Masterpiece

Excerpts from Walter Cahn, Masterpieces: Chapters on the History of an Idea, Princeton, 1979: p. 3: Chef d'oeuvre and 'masterpiece' are words of Medieval origin. The fact is worthy of special note, since so many of our critical concepts are rooted in the hallowed ground of Classical Antiquity. Moreover, they are not part of the philosophic vocabulary of the Latin tradition, but terms which we initially encounter in the context of regulatory legislation governing artisanal activity. The exercise of a profession during the Middle Ages necessitated admission to a guild or corporation, made manifest by the candidate's recognition as a master. This step marked the end of a period of apprenticeship, often followed by a further stage of training as a journeyman. The ultimate moment in this process of qualification was obviously of the greatest importance to the young artisan and to the corporation alike. The former depended on its successful outcome for the possibility of earning his livelihood. For the latter, a number of contradictory pressures were involved. It was desirable for the collective prosperity and welfare that a sufficient number of new master be admitted. The new arrivals assured the continuity of an enterprise and the material security of the household following the death of the former head. In good times, they took care of increased demand. But new guild members were also potential competitors and the impulse to control their numbers must have been strong. Professional pride also led guilds to seek to verify the competence of petitioners for admission. But here, too, other motives can be discerned. It served the interest of stability that goods be produced and services rendered in accordance with accepted formulas and norms of craftsmanship. Esthetic and economic value were both enhanced when work was carried out, as it is frequently expressed in the documents, "in the accustomed manner."

Such an admission procedure accompanied by a test of competence/ p. 4 could be accomplished in a variety of ways and may well have assumed in many cases a rather informal character. From the second half of the thirteenth century onward, however, we hear, first in isolated instances and with greater frequency toward the end of the Middle Ages, of a more clearly specified challenge: in order to demonstrate his skill, the candidate must execute a work for official examination, the masterpiece. So far as is known, this requirement is mentioned for the first time in the documents in Etienne Boileau's Livre des métiers, datable between 1261 and 1271, which contains the statutes governing the corporations in the city of Paris. Curiously, among the hundred trades mentioned in this most absorbing compilation, there is only a single and fairly casual reference to the existence of this practice. It occurs among the statutes of the carpenters employed in the making of frames for saddles (chapuiseurs), where it is stipulated that 'as soon as an apprentice is able to make a masterpiece (chief d'oevre), his master make take another one in his employ, because when an apprentice knows how to do this, it is reasonalbe that he should ply his trade, be active in it and receive greater honor for it than who cannot do it.....'

The Parisian statutes in Boileau's compilation were in subsequent times to be repeatedly reaffirmed, with appropriate amendments or amplifications, and new professions were provided with constitutions of their own. These texts, of course, represent only a single thread in the vast and variegated tissue of guild legislation which has come down to us.... /p. 5: It must be borne in mind that the guild system did not disappear at the end of the Middle Ages but only much later, at the onset of industrial methods of production and capitalist economy. Our information on the making of these qualifying masterpieces in all its ramifications is correspondingly uneven in its scope and especially conditioned by the nature of the documents involved. They are exclusively of a legal character, presenting the masterpiece as a requirement and briefly setting forth the manner in which it must be carried out: the length of time which is to be spent on the work, the place and conditions under which it must be executed, and usually some indication of the type of project to be assigned to the aspiring master....

From the present vantage point, a most striking feature of this Medieval institution of masterpiece-making was its wholly artisanal purview. Masterpieces were executed by goldsmiths and tapestry weavers, to whose handiwork we would readily ascribe an 'artistic' quality or intention. But they were also expected of apothecaries, carpenters, rope makers, and other professions which it is not our habit to surround with an esthetic aura. At Reims, during the fifteenth century, apprentice barbers hoping to become masters were asked to demonstrate that they could "wet well and shave in a competent manner; comb, trim, and thin a beard; prepare lancets suitable for the bleeding of the ill, and be knowledgeable enought in this operation to be able to distinguidh between a vein and an artery...and know also the approprite time to carry out a bleeding...."

p. 10: The middle of the thirteenth century brings us to the point when economic motives, group solidarity, and craftsmanly pride, no doubt combined in varying proportions from place to place, led some guilds to require a test of competence for mastery. In Paris, the masterpiece is first mentioned as a requirement for admission in the statutes of the painters' company approved in 1391. In Germany, the useful study /p. 11 of Hans Huth, enables us to observe more closely the workings of this institution. As elsewhere, guilds of painters here and there associated with sculptors, artisans in stained glass, or saddle makers came inot being for the first time in the course of the fourteenth century, though possibly these were descendants of older fraternities under the patronage of St. Luke. At first, the competence of would-be masters does not seem to have been formally tested, but by the middle of the fifteenth century, masterpieces were required in an increasing number of cities of north and central Europe.

The task imposed on painters was generally the execution of a panel of given dimensions; on sculptors, a statue; and on glaziers, a panel of stained glass. The subject is sometimes specified, along with the nature of the material to be used and the technical procedure to be followed. The subjects are those which a fifteenth-century master would most commonly be asked to carry out in the practices of his profession: a depiction of the Virgin Mary, of Christ on the Cross, or of a Saint....

/p. 12: The kind of skill to be demonstrated may be illustrated by the stipulation of the Strasbourg guild statutes of 1516, which call for the aspirant to make a picture of the Virgin or 'some other appropriate image with garments that are carved [which] he should paint, polish, gild, varnish, along with other decoration.' Such requirements may similarly be thought of as tests of standard skills, acquired in a period of apprenticeship during which the novice was by all accounts kepy busy with the grinding of pigments, the preparation of grounds and similar technical procedures....[T]he documents only hint at the expectations of the jury through laconic phrases: the work must be 'well and suitably made,' 'in the appropriate manner and style,' and the like. These words presuppose the existence of stable and commonly shared norms of craftsmanship whose mastery could be readily expected. There is no hint that a /p. 13 demonstration of such skill should involve notable difficulty or efforts of a truly exceptional kind. Over time, however, there was a tendency for the requirements of the masterpiece to be spelled out in greater detail in guild statutes, and it seems very probably that they became more demanding as well.

Some other stipulations are often found in the statutes with respect to the execution of the masterpiece. Sons of masters and native artisans are quite often given preferential treatment and my be excused from the chef d'oeuvre altogether, while the full brunt of the regulation falls as a rule on forgeigners. In Paris, for example, local-born locksmiths were initially exempt from the requirement and a 'demy chef d'oeuvre' only was imposed on them at the end of the fifteenth century. A time limit, furthermore, is set within which the work must be completed, and it is insisted that the candidate's performance must be his own and not receive the benefit of advice or assistance....