Master of Arguis

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Scene from legends about the Archangel Michael . Master of Arguis.

The Master of Arguis ( sp. Maestro de Arguis) is a medieval painter who may have worked in Spain in the first half of the 15th century . The artist, who is not known by name, got his emergency name from the Gothic altarpieces he created around 1440 , which depict scenes from legends about the Archangel Michael . They come from a church in Arguis in the Aragonese province of Huesca in Spain and can be found today in the Museo del Prado in Madrid.

The Master's Pictures

On a gold background, the Master of Arguis shows the legend of the apparition of the Archangel on Monte Gargano in Apulia in six pictures and the legend of his apparition on the Castello de Sant'Angelo in Rome. Michael is also shown in his victorious fight against the rebelling angels and the divine adversary, Satan , and Michael in his role at the judgment at the end of time . A picture in the middle of the altar shows the Trinity , the pictures on the predella show images of saints .

All of the paintings by the Master of Arguis are entirely in the style of the International Gothic . Because of the close proximity to the Gothic style in southern Central Europe, it cannot be said with certainty whether the master was a native of Spain or a painter who immigrated to Spain. It is also not certain whether he even worked in Spain. The master follows a style of International Gothic, as it still prevailed around 1440 in Bohemian and South German painting of the time. Therefore, his work could be an import from southern Germany.

Stylistic evaluation

Works by the master of Arguis can be found in Aragon. In other parts of Spain, around 1440, the influence of Flemish and also Italian painting at the beginning of Renaissance painting could be found, which can be found, for example, in the near-natural representations in the background of the pictures. A contemporary of the master of Arguis , Luís Dalmau , court painter to King Alfonso V of Aragon, painted in this style . When other painters like Dalmau moved away from the soft Gothic style and no longer painted on a gold background, this technique was even more popular in Aragon, the region around Arguis, and was adopted by the master of Arguis and, for example, by the Spanish painter and book illustrator Bernat Martorell continued for a while. Even if it is not certain whether the master of Arguis worked in Spain, his work is a typical example of the taste in Aragon of his time and the style of an Aragonese school at that time.

Works (selection)

The following pictures are assigned to the master of Arguis :

  • Altarpiece from Arguis (La leyenda de san Miguel), Museo del Prado , Madrid, inv. No.P1332
  • St. Lawrence; Saint Leonardus, (outer wing of a triptych) Walters Art Museum , Baltimore, inv. No. 37,868
  • Altarpiece from Alquézar, Museo de la Colegiata de Alquézar

literature

  • Paulino Savirón y Esteban: Memoria sobre la adquisición de objetos de arte y antigüedad en las provincias de Aragón. Con destino al Museo Arqueológico Nacional . Imprenta del Colegio Nacional de Sordo-mudos y de de Ciegos, Madrid 1871.
  • Paulino Savirón y Esteban: Pinturas aragonesas sobre tabla del siglo XV que se conservan en el Museo Arqueológico Nacional. In: Museo Español de Antigüedades. Vol. 10, 1880, ZDB -ID 330919-8 , pp. 71-83.
  • Elias Tormo y Monzo: La pintura aragonesa cuatrocentista y la retrospectiva de la Exposición de Zaragoza en general. In: Boletín de la Sociedad Española de Excursiones. Volume 17, No. 4, 1909, ISSN  1697-6762 , pp. 277-285.
  • Chandler Rathfon Post: A History of Spanish Painting. Volume 2: The Franco-Gothic, the Italo-Gothic and international styles. Harvard University Press, Cambridge MA 1930.
  • Master of Arguis . In: Hans Vollmer (Hrsg.): General lexicon of fine artists from antiquity to the present . Founded by Ulrich Thieme and Felix Becker . tape 37 : Master with emergency names and monogramists . EA Seemann, Leipzig 1950.
  • Federico Torralba Soriano: Fichero de artistas aragoneses contemporáneos. In: Seminario de Arte Aragonés. No. 6, 1954, ISSN  0487-3491 , pp. 122-127.
  • Josep Gudiol: Pintura medieval en Aragón (= Institución "Fernando el Católico". Publicación. No. 488, ZDB -ID 989193-6 ). Institución "Fernando el Católico", Zaragoza 1971.
  • José María Azcárate: Arte gótico en España. Cátedra, Madrid 1990, ISBN 84-376-0894-5 .
  • Heinrich Krauss, Eva Uthemann: What pictures tell. The classical stories from antiquity and Christianity in occidental painting. 5th edition. Beck, Munich 2003, ISBN 3-406-51482-0 .
  • Michel Laclotte, Jean Pierre Cuzin, Arnauld Pierre (Eds.): (Larousse) Dictionnaire de la peinture. Nouvelle édition. Larousse, Paris 2003, ISBN 2-03-505390-0 .

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Museo del Prado: La leyenda de san Miguel. Inv. No. P 1332.
personal data
SURNAME Master of Arguis
BRIEF DESCRIPTION medieval probably Spanish painter
DATE OF BIRTH 14th century or 15th century
DATE OF DEATH 15th century