ARTH 4413 Test 3

“Holy Kinship”

Geertgen tot Sint Jans

Iconography of the Holy Kinship

• medieval legend

• genealogy of Christ based on the doctrine of Immaculate Conception

• extended kinship for decedents by St. Anne

• Trinubium: tradition that Anne had married three times and had three daughters named Mary

St. Anne and apple

St. Jude and candles

Gothic arches/apse but Romanesque columns

• old testament/ new testament

• spolia: reused? each pair is different

• rood screen: separates the clergy from the congregation

Joachim and Joseph

James the Younger, John the Evangelist, James the Greater, Simon, and Judas Thaddeus

Other husbands including Zacharias (father of John the Baptist)

Sacrifice of Issac by his father, Abraham

• prefiguration of the Crucifixion of Christ

• statues that come to life

Rood screen: separates the nave (aisle) from the chancel (part of the church near the altar reserved for clergy)

• note the acolyte snuffing out the candles

• three cousins (future apostles) with a gold chalice and small barrel of winer

Spolia - repurposed stone taken from an old structure and used in new construction

Historiated capitals

• sculpted scenes on columns

• each column is a different kind of marble

• allusions to the life of Christ

  • The Adoration of the Magi

  • The Massacre of the Innocents

  • The Entry into Jerusalem

Background setting based in Haarlem not Jerusalem

Nonconventional color scheme

• pinks and greens

Figures look doll like rather than realistic

High horizon line on the aisle

“The Nativity at Night”

Geertgen tot Sint Jans

Traditional Christmas story

• stable

• child lying in a manger

• ox and donkey

Visions of St. Bridget of Sweden

• mystic, writer

Private devotions piece

• humility and obedience

Shepherd and their flock of sheep

Illumination

• Fire: Earthly

• Angel: Divine

Notte - the Italian word to describe the Nativity

One of the earliest examples of the nocturnal scenes that become a tradition in Netherlandish art

• dim light: mysterious atmosphere

• chiaroscuro: light/dark effects

Illumination created by:

• Christ Child

• Angel announcement to the shepherds

• Campfire

Very detailed for a smaller piece of work

Based on a (now lost) painting by Hugo van der Goes

Angels in the corner act intercessors

• focus of attention in one spot

“Madonna of the Rosary (Virgin in Glory)”

Geertgen tot Sint Jans

Devotio Moderna: individual meditation

Suggests the purity of celestial forms

• Ars nova: naturalism of the supernatural

• Baroque

Confraternity of the Rosary, Haarlem

Apocalyptic Woman

• clothed in the sun with the mood beneath her (revelation 12:1-17)

Radiant light around the Madonna

• doll like figure

• stands on a black crescent squishing the devil

• 52 angles surround her

• 12 jewels in her crown

Translucent angels (second circle)

• symbols of the Passion, rosary beads

• banner: “Sanctus Sanctus, Sanctus”

Six-winged seraphim

• crown of roses

• in the circle closest to Mary

Musical instruments: Heavenly choir

• third circle

• symbols of heavenly happiness

“Saint John the Baptist in the Wilderness”

Geertgen tot Sint Jans

“Spiritual self-portrait”

• withdrawn, “encased in the heavy protective folds of his course woolen mantle”

• thoughts press in on him, weigh him down

Softly rolling hills and green forest

John the Baptist’s reflective demeanor offset by the vergant environment

Clusters of golden rays

• lamb: cruciform halo

Revolutionary in addressing a mood vs. an emotion

• mood: more lasting, vague, not dependent on external stimuli

Nordic basis

Surrender to the natural world to achieve peace of mind

Pose similar to Rodin’s “The Thinker”

Bosch’s painting possible wings of an altarpiece

“Burning the Bones of St. John the Baptist”

Geertgen tot Sint Jans

Early indication of later group portraits

Exterior right wing of a large triptych

Burning of the bones and their recovery by the original Knights of Malta

Master of the Brunswick Diptych

• holy family at meal

• early indicator of Golden Age “genre paintings”

• food as cultural and sacred

• spiritual hunger

“The Virgin and Child with Four Holy Virgins”

Master of the Virgo inter Virgines

Follower of Geertgen tot Sint James

Saint Catherine of Alexandria

• brooch of a wheel and a sword

Saint Cecilia

• holds a book, organ-shaped pendant

Saint Ursula

• braided hair, necklace with a heart and arrow

Saint Barbara

• Red drapery, holds a flower, necklace with a miniature tower

Distinctive heads with high foreheads

• aristocratic

• smoothed out

Rumpled drapery

• distinctive style

• “pooling” effect

Hortus conclusus: enclosed garden

• no foliage

“Virgin Among Virgins in a Rose Garden”

Master of the St. Lucy Legend

Related to the worship of the Virgin Mary

• cult of Mary

Female Martyr Saints:

• Catherine of Alexandria

• Barbara

• Ursula

• Cecilia

Courtly attributes

Hortus conclusus: enclosed garden

Roses

• paradise bower of the Song of Songs

• Cult of the Rosary

City in the background: Bruges

• Heavenly paradise

• Onze Lieve Vrouw: Church of Our Lady

Three Devotional subjects

• mystic marriage of St. Catherine to the Christ Child

• Eastern Concept of lush, floral, paradise

• Old testament song of songs

  • equates Mary’s Virginity with an enclosed garden

Comparable to “The Virgin and Child with Four Holy Virgins”

No interaction because the figures were not alive at the same time

• so it must be heaven

“Fall of Man and Lamentation”

