Frames and supports in 15th and 16th-century Southern Netherlandish painting

ARTICULATED WORKS WITH INSTRUCTIONS FOR USE 159 We must not lose sight of the fact that the uniform colours on the wings of diptychs and triptychs were sometimes decorated long after, and far from their place of origin, with a shield, a donor, a prayer or the like. These practices encourage us to caution in our interpretations. The polychromy of frames remains a largely unexplored area. In terms of its woodwork, the wing of a diptych or triptych is similar to a door to a room or of a cupboard. Doored cupboards have existed since ancient times and knowledge of how they were made passed down into the High Middle Ages. Few cupboards remain from this early period. There are missing links in the chain. Lynn Jacobs evokes the Byzantine origin of triptychs. 8 Shutters and wings close and protect. The number of elements determines the appellation of the work: diptych, triptych, quadriptych, polyptych…The terminology in use in the 15th century has been examined for diptychs and triptychs. 9 The most widespread early French term for a diptych appears to have been: “double tableau” (double painting). Other terms found include: “ouvrant (ou fermant) à deux feuillés/ feuillez, fullez, fulletz, feullet…” (opening or closing with two leafs) or “huisses, huissières, portes” (doors), or in Middle Dutch “duerkins, met twee doerkens op een sluytende, met twee ledekens aan malcanderen … ” (with two little doors closing on each other, with two members next to each other). The term “leaf” (feuillet) also served to designate boards cleaved more finely, so that the early term “opening/closing with two leafs” could be interpreted as exposing two little panels. The current terms “shutter” and “wing” should be reserved for the mobile part having the function of covering the basic joinery element. Where we cannot identify an item specifically as a wing, we shall refer to it as a panel. Similarly, we shall not talk of the “reverse” or “back” of wings. The reverse would be the side opposite to the one described first. The fact is that dynamics of the articulated work start on the outside. Old manuscripts speak of “perdedans et perdehors” (French), “binnen en buijten” (Dutch), that is inside and outside. We shall therefore talk rather of the inside or outside of wings, or of opened and closed wings. In articulated works, and especially in diptychs, the medieval sense of hierarchy plays an important role. Pictorial formulae expressing hierarchies, such as the principle of dextrality, are numerous and fairly well known. 10 But there is another formula that has received little attention, which is perspective. It organizes the hierarchy, a good example of which we shall see in the upper altarpiece of the Van Eyck brothers in Ghent. If perspective is of interest to us in the context of hinged and other articulated works, it is not primarily for its contribution to organizing the hierarchy, but it is because it is also adopted to instruct the user in the correct way of opening and closing the wings. A diptych has in principle a fixed (or dormant) part and a wing that rotates. This arrangement of the elements of the diptych is often associated with the 8. Jacobs 2012, 20. 9. Hand et al. 2006, 306-308; Campbell 2006, 33-45; Jacobs 2012, 3. 10. Van der Velden 2006, 125-147.