Artistic space #173 - Dieric Bouts and the vanishing point
Dieric Bouts and the vanishing point
How I was speaking in the last post about the best of flamenco painting I will dedicate this week to exhibit the best of one of the most irreverent genres of art history. Today is the turn of Dieric Bouts. Join me to learn more about the life and work of this incredible artist.
Dieric Bouts was born in Holland in the city of Harlem, city in which he prepared academically, after completing his secondary studies he moved to the University of Louvain and by the year 1468, after having worked for the church of St. Peter, was appointed as a painter of the city, is considered one of the best exponents of Flemish painting, both as a portraitist and interior painter.
Faithful defender of oil painting on board, he also made multiple studies on light, so his color palette used a lot of brightness and resorted to multiple vanishing points to make amazing perspectives, pioneer in the use of the vanishing point in the background of scenes, at the level of portraits made faces quite elaborate and full of feeling.
When he painted human figures he focused on the costumes, and when they were naked human figures his style towards seeing the models as true skulls, moving a little away from any naturalist studio, as for his works in interiors he only devoted attention to opening side windows to show and highlight certain things that he himself chose, on the other hand in exteriors he saturates the green color since the Flemish tradition allowed the artists to learn to admire the different landscapes that surrounded them.
Among his themes he resorted to religious images, and Popular images, the idea of representing certain biblical characters in situations meticulously studied from the same bible is enough to understand the style of composition quite detailed of how to place in the space the symbolism and the poses of each one of the characters.
His first work led him to obtain recognition from the artistic scene of the time, his triptych "life of virgin" is in the museum of Prado another his most important works was the last dinner in central part d altarpiece of the holy sacrament, one of the occurrences of the painter was not to follow to the letter the biblical passages, his reference was of another nature, giving unexpected turns to each part of the story, so his compositions were completely different from the rest of the painters of the time.
This radical way of making the paintings can be seen in the last supper where Christ has rather priestly personality, and the supper itself is a mass, thus breaking with the paradigms and styles of religious painters of the time whose paintings were a faithful representation of any part of the bible.
Dieric Bouts, was somewhat more radical than other painters, in addition his way of life was related to the church, he married twice and two of his daughters went to convents to continue my religious tradition.
His little elaborated style but very successful in the use of space led him to write about art, his greatest contribution was the mastery of the vanishing point, being one of the first to use the dot in the background of the paintings. This has given him a privileged position in art history.
Thank you for reading 😀
If you liked reading this article, feel free to FOLLOW ME, UPVOTE and RESTEEM! It's always appreciated =D. Thank you all for your support and see you soon for the news flamingirl's adventures!