Hugo van der Goes

Diptych

Early in career

• later joined a painter’s guild in Ghent

May have been painted at different times

Emotion (Pathos)

In the Lamentation panel

• Unstable design

• Melancholic

  • single cross against a dark sky

  • streaks of black birds

• influenced by van der Weyden

• cold color and lighting is influenced by Eyck

In the Fall of Man panel

• erroneously identified as a van Eyck

• high contrast

• vivid landscape and atmosphere

• a lizard with a woman’s head and bird feet as the temptress

• “You will crawl on your belly and you will eat dust all the days of your life. And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers; he will crush your head, and you will strike his heel” (Genesis 3, 14-15)

• Adam and Eve are inspired by Adam and Eve in the Ghent Altarpiece

“Portinari Altarpiece” or “Adoration of the Shepherds with Saints and Donors”

Hugo van der Goes

Biggest work of Goes

Changes how Italian art is made

Influenced by Ghent Altarpiece

• Goes was emulating Van Eyck’s work

• roughly the same size as Ghent Altarpiece

Tommaso Portinari

• Florentine banker

• Medici Bank in Bruges

• Advisor to the Burgundian royal court

Santa Maria Novella, Florence, Italy

• Portinari family church

• across from a hospital that the Portinaris built

• main alter held the altarpiece (along with remains of Portinaris)

Life sized figures

Portrait of the donor

• left side panel

• painted in paper or parchment and added to the wooden support

• may have been painted in Bruges, approved and added to the side panel

Outer (closed) Wings

• reverse placement of Mary and Archangel Gabriel

• grisaille

• seen in other work for closed wings

• deep niches (separate)

• directional light: shadows

• more energetic (not just statues)

Center panel

• comparable to Campin’s Dijon Altarpiece

• Christ child naked on the bare ground

• rays of golden light

• supernatural light

• lavish

• Angels: ecclesiastical

• Priests, Deacons, Altar servers

• Birth of Christ as a Mass

• Netherlandish beauty standards

• Importance of hands

  • circular and diagonal composition

  • like a wheel surrounding Christ

  • unifies and divides the composition

Individualized portraits of the figures

Background of Center panel

• two midwives

• Annunciation to the Shepherds

• Magi Procession

• Palace of King David

  • royal line, ancestor

  • harp relief in the arch “carved” over the door

• Royal line of Jesus

• Medieval iconography

• Shepherds are the same scale as Mary, Joseph, and the Saints

• Various expressions

  • Warmth of a father

  • Awareness for a miracle

  • Astonishment and awe of the event he cannot understand

• Common man vs. Nobility

  • courtly angels

• Comparison of facial expressions to the Damned Soul in the Last Judgement Polyptych by van der Weyden

  • gaping mouth

  • wide eyes

  • the two pieces are expressing different emotions

• Joesph’s shoes

  • shoes like the ones van Eyck paints

Netherlandish “Still Life” tradition

• the virtues and sorrows of the virgin

  • orange lilies: the passion

  • three red carnations: “Nail Flowers”

  • three irises

  • seven columbine: melancholy and symbol of the virgin’s sorrows

• sheaf of wheat

• spanish albarello

  • tin glazed earthenware

  • pharmaceutical jar

  • motif of vines and grapes

• clear glass

  • light passes through

  • Mary’s virginity

• vases and glass: body and blood of Christ

Influence of Jan and Hubert van Eyck

• liturgical garments on angels

Influence of Rogier van der Weyden

• altarpiece of the Seven Sacraments

• swirling fabrics

• Van der Goes

• Chiaroscuro

• Phosorescent

Donors on Inner Wings

(in smaller scale)

• left side

  • Tommaso Portinari and sons, Antonio and Pigello

  • St. Thomas (with his spear) and St. Anthony (with his rosary)

  • Mary and Joesph’s Journey (in background)

  • dark black clothing that is Netherlandish not Florentine

  • Clothing of merchants and royal/courtly members of society

• right side

  • Maria Baroncelli and elder daughter, Margherita (age 7) (beside/behind her mother)

  • Mary Magdalene (in Netherlandish contemporary style) and St. Margaret (holding a bible) (standing on the dragon that ate her)

  • The three kings en route to Bethlehem (in background)

  • hennin (a style of hat) with rows of pearls (zig zag pattern) and gold embroidered initials of “M” and “T”

  • shaved forehead

Influence of the Portinari Altarpiece

• inspired Ghirlandio’s “Adoration of the Shepherds”

• combination of Classical Rome and Netherlandish style

• Shepherds in foreground to from the right

  • life like

• landscape in the background

• disguised imagery

“Death (Dormition) of the Virgin”

Hugo van der Goes

Vision that her son appears to her

In a room with the twelve apostles

• ambiguous space

St. Peter is dressed as a deacon

• unusual in white

Balanced on a fulcrum

• feet in the foreground

Internalized feelings

• nobody is looking at Mary or each other

“Nativity or Adoration of the Shepherds”

Hugo van der Goes

Wheat = eucharist

Medicinal plants

• Geranium: melancholy

• solanum (nightshade); heartache

Curtains pulled back on a three dimensional curtain rod

• illusionistic

• built up in relief

• “reveal” the mystery

Full range of social status

Two half-length prophets

Shepherds in the background

• one plays the flute as the other is mid-clap

Mary and Joseph

• stron colors almost solid

• lighting

• nearly two-dimensional

Angels

• background

• pastels

Unusual image in Netherlandish art

• psychological breakdown?

