Hugo
van der Goes, alongside the somewhat younger Hieronymus
Bosch, is the most important Netherlandish painter of the second half
of the 15th century. Little is known about his life, and his artistic origins
are also unclear. Records from 1480 state him as being born in Ghent. Since
he was granted the title of master painter in Ghent in 1467, he must have
been born around 1440-1445. As early as 1477, he gave up his workshop and
became a lay brother at the Red Monastery near Brussels, where he died
in 1482 after a severe mental illness.
The
Portinari Altar (1476-78) is his only authenticated surviving
work, around which others can nevertheless be grouped with some certainty:
Monforte
Altar,
The Fall of Adam,
one of his earliest surviving works, and several others. Hugo van der Goes
occupies a unique position in painting history because of his insight into
character and class and through his intensely observant, almost surreal,
rendering of nature and space. Hugo’s Portinari Altar, which was erected
in Florence in 1478, exercised a revolutionary influence upon Florentine
painting; it was felt by many of the Florence painters and is reflected
in particular in the works of Ghirlandaio,
Filippino
Lippi, and Leonardo da Vinci.
Notes
The Small Deposition is a diptych: the
right panel shows The Lamentation
with the three Marys and St.
John the Evangelist. The left section, which is in a private collection,
shows the dead Christ, supported by Nicodemus and Joseph of Arimathaea,
taken from the cross.
The Monforte Altar, Hugo’s second
largest work, was long preserved in Monforte de Lemos, a northern Spanish
monastery from which it was bought in 1914. Since then, the altar has been
cut down at the top and lost its wings. They showed The Circumcision and
The Presentation at the Temple. The Altar’s brilliant color led the monks
at Monforte to ascribe the Admiration of the Magi to Rubens. More.
Bibliography:
Hugo van der Goes. by V. Denis. Berlin. 1964.
Hugo van der Goes. by M. Domscheit. Dresden. 1976.
If you would like to read interesting facts about world-famous artists, historical events or important historical individuals or just simply want to know the latest additions to our online collection, subscribe to our monthly newsletter.
