Leaves from the Hours of Albrecht of Brandenburg

Light effects

Artists' Techniques

Bening used shell gold and carefully blended or juxtaposed colours to simulate atmospheric effects and to recreate the impact of light on different materials and textures. He followed contemporary conventions in depicting a consistent light source illuminating all scenes and frames from the top left, and employed aerial perspective to create a sense of depth and to distinguish between picture planes (e.g. MSS 294a, 294c). Bening also explored the impact of additional light sources – divine, man-made or infernal. He used shell gold of varying density for the rays of the Holy Spirit emanating from the dove in the Annunciation miniature (MS 294b). He painted realistic flames in the fireplace that warms the newborn Mary (MS 294c). He reserved the most dramatic treatment and the most complex combination of pigments for the fire and smoke of Hell (MS 294d).

Enclosed within an illusionistic picture frame, this miniature, devoted to the Virgin’s mother, Anne, functions as a small devotional panel. Anne is shown seated in a stylised garden, reading from a book, with her daughter at her feet. Bening’s skilful manipulation of linear perspective, and the juxtaposition of normal and raised points of view, renders the landscape as a deeply receding space and thrusts into the foreground the Nativity of the Virgin depicted in the lower border. The sophisticated use of colour contributes to these effects: the pale blue sky behind St Anne contrasts with the darker sky of the border, bringing the latter closer to the viewer and making it seem as if we are observing the central image through a window.

In the charming border scene, with details drawn from daily life, Anne, having just given birth, is offered a plate of food, while a midwife sits by the fireside cradling the infant Mary. Flames of shell gold, lead-tin yellow and red lead in the fireplace warm the newborn child who precociously raises her tiny palms towards the heat.