• devotion moderna (new devotion movement)

• members to “transcend images” in their devotion

• mystic

“The Last Judgement”

Hans Memling

oil on wood

Comparable to van der Weyden’s “Last Judgement”

Closed Wings

• Donor: Angelo Tani

  • Florentine manager of the Medici bank in Bruges

  • Destined for his chapel in the church of the Badia, Florence

• Caterina Tanagli

  • coincides with their marriage in 1466

Center inside panel

• bi-lateral organization with Christ Enthroned and Archangel Michael on the center line

• Christ enthroned on a rainbow

• Feet on a globe

  • dominion over the Earth

• Lily

  • symbolizing Mercy

• Flaming sword

  • justice

• blessed on the right of Christ

  • makes a sign of benediction

• Right hand

  • elevated and palm up

• damned on the left

  • palm held outward and palm down

• Left hand

  • lowered and palm down

• Michael as a warrior angel

  • weighs the “souls” to determine who goes to heaven or hell

  • peacock feathered wings

  • cope: liturgical vestment

  • morse: highly ornamented clasp/pin

  • scales in left hand

  • jeweled crozier (bishop’s staff) in the right hand

• Angels with symbols from the Passion

• Virgin Mary and John the Baptist as intercessors

  • speaking to Christ for the souls of the dead

• Rainbow separates the two realities

  • divine: golden background (coloration, not real gold)

  • earthly: region separating the sinners from the just

• Landscape in the background (behind Archangel Michael)

  • verdant vs. desert

• Very detailed

  • reflections in metal

• Use of Tommaso Portinari’s likeness as one of the souls being weighed

Left inner wing

• entrance to Heaven

  • gothic church portal

• controlled by St. Peter

• high ranking church officials lead the procession

  • Pope, Cardinal, Bishop, Monk

  • Hierarchy of the Roman Catholic Church

• identifiable friends and patrons

• balconies crowded with angels

  • bright colors against the “marble”: facade of the entry portal of a heavenly Gothic cathedral

  • playing a variety of instruments

• Golden light of heaven

• Appeals to the senses

  • music and light

  • joyful

• Tympanum with God/Christ enthroned as Byzantine Emperor

  • familiar narrative of a tympanum

• Jamb figure statuary “comes alive”

Right inner panel

• Hell

  • chaotic and dark

• Naked humans

  • more sent to hell than approach heaven

• Angel sounding the horn of the Apocalypse

• Grotesque figures torture the souls dammed to hell

  • dark hybrid forms

• Fires in the background

• Rogerian emotionality

  • three dimensional tears

1473

First known art heist

• Pirated seized the triptych as it was traveling from Belgium to France

• Still located in Gdansk, Poland

“Virgin and Child with Saints and Angels” or “St. John Altarpiece”

Memling

Signed and dated on original frame

Long inscription

Triptych of the Mystic Marriage of St. Catherine

Center panel

• sacra conversazione (can only occur in heaven)

• Virgin and Child with Saints

  • virgo inter virgines

  • popular devotional image in Germany and the Netherlands

• Baldachin

  • freestanding canopy (Architecture)

  • emphasize someone/something of great importance

• Two angels hold a crown (crowning Mary queen of heaven) in front of baldachin

• oriental carpet

  • motif becomes important in Netherlandish paintings

• St. Catherine

  • Alexandria, Egypt

  • crown

  • elaborate brocade fabric

  • princess

  • wheel and sword of her martyrdom

  • ideal beauty standards

• mystic marriage

• Jesus puts a gold ring on her finger

• Saint Barbara

  • reading a book

  • ideal beauty standards

• tower/monstrance

  • confined in a tower by her father

  • monstrance displays consecrated host

• These two female saints (Catherine and Barbara) are often shown with the two St. John

• St. John the Evangelist

  • Church originally dedicated solely to this saint

  • holds a Eucharistic chalice with a serpent in it

  • poisoned cup

  • columns stories of events, drinking the poisoned cup

  • background behind him: baptizing Crato, immersed in boiling oil, boat to Patmos

• St. John the Baptist

  • dedication added later

  • staff and lamb

  • pointing

  • columns: Annunciation of his birth to Zachariah

  • background behind him: stories from his life: desert, preaching

Left Wing

• Beheading of St. John the Baptist

  • located in Netherlands (Bruges?)

  • foreshortened corpse

• Plater held by Salome

• Continuous narrative in the background

  • Dance of Salome

  • River Jordan: John baptizing Jesus

  • God the Father sends down a dove of the Holy Ghost

• contemporary Netherlandish clothes

• understanding of anatomy

Right Wing

• St. John the Evangelists and the Island of Patmos

  • Book of Revelation (writing)

• Apocalyptic visions

• God encircled by a rainbow

  • enthroned in a Gothic stone baldchin

  • book in his lap with the Seven Seals

  • lamb breaking them open

  • four beasts

  • twenty-four elders

  • angel swinging a censor (influenced by Ghent Altarpiece)

• Aegean Sea: Vision of the end of time

• Eagle: symbol of St. John

• Disasters

• Hail and fire

• Four horsemen

• Large figure

• Woman clothed in the sun, moon under her feet, crown of twelve stars

Exterior wings of the “St. John Altarpiece”

Portraits of members of the community with their patron saints

St. James the Great

• pilgrim (Santiago de Compostela/St. James Way)

St. Anthony the Abbott

• pig

St. Agnes

• lamb

Saint Claire

• monstrace (display/procession of the consecrated sacramental bread)

Saints not painted in grisaille

Unclear what they are praying to

All in the same scale

Casting shadows (mostly accurate)

