Susie Nash – författare

This book offers a wide-ranging introduction to the way that art was made, valued, and viewed in northern Europe in the age of the Renaissance, from the late fourteenth to the early years of the sixteenth century. Drawing on a rich range of sources, from inventories and guild regulations to poetry and chronicles, it examines everything from panel paintings to carved altarpieces. While many little-known works are foregrounded, Susie Nash also presents new ways of viewing and understanding the more familiar, such as the paintings of Jan van Eyck, Rogier van der Weyden, and Hans Memling, by considering the social and economic context of their creation and reception. Throughout, Nash challenges the perception that Italy was the European leader in artistic innovation at this time, demonstrating forcefully that Northern art, and particularly that of the Southern Netherlands, dominated visual culture throughout Europe in this crucial period.

This catalogue accompanied an exhibition at the Groeninge Museum, Bruges, which celebrated one of the greatest European artists of the late fourteenth century, André Beauneveu, apparently born in Valenciennes c. 1335. Active throughout the Southern Netherlands, his reputation grew swiftly and in 1364 he was commissioned by the King of France, Charles V, to create a group of royal tombs at St Denis. In the 1370s he oversaw another ambitious funerary project, for Louis de Mâle, Count of Flanders, at Courtrai, whilst continuing to undertake major civic commissions at Ypres, Mechelen and his home town of Valenciennes. Beauneveu spent the last years of his career in Bourges working for the most celebrated royal patron of all, Jean, Duc de Berry.