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HUGO VAN DER GOES (d. 1482)

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Originally appearing in Volume V12, Page 181 of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.
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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:John the Baptist," at the Pinakothek of See also:Munich, is really by Memling; whilst numerous fragments of an altarpiece in the See also:Belvedere at See also:Vienna, though assigned to Hugo, are by his more gifted countryman of Bruges . Van der Goes, however, was not habitually a painter of easel pieces . He made his reputation at Bruges by producing coloured hangings in distemper . After he settled at Ghent, and became a See also:master of his gild in 1465, he designed cartoons for See also:glass windows . He also made decorations for the See also:wedding of See also:Charles the Bold and Margaret of See also:York in 1468, for the festivals of the Rhetoricians and papal See also:jubilees on repeated occasions, for the See also:solemn entry of Charles the Bold into Ghent in 1470-1471, and for the funeral of See also:Philip the See also:Good in 1474 .

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 .

End of Article: HUGO VAN DER GOES (d. 1482)
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DAMIAO DE GOES (1502—1574)
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JOHANN WOLFGANG VON GOETHE (1749-1832)

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