The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Art and Artists (195 page)

 
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Gobelins
.

French tapestry manufactory, named after a family of dyers and clothmakers who set up business on the outskirts of Paris in the 15th cent. Their premises became a tapestry factory in the early 17th cent., and in 1662 it was taken over by Louis XIV, who appointed
Lebrun
Director. Initially it made not only tapestries but also every kind of product (except carpets, which were woven at the Savonnerie factory) required for the furnishing of the royal palaces—its official title was Manufacture royale des meubles de la Couronne. The celebrated tapestry designed by Lebrun showing
Louis XIV Visiting the Gobelins
(Gobelins Mus., Paris, 1663–75) gives a good idea of the range of its activities. In 1694 the factory was closed because of the king's financial difficulties, and although it re-opened in 1699, thereafter it made only tapestries. For much of the 18th cent. it retained its position as the foremost tapestry manufactory in Europe.
Oudry
and
Boucher
successively held the post of Director (1733–70). The Gobelins continues in production today and houses a tapestry museum.

 
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Godefroid de Clair
(Godefroid de Huy )
.

Mosan
goldsmith and enamellist, active in the 12th cent. He may have trained in the workshop of
Renier of Huy
. Early sources praise his great skill and suggest he was a prolific artist, but his career is obscure and the numerous attributions to him of reliquaries and
enamels
are highly speculative. Peter Lasko (
Ars Sacra: 800–1200
, 1972) considers that ‘On the whole, the introduction of the personality of Godefroid has hindered rather than helped our understanding of the development of the Mosan style.’

 
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See
ALMA-TADEMA
.

 
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(d. 1482).
The greatest Netherlandish painter of the second half of the 15th cent. Nothing is known of his life before 1467, when he became a master in the painters’ guild at Ghent. He had numerous commissions from the town of Ghent for work of a temporary nature such as processional banners, and in 1475 he became dean of the painters’ guild. In the same year he entered a priory near Brussels as a lay-brother, but he continued to paint and also to travel. In 1481 he suffered a mental breakdown (he had a tendency to acute depression) and although he recovered, died the following year. An account of his illness by Gaspar Ofhuys , a monk at the priory, survives; Ofhuys was evidently jealous of Hugo and his description has been called by Erwin
Panofsky
‘a masterpiece of clinical accuracy and sanctimonious malice’. No paintings by Hugo are signed and his only securely documented work is his masterpiece, a large
triptych
of the Nativity known as the
Portinari Altarpiece
(Uffizi, Florence,
c.
1475–6). This was commissioned by Tommaso Portinari , the representative of the House of
Medici
in Bruges, for the church of the Hospital of Sta Maria Nuova in Florence, and it exercised a strong influence on Italian painters with its masterful handling of the oil technique. There is a great variety of surface ornament and detail, but this is combined with lucid organization of the figure groups and a convincing sense of spatial depth. As remarkable as Hugo's skill in reconciling grandeur of conception with keen observation is his psychological penetration in the depiction of individual figures, notably the awestruck shepherds. The other works attributed to Hugo include two large panels probably designed as organ shutters (Royal coll., on loan to NG of Scotland). His last work is generally thought to be the
Death of the Virgin
(Groeningemuseum, Bruges), a painting of remarkable tension and poignancy that seems a fitting swan-song for such a tormented personality.

 
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