The Book Of Hours Of Mary Of Burgundy

The purpose of these boundaries was not only to separate the temporal world from the divine, but also to facilitate a specific response from the viewer. The devotional triptych was meant to establish a mode of communication that is well illustrated in a miniature from the Hours of Mary of Burgundy, (fig. 1). This book of hours was completed c. 1477 by an unknown artist for Mary of Burgundy, the only child of Charles the Bold. The miniature shows the owner of the book, Mary of Burgundy, attired in a yellow-brown gown, seated with a dog and a book of hours in her lap. She sits next to an open window that shows the interior of a church. In the center of the church is the Virgin dressed in blue and holding the Christ child in front of an altar.

In the middleground of the miniature, several individuals—including Mary of Burgundy and her attendants—kneel.

This identification of Mary of Burgundy is supported by the juxtaposition of the foreground Mary to the one in the church interior. The miniature presents a type of communication that is achieved by individuals, who are engaged in a meditative state. Either a devotional book or painting could be used to help them reach this state. In this meditative state, the individual would imagine themselves before the sacred figure. This is illustrated in the Hours of Mary Burgundy, where the ‘real’ Mary of Burgundy is reading the book in the foreground frame; the book of hours presumably enables her to achieve a meditative state shown through the window. The window-frame was used to make a transition from the foreground to the background and more importantly, work as a representation of a mode of communication with the divine. Framing plays a similar role in the triptychs we will examine in this

study.
Triptychs from the Netherlands share characteristics from an older tradition but cultivated a distinct Netherlandish quality during the course of the fifteenth century. It is directly related to Byzantine icon and their association with doors of the templon, a screen like structure that separated the nave from the altar. More importantly, this tradition developed into the choir screen widely used in the Netherlands and Western Europe, where the nave and altar were separated by a gated archway. In addition, northern furniture, tabernacles altarpieces and reliquaries influenced the Netherlandish triptych. The use of a gated archway in the church interior was meant to delineate the sacredness of the nave because of the ritual of the mass performed there. For the viewer within the church, it denoted that this area was revered and to pass through the archway was entering a sacred space. In a manner similar to the thresholds of a triptych, which denoted the entrance to a sacred space. Therefore, the screen and the format of the Netherlandish triptych functioned in a similar capacity.
Although the Netherlandish triptych shared commonalities with earlier sources, it cultivated its own distinct characteristics in the juxtaposition between sculptural and painted elements. Earlier northern triptychs, from around 1400, combined both painting and sculpture. This can be seen in the Retable of the Crucifixion, ca. 1400 (fig. 2), sculpted by Jacques de Baerze while Melchior Broederlam painted the exterior wings. The interior central panel depicted the adoration of the magi, the crucifixion and the entombment of Christ while the left and right panel show ranks of saints. Baerze carved the interior before it was gilded and then the exterior wings were painted by Broederlam. This triptych united painting and sculpture which would become characteristic of Netherlandish triptychs. Normally, sculpture-like qualities and painted elements would be isolated to either the interior or exterior, but the tradition would often