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See also:HUGO See also:VAN DER GOES (d. 1482)
, a painter of consider-able celebrity at See also:Ghent, was known to See also:Vasari, as he is known to us, by a single picture in a Florentine monastery
.
At a See also:period when the See also:family of the See also:Medici had not yet risen from the See also:rank of a See also:great See also:mercantile See also:firm to that of a reigning See also:dynasty, it employed as an See also:agent at the See also:port of See also:Bruges Tommaso Portinari, a lineal descendant, it was said, of Folco, the See also:father of See also:Dante's Beatrix
.
Tommaso, at that See also:time See also:patron of a See also:chapel in the See also:hospital of See also:Santa Maria Nuova at See also:Florence, ordered an See also:altar-piece of See also:Hugo See also:van der Goes, and commanded him to illustrate the sacred theme of " Quem genuit adoravit." In the centre of a vast See also:triptych, comprising numerous figures of See also:life See also:size, Hugo represented the Virgin kneeling in See also:adoration before the new-See also:born See also:Christ attended by Shepherds and Angels
.
On the wings he portrayed Tommaso and his two sons in See also:prayer under the See also:protection of See also:Saint See also:Anthony and St See also:Matthew, and Tommaso's wife and two daughters supported by St See also:Margaret and St See also:Mary Magdalen
.
The triptych, which has suffered much from decay and restoring, was for over 400 years at Santa Maria Nuova, and is now- in the Uffizi See also:Gallery
.
Imposing because composed of figures of unusual size, the altar-piece is more remarkable for portrait See also:character than for charms of ideal beauty
.
There are also small pieces in public galleries which claim to have been executed by Van der Goes
.
One of these pictures in the See also:National Gallery in See also:London is more nearly allied to the school of Memling than to the triptych of Santa Maria Nuova; another, a small and very beautiful " See also: The labour which he expended on these occasions might well add to his fame without being the less ephemeral . About the See also:year 1475 he retired to the monastery of See also:Rouge Cloitre near Ghent, where he took the See also:cowl . There, though he still clung to his profession, he seems to have taken to drinking, and at one time to have shown decided symptoms of See also:insanity . But his superiors gradually cured him of his intemperance, and he died in the odour of sanctity in 1482 . |
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[back] DAMIAO DE GOES (1502—1574) |
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