Jean
Pucel

With the name Pusela link the three works, two of which are performed in collaboration with other artists ("Balwinski Breviary" and "the Bible of Robert de Billinge", Paris, NAT. library), and the third entirely of his own making. This is a "small collection of sermons, painted Poselem" ordered in 1325-1328 king Charles IV for his wife, Queen Jeanne d Evreux. Currently, it is identified with the book of Hours, stored in new York (Cloitre). Modern scholars, based on stylistic analysis, attributed to the artist's Studio and other works. We are talking mainly about books, ordered a very noble person: "the book of hours of Jeanne of Savoy", "the book of hours of Joan II of Navarre", "the book of hours, Yolanda of Flanders" and several other Interesting stylistic affinity between art Pusela and translucent enamels that adorn the so-called "Madonna of Jeanne d Evreux" (1339, Paris, Louvre). "Balwinski Breviary and book of hours of Jeanne d Evreux" the most characteristic of the manners Pusela. From the first glance strikes the power of imagination and freedom master in the miniatures and marginal drawings (bottom of the pages, the ending) that it inhabits the grotesque figures, indicative of his familiarity with the manuscripts of Flanders and Northern France of the XIII century, But first and foremost he was a follower of the Master Honore; his pursuit of formal perfection, the fragility of the figures, anatomical and psychological quest fits in the Parisian tradition. His technique Pucel surpassed his predecessors: he uses black outlines, dotted lines, red contours with shadows sanguine and shiny colors ("the book of hours of Jeanne d Evreux"). It opens the technique of grisaille, which gives the page a great decorative integrity, characters plasticity, and the style is spontaneity. Consider whether this is the influence of modern stained glass? The artist was familiar with the discoveries of Giotto? Anyway, Italian lessons are felt both in its iconography and style. Perhaps some scenes are a French Gothic parafrasi "Maesta" Duccio. However, new techniques came from the Italian perspective and chiaroscuro delight Pusela. He seeks, albeit somewhat awkwardly, to place figures in three-dimensional space and present them in perspective. These innovations would not have been possible without the knowledge of Italian art, which supports the hypothesis that the journey of the artist in Italy. Gradually Italian reminiscences are not so obvious. Manuscripts created in the workshop Pusela, suggests that the artist and his most able pupils have developed a rigorous style, full of decorative grace and pure Parisian of narrative; the image becomes more realistic and is accompanied by in-depth study of expressive means. In the first half of the XIV century Pucel was the head of the Paris school and opened new ways of development of miniature art.