RETABLE DES ARDENTS (LE)

RETABLE DÂ’ISSENHEIM, MATTHIAS GRÃœNEWALD - COLLECTION PALETTES

of JAUBERT Alain

FRANCE, 1999, 00:32:00

Production : MUSEE DU LOUVRE, PALETTE PRODUCTIONS, SAADOUN Paul, PAINI Dominique, LA SEPT-ARTE, REUNION DES MUSEES NATIONAUX, MUSEE D'ORSAY
Collection : Musée du Louvre
Genre : Documentary
Keyword : History of art, Painting, Sculpture, Louvre Museum, Religion

Summary :
Choosing key-works in the imaginary of the Western culture, the series called “Palettes” tells in each episode the story of a different painting. In a word, it tells the genealogy of the painting. For a painting has its ancestors and its descendants. A double technical and philosophical knowledge, fed on by a long tradition, gave birth to the painting. And the painting itself gave birth, year after year, to a multitude of other images…
Assuming the idea that the deep meaning of a painting is conveyed by the choice of colours and themes, we dissect the canvas from its most visible composition to its deepest significance.


The Issenheim Altarpiece by Matthias Grunewald (around 1512-1515), Unterliden Museum, Colmar.From this huge work of art, with its frames, its gilding, its statues, only the painted wings (11 panels) and several sculptures remain today. The work was an immense altarpiece, enclosing the statue of Saint Anthony together with other characters owed to Nicolas de Haguenau and other sculptors with its 4 layers of images, thanks to folding wings.This work exerts a certain fascination but it is difficult to say what is the most fascinating: the fantastic scenes of the Temptation of Saint Anthony that are close to Jérôme Bosch; the charming scenes of the Angel Concert of Madonna and Child; the coloured, almost “psychedelic” exuberance, of the Resurrection, or the expressionist horror of the Crucifixion.The altarpiece had a function: accompany the persons that were suffering from “Saint Anthony’s fire” (also called ergotism), a degenerative illness caused by ergot. People had hallucinations such as in “the Temptation”, and they were treated by the monks of the order of Saint Anthony

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