Adoration of the Shepherds by Hugo van der Goes

Hugo van der Goes - Adoration of the Shepherds - 1476-79 - Oil on wood, 253 x 304 cm - Galleria degli Uffizi, Florence (click photo for larger image)Hugo van der Goes (ca. 1440-1482) was one of the greatest Flemish painters of the second half of the 15th century. His strange and melancholy genius found expression in religious works of profound but often disturbing spirituality. Van der Goes’ art, with its affinities to Mannerism and his tortured personality, have inspired a particularly sympathetic response to contemporary viewers.

The Adoration of the Shepherds featured today is the most important work by the greatest Netherlandish painter of the late 15th century. The painting has a unique historical and artistic significance. The altar was donated to the Florentine church of San Egidio by Tommaso Portinari, who since 1465 had been living in princely style in Bruges as manager of the Medici family's commercial interests. The central panel is flanked by two wings depicting other members of the Portinari family and the family's patron saints, with a grisaille Annunciation on their reverse.

From an artistic point of view, the differences between this work and those of the preceding generation, and earlier paintings by the same master, are astounding. While space and anatomy are easily mastered, they are no longer major themes of the composition, The infant Jesus lies within an aureole in an outdoor square, surrounded by his Mary and Joseph, clusters of angels and the worshipping shepherds. The more or less circular arrangement of the figures can be perceived equally in three-dimensional and two-dimensional terms. A certain impression of spatial depth is suggested by the figures' varying distances from the front of the picture and by the oblique line running from the Antique-style column beside Joseph in the left-hand foreground, through the manger with the ox and ass, and on through the buildings in the middle ground. Its logic is overthrown, however, as the artist reverts to the medieval system in which figures are portrayed on a scale directly related to their importance—the hierarchy of size. Thus the angels in the foreground are surprisingly small in comparison to Mary and Joseph - a contrast repeated in the sizes of the donors and saints portrayed in the wings.