Similar layout to the Interior wings of van der Goes’s Portrinari Altarpiece

Male and female saints and donors face each other on the outside wings

• object of devotion hidden

• different from other major altarpieces

“Mystic Marriage of Saint Catherine”

Hans Memling

oil on panel

Saint Catherine of Alexandria

• mystic marriage

• broken wheel and sword

Saint Barbara

• tower

• reading a book

Anonymous donor

• rosary

Cloth of Honor Drapery

“Scenes From the Passion”

Hans Memling

Continuous narrative: organization of numerous scenes of a narrative within a single unified space

“Scenes from the Life of the Virgin and Christ” or “The Joys of Mary”

Hans Memling

mythological Netherlandish scene

“Madonna and Child with Martin van Nieuwenhove”

Memling

Devotional diptych

In original frame, with original hinges, and in original location

Continuous room

• new invention

Coat of arms

“HOC OPUS FIERI FECIT MARTINUS DE NEWENHOVEN ANNO DM 1487 - ANO VERO ETATIS SUE 23”

History of the Diptych and Half length figures

Connection between the two panels

• red cloak

Several windows

• Virgin and Child and donor are together in united interior

Focus on Mary

• foreshortening in right panel places the room in real time

• left panel with apparition is more formal

Right panel

• half length

• ¾ view (not strict profile)

• prayer book

• Family Coat of Arms

  • Motto: Il ya cause “Not without reason”

  • hands sowing seeds

  • Van Nieuwenhove: “from the garden”

• note coat of arms on the clasp on the donor’s book

  • expensive manuscript

  • pages turning indicates he is well read

  • Gauffered Fore-edge (gold finish and impressed pattern into the edges)

• expensively dressed

• window at upper left

  • originally a landscape

• multiple identifications of the donor

• St. Martin of Tours

• Stained Glass Window

  • Saint dividing his cloak

Left panel

• Mary

  • dressed in blue

  • red cape

• Christ

  • body follows the angle of the red cape

  • sits on a pillow

• Christ reaches for an apple

  • allusion to Adam and Eve and prefigures the Crucifixion

• Convex mirror behind Mary

• Coat of Arms

• Rondels (round images)

  • stained glass

  • St. George and St. Christopher

“Portrait of a Man with a Roman Coin”

Antonello de Messina

Subject is possibly Bernardo Bembo

Subject looks directly at viewer

Pictogram

• coin: Nero (Neri, del Nero, Nerone, etc)

• palm tree (Palma, Palmeri)

• Laurel leaves (coats of arms, name)

Identifiable coin

“Tommaso di Folco Portinari, Maria Portinari (Maria Maddelana, Baroncelli)

Memling

oil on panel

pious attitudes

upward mobility

imaginary frames

solid dark background

into our space

Left panel - Tommaso Portinari

• high degree of detail

• technique

• idealization disguised as realism

Right panel - Maria Portinari

• fur trimmed velvet gown

• necklace of spun gold with semi-precious stones and pearls

• 7/8 angle vs. ¾

  • more of the far side eye is visible

  • nose does not break the edge of the cheek

A hypothetical reconstruction adds a panel of Memling’s “Virgin and Child” to the middle

• portraits on both sides

Subjects seen in Hugo van der Goes “Adoration of the Shepherds with Saints and Donors”

“Crucifixion”

Gerard David

oil on panel

last gasp of the van Eyck tradition

influenced by other artists

• geertgen tot sint james

• robert campin

• dieric bouts

• jan van eyck

“Altarpiece of the Baptism of Christ”

Gerard David

Triptych

Donor: Jan de Tompes

• treasurer of the city of Bruges

Last example of a “typical” triptych

continuous landscape

Center panel

• strongly axial

  • symmetrical

  • Goth the Father, Holy Spirit, Hand of John the Baptist, Christ, ripples in the water

  • two details from the story of St. John the Baptist: preaching and ecce agnus dei (Behold the Lamb of God)

• Emphasis on landscape, detail

• Exquisite technique in drapery

• Brocade cloak of the angel

Side panels

• John the Evangelist

  • not in red robes

  • chalice

• Wife and four daughters

• Wife died in 1502

“Rest on the Flight to Egypt”

Gerard David

Washington version

Evolution of the art market vs. commission

Quiet family

• Joesph in the background knocking down fruit/nuts

• Mary offering grapes: Eucharist

Genre scene: normal life

Basket/hamper

“Rest on the Flight to Egypt”

Gerard David

New York Version

Child at the breast

Relic of the Virgin’s milk

• church of St. Donation, Brugers

Apples: Adam and Eve

“Landscapes”

Reverse wings of a Nativity triptych

Gerard David

First pure landscapes in Netherlandish painting

• lush

• able to identify plants

Donkey and ox: related to Nativity

“Altarpiece of the Holy Kinship” (St. Anne’s Altarpiece)

Quentin Metsys

oil on panel

Center: Holy Kinship

Wings: Joachim and St. Anne

No donors

Five scenes from the Life of Anne

Mary’s mother

Center panel

• Holy Kinship:

  • immediate family of Mary and Christ

  • apostle/cousins

• Anne: mother or Mary

  • married three times

  • three daughters named Mary

• Mary (father: Joachim, husband: Joesph)

  • Jesus

• Mary (father: Cleophas, husband: Alphaeus)

  • Judas Thadddeus, Joseph the Just, Simon, James the Less

• Mary (father: Salomas, husband: Zebedee)

  • James the Great, John the Evangelist

• Elizabeth (Cousin of Mary, married to Zacharias)

