Hugo van der Goes
Encyclopedia
Hugo van der Goes was a Flemish painter. He was, along with Jan van Eyck
, Rogier van der Weyden, Hans Memling
and Gerard David
, one of the most important of the Early Netherlandish painters
.
, he became a member of the painters' guild of Ghent
as a master in 1467. In 1468 he was involved in the decoration of the town of Bruges
in celebration of the marriage between Charles the Bold and Margaret of York
and he provided heraldic decorations for Charles's joyeuse entrée
to Ghent in 1469 and again in 1472. He was elected dean of the Ghent guild in 1473 or 1474.
In 1475, or some years later, Hugo entered Rooklooster, a monastery near Brussels
belonging to the Windesheim Congregation, and professed there as a frater conversus. He continued to paint, and remained at Rooklooster until his death in 1482 or 1483. In 1480 he was called to the town of Leuven
to evaluate the Justice Scenes left unfinished by the painter Dieric Bouts on his death in 1475. Shortly after this, Hugo, returning with other members of his monastery from a trip to Cologne, fell into a state of suicidal gloom, declaring himself to be damned. After returning to Rooklooster, Hugo recovered from his illness, and died there. His time at Rooklooster is recorded in the chronicle of his fellow monk, Gaspar Ofhuys. A report by a German physician, Hieronymus Münzer
, from 1495, according to which a painter from Ghent was driven to melancholy by the attempt to equal the Ghent Altarpiece
, may refer to Hugo.
His most famous surviving work is the Portinari Triptych
(Uffizi
, Florence
), an altarpiece
commissioned for the church of San Egidio in the hospital of Santa Maria Nuova in Florence
by Tommaso Portinari
, the manager of the Bruges branch of the Medici Bank
. The triptych arrived in Florence in 1483, apparently some years after its completion by van der Goes. The largest Netherlandish work that could be seen in Florence, it was greatly praised. Giorgio Vasari
in his Vite of 1550 referred to it as by "Ugo d'Anversa" ("Hugo of Antwerp"). This is the sole documentation for its authorship by Hugo; other works are attributed to him based on stylistic comparison with the altarpiece.
Hugo appears to have left a large number of drawings, and either from these or the paintings themselves followers made large numbers of copies of compositions that have not survived from his own hand. A drawing of Jacob and Rachel preserved at the Christ Church Picture Gallery
, Oxford is thought to be a rare surviving autograph drawing; they also have two painted heads, a fragment from a large work.
! Work
! Title
! Date
! Technique
! Dimensions
! Museum
|-
|
|Monforte Altarpiece
|ca. 1470
|oil on panel
|147x242 cm + 9x76,3 cm
| Gemäldegalerie, Berlin
|-
|
|The Death of the Virgin
|ca. 1470
|oil on panel
|147,8 x 122,5 cm
|Groeningemuseum
Bruges
|-
|
|Portinari Altarpiece
|ca. 1470
|oil on panel
|253 x 586 cm
|Uffizi, Florence
|-
|
|The Vienna Diptych
|ca. 1475
|oil on panel
|32,3x21,9 cm (links) en
34,4x22,8 cm (rechts)
|Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna
|-
|
|St Hippolyte Triptych (central panel attributed to Dieric Bouts)
|ca. 1475
|oil on panel
|92 x 41 cm (linkerluik)
|Groeningemuseum, Brugge
|-
|
|Portrait of a donor with John the Baptist
|ca. 1475
|olieverf op paneel
|32 x 22.5 cm
|Walters Art Museum
, Baltimore
|-
|
|Portrait of a man
|ca. 1475
|oil on panel
|oval 31,8 x 26 cm
|Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
|-
|
|A Benedictine Monk
|ca. 1478
|oil on panel
|25.1 x 18.7 cm
|Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
|-
|
|Trinity Altarpiece
|ca. 1478-1479
|oil on panel
|4 maal 202x100.5 cm
|National Gallery of Scotland, Edinburgh
|-
|
|Left panel of a Deposition diptych
|ca. 1480
|tempera on canvas
|
|Private collection, New York
|-
|
|Right panel of a Deposition diptych
|ca. 1480
|tempera on canvas
|
|Gemäldegalerie, Berlin
|-
|
|Nativity with Shepherds
|ca. 1480
|oil on panel
|
|Gemäldegalerie, Berlin
|-
|
|Madonna and child (middle panel of a triptych)
|ca. 1480/1490
|oil on panel
|30 x 23 cm
|Städelsches Kunstinstitut, Frankfurt am Main
|}>
! Work
! Title
! Date
! Technique
! Dimensions
! Museum
|-
|
|Jacob and Rachel
|ca. 1470-1475
|Pentekening in bruine inkt en kwast in bruin pigment,
hoogsel in wit op papier met een leigrijze grondering
|338x572 mm
|Christ Church college, Oxford
|-
|
|Joseph and Asenath
|ca. 1475
|Pentekening in geelachtig-bruine en donkerbruine inkt,
lichtjes omlijnd in pen, restanten van een voortekening
met een zwarte griffel, krijt(?) op papier
|max. doorsnede 214 mm
|Ashmolean Museum, Oxford
|-
|
|Christ on the cross
|ca. 1475-1480
|kwast in bruin pigment, hoogsel in wit op papier met een
grijs-bruin-violette grondering
|258x204 mm
|Windsor Castle
|}>
Jan van Eyck
Jan van Eyck was a Flemish painter active in Bruges and considered one of the best Northern European painters of the 15th century....
