PUCELLE, Jean
(active c. 1319-1334 in Paris)

Belleville Breviary

1323-26
Manuscript (Ms. lat. 10484, 2 volumes), 240 x 170 mm
Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris

The tradition of Master Honoré was probably continued by his son-in-law Richard of Verdun who is known to have been employed by the Ste Chapelle in 1318. However, no books have survived which can be attributed to him. The next royal illuminator whose work is identifiable was Jean Pucelle. He is mentioned in documents between 1319 and 1327, however, books attributable to him (more than a dozen) exist up to the middle years of the century.

The Belleville Breviary comes from the workshop of Jean Pucelle. Pucelle's style is close to that of Honoré. The drapery has the same soft modelling and in Pucelle's presumed early work faces and hands are delicate and pallid. Nevertheless, a great many new features appear. The page from the Belleville Breviary reveals a wide range of decorative invention embracing naturalistic flowers, insects, birds and animals and grotesque little men playing musical instruments. But the whole effect is tightly controlled, associated as it is with a firm regular framework of narrow bars.

The influence of Italian painting is marked in Pucelle's work, demonstrated by his interest in pictorial space. This is possibly the most revolutionary feature of his work. The exploitation of various rudimentary forms of perspective was a completely new feature of late thirteenth-century Italian painting, and Pucelle incorporated something of these experiments into his manuscript illuminations.

The page (folio 24v) from the Belleville Breviary shows David and Saul enclosed within a small doll's-house-like construction, painted erratically but clearly in three dimensions. Below (on the bas-de-page) the scene of Cain murdering his brother is depicted.




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