International Gothic

[1] It then spread very widely across Western Europe, hence the name for the period, which was introduced by the French art historian Louis Courajod at the end of the 19th century.

It was initially a style of courtly sophistication, but somewhat more robust versions spread to art commissioned by the emerging mercantile classes and the smaller nobility.

Charles came from the Luxembourg dynasty, was tutored by the future Pope Clement VI, and as a youth spent seven years at the French court, as well as visiting Italy twice.

This and family relationships gave him intimate links with the various courts of France, including that of the Avignon Papacy, and from 1363 the separate Valois Duchy of Burgundy under Philip the Bold.

In some works, above all the famous calendar scenes of the Très Riches Heures du Duc de Berry, the beginnings of real landscape painting are seen.

In Burgundy Jean Malouel, Melchior Broederlam and Henri Bellechose were succeeded by Robert Campin and Jan van Eyck who took Early Netherlandish painting in the direction of greater illusionism.

[11] Illuminated manuscripts remained important vehicles of the style, and in works like the Sherborne Missal[12] were the main English contribution, apart from the stained glass of John Thornton in York Minster and of Thomas Glazier in Oxford and elsewhere.

[13] Nottingham alabaster carvings, produced in considerable quantities by workshops to standard patterns, were exported all over Western Europe to value-conscious parish churches.

The Hours of Gian Galeazzo Visconti from Milan was a key work, as was the Wenceslas Bible (with the text in German) of Charles IV's son.

[citation needed] A further vehicle of the International Gothic style was provided by the tapestry-weaving centers of Arras, Tournai and Paris,[14] where tapestry production was permanently disordered by the English occupation of 1418–36.

Under the consistent patronage of the Dukes of Burgundy,[15] their courtly International Gothic style, elongated figures, rich details of attire, crowded composition, with figures disposed in tiers, owe their inspiration to manuscript illuminators and directly to painters: Baudouin de Bailleul, a painter established at Arras, supplied cartoons for tapestry workshops there and at Tournai, where elements of a local style are hard to distinguish (Weigert, p. 44).

But outside Florence and the leading courts the International Gothic still held sway, gradually developing in directions that once again diverged considerably between Italy and Europe north of the Alps.