, Rogier van der Weyden, Hans Memling
Hans Memling
Hans Memling was a German-born Early Netherlandish painter.-Life and works:Born in Seligenstadt, near Frankfurt in the Middle Rhein region, it is believed that Memling served his apprenticeship at Mainz or Cologne, and later worked in the Netherlands under Rogier van der Weyden...
and Gerard David
Gerard David
Gerard David was an Early Netherlandish painter and manuscript illuminator known for his brilliant use of color.-Life:...
, one of the most important of the Early Netherlandish painters
Early Netherlandish painting
Early Netherlandish painting refers to the work of artists active in the Low Countries during the 15th- and early 16th-century Northern renaissance, especially in the flourishing Burgundian cities of Bruges and Ghent...
.
Biography
Born at GhentGhent
Ghent is a city and a municipality located in the Flemish region of Belgium. It is the capital and biggest city of the East Flanders province. The city started as a settlement at the confluence of the Rivers Scheldt and Lys and in the Middle Ages became one of the largest and richest cities of...
, he became a member of the painters' guild of Ghent
Ghent
Ghent is a city and a municipality located in the Flemish region of Belgium. It is the capital and biggest city of the East Flanders province. The city started as a settlement at the confluence of the Rivers Scheldt and Lys and in the Middle Ages became one of the largest and richest cities of...
as a master in 1467. In 1468 he was involved in the decoration of the town of Bruges
Bruges
Bruges is the capital and largest city of the province of West Flanders in the Flemish Region of Belgium. It is located in the northwest of the country....
in celebration of the marriage between Charles the Bold and Margaret of York
Margaret of York
Margaret of York – also by marriage known as Margaret of Burgundy – was Duchess of Burgundy as the third wife of Charles the Bold and acted as a protector of the Duchy after his death. She was a daughter of Richard Plantagenet, 3rd Duke of York, and Cecily Neville, and the sister of...
and he provided heraldic decorations for Charles's joyeuse entrée
Royal Entry
The Royal Entry, also known by various other names, including Triumphal Entry and Joyous Entry, embraced the ceremonial and festivities accompanying a formal entry by a ruler or his representative into a city in the Middle Ages and Early Modern Period in Europe...
to Ghent in 1469 and again in 1472. He was elected dean of the Ghent guild in 1473 or 1474.
Brussels
Brussels , officially the Brussels Region or Brussels-Capital Region , is the capital of Belgium and the de facto capital of the European Union...
belonging to the Windesheim Congregation, and professed there as a frater conversus. He continued to paint, and remained at Rooklooster until his death in 1482 or 1483. In 1480 he was called to the town of Leuven
Leuven
Leuven is the capital of the province of Flemish Brabant in the Flemish Region, Belgium...
to evaluate the Justice Scenes left unfinished by the painter Dieric Bouts on his death in 1475. Shortly after this, Hugo, returning with other members of his monastery from a trip to Cologne, fell into a state of suicidal gloom, declaring himself to be damned. After returning to Rooklooster, Hugo recovered from his illness, and died there. His time at Rooklooster is recorded in the chronicle of his fellow monk, Gaspar Ofhuys. A report by a German physician, Hieronymus Münzer
Hieronymus Münzer
Hieronymus Münzer or Monetarius was a Renaissance humanist, physician and geographer who made a famous grand tour of the Iberian peninsula in 1494–5. He was co-author of the Nuremberg Chronicle.-Life:...
, from 1495, according to which a painter from Ghent was driven to melancholy by the attempt to equal the Ghent Altarpiece
Ghent Altarpiece
The Ghent Altarpiece or Adoration of the Mystic Lamb is a very large and complex Early Netherlandish polyptych panel painting which is considered to be one of Belgium's masterpieces and one of the world's treasures.It was once in the Joost Vijdt chapel at Saint Bavo Cathedral, Ghent, Belgium, but...
