Who was Jean Perréal

Portrait of Charles VIII by Jean Perreal. (Reproduction)

Although Jean Perréal (1450-1530) was born in Lyon, for some unknown reason he called himself Jean de Paris. Best known as a portrait painter to the royal Court, what he should also be famous for is showing his painting technique to none other than Leonardo da Vinci.

Perréal first met Leonardo when he was with Charles VIII in Pavia but it was their next meeting when he was with Louis XII which was to have a huge influence on the maestro.

The French kings were very sensitive to the fact that France was lagging behind Italy in the arts so before Louis XII took Perréal to Milan, he asked him to make portraits of members of the Court to show off French painting.

Perréal met Leonardo for the second time in 1499.

In what is now called the Codex Atlanticus, on a page of Leonardo’s drawings is scribbled an aide memoire, a list of things he had to do. One was to:

Learn from the French painter Jean Perréal, also called Jean de Paris, his way to dry colour as well as his paint box, the tempera of his flesh tints and the way to dissolve shellac and his method of tinted paper.

Perréal’s ‘way of painting with dry colour’ was, like the miniature, invented in France. Known as demi-couleurs (black and red) or de trois crayons (red, black and white) the method was not known in Italy. Not as we know crayons, the sticks were made of chalk dust.

Perréal mixed finely ground pigments to a powder with potters earth and a binding agent. The method makes perfect sense. Oil paints are not practical for an army on the march. Chalks meant preparatory drawings could be made on the hoof and fleshed out later on, although in truth the drawings often captured the sitter better than the finished portrait.

Leonardo, being Leonardo, was not content with simply learning the French technique, obsessed with technical matters he could not resist experimenting. He worked out the formula for making Perréal’s dry colour crayons by breaking down the pigments into powder then bound the mixture with gum arabic. It may be the notoriously fastidious Leonardo did like the fact that chalk dust is messy, not only does it get on your clothes, drawings get smudged. Thus Leonardo invented what we now call pastels.

One of the reasons why a recently discovered portrait of Ludovico Sforza’s daughter Bianca was initially thought not to be authentic was Leonardo’s use of pastel. This was the first time he used them. He used them again in a preparatory drawing for the (unfinished) portrait of Isabella d’ Este, Ludovico’s formidable sister-in-law. To achieve subtle flesh tones Leonardo used his thumbs, fingers and the heel of his hand. Pastels are, of course, perfect for blending.

Leonardo also learned Perréal’s technique for tinting white paper grey, blue and tan which worked well with the three crayon technique after which Leonardo famously used red chalk on coloured papers.

What goes round comes round. In Château Amboise, Perréal’s star pupil, Jean Clouet, often visited Leonardo in his studio in Château Clos Lucé to learn portraiture from him.

Perréal, whose father Claude was a painter at the Court of Louis XI, succeeded Jean Bourdichon as Court Painter. He was in Italy with Charles VIII, Louis XII and again with François I.

Like Fouquet and Bourdichon before him, he illuminated manuscripts and painted miniatures of Charles VIII and his wife Anne of Brittany. Miniatures are a French innovation. The first known is a self-portrait by Jean Fouquet in 1450.

Louis XII sent Jean Bourdichon and Jean Perréal to London in 1514. Boudichon was to supervise the trousseau of his bride to be, future Queen of France, Mary Tudor, sister of Henry VIII. Perréal was sent to paint her portrait and to bring it back to France and to present his portrait of Louis to the king. Still in The Royal Collection, the priceless painting is at Windsor Castle. Of the many portraits Jean Perréal painted, this is one of the very few to survive.

Although Jean Perréal lived in Italy off and on for several years and met many artists and although on his return, he assimilated Italian style and taste he remained first and foremost a French artist whose work bridged the art of the Middle Ages with the Renaissance in France.

Extract: Leonardo da Vinci: The Amboise Connection by Pamela Shields.

Post by Pamela