
 Nancy Yakimoski in The Virgin’s Peculiar Breast: Negotiating Nudity in Devotional Paintings discusses influence of the Catholic Church in artwork in Europe during the Renaissance. One of the paintings, The Virgin and Child before a Firescreen, Yakimoski mentioned was done by Flemish artist Robert Campin in the early 15th century for the Catholic Church. Campin’s art was used by the Catholic Church in order to meet the demands of Northern Europe to ensure their relevancy.

Robert Campin’s painting, The Virgin and Child before a Firescreen, was completed by Campin in 1430 and is just one his many paintings commissioned by the Catholic Church. Campin has also been accredited to other works such as the Annunciation and the Flemalle series (Blum 435). The Catholic Church, in order to expand their own influence sought work done by Campin to appeal to the Netherlands and its surrounding regions. Robert Campin favored naturalism and a realistic approach that differed from his Italian counterparts due to religious, economic, social, political, historical issues that lead to a shift and demand for realism in those areas (Harbison 588). Campin with his art style grew to such a degree of influence that he was able to avoid severe punishment over private scandals due to the intervention of Margaret of Burgundy, Countess Dowager of Hainault and Holland (Campbell 634). This was to allow him to remain in his home in Tournai and continue to produce commissions both for the Catholic Church and private collections (Campbell 637). By the 1430’s Campin had fully mastered anatomical structure and he used this mastership to produce emotion in his viewers (Blum 435). It was his ability to meet these demands and produce consistent work that set him up in a very prestigious position. His consistency has led to art history scholars being able to determine his work off patterns alone. One such is Frinta who described them as, “the basic stylistic features of Campin’s work” (Blum 435). In Robert Campin’s work, we see styles that include relief-like space, objects are projected from the rear plane, overlapping avoided as much as possible, in order to limit and clear space (Blum 435).  The relief-like space removes anxiety and promotes tranquility in his paintings. Campin also restrains his relief concept to a degree through the use of two-dimensional pattern (Blum 435). Using his two dimensional pattern further promotes his space styles and compliments them well and promotes them to a greater degree. His use of high saturated rich colors is isolated mainly in the garments and accessories to produce a greater level of contrast (Blum 435). In Campin’s work the rich dark colors bring balance into his paintings. In Man in the Red Turban, a painting thought to be a self-portrait, Campin uses the dark colors to produce the contrast needed to give it a lifelike appearance. Campin then combines rich colors with neutral colors in the background of his art; the flesh tones are usually a cool tone and it is noted by Frinta that Campin has a fondness for cool tones (Blum 435). The combination of rich and cool colors is what makes Campin’s work realistic and brings in the contrast needed with realistic colors that allow his artwork to stand out. Through the use of lighting techniques Campin produces even more contrast that enables the use of shadows to provide a sense of volume. The volume helps to add to naturalism as we see volume in everything we view. The artificial lighting method is critical to Campin’s work as it connects his characters with his backgrounds and allows them to match which adds a higher level of realism. His people express deep emotion and heavy features that further the level realism he so craves. Throughout all of Campin’s work, from The Virgin and Child before a Firescreen to others such as Man in the Red Turban we see Campin’s patterns. From analyzing his style of realistic work we learn why Campin was used by the Catholic Church in Northern Europe.

Yakimoski’s writing The Virgin’s Peculiar Breast: Negotiating Nudity in Devotional Paintings discusses the use of symbolism and downplaying the Virgin Mary’s breast (Yakimoski 244). She uses Robert Campin’s the Virgin and Child before a Firescreen as a comparison to the art done by Italian artists such as Paolo de Giovanni Fei. Yakimoski discusses how these artist were used by the Catholic Church to spread holy symbolism through the use of denaturizing and symbolizing the Virgin Mary’s breast. Of these artist Robert Campin is the only one who differs from this style and is also the only one who comes from a different region of Europe. Yakimoski gives reason as to why the Italian artist use their styles, but does not mention the reason behind Campin’s. Yakimoski also does not give the reasoning behind the Church’s inclusion of Robert Campin and how it benefitted them.    

