Morganmobile: Space

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Casually brandishing his spear, an insouciant Saint Michael vanquishes the devil, effortlessly piercing Satan’s resplendent armor. The conflict occurs on a hilltop before a verdant landscape that recedes into the distance beneath a cloudless sky. The wide, unimpeded vista contrasts with the claustrophobic depths of hell into which the rebel angels plunge in the panel below. Using subtle gradations of color to modulate the scenery and create an illusion of depth, Jean Poyer demonstrates his mastery of atmospheric perspective, anticipating the rise of landscape painting as an independent genre.

St. Michael the Archangel battling the Devil, “Hours of Henry VIII”, in Latin. France, Tours, ca. 1500, illuminated by Jean Poyer, MS H.8, fol. 172r. Gift of the Heineman Foundation, 1977.