UMBOUBO
259
UMBOXTBO
the dogmatic viewpoint to justify the prevailing
Catholic notion of the children's limbo, while from the
standpoint of reason, as St. Gregroy of Nazianxus
pointed out long ago, no harsher view can he recon-
ciled with a worthy concept of God's justice and other
attributes.
Hamachi. De aninuibua judarum in nnu Abrakae ante Chruti mortem (Rome. 1766); Boloeni, Siaio dei bamhini mortx aenza batteeimo (Rome. 1787); Hurter, Theol. dogmat.^ 11th ed.. Ill
?nii8bruek. 1003); Plciiptrk, The Svirita m Primm (New ork, 1884); Atsberger. QeHck. d. chrudlichen Eeehatologie (Fnibuis. 1896); Pohle. Lehrb, d. Dogmatik, I. 513; II. 200 (Paderbom. 19Gt3'-7) ; Turmel. La descente du Christ aux en/era CParis, 1905); Toner, Lot of Those Dying in Orioinal Sin in hiah Theol. Quarterly (July, 1909) ; Braun in Kirchenlex, b. V. Liu^M*. See also literature under Orioinal Sin.
P. J. TONEB.
Umboufg, Pol de, French miniaturist. With his two brothers, he flourished at Paris at the end of the fourteenth and the beginning of the fifteenth cen- tury. It is believed that their family name was Malouel, or Malwel, and that they were nephews of that Jean Malouel who was employed at Dipu, at the Court of the Duke of Burgundy, and whose " Vie de St. Denis '*, in the Louvre, was painted for the Char- treuse of Champmol and was nnished by Henri de Bellechose. The surname de Limbourg makes it ap- pear that they came from the region which borders on the country of Van Eyck and was in those days de- pendent on the Duchy of Burgundy. But it is prob- able that they came to Paris at an early age, and that it is they who are meant bv Guillebert de Metz in his "Description de Paris", when he speaks of the " trois fr^res enlumineurs". They must, therefore, have been already famous at the date of this book (about 1395), although it is impossible to ascribe to them with certainty any work previous to 1416. At the latter date they worked for the Due de Berry (brother of the Duke of Burgundy and uncle of Charles VI) on the decoration of a manuscript which is still extant and which forms part of the library of the Musto Cond6. This famous book is universally celebrated under the name of the "Tr^s Riches Heures" of Chantilly (sometimes called the Book of Hours of the Due de Berry).
Of the two hundred and odd paintings which adorn the "Ti^ Riches Heures" only the first half are due to the Limbourg brothers; the rest were done fifty or sixty years later by a pupil of Fououet (q. v.) named Jean Uolomb (brother of Michel Colomb, the sculptor of the famous tomb of Nantes and of the Solesmes "Saints"). Even in the first half of the "Heures" it is impossible to determine the share contributed by any one of the three Limbourg brothers. Judging by the account given in the records, Pol must have been the eldest, and head of the atelier. This being so, he was probably the originator of the designs, or themes, and nis pupus were restricted to executing them after the copy set by him. At any mte, the designer, whoever he may have been, was one of the greatest artists of the Renaissance. It is a moot question whether his art was learned in Italy: on the one hand Italianisms abound in the "Tres Riches Heures" — it would be easy to point out twenty examples of Florentine or Sienese imitations; the buildings in more than one scene strikingly recall the architecture of Giotto and the taste of the Roman marmorari; the " Presentation in the Temple " is an exact reproduc- tion of the composition ot Taddeo Gaddi; there is a plan of Rome identical with one on the ceiling of a nail of the public palace at Siena. But such coinci- dences are not conclusive that the artist of the " Tr^s Riches Heures " travelled through Italy. Communi- cation between the two countries was frequent; Paris was already cosmopoUtan in the fourteenth century, and what was called the ouvraige de Rome, or ouvraige de Lan^Kordie was well known there. Besides, on more than <me point the Limbourgs were far in ad- of oontemporary Italy. From the time of
Charles V there had arisen in Paris an elegant natu-
ralism of which numerous traces appear in the work of
these three brothers. In the matter of drawing, the
Adam and Eve in Paradise", and still more the
study of an "Astrologic Man", are examples of the
nude not to be paralleled in Italy earlier than the date
of the Carmine chapel (1428), nor in Flanders before
that of Van Eyck's retable (1432). Other pages
offer studies of contemporary costume or of amcoals
which were not surpassed by Gentile da Fabriano,
whose "Adoration of the Magi" dates from 1423.
The " Coronation of the Virgin " discovers a beauty of
design and a purity of sentiment which perhaps Beato
Angelico himself never equalled, while for genre and
the portrayal of contemporary manners, whether
peasant or noble, the early pages of the manuscript are
examples of an art until then without precedent and
as exquisite as anything produced in later ages. •
It had been usual to place at the beginning of a Book of Hours a calendar giving the principal feasts, the lunations, ete. A similar calendar was generally carved on the porch of a cathedral (see Male, "L'Art religieux en France au XIII® si^cle"). The months are represented in these calendars bv the signs of the zodiac above a small bas-relief showing the character- istic occupations of the several seasons — for August, e. g., the harvest; for September, the \dntage. These sculptures, of a classic, almost Greek, style of art, naturally did not admit of more than one or two figures, with a landscape rather suggested than ex- pressed. The calendars of the Books of Hours were still thus conceived in the fourteenth century. For this wholly ideal conception of things Pol de Lim- bourg substituted one wholly naturalistic. He made the subject over anew and, retaining only the poetic theme, introduced a thousand novel developments, de- picting, instead of the abstract conception of the seasons, their real, concrete aspecte. Thus it is that the "Tr^s Riches Heures" embodies in its calendar (the month of November is by Jean Colomb) a new theory of sesthetics and constitutes the definite begin- ning of modern landscape art.
An innovation fraught w^ith such important conse- quences for the art of painting naturally prompts the question: Whence did the idea originate? In reply. Henri Bouchat suggests this ingenious theory: It will be noticed that each of these landscapes represents one of the dwellings or chdteaux of the Due de Berry — the Louvre, MchunR-sur-Ydvrc, Vincennes, ete. Each of these landscapes is made to harmonize with one of the signs of the zodiac — called the "houses" of the sun. Hence it may be conjectured that the prince himself commanded this amhitioiLs parallel. So, too, under Louis XIV, the tapestry ot "The Months", woven by the Gobelins after the cartoons of Le Brun, represents the various chateaux of the roi soleil. But whatever the origin of the idea, the Limbourgs retain the merit of having, in its execution, given the earliest and some of the most perfect models of mod- em landscape art. The happiness rarely accorded an artist, of Imving created a genre, belongs to them more than to any others. Moreover, of all the se- crets of this new art — even the resources of atmosphere and of chiaroscuro — they hadj if not the developed instinct, at least some presentiment. The poetry of each season, its colour, its gaiety or melancnoly, the transparency of the spring air, the winter torpor of nature, are all suggested. The work of the Limoourg brothers was epoch-making, a century later it was still being imitated, and the Flemish artists of the celebrated Grimani Breviary in the Library of St. Mark confined themselves to copying it, wliile they modernized it and made it dull. It has elsewhere been said (see Eyck, Hubert and Jan Van) how great is the historical importance of this admirable manuscript; but^ even if it did not possess in this respect a value impossible to ov^t^aXxswaXfc — «s«dl>5l
