Mabuse, JAN

Mabuse, JAN, whose real name was GOSSAERT, a Flemish painter, was born at Maubeuge (Mabuse) about 1470, and entered the painters' guild of St Luke at Antwerp in 1503. His life and work are divisible into two well-marked sections. In the earlier portion, during which he dwelt mostly at Antwerp, his paintings—principally altarpieces—show that he studied Memling, Van der Weyden, and Quentin Matsys; their influence is especially apparent in an 'Adoration,' now at Castle Howard in Yorkshire, and in altarpieces at Seawby in England, and Tongerloo in Belgium. The most celebrated of his early pictures, a 'Descent from the Cross,' painted for the church of Middelburg in Holland, was burned in 1568. In 1508 Mabuse accompanied Philip of Burgundy to Italy, when he went to arrange the treaty of Cambrai. This set the fashion to subsequent Flemish painters of spending some time in the sunny, art-loving south. Mabuse returned home with his style greatly modified by the study of Leonardo, Michael Angelo, and Raphael; but the modification was one 'that too often tended towards mannerisms, and to the introduction of contemporary portraits and details into religious pictures. After his return he resided chiefly at Wyck, Middelburg, and Antwerp, and died at the last-named place on 1st October 1532. His later works embrace three classes—subjects from Greek mythology, as Neptune and Amphitrite, and Danaë, characterised by strong traits of coarse realism; portraits, as of the children of King Christian II. of Denmark (about 1523), of a princess of Portugal, and of Jean Carondelet (1517); and religious subjects, including 'St Luke painting the Madonna,' 'Christ in Agony,' 'Adam and Eve,' and several Madonnas. Mabuse was a painstaking workman. Nearly all his pictures have rich architectural backgrounds, but the figures are stiff and stony; the colours are bright, sometimes gaudy.