Master Francke

Master Francke (also: Frater Francke, * to 1383 in the Lower Rhine; † around 1436 in Hamburg) was a monk painter of altarpieces.

Life and work

The life of Master Francke is hardly occupied in documents, but can be roughly understood by means of subsequent instructions.

As Hermann von Kerssenbroick in his history of the so-called Anabaptists at Munster reports (from 1567), Francke was a Dominican monk from Zutphen. Therefore He was like his contemporary fellow painter Fra Angelico to ' Ordo fratrum predicatorum '.

In Paris he studied the liberal arts and painting in the workshops of the illuminators. For style reasons, a critical training Francke in a Parisian scriptorium is conceivable.

Francke's 1424 documentary mentioned title mester ( " Master " ) suggests that he studied theology in Paris. It corresponds to the tradition of the Dominican Order, talented brothers to get an education in painting possible and for it to free itself from other tasks. Then it may be that Brother Francke theological studies not completed and the Master was not a college degree, but a kind of honorary title.

For a copy of a purchase contract for an altarpiece showing that Francke at the latest in 1424 entered the Dominican Monastery of St. John in Hamburg. Helmut R. Leppien estimates that Francke about twenty years, from about 1420, has lived in Hamburg. Living in a city that was then cultural province, far from the centers of Cologne or Brussels was initially the consequence of mönchischem obedience. But Leppien thinks he can recognize a turning away from the time trend in Francke's development. In Hamburg itself was Francke's art without direct precursor. Meister Bertram had died around 1415. Master Francke's artistic activity remained without successors in the Hanseatic city, although the Dominican monastery was located in the complex web of social forces in the middle of the city. This is identi-fied by the fact that the brotherhoods of England and Flanders driver chapels in the ( now-defunct ) Church of St. John possessed.

The merchants of England driver Francke Company issued the order for the above-mentioned altarpiece for their chapel jewelry. My patron was Thomas of Canterbury. Was erected in the St. Thomas Altar probably 1436, because only on September 28, 1436 was the chapel in the possession of the driver of England. Previously, it belonged to the Brotherhood of Flanders driver.

Also in 1436 made ​​the German businessman Brotherhood in Reval, now Tallinn, in the Dominican Church of St. Catherine set up a Trinity altar. The wooden table had been brought to Hamburg in 1429 so that they could by a " Swarten Monich ", a black monk, which is synonymous with the Dominicans, should be painted. Leppien concludes that the black monk may have been none other than Master Francke. The altarpiece has hardly been destroyed 100 years later, on September 14, 1524 in Reformation iconoclasm.

The monasteries in Tallinn, Hamburg and Zutphen all belonged to the Province of the Order Saxonia.

As probably the last painting created by Francke's hand is the Man of Sorrows of 1435, which hung on a pillar in the Hamburg St. John's Church and is now located in the Hamburg Kunsthalle.

Style

Francke was a representative of the soft style, graceful in the artist, contrary to the earlier, more rigid forms according to the Gothic, sweeter expressions intended. This mildness sat Francke often in exciting contrast to the crude representation of violence. The facial expressions and gestures of his figures is pronounced. Francke's work shows approaches to the representation of spatial depth and is characterized by the use of powerful, splendid colors. Some researchers recruited controversial stylistic parallels to the Paris miniature painting of the 15th century.

Rediscovery

Master Francke was forgotten for a long time. It was not until 1899, at a time when the strongly focused on the history, Anton Hagedorn came back to his name when he researched the master of a year earlier acquired by Alfred Lichtwark for the Hamburger Kunsthalle Thomas altar. In the same year Lichtwark published the first monograph on the artist. 1925 first exhibition of Francke's work took place at the Kunsthalle, which was followed by a monograph by Bella Martens 1929.

The Master Francke Street in Hamburg- Barmbek is named after him.

Area

• Master of Malchiner altar