Yakimoski identifying Campin’s the Virgin and Child before a Firescreen brought in a differing style of art that the other eight artists she wrote about did not use. She acknowledges this difference by saying, “To highlight the need for symbolism and distancing techniques in order to deter transgressive gazes, it is useful to compare a detail of Fei’s painting of a denaturalized and disembodied breast with the Netherlandish painter Robert Campin and his use of naturalism” (Yakimoski 251). It is Robert Campin’s inclination to use naturalism that is important. While Yakimoski does not mention his reasoning behind the differing styles and she has introduced the idea of one. Yakimoski also claims a need for denaturation which is not a shared view among other writers who claim that Campin’s mundane and hard edge artwork is well suited for sacred icons (Harbinson 588).  The main reason behind Robert Campin’s difference in styles has to do with that he was approximately sixty years after Fei’s Madonna series, but also there are other factors such as location, meeting the trends of his society and from this we do not see any similarities other than the connection to the Church (Yakimoski 251). While most painters mentioned by Yakimoski are Italian, it is the Dutch painter who brings the most emotion into the artwork as Frinta claimed, “endowed with a psychological character capable of expressing deep emotion” (Blum 435).  Realism is a believable portrayal of the visible world and it was from Northern Realism where Campin’s work came from.

 Campin’s style analyzed more so gives clear evidence as to why it was used. Aside from Robert Campin merely filling in Dutch society’s demand, keeping up with their trends, there is significance behind his choice of style. Robert Campin’s the Virgin and Child before a Firescreen, from design, is meant to invite spiritual nourishment to the faithful while also meeting popular demand of the Flemish 15th century to garner both a religious message and remain relevant to its viewers (Yakimoski 251, Harbinson 588). Delivering both a message and being relevant to his viewers was key in achieving the goals of both himself as a painter in attracting viewers and expressing the message of the Catholic Church. Harbinson proves Campin was able to meet the Church’s standards by stating, “These images directly present a bourgeois world or serve as sacred icons” (Harbinson 588).  While the church wanted to portray religious artwork as holy and pious an image as possible, it was unable to steer an entire region from the realism they wanted in their artwork. It was the philosophical idea shift of governing one’s self that caught on in Northern Europe which spread to its art (Harbinson 588). It was in this sense that Northern Europe differed greatly from its Southern Counterpart and its ties to the Catholic Church. Without the influence of Rome itself the Catholic Church had to find another way to gain a foothold in Northern Europe. In order to remedy the situation the church had to settle on a compromise and adapt. It was this adaptability that increased the church’s influence until the Protestant Reformation of the 16th century (Gritsch 401). By including Robert Campin’s artwork under their repertoire the Catholic Church was able to extend its influence for an entire century longer.

Robert Campin’s inclusion with the Catholic Church led to many successful pieces of art, from altarpieces to banners such as the one of St. Peter for the chapel of Saint-Pierre (Campbell 637). Yakimoski does not include Campin's other work, because it is not relevant to her article's argument. Campin's relationship to the Catholic Church reveals an interesting window in to how Catholicism was successfully spread to Northern Europe. In claiming the art needed to be denaturized Yakimoski neglected all the other prosperous artwork of differing styles. Art done by Campin such as Virgin, St. Veronica, and Trinity which is compared to the Virgin and Child before a Firescreen has found its way into cities such as Frankfurt and have given Campin the title, Master of Flemalle (Campbell 638). Outside of its influence in Rome and consequently Southern Europe the Church needed an artist who could connect them to the northern part of the continent.  The Catholic Church used Robert Campin’s work as a gateway to Northern Europe. In Yakimoski’s writing, Robert Campin is not the artist to replicate, but his successes are not shared. Campin’s cohesion with the Catholic Church proved to be so beneficial that even after he was condemned of private scandals in 1429 and 1432  he still received commissions for religious work up until his retirement in 1441 (Campbell 637). The Catholic Church wanted to use Campin until his retirement as a connection to Northern Europe.

While Yakimoski left out valuable information on Robert Campin and why his style differed we do not see why the Catholic Church included him. From gaining proper context we learn why the Catholic Church used him despite how The Virgin’s Peculiar Breast: Negotiating Nudity in Devotional Paintings portrays him in a negative fashion. Yakimoski failed to mention that Campin differed in order to meet the preferences of Northern Europe. In Northern Europe they had a particular taste in art that differed greatly from Southern European ideology at the time. Yakimoski does mention that Campin was able to send a message through his art but also carried the potential for carnal views. However, Campin was able to deliver his realistic view without the carnal views in his paintings through extensive care and stylistic choices, effectively delivering the religious message intended for the artwork without taking away from his high level workmanship. Robert Campin was able to produce a successful career and aid in prolonging the Catholic Church’s influence in Northern Europe for another century.