  • John the Baptist

• Center: Anne, Mary, Jesus

  • seated on bench

• Mary Cleophas with sons

  • next to Mary and Jesus

• Mary Salome

  • next to Anne

• Joachim, Joseph, Alpheus, and Zebedee

  • behind the balustrade

• Comparable to Geertgen tot Sint James’s “Holy Kinship”

• Mary of Clopas

  • second daughter of Anne

• Mary’s son, Joesph: Illuminated Manuscript

  • King David

  • Family tree of Jesus

Side panels

• Significant episodes in the lives of Anne and Joachim

• Mary’s parents

“Lamentation Altarpiece”

Quentin Metsys

oil on panel

Center panel

• Oriental influences in fabrics and clothing

  • exotic/trade

• Joesph of Arimathea

  • offers his tomb for Jesus’ burial

• Mary falling

• John the Evangelist supports her

• Joseph holds Jesus’ head

• Centurion: Roman arm commander

  • holds the crown of thorns

Differences between Metsys’s work and van der Weyden’s “Deposition”

Wing panels

• Feast of Herod and the Martyrdom of the Evangelist

  • lavish and rich dress

  • exaggerated facial features

  • representations of “the others”

  • visual overload

“Money Changer (or Goldsmith) and his Wife”

Quentin Metsys

oil on panel

“You shall have just balances and just weights”

Figures are unaware of viewer

Religious ritual replaced by commerce

Still-life details

Illuminated manuscript

Angled mirror

Tradition of concave mirror to expand the place

Moralizing tone

• weighing coins like St. Michael weighing souls?

Disorganized space

• ledger books, bills

“Ill-Matched Lovers”

Quentin Metsys

oil on panel

“Moralizing genre”

Un-equal pair

Old man/ younger woman

Satire from theater and literature

• later 15th century genre paintings of ill matched lovers

Deceptive Beauty

• disguises her greed

Not high-class painting

• many were destroyed

Woman is being “manhandled” and handing the money to a “fool”

• wearing a jester’s hat

• playing cards

• insinuates a tavern or brothel, gambling

“An Old Woman (The Ugly Duchess)”

Quentin Metsys

satire

folly of age

“nagging old wife”

clothing style c. 1430-50

• outlandish, like a costume

• suggests it was popular when she was young?

personification of an old woman/lust?

Paget’s disease?

Man dressed as a woman?

Artist comment on gender"?

“An Old Man”

Quentin Metsys

oil on panel

possible diptych with the “An Old Woman” painting

man/woman reversed from standard placement

“Portrait of a Canon”

Quentin Metsys

oil on panel

New: portrait as a moment in time

• responds to our presence

• introspective at the same time

• finger holds his place in the book

Bust length

Life sized

• sitting at a table or ledge

“View of the Colosseum from the West”

Jan Gossart

Pen and ink over black chalk

• drawing of the roman colosseum

• papal mission with his patron, Philip of Burgundy

  • envoy to Pope Julius II

• reanimate classical artistic forms

  • antique models

• notation in upper right corner identifies the artist

• only known study by Gossart of an actual building

  • captures both the grandeur and ruined state

• close study of classical architectural orders

  • doric, ionic, corinthian

“Apollo Citharoedus of the Casa Sassi”

Jan Gossart

Pen and brown ink over black chalk

• drawing of statue of Apollo

• pen and ink study of a Roman copy of Greek statue

  • owned by the Farnese family

  • Papal family: wealth

• Gossart’s drawings from his trip to Italy became the basis of popular later etchings

• recreated the left and upper right arms

“Study with the Spinario, boots, helmets and lion heads”
Jan Gossart

c. 1509

Drawings (studies) from ancient Roman statues

Center Figure = Spinario

• “thorn puller”

• Spina: Italian

• Hellenistic bronze statue

• personalized the boys face (animated)

• early example of Netherlandish practice of using antique statues as models

Boots

• Farnese Lar/ Genis

  • household god

• From the Baths of Caracalla

• Massive

• Set onto a plinth/base

“Standing Warrior in Fantastic Armor”

Jan Gossart

c. 1509

• imaginary re-creation of antique Roman armor

• during or time closely following time in Rome

• Similar style in “The Emperor Augustus and the Tiburtine Sibyl”

“Adoration of the Magi”

Jan Gossart

oil on panel

• painting for a chapel

• narrative scene but also iconic

  • visual overload

  • Virgin Mary’s head is central

• isocephalic: standing figures head line up on a level

  • first time in Netherlandish art

• chapel dedicated to mary

• typical iconography

• similar feel as Gerard David’s “Adoration of the Magi”

“Triptych of the Haywain Wayfarer” or “Path of Life”

Hieronymous Bosch

Outer wings

oil on panel

• full color

• older man carrying a wicker basket represents everyman

  • spiritual predicament of all mankind

  • follows the road despite temptation

  • stance and figure similar Hieronymous Bosch’s “The Peddler”

  • “a man follows a road despite the temptation of sin”

• menacing landscape

  • skull and bones, dog (s

  • fragile bridge

  • bandits

  • gallows

“Triptych of the Haywain”

Bosch

Interior wings

• two versions

• escorial and the prado

Interior panels depict Last Judgement programs

Reads as a continuous narrative

• each panel reads back to forward

Left panel

• garden of eden

• creation and the fall of man

  • casting out of the rebel angels from heaven

  • change from angels to monsters (mosquito like)

