This problematic draws substance from another particular example, that of Stefan Lochner. This painter was admired by Albrecht Dürer, and is the only artist of the Cologne school who did not remain anonymous. Julien Chapuis, the assistant director of the Bode Museum in Berlin says “the oeuvre of Stefan Lochner suggests that in the Cologne of the 15^th century the success of an exogenous artist depended on his ability to offer patrons in his adopted home something new and desirable that no other artisan could produce, while continuing to show the proper respect for local sensibilities and traditions”. Lochner moved to Cologne at a time when rich patrons were in search of the latest foreign innovations, although local artisans tried to stop outside competition from moving to the city. His successful socio-professional insertion thus owes much to the novel aspect of his style and technique, which he alone possessed, in Cologne.

These examples of successful integration only concern a few isolated personalities, as we learn from an article by Arnaldo Sousa Melo and Maria do Carmo Ribeiro, professors of history at the University of Minho, Portugal, on the subject of construction sites in Portugal. At the beginning of the 16^th century growth in the construction industry in Portugal caused builders from other lands to go to Portugal. Among these, the Biscayans formed an important core, and they had possession of new techniques and a new aesthetic style in Burgos, Santiago de Compostela or even Seville. By carrying these innovations to Portugal and combining them with local practices, they would integrate themselves particularly well at the professional level. Even more, all this research shows that the Biscayans also found their place from a social point of view. They won posts of responsibility, even being given public offices or titles of nobility, and some married Portuguese women and put down roots in their adopted countries. 

Finally this socio-professional chapter allows certain clichés to be deconstructed. Hanno Wijsman, an engineer at the Institute for research and history of texts, in Paris, explains that the image of artisans as regular travellers was hard to get used to, especially in the mind of the public at large. In the 19^th and 20^th centuries artists were often classified as belonging to national, regional or local schools, and this encouraged the idea of a Flemish, Parisian or Bruges style, etc. This idea of belonging to a school contributed to the idea that artists were rather sedentary. As Hanno Wijsman demonstrated with respect to Bruges, some cities were real poles of attraction on an international scale. In the middle of the 15^th century Bruges became the leading centre of production for manuscript books. It concentrated not only on exogenous authors – including three Parisians, the accredited miniaturists for two dukes of Burgundy Philip the Good and Charles the Bold – but also on bilingual or multilingual workshops. The study of the socioprofessional aspect of artistic transfers thus gives us a new picture of artisans. They were mobile, they carried know-how from their home region with them, and they acquired know-how in places they passed through. Often, they fit in well with things in the places they moved to.

During the Gothic period artists and works moved around more than they had previously in Europe. This circulation, as we have seen, raises many questions: what was the justification for the employment of exogenous artists? What were the constraints under which these exogenous artists worked, and what effect did all this have on their production? How were they welcomed in their adopted homes? Thanks to these rich examples this book, Les transferts artistiques dans l’Europe gothique brings new answers to these questions. What is more, this publication, which is distinguished because of its geographical scope, raises the curtain on our artistic culture...