MASTER of Flémalle (Robert Campin)
Biography
The Nativity
1425
Musée des Beaux-Arts, Dijon
Master of Flémalle Netherlandish painter
named after three paintings in the Städelsches Kunstinstitut in Frankfurt
that were wrongly supposed to have come from Flémalle, near Liege.
There is a strong consensus of scholarly opinion that he is to be identified
with Robert Campin (active 1406-44), who was the leading painter of his
day in Tournai but none of whose documented pictures survive. The identification
depends on the similarity between the Master of Flémalle's paintings
and those of Jacques Daret and Rogier van der Weyden, for Daret was Campin's
pupil and Rogier almost certainly was. The hypothesis that the Master of
Flémalle's paintings are early works by Rogier now has few adherents.
While there is still doubt about the Master of Flémalle's identity,
there is no argument about his achievement, for he made a radical break
with the elegant International Gothic style and ranks