• garden of eden restored or the new heaven of the church

• eden not as the goal of the saved, but rather the original setting

• expulsion of the rebel angels to expulsion from paradise

• archangel expels Adam and Eve

  • dressed in contemporary liturgical vestments

  • cope and alb

  • eucharistic allusions

Center panel

• deadly sins

• focus on avarice/wordly gain

• hay wagon

  • typical in a countryside setting

  • metaphor for vanities and greed of all men

  • “all the world is a haystack and each man plucks from it what he can”

  • all the different classes try and grab a handful of the hay

• devilish figures driving them to hell

  • tree-man

  • fish-man

  • mouse-man

  • bat-man

• emperors, kings, and popes follow the Haywain (not grasping because of their sin…pride)

  • emperor wears a hat similar to God the Father

  • king with fleu-de-lys crown

  • duck with Burgundian headwear

  • bishop with Eastern clothing

• despiring angel looks up towards Christ

• devil playing a trumpet

• sin of lust

  • wealthy couple seated on the cart

  • encouraged by music, servants revel behind them

• deadly sins are all in the central panel

• Boschian owl

Right panel

• hell; judgement day

• fiery pit, parched

• black silhouette of burning buildings

• large round tower

  • under construction?

  • expansion needed in hell?

• souls of the damned transformed into their own punishment

• symbolism

  • man on ground (imagery similar to van der Weyden’s diagonal deposition of Christ

  • toad looks like a fig leaf (one of the plagues)

  • red dog

• christian references

  • man riding an ox and holding a chalice (illusions to the apostles and mass)

  • man being eaten by fish

• demon climbs a ladder with mortar to set bricks

• beam lifted with a hoist

• themes of where your deeds will lead you

• based on medieval text

Bosch’s Images of Alchemy, Astrology, and Witchcraft

alchemy

• his wife’s parents were wealthy pharmacists

• forms from their practice: ovens, bowls, flasks, distillation tubes

• chemical theories of generation and multiplication of hybrid forms

astrology

• people and their activities affected by the planets

witchcraft

• dark mass, potions and incense

• witches and demons

“Garden of Earthly Delights”

Hieronymous Bosch

outer wings

• depicts the history of the world and the progression of sin (four distinct events)

• outside shutters: creation of the world

  • third day of creation

  • grissalle

  • “He spoke and it came to be; he commanded and it stood forth” - Psalm 33

  • creator on the upper left corner

Inner panels of “Garden of Earthly Delights”

Hieronymous Bosch

continuous landscape

• each has a fountain and lake

Left wing

• Creation, not the Fall of Adam and Eve

• Mass of living creatures: giraffe, elephant, unicorn

• Fountain of Life

  • four rivers of Paradise

  • gothic tabernacle

  • source of life

  • fons vitae

  • detailed and delicate

  • plants used as references for the fountain

  • creative power of nature

  • life, fertility, reproduction

  • owl in the center of the fountain of life (Bosch’s bird) (also a symbol of danger and death)

• Creation of Eve

  • Christ like depiction of the creator

  • blessing the first couple

  • “be fruitful and multiply”

  • symbols of fertility

  • rabbits at Eve’s feet (symbol of fertility and marriage)

• "Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil”

  • date tree

  • snake

Central panel

• carnival atmosphere

  • three zones:

  • foreground: chaos

  • center: frenzy (around a circular pond)

  • distance: Fountain of Life, communal

• descendants of Adam and Eve

  • in the age of Noah

  • Condemnation of the unchaste and lustful behavior of Adam and Eve’s descendants

  • eating fruit, swimming in the water, interacting with other humans and animals

  • pale figures and African figures

  • somewhat innocent sexuality

• strange architecture (central piece of architecture looks similar to fountain of life)

  • man created versus god created

  • sexual innuendo of parts of architecture “penetrating” another part

• “punctured” by spires

• river runs past and through

• The Circuit:

  • sexes are segregated ( women in central pond, men riding around the pond)

  • initial stage of courtship

  • male virility and skills driven (literally) by their animal instincts

• figures picking apples

• direct reference to the Fall of Man

  • fruit, animals, structures as exotic symbols inspired by popular songs, sayings, and slang expressions of Bosch’s time

  • sexual innuendos

  • owl appearance again

• oversized birds

  • identifiable

  • vogelen (dutch word for birds) (also a slang term for sex)

  • another owl appearance

Right wing

• Violent vision of Hell

  • vices that dominated humankind’s nature from the beginning now turn violently against him

  • joys are now punishments

  • youthful virility now are sterility and decay

  • water turns to blood

• extremes of temperature

  • buildings explode (Sodom?)

  • icy lakes

• city of fire

  • people try to escape the fire

  • groups of figures

• armies in foreground

  • hostilities

  • open city gates

  • people drowning under the bridge

  • horned devil

• Tree man of Death

  • counterpart of the fountain of life (fons vitae)

  • torso: rotten egg that has broken open

  • legs: dead tree stumps

  • feet: boats frozen in the water

  • hat: red bagpipe on a disc (wedding dirge, musicians crucified on their instruments)

  • sloth, lust, alcoholism

• Ear and Knife

  • imaginary war machine?

  • male?

  • inference to the city of “s-Hertogenbosch”? (an international trade in knives)

  • corporal punishment for thieves (chopping ears off of kleptomaniacs)

  • devils in and around int

• Horse skull

  • momento mori

  • death is inevitable

  • Black plague

  • “life is short live it well”

• Key and Man

  • attribute of st. Peter

  • key to hell?

