Felix Thürlemann’s monograph presents a radically new vision of the notoriously elusive, early Netherlandish painter, Robert Campin. Questions about the attribution of his works have plagued scholars from 1909, when the artist was first “discovered” and identified with the Master of Flémalle by Georges Hulin de Loo, to the present, as was particularly evident at the Campin symposium held at the National Gallery in London in 1993 (its papers were published in Susan Foister and Susie Nash, eds., Robert Campin: New Directions in Scholarship [Turnhout, Belgium: Brepols, 1996]). Whereas scholars of the first half of the twentieth century focused on how, or whether, to separate Campin’s oeuvre from that of his most famous student, Rogier van der Weyden, more recent work—spurred by evidence from infrared reflectography and dendrochronology—has tended to fragment what was once thought as a unified oeuvre into a number of separate hands relating in varying degrees to a “core group.” Thürlemann steps boldly into this fray, reasserting Campin’s status as a distinct artistic personality and reconstituting his oeuvre in a very unusual way (particularly when compared to Albert Châtelet’s monograph, Robert Campin: le Maître de Flémalle: la fascination du quotidian [Anvers, Belgium: Fonds Mercator, 1996]). Though a number of points were first presented in his earlier publications, Thürlemann’s approach to Campin in this new book is still rather startling.

Thürlemann’s most significant and most controversial addition to Campin’s oeuvre is the famous Descent from the Cross in the Prado, usually considered an early work of Rogier. Thürlemann rejects the attribution to Rogier largely on the grounds that the solid corporeality of the figures accords more with the mature style of Campin than with the linear elegance of Rogier’s early (and also later) style; the author draws particular attention to the stylistic analogies between the figure of Nicodemus in the Prado work and the Portrait of a Stout Man in the Thyssen Collection (the latter of which, incidentally, he identifies as a student copy), as well as between the Virgin of the Prado panel and the Virgin and Child, one of the so-called Flémalle panels in the Städel in Frankfurt. Indeed, drawing on a neglected proposal by Mojmír Frinta, Thürlemann goes on to argue that the three Flémalle panels (i.e., the Trinity, the Saint Veronica, and the Virgin and Child) formed wings for the Descent from the Cross. The correspondences in dimensions—the Frankfurt panels have the same height as the Prado work and, when doubled at each side, equal the width of the Descent—lend credence to this proposal. On the other hand, the reconstructed altarpiece (as illustrated on page 120) displays some significant disparities between the center and the wings, such as the greater plasticity and bulk of the latter; such disparities, while not ruling out the proposed attribution (and/or reconstruction) are not addressed fully enough to be convincing (admittedly it would take a lot to change opinion on such a canonical work).

A further result of Thürlemann’s rethinking of the boundaries between Rogier and Campin is found in his reassignment from Campin to Rogier of the two panels that form the wings of the Werl triptych. This reattribution is based largely on Thürlemann’s view that Campin was unlikely to have included the kinds of Eyckian and Rogierian features seen in these works within his later production (the left panel bears a date of 1438).

Thürlemann expands the artist’s oeuvre in a rather unexpected direction by considering textile works as a key part of Campin’s artistic activity. He argues that Campin was one of the designers responsible for cartoons for a tapestry in the Cathedral in Tournai, showing the legend of Saint Piatus. If true, such an attribution would make this tapestry—which, according to a copy of a lost document, was completed in 1402—the only known example of Campin’s early production in Tournai. Such evidence could also suggest a possibility that until now was not seriously envisioned: Campin’s training might have taken place in Tournai itself, not outside it. The photographs of these tapestries, unfortunately, are too small to support the claims adequately (though otherwise the production qualities of the book are outstanding, with full-page details reproduced one-to-one); better illustrations in Thürlemann’s 1997 Pantheon article make his attribution appear plausible if not conclusive.

