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

ARTICULATED WORKS WITH INSTRUCTIONS FOR USE 167 15. Hand et al. 2006, 70-77 (Madrid and Dresden) and 78-81 (Louvre). 3. Differences between the work in closed and open position Inside the articulated work, the perspective no longer presents this character of oblique planes. The representation enters fully into the viewer’s unified vision. In the case of triptychs, the representation is often organized around the centre, with the perspective lines fanning out in a continuous spectrum into the wings. In an open diptych, the viewer may be faced with new hierarchies: sometimes just one of the representations is frontal, with the other being in oblique perspective. Sometimes the perspective invites the viewer to give slight preference to one of the two representations, which is thereby presented as being more important. To illustrate this degree of sophistication, let us compare two Annunciations from the Van Eyck group: that from Dresden (Staatliche Kunstsammlungen, Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister, inv. no. 799) on the outside of the triptych and that of the Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza in Madrid on the inside of a diptych (fig. 84a-b). We will include in the comparison the inside of the diptych in bookform with the Virgin and Child and St John the Baptist (Paris, Louvre) (fig. 84c). 15 The perspective on the outside of the Dresden wings is presented as if the shutters were slightly open. The side walls of the niches are in oblique planes. Each statue is shown on a base. The viewer sees four sides of the base, with one very small side, foreshortened. These small sides are located on either side of the central uprights of the frame. Inside the Louvre and Madrid diptychs, the perspective is no longer built in oblique planes. The perspective is unified, but not centred. The bases have short sides which are arranged symmetrically, to the right each time. The viewer can see the short sides only by moving slightly to the right, to the side of Mary. In this way he is invited to give greater attention to Mary.