  • gates of hell are open

• Satan the Devourer

  • diabolical bird on a potty chair

• Replaces Enthroned Christ

  • bird-headed frog

  • crown: pot of gluttony

  • human excrement

  • simultaneously ingesting and defecating

• three figures at the edge of the sewer

  • rich: “pooping coins”

  • man throwing up

  • note the face in the sewer

• Demon torturing a sinner

  • shield with knife and hand

  • gesture of blessing

  • dice: gambling

• Devil is wearing “pattens”

  • protects the wearer’s shoes

• Indication of wealth and status

• “pike” : long toed shoe

  • velvet or silk

  • the longer and more elaborate the shoe, the wealthier the wearer

• indulgences

  • purchased to reduce your time in purgatory for your sins in life

“The Malvangna Triptych: Madonna and Child Enthroned with Saints and Angels”

Jan Gossart

oil on panel

interior panels

• Madonna and Child enthroned

• continuous landscape and interior

  • canopies are not exactly the same

  • compulsion for variety and illusion

Center panel

• elaborate gothic tracery

• landscape: buildings and gardens of a palace

• Virgin Mary in red

• nude child

• musical putti

“Deesis”

Jan Gossart

oil on paper attached to oak panel

Byzantine typography

• tripartite icon

Virgin Mary, Christ Blessing, and St. John the Baptist

Enthroned Christ

“Christ in Majesty”

Comparable to the Ghent Altarpiece

• access to the Ghent Altarpiece

  • heads are the exact size as in the Ghent Altarpiece

  • paper pasted to panel

Christ

• “IHS”

Intercessors

• Mary prays, not reading

• John the Baptist pointing

Painting was for a tomb site

Gold leaf: not gold paint

“Neptune and Amphitrite”

Jan Gossart

oil on panel

From Philip of Burgundy’s castle at Souberg

Sea nymph and wife of Neptune

Earliest life-sized nudes since the Ghent Altarpiece (van Eyck)

Inspired by a Durer engraving

Low vanishing point

Italian influence

Inscriptions

Greco-Roman combination

• Bucranium: Roman motif

• triglyphs: Greek Architecture

Patron’s name and motto

• “a plus sera”

• “there will be more”

Neptune: scallop shell

Amphitrite: shell bonnet

“Danae”

Jan Gossart

oil tempera on oak panel

• signed and dated

• common italian theme

  • mythological

  • antique architecture: Tholos

  • rare in the Netherlands

• moralizing?

  • the power of gold to corrupt

• Christian iconography

  • blue drapery

  • Virgin inseminated by divinity

  • rays of gold

• Iconography of the Virgin Mary

  • sitting on the ground

  • blue drapery

• Innocence

  • doll-like features

• Erotic

• Parted Legs

• Bare breast

• set in the Temple of Vesta in Rome

“Portrait of a Man”

Jan Gossart

oil on panel

Henry III, Count of Nassau-Breda?

• teacher of King Charles V

• holy roman emperor

Separated by table with carpet

Attention to textures

Order of the Golden Fleece

Fictitious frame and green marble background

“Portrait of a Man (Charles of Burgundy?)”

Jan Gossart

oil on panel

Accentuated realism

• flesh tones and shadows

• elaborate clothing with a variety of textures

Daggar hilt “I love no one but you”

Dark green background

• typical of Gossart’s portraits

Three dimension space

• cast shadow

Detached

Emblems of his status pointed out by his gesturing hands

• fish on the sword guard

• appears to be biting the sitter’s finger

Jewelry on hat

• Venus and Cupid

“Portrait of a Merchant (possibly Jan Snoeck)”

Jan Gossart

Important man, merchant?

“Occupational portrait”

Writing in a ledger

Merchants also served as financiers

Money changers, lenders

Identified surrounded by his work

Back wall

• ledgers

• ball of twine

• “eared” dagger

Tools

• ink pot, large coins, scales, leather bound book, paper, quill pens

Ring

• initials “IS”

Wearing protective “sleeve covers”

• prevents ink on clothing

An old Netherlandish proverb of the period declares, “a usurer, a miller, a money-changer, and a tax-collector are Lucifer’s four evangelists.”

Gossart’s portrait of a merchant is “unequivocally positive image of a financier”

“Professional portraits” versus Genre images (Moralistic)

• like Petrus Christus’s “Goldsmith” vs. Metsys’s “Money Changer” or “Tax Collectors”

“The Owl’s Nest”

Hieronymus Bosch

Owls are a recurring element

• four drawings

• twenty-five paintings

• “almost a signature”

• Dutch: boschvoghele (Bosch birds)

Negative connotations

• symbol of sin, evil, or folly

Three owls

In this drawing: owls in their natural habitat

Signed

Not a preparatory drawing

Unusual perspective

Tree in the foreground

“The Wood has Ears, The Field has Eyes”

Hieronymus Bosch

pen and ink on brown paper

• Allegorical image

  • Composition depicting an abstract concept

• Medieval proverb

  • “The Wood has Ears, and the Field has Eyes, I want to see, keep silent and hear”

• Latin quote: “Poor is the mind that always uses the inventions of others and invents nothing itself”

  • Written above

• City of s’-Hertogenbosch seal

  • “The Duke’s forest”

• Artistic self-portrait

“Crucifixion with Saints and Donor”

Hieronymus Bosch

oil on panel

• St. Peter

  • Keys in his right hand

  • Could be related to the Patron’s namesake

• Patron

  • Cape

  • Sword

• John the Evangelist

  • Book of Revelation

  • Interceding on the Patron’s behalf

• similar to van der Weyden’s “Crucifixion”

“Christ Carrying the Cross/Christ Child”

Bosch

• double-sided panel

• interior/exterior wing of lost triptych

Interior Wing

• Christ climbing the hill of Golgotha with an angry mob

  • Resigned, calm

• Two other criminals in the foreground

  • Penitent criminal confessing to a monk

  • Monk dressed in clothing contemporary to time the image was made.  Not historically accurate

• Difference in the crosses of the thieves and one carried by Jesus

  • Joseph was a carpenter

• Composition moves left to right

Outer Wing

• Tondo (Tondi pl.). Circular painting

• Child with a toy windmill (Dutch) and a walking frame

  • Learning to walk

• Possibly an image related to the inner panel

  • St. John the Baptist?