Thürlemann considers another textile group, the ecclesiastical paraments of the Order of the Golden Fleece, to be Campin’s most important work, indeed his “Ghent altarpiece.” These works—which consist of three copes and an altar dossal, all housed in the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna—were produced in silk embroidery, a prestigious art form within the Burgundian court. Comparison of Campin’s Trinity in Frankfurt with the image of the Trinity in the center of the embroidered altar dossal certainly shows strong formal affinities. But the possibility that Campin was a source, rather than the actual designer—or that both works derive from a common source—is an issue that seems to warrant more consideration before this textile group is enshrined, as Thürlemann does, as the last great artistic statement from Campin.

Regardless of the specifics of attribution, however, Thürlemann’s inclusion of textiles in this monograph acknowledges the important fact, generally ignored within studies of early Netherlandish painting, that Flemish painters frequently devoted their time to producing designs to be executed in a wide variety of media.

In addition to reassessing the oeuvre of Campin, this book takes on the broader task of providing a critique of method and connoisseurship. To this end, Thürlemann includes a critical survey of past research before his catalogue raisonné. Here Thürlemann rightly highlights how the new technologies for examining Netherlandish painting have not solved attribution problems as hoped, but have instead fostered an even greater division of opinion because of the need to interpret the new data. This attitude helps explain why Thürlemann’s text is rather refreshingly free of the kinds of discussions of cross-hatching and V-folds that have become standard features of scholarship on Flemish painting. (This is not to say, however, that Thürlemann ignores information from underdrawings, pigment analysis, and dendrochronology; this material is largely relegated to the catalogue raisonné.)

While much of Thürlemann’s critique of connoisseurship is thoughtful and useful, it does not result in a positive program for attributing paintings. His reattributions, spectacular as they are, end up being based on fairly limited amounts of formal analysis and rely too heavily on critiques of earlier scholars’ methods and claims. And though the author quite admirably decries dependence on preconceived ideas, his survey of research on Campin seems designed in part to use the opinions of some scholars to bolster his own attribution claims. A particularly troubling issue for the methodology of connoisseurship is raised by Thürlemann’s handling of copies of lost works by Campin: in a number of cases—most notably, lost works devoted to Saint Joseph, Saint Luke, the Descent from the Cross, and the five Wise Men and ten Sibyls—Thürlemann dubs copies as accurate and then proceeds to treat them as if they were actually by Campin. But even accurate copies can contain significant alterations, as is evident, for example, in the differences between the landscape of the Liverpool copy of the Descent from the Cross and that shown in the surviving original fragment in Frankfurt (differences that Thürlemann does not consider when analyzing the Liverpool copy).

But while the book may not have resolved all Campin attribution problems, it nevertheless sparkles with many brilliant and original readings of the form and meaning of the individual works. For example, Thürlemann traces two axes on which the Seilern triptych operates: one the unfolding transition from death to resurrection across its three panels, the other reaching from the world of the picture to the real world of the donor in front of the picture. The mourning angel in purple, at the left of the center panel, forms the pivotal point in both directions, with his gaze toward the represented donor forming an affective bridge between center and left, while the cropping of the angel by the frame conveys his position as mediator between the space of the picture and the viewer. So, too, Thürlemann’s treatment of the Mérode triptych offers a number of intriguing insights, including his notion that the book on the table in the center represents the good tidings, the New Testament, brought by the angel, and stands in opposition to the book that Mary reads, identified here as the Old Testament.

Thürlemann also provides a sophisticated reassessment of Joseph’s role in the Mérode triptych, arguing that the mousetrap is a reference to Joseph (not Christ), symbolizing his profession and alluding to the way in which he helped deceive the devil about the divine nature of Christ by serving as Mary’s pseudohusband. In a compelling psychoanalytical reading, Thürlemann further argues that Joseph’s drilling provides a substitute sexual activity befitting a pseudohusband.

All in all, then, Robert Campin: A Monographic Study with Critical Catalogue is a very stimulating and thought-provoking book, a “must read” not just for scholars of Campin, but also (and perhaps more importantly) for those seeking to understand early Netherlandish painting in general. While it will not form the end point for the already lengthy discussions about the extent and content of Campin’s oeuvre, it will be a force to be reckoned with for some time to come.