, may refer to Hugo.
His most famous surviving work is the Portinari Triptych
Portinari Triptych
The Portinari Altarpiece or Portinari Triptych is an oil on wood triptych painting by the Flemish painter Hugo van der Goes representing the Adoration of the shepherds....
(Uffizi
Uffizi
The Uffizi Gallery , is a museum in Florence, Italy. It is one of the oldest and most famous art museums of the Western world.-History:...
, Florence
Florence
Florence is the capital city of the Italian region of Tuscany and of the province of Florence. It is the most populous city in Tuscany, with approximately 370,000 inhabitants, expanding to over 1.5 million in the metropolitan area....
), an altarpiece
Altarpiece
An altarpiece is a picture or relief representing a religious subject and suspended in a frame behind the altar of a church. The altarpiece is often made up of two or more separate panels created using a technique known as panel painting. It is then called a diptych, triptych or polyptych for two,...
commissioned for the church of San Egidio in the hospital of Santa Maria Nuova in Florence
Florence
Florence is the capital city of the Italian region of Tuscany and of the province of Florence. It is the most populous city in Tuscany, with approximately 370,000 inhabitants, expanding to over 1.5 million in the metropolitan area....
by Tommaso Portinari
Tommaso Portinari
Tommaso Portinari was an Italian banker for the Mèdici bank in Bruges. He was a member of a prominent Florentine family, coming from Portico di Romagna, near Forlì; that family had included Dante's muse, Beatrice...
, the manager of the Bruges branch of the Medici Bank
Medici bank
The Medici Bank was a financial institution created by the Medici family in Italy during the 15th century. It was the largest and most respected bank in Europe during its prime. There are some estimates that the Medici family was, for a period of time, the wealthiest family in Europe...
. The triptych arrived in Florence in 1483, apparently some years after its completion by van der Goes. The largest Netherlandish work that could be seen in Florence, it was greatly praised. Giorgio Vasari
Giorgio Vasari
Giorgio Vasari was an Italian painter, writer, historian, and architect, who is famous today for his biographies of Italian artists, considered the ideological foundation of art-historical writing.-Biography:...
in his Vite of 1550 referred to it as by "Ugo d'Anversa" ("Hugo of Antwerp"). This is the sole documentation for its authorship by Hugo; other works are attributed to him based on stylistic comparison with the altarpiece.
Hugo appears to have left a large number of drawings, and either from these or the paintings themselves followers made large numbers of copies of compositions that have not survived from his own hand. A drawing of Jacob and Rachel preserved at the Christ Church Picture Gallery
Christ Church Picture Gallery
Christ Church Picture Gallery is an art museum at Christ Church, one of the colleges of Oxford University in England. The gallery holds an important collection of about 300 Old Master paintings and nearly 2,000 drawings. It is one of the most important private collections in the United Kingdom...
, Oxford is thought to be a rare surviving autograph drawing; they also have two painted heads, a fragment from a large work.
Paintings
! Title
! Date
! Technique
! Dimensions
! Museum
|-
|
|Monforte Altarpiece
|ca. 1470
|oil on panel
|147x242 cm + 9x76,3 cm
| Gemäldegalerie, Berlin
Gemäldegalerie, Berlin
The Gemäldegalerie is an art museum in Berlin, Germany. It holds one of the world's leading collections of European art from the 13th to the 18th centuries. It is located on Kulturforum west of Potsdamer Platz. Its collection includes masterpieces from such artists as Albrecht Dürer, Lucas...
|-
|
|The Death of the Virgin
The Death of the Virgin (van der Goes)
The Death of the Virgin is an oil on oak panel by the Flemish painter Hugo van der Goes. Completed c 1472–80, it shows the Virgin Mary on her deathbed surrounded by the Twelve Apostles...
|ca. 1470
|oil on panel
|147,8 x 122,5 cm
|Groeningemuseum
Groeningemuseum
The Groeningemuseum is a municipal museum of Bruges, Belgium.It houses a comprehensive survey of six centuries of Flemish and Belgian painting, from Jan van Eyck to Marcel Broodthaers...
