Englandfahrer-Gesellschaft commissioned Francke for the above-mentioned altarpiece to decorate their chapel. Their patron saint was Thomas of Canterbury . The Thomas Altar was probably erected in 1436, because the chapel only became the property of the British travelers on September 28, 1436. Before that it belonged to the Brotherhood of Flanders Drivers.

Also in 1436, the German merchants' brotherhood had a trinity altar set up in the Dominican church of St. Katharinen in Reval . The wooden panel was brought to Hamburg in 1429 so that it should be painted there by a “swarten monich”, a “black monk”, which presumably refers to the coat of the Dominican habit . Leppien concludes from this that the “black monk” could not have been anyone other than Master Francke. The altarpiece was destroyed barely 100 years later on September 14, 1524 in the iconoclasm of the Reformation . The monasteries in Reval, Hamburg and Zutphen all belonged to the order province of Saxonia.

Probably the last painting by Francke's hand is the Man of Sorrows from 1435, which hung on the south wall of the choir in Hamburg's main church Sankt Petri and is now in the Hamburger Kunsthalle.

style

Francke was a representative of the so-called “ soft style ”, in which artists, contrary to the earlier, more rigid forms of the Gothic , strived for more graceful, lovelier forms of expression. Francke often set this mildness in tense contrast to the raw depiction of violence. The facial expressions and gestures of his characters are pronounced. Francke's work shows approaches to the representation of spatial depth and is characterized by the use of strong, magnificent colors. Some researchers drew controversial stylistic parallels with 15th century Parisian miniature painting .

Rediscovery

Master Francke was forgotten for a long time. It was not until 1899, at a time that was heavily preoccupied with history, that Anton Hagedorn came across his name again when he was researching the master of the Thomas Altar, which Alfred Lichtwark had acquired for the Hamburger Kunsthalle a year earlier . In the same year Lichtwark published a first monograph on the artist. In 1925 the first exhibition on Francke's work took place in the Kunsthalle, which was followed in 1929 by a monograph by Bella Martens .

The Master Francke-Straße in Hamburg-Barmbek is named after him.

The birth of Christ and the Adoration of the Magi were depicted on the two Christmas stamps of the Federal Republic of Germany 2006 , two paintings of the Thomas altar painted by Master Francke.

Radius

literature

Web links

Commons : Meister Francke  - Collection of images, videos and audio files
personal data
SURNAME Master Francke
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Master Francke; Francke (Frater); Francke (master); Franco Zutphanicus
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Dominicans and painters
DATE OF BIRTH around 1383
PLACE OF BIRTH on the Lower Rhine
DATE OF DEATH around 1436
Place of death Hamburg