A few days ago, a particularly striking 15th century painting was made the Wikipedia webpage of the day [1], and this painting itself and its implications lead deep into an interesting series of questions about art and art history. It is my intent, as best as I am able in the brief time permitted to me, to untangle at least some of these threads. Among the striking aspects of this painting is that it was long misattributed in terms of its subject matter as well as its date, and even its painter. One would think that it would not be hard to keep painters distinct, but apparently for centuries the painter responsible for this work (and several other masterpieces) was totally forgotten, and his paintings attributed to a more famous Flemish master, whose works are more generally familiar. Also of interest, bizarrely, is the fact that at least some of the errors relating to the dating of the painting relate to the fact that the context of the painting was forgotten, and a date for Paris fashions was attributed to a painting which showed somewhat more conservative Burgundian fashions (which were apparently about two decades behind Paris, no surprise there), which led to a mistaken attribution of the subject of this remarkable painting, about which there is much to say, and more than I can say well.

The portrait in question is remembered by the title “Portrait Of A Young Girl.” Just about every aspect of this realistic painting, which shows a reserved girl with an intense and intelligent but rather unfriendly expression on her face, has been the subject of controversy. The identity of the sitter appears to be a daughter of the noted English Talbots, and the occasion is apparently a fancy wedding in Flanders in about 1468. The girl is dressed as an aristocrat, which she was, in stark contrast to the usually bourgeois merchants and town-dwellers that served as many of the models (and customers) of early Netherlandish paintings. The background of the painting is austere, the girl exceedingly shy and not particularly happy to be painted, and yet even though the painter is taking an aristocratic model in an extremely realistic way, there is no attempt made to avoid the severity and imperfection of the girl’s facial expression, as one might expect. Rather, it is conveyed in a sense like that I have seen from girls from time to time, usually unhappily for me.

This particular painting is signed by its painter: “”PETR XPI ME FECIT”, which, translated from the Latin, means “Peter Xpi made me.” Yet, despite the fact that at least six striking paintings (of which “Portrait Of A Young Girl is thought to be close to the last) bear this signature, the painting was for a long time attributed mistakenly to the much more famous Jan van Eyck, whose most famous painting may be that of an Italian merchant couple who had what appears to be a shotgun wedding, or at least express a desire for fertility and birth on the part of a married couple [2]. Yet van Eyck did not need anyone else’s laurels. He was already a noted painter with famous works, and did not need to take credit for some half a dozen beautiful masterpieces painted by someone else who signed his own works. Yet Petrus Christus was nearly forgotten for centuries until someone managed to read his paintings and see his signature, and connect it to the various works of his which survive. How can so many generations of art historians be so quick to conflate the artistic careers of various painters, rather than seek to examine a larger body of painters who are part of a given artistic movement or community?

Art is not something that exists in a vacuum. People who write or paint or compose music or sculpt or any other type of art are part of a community of artists. We are all inspired by others, provoked by others, use others as models either unconsciously or consciously, and deserve to have that larger community remembered. If some people are greater than others, their greatness is not that of a solitary mountain rising out of a plain, but that of a larger mountain in a range where there are others nearby. By remembering a community, we are better served in remembering that what makes art is not solitary genius, but rather someone involved as part of a larger whole, part of an encouraging group of others with cooperation and a bit of competition, with the presence of people working on the same problems and engaging in either official or unofficial collaboration. We are better served if we remember that in art, we are not alone, and that even minor masters deserve to be remembered for their own works, for it provides a context to those who are better known.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portrait_of_a_Young_Girl_(Christus)

[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jan_van_Eyck#/media/File:Van_Eyck_-_Arnolfini_Portrait.jpg