  • Popular theme of Jesus and John and children together

  • Apocryphal: not in the Bible

• Young child is in the exact spot as Jesus with the cross on the reverse side

• Jesus’ first and last steps

“The Seven Deadly Sins”

Hieronymus Bosch

oil on panel

• King Philip of Spain

  • Royal patron

• Eye of God with Christ watching the world

  • “Beware, beware, the Lord sees”

  • Seven Deadly Sins

• “Last four things”

  • Medieval handbook

  • The right way to prepare for death in order to go to heaven

  • Deathbed, Last Judgement, Heaven, and Hell

Inner Circle

• Genre scenes

  • Aspects of everyday life, ordinary people engaging in common activities

• Anger

• Pride

• Lust

• Idleness

• Gluttony

• Avarice

• Envy

Bottom Left Circle:

• Hell

• “Punishment fits the crime”

  • Luxuira: demons in their bed

    • Lust

  • Superbia: Nude lover while a witch holds a mirror to her and a toad climbs up her body

    • Vanity

  • Avaritia: boiled in a caldron

    • Greed

  • Ira: Attacked with a sword

    • Anger

Top Left Circle:

• Ars moriendi

  • “The Art of Dying Well”

  • 15^th century devotional handbook

• Last rites

  • Death

    • Shrouded skeleton

  • Angel and Demon

    • Juxtaposed on the headboard

  • Triumph of the Church

    • Monk with a crucifix

    • Priest administering Last Rites

    • Dying man holds a candle

“Death and the Miser”

Bosch

oil on panel

• Ars moriendi

  • “The Art of Dying”

  • How-to guide to dying well

• Medieval woodcut

  • Instructive images

• Five temptations of a dying man

• Offering crowns

• Mary, Christ and God

  • Disapproving

• The Conflict of Good and Evil

• Man persists in his folly even at the point of death

  • Sin of Avarice (Man in green? )

  • Last temptation of the ars moriendi

  • Usury: lending money with high rates of interest

• Most recently recognized as inner wing of a lost tiptych

• Last rites of a dying man

• Emphasis of the large trunk of earthly objects

  • Demon offers/steals a bag of money

  • Robes and armor: rank and power

• Skeleton of Death

• Angel imploring him to pay attention to the divine light

  • Crucifix

• Man persists in his folly even at the point of death

  • Sin of Avarice

  • Last temptation of the ars moriendi

  • Usury: lending money with high rates of interest

“Triptych of St. Anthony”

Bosch

oil on panel

Outer wings

• Grisaille

• Arrest of Christ in the Garden of Gethsemane (left) 

• Christ Carrying the Cross (right)

• Physical and Spiritual pain mirrored by those suffered  by St. Anthony

  • Imitatio Christi

  • Core of the devotion of medieval mystics

Inner panels

• Continuous deep landscape

• Four elements

  • Earth, Air, Fire, Water

• Hybrid forms

  • Offspring of the mis-mating and unnatural union in the world

  • Malformed creatures

  • Insect-like appendages

  • Animal, vegetal, and mineral hybrids

  • Movement

Left Wing

• More direct storyline

• Foreground:

  • Rescue of St. Anthony by three companions

  • Two in Antonine order, one in burgher’s clothes

• Above in background:

• Levitation of St. Anthony

• Human figure

  • Reading the charges against Anthony

  • Rodent of similar size

  • Third figure

• Crossbill bird

  • Carries a letter

  • Funnel on its head

  • Red cloak

  • Long floppy ear with small polka dots

  • Human legs wearing ice skates

Center panel

• Range of Temptations

• Monastic cell: tomb in the desert on the Upper Nile

• Mass prepared outside St. Anthony's fortress

• Ruined Church Tower

• Simulated reliefs

  • Figures dancing around the Golden Calf

  • Worship of false gods

  • Renunciation of Baptism

• Interior of a chapel

• False minister/pig

  • Viscera and bloody skeleton through a rip in his vestments

• Nobility

  • Archaic Burgundian costumes

  • Riding hybrid steeds of ceramic jugs and rodents

• Depravity and corruption

• City is burning like Sodom 

• Reference to St. Anthony’s Fire

  • Disease that devastated the population of Europe

Right wing

• Anthanasius (Vita S. Anthonii)

  • Devil Queen Encountered twice by St. Anthony

  • Carnal, beautiful, but deceptive

  • Battle with her demon army

  • City burns

• Hallucinations

• St. Anthony as tempted by all the sins that were frightening to the contemporary viewer.

• Overcomes the Devil and victorious over the Seven Deadly Sins

“The Temptation of St. Anthony”

Bosch

oil on panel

• Fragment

  • Part of a disassembled altarpiece

• Compares to the left wing of the triptych

• Recognizable motifs

  • Frog coming out of the water

  • Inverted funnel

  • Monster fish