Bruges
|-
|
|Portinari Altarpiece
|ca. 1470
|oil on panel
|253 x 586 cm
|Uffizi, Florence
Uffizi
The Uffizi Gallery , is a museum in Florence, Italy. It is one of the oldest and most famous art museums of the Western world.-History:...
|-
|
|The Vienna Diptych
|ca. 1475
|oil on panel
|32,3x21,9 cm (links) en
34,4x22,8 cm (rechts)
|Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna
|-
|
|St Hippolyte Triptych (central panel attributed to Dieric Bouts)
|ca. 1475
|oil on panel
|92 x 41 cm (linkerluik)
|Groeningemuseum, Brugge
Groeningemuseum
The Groeningemuseum is a municipal museum of Bruges, Belgium.It houses a comprehensive survey of six centuries of Flemish and Belgian painting, from Jan van Eyck to Marcel Broodthaers...
|-
|
|Portrait of a donor with John the Baptist
|ca. 1475
|olieverf op paneel
|32 x 22.5 cm
|Walters Art Museum
Walters Art Museum
The Walters Art Museum, located in Baltimore, Maryland's Mount Vernon neighborhood, is a public art museum founded in 1934. The museum's collection was amassed substantially by two men, William Thompson Walters , who began serious collecting when he moved to Paris at the outbreak of the American...
, Baltimore
Baltimore
Baltimore is the largest independent city in the United States and the largest city and cultural center of the US state of Maryland. The city is located in central Maryland along the tidal portion of the Patapsco River, an arm of the Chesapeake Bay. Baltimore is sometimes referred to as Baltimore...
|-
|
|Portrait of a man
|ca. 1475
|oil on panel
|oval 31,8 x 26 cm
|Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
Metropolitan Museum of Art
The Metropolitan Museum of Art is a renowned art museum in New York City. Its permanent collection contains more than two million works, divided into nineteen curatorial departments. The main building, located on the eastern edge of Central Park along Manhattan's Museum Mile, is one of the...
|-
|
|A Benedictine Monk
|ca. 1478
|oil on panel
|25.1 x 18.7 cm
|Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
Metropolitan Museum of Art
The Metropolitan Museum of Art is a renowned art museum in New York City. Its permanent collection contains more than two million works, divided into nineteen curatorial departments. The main building, located on the eastern edge of Central Park along Manhattan's Museum Mile, is one of the...
|-
|
|Trinity Altarpiece
|ca. 1478-1479
|oil on panel
|4 maal 202x100.5 cm
|National Gallery of Scotland, Edinburgh
National Gallery of Scotland
The National Gallery of Scotland, in Edinburgh, is the national art gallery of Scotland. An elaborate neoclassical edifice, it stands on The Mound, between the two sections of Edinburgh's Princes Street Gardens...
|-
|
|Left panel of a Deposition diptych
|ca. 1480
|tempera on canvas
|
|Private collection, New York
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
|-
|
|Right panel of a Deposition diptych
|ca. 1480
|tempera on canvas
|
|Gemäldegalerie, Berlin
Gemäldegalerie, Berlin
The Gemäldegalerie is an art museum in Berlin, Germany. It holds one of the world's leading collections of European art from the 13th to the 18th centuries. It is located on Kulturforum west of Potsdamer Platz. Its collection includes masterpieces from such artists as Albrecht Dürer, Lucas...
|-
|
|Nativity with Shepherds
|ca. 1480
|oil on panel
|
|Gemäldegalerie, Berlin
Gemäldegalerie, Berlin
The Gemäldegalerie is an art museum in Berlin, Germany. It holds one of the world's leading collections of European art from the 13th to the 18th centuries. It is located on Kulturforum west of Potsdamer Platz. Its collection includes masterpieces from such artists as Albrecht Dürer, Lucas...
|-
|
|Madonna and child (middle panel of a triptych)
|ca. 1480/1490
|oil on panel
|30 x 23 cm
|Städelsches Kunstinstitut, Frankfurt am Main
|}>
Drawings
! Title
! Date
! Technique
! Dimensions
! Museum
|-
|
|Jacob and Rachel
|ca. 1470-1475
|Pentekening in bruine inkt en kwast in bruin pigment,
hoogsel in wit op papier met een leigrijze grondering
|338x572 mm
|Christ Church college, Oxford
|-
|
|Joseph and Asenath
|ca. 1475
|Pentekening in geelachtig-bruine en donkerbruine inkt,
lichtjes omlijnd in pen, restanten van een voortekening
met een zwarte griffel, krijt(?) op papier
|max. doorsnede 214 mm
|Ashmolean Museum, Oxford
Ashmolean Museum
The Ashmolean Museum on Beaumont Street, Oxford, England, is the world's first university museum...
|-
|
|Christ on the cross
|ca. 1475-1480
|kwast in bruin pigment, hoogsel in wit op papier met een
grijs-bruin-violette grondering
|258x204 mm
|Windsor Castle
Windsor Castle
Windsor Castle is a medieval castle and royal residence in Windsor in the English county of Berkshire, notable for its long association with the British royal family and its architecture. The original castle was built after the Norman invasion by William the Conqueror. Since the time of Henry I it...
|}>