GEERTGEN tot Sint Jans

The left side of the painting was cut, originally Saint John was depicted behind Mary, and the motive of hand kissing was in the centre of the composition.

A monumental altarpiece was commissioned from Geertgen in 1484 for the Chapel of the Knights of St John in Haarlem, probably for the special visit of the grand prior of the Order of the Knights of St John to Haarlem. The inner right wing of the huge triptych depicted the Lamentation, while the exterior of the right wing showed the Burning of the Bones of St John the Baptist. The two panels are now in Vienna, the other parts of the triptych are lost.

The exterior of the right wing represents the legend of the burning of the bones of St John the Baptist and their recovery by the original Knights of Malta. The five figures standing beside the open sarcophagus wearing the Maltese cross are the officers of the Haarlem commandery of the Knights. They appear a second time on the path that leads to the church in the right background carrying the relics, a thighbone and a finger, that were presented to the Order in Rhodes in 1482-83. Six other figures appear to the right of those in Maltese uniform. The one to the extreme right, gazing dreamingly into space, is the artist himself.

The two panels in the Vienna museum make Geertgen the ancestor of the painters of “collective portraits”, of which Frans Hals and Rembrandt were to be the great masters.

With Geertgen tot Sint Jans Netherlandish painting ventures into the deep waters of a mysticism and fantasy which are nearer to those of the German painters. The secular spirit seems to be beginning to take the stage: we are entering into a different kind of expression, in which man’s own thought, his inventions and his dreams will impregnate his life and his surroundings.

A good example is the St John in the Wilderness. With his cheek resting on one hand, the saint sits dreaming, thinking, meditating in the loveliest, most subtle, most tenderly green of landscapes, as the sun sets amid the flutter of wings, the piping of birds and the gentle ripping of the brook to which a stag has come down to drink. Behind St John the lamb is seen sitting, waiting for the prophecy to be accomplished and for the Lamb of God to came to him for Baptism. This link the picture with Van Eyck’s Mystic Lamb - but in reverse order, so to speak, since here the scenes do not take place in their historical and chronological sequence. But with the great things there is no such thing as history.

Geertgen lived in the monastery of St John at Haarlem as indicated by his name (Little Gerard from the Order of St John). He was a pupil of Van Ouwater, his life and work is poorly documented. Two works in Vienna are certainly his and his curiously effective, if naive, style and smooth egg-shaped heads (probably influenced by wood carving) have been traced in a number of works.

Geertgen lived in the monastery of St John at Haarlem as indicated by his name (Little Gerard from the Order of St John). He was a pupil of Van Ouwater, his life and work is poorly documented. Two works in Vienna are certainly his and his curiously effective, if naive, style and smooth egg-shaped heads (probably influenced by wood carving) have been traced in a number of works.

Geertgen tot Sint Jans, a servant of the wealthy Commandery of the Knights of St John in Haarlem, was among the most talented late fifteenth-century Dutch painters. Several of his smaller pictures, made probably for the brothers’ devotional use, explore the range of human emotions. His Man of Sorrows can easily be held in one’s hand.

This picture is attributed to Geertgen by analogy with works given to him in seventeenth-century sources. It may derive from a lost altarpiece; at this period large-scale compositions were frequently adapted for domestic devotions.

The subject of this magical little panel is vision: first, the mystic vision recounted by a fourteenth-century saint, Bridget of Sweden, in which she witnessed the painless birth of Christ, the Virgin’s adoration of her son, and the baby’s radiance eclipsing Joseph’s candle; secondly, the ocular vision of dazzled shepherds shielding their eyes as the angel appears, like a shooting star, to announce the birth of the Messiah; thirdly, the marvelling gaze of childlike angels, ox and ass, Mary and St Joseph upon the Light of the World naked in the manger. And, finally, it makes evident a new vision of piety current in the Northern Netherlands, in which humility is the key to holiness, and a new artistic vision.

The divine radiance is not embodied in costly expanses of gold and rare pigments crafted into a precious object. It is made visible to us through Geertgen’s patient modulation of darkness, the winter’s night barely pierced by distant stars, hardly warmed by fire, only faintly lit by the candle Joseph once held (probably lost when the panel was trimmed at some time in the past). Through Geertgen’s mastery of naturalistic description, with only a shorthand notation of thin rays of real gold beaming from the holy infant, this winter’s night as it was before the birth of Christ can now be seen to have truly been, as is written in the Gospel of St John, a night in which ‘if a man walk … he stumbleth, because there is no light in him’ (11:10).

Suggested listening (streaming mp3, 6 minutes):

Josquin Desprez: Benedicta es coelorum Regina, motet

Bavo is the patron saint of Gent and Lauwe, Belgium and Haarlem, the Netherlands. He is most often shown in Christian art as a knight with a sword and falcon. He was a knight and landowner who at the end of his life distributed his wealth to the poor and took