De
Geboorte van Jezus
door
Jacques Daret
Uit de website van het Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid
http://www.museothyssen.org/conflash.asp
Deze website laat toe een volledig en imponerend virtueel bezoek te brengen aan het museum:
http://www.museothyssen.org/museovirtual/framesuperior/asp/frame.asp?destino=visita
Jacques
Daret
Oil
on panel. 60 x 53 cm
Colección Thyssen-Bornemisza,
Madrid (Room 3)
A painter connected with the city of Tournai and the son of a sculptor, Daret was trained in the workshop of Robert Campin where he is listed as an apprentice in 1428, and where he coincided with the presence of Rogier van der Weyden. As well as training as a painter he subsequently learned the art of miniature, beginning his apprenticeship in 1436 and achieving the status of master in 1438. From 1432 he worked as an independent artist and is registered in the painters' guild of his native city. Between 1433 and 1435 he worked in Arras for the Abbey of Saint-Vaast, where he is again documented between 1441 and 1452. In 1454 he worked in Lille for the Burgundian court, while in 1468 in Bruges he worked on the decorations for the celebrations of the marriage of Charles the Bold, Duke of Burgundy, with Margaret of York, which took place in that city. His work has been grouped in stylistic relation to the commission in Arras: four panels which have survived from the polyptych commissioned by the Abbot Jean de Clercq. The Arras panels show his stylistic debt to Robert Campin, as well as to the work of Rogier van der Weyden.
This panel formed part of the great altarpiece of the Abbey of San Vaast, the major work of Jacques Daret. In it, and closely following the style and the subject matter of his master Robert Campin, he shows us an unusual iconography based on the Revelations of Saint Bridget of Sweden, very popular in the XVth century in the Netherlands: in a wide landscape, with a city and the annunciation to the shepherds in the background, the main scene is in the stable; Mary, with her hair loose, is the first to adore the Child, who is lying naked on the ground without any protection; Saint Joseph is holding a lighted candle -the natural light - which is in danger of going out before the presence of the divine light. The two kneeling women are the midwives Zelomi and Salome, the latter with her hands paralyzed for having tried to check Mary's virginity. The ox and the ass, with an almost human presence, and the angels on the roof, complete such an unusual iconography.