LOCHNER, Stefan

Lochner, a German late Gothic painter, noted for his soft, exquisite style. Combining a Gothic devotion to long flowing lines and brilliant, gemlike color with a Flemish-influenced realism and attention to detail, he produced religious paintings saturated in delicate feeling. He worked mainly in Cologne where most of his works can be found.

Lochner was the most significant painter of the school of Cologne. He was influenced by Flemish painters, especially by the Master of Fl�malle and Jan van Eyck.

The central panel of the large Altarpiece of the Patron Saints of Cologne in the Cologne Cathedral depicts the Adoration of the Magi.

This large retable, painted in the 1440s for the chapel of Cologne town council, unites the patron saints of the city in a magnificent, monumental work from which any trace of historical narrative has been eliminated. The altarpiece was one of the major commissions for the Cathedral ordered by the city council of Cologne.

At the centre the Virgin Mary is enthroned lifesize in a paradisal meadow; the patron saints of the city of Cologne are grouped around her symmetrically. They are saints whose history or relics connected them particularly closely with Cologne, where they were regarded as protectors.

The central panel shows the Magi in adoration. St Ursula stands in the left-hand panel with her virgins and retinue, and the right panel contains St Gereon with his companions. Lochner’s art is strongly influenced by Netherlandish painting, particularly that of the van Eyck brothers.

This small panel which employs several iconographic models is an especially charming remnant of Cologne Gothic. It depicts the “humble Madonna” (Madonna dell’ Umiltà) as Mary is sitting on the ground or on a pillow placed on the ground, gently holding an infant in her lap. Their figures are surrounded by adoring angels who offer flowers and fruits to the baby Jesus. To create a backdrop for the scene, two diligent angels stretch out a golden brocade curtain which reminds the viewer of the reigning, victorious Madonna. At the same time, this curtain insures separation from the rest of the world and the intimacy of the holy family. Above, surrounded by light-rays, we can see God the Father and the dove of the Holy Spirit. This intimates the Immaculate Conception; thus the painting includes the depiction of the Holy Trinity. This is the picture of completeness with the Divine Mother as its centre.

The image of being enclosed is reinforced by another motif: the low stone wall around Mary, which recalls the “hortus conclusus” (enclosed garden), the symbol of Mary’s purity and innocence.

The spectacular carpet of flowers covering the ground intimates the earthly Garden of Eden, as does the bower of roses. Roses were often connected with the Madonna; such a simile appears in several medieval Latin hymns to the Virgin.

The musical child angels in the foreground play an important part in the creation of an idyllic atmosphere. Their instruments - two different sized lutes, a harp and a portative organ - are realistically rendered, and their small hands reveal their musical expertise.

Around 1435, the Cologne Brotherhood of Saint Catherine commissioned Stephan Lochner to produce an altarpiece for their confraternity’s chapel in the church of the Holy Apostles. The inner wings represent the martyrdom of the twelve apostles. On the left wing the martyrdoms of Sts Peter, Paul, Andrew, John the Evangelist, James the Greater and Bartholomew, while on the right wing those of Sts Thomas, Phillip, James the Less, Matthew, Simon, Judas and Matthias are depicted. The outer panels (today in Munich) show a pair of smaller donors kneeling in prayer before six patron saints.

This tiny manuscript contains a Book of Hours in German, illustrated by Stefan Lochner, one of Germany’s most important late Gothic painters, who was active in Cologne, running a very productive workshop from 1442 until his death. The workshop produced altarpieces and devotional pictures as well as book illustrations. However, only three prayer books survive as examples of such work.

On this double-page spread (folios 22v and 23r) not only the portrayal of the Annunciation on the left leaf, but also the magnificent initial filled with acanthus foliage and a flower on the opposite page, are impressive. The Annunciation scene embraces the customary traditions, which, however, it transforms into an especially charming and intimate image. The page opposite is probably the most beautiful ornamental page of the book. The border is made up of undulating vine stems, decorated with stylised foliage, flowers and fruit.

The text on these pages (folios 70v and 71r) is accentuated by only three simply ornamented initials the height of four lines of text.

The Flight into Egypt depicted in the initial D on folio 60v shows the style of the Lochner workshop in all its charm and artistic delicacy. The text on folio 61r is decorated only with an ornamented initial the height of four lines of text.

The picture shows the external panel of the Triptych of the Last Judgment.

This is a mature work of the artist executed probably just before his death due to the epidemy in Cologne in 1451.

This panel probably once hung as an illustration of Justice in the Cologne town hall. Its iconography, style and many details follow Netherlandish models such as the Last Judgment in Diest, Belgium. As Lochner is supposed to have trained in Robert Campin’s workshop, he must have encountered Netherlandish art and the work of the van Eyck brothers.

Suggested listening (streaming mp3, 8 minutes):

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart: Requiem K 626: Dies irae

The Virgin Mary sits as the Virgin of Humility on the flowery grass carpet of a hortus conclusus, the enclosed garden of Paradise. This garden is surrounded by a fortified wall, thus turning Mary into a fortress of virginity. The flowers on the lawn, the white and red roses around the Virgin’s head and the red rose she is giving to the Child are common symbols of her virginity, her joy and sorrow, as well as the future suffering of Christ. Small dark blue angels crown her as the Queen of Heaven. In keeping with the Cologne tradition, the scene is flanked by standing saints, in this case St John the Evangelist and St Paul. With Lochner’s Virgin of the Rose Garden (Cologne, Wallraf-Richartz-Museum), this compositional type may be considered the archetype of Memling’s paradisiacal Virgins (e.g. in the Prado, Madrid). The coronation of the Virgin by dark blue angels is another motif developed by Memling, as in his Kansas City Virgin or the St John altarpiece (Memlingmuseum, Bruges).

It is difficult to make out whether the work was partly executed by Lochner himself. The wings are usually attributed to another hand. The work could have originated in Lochner’s studio in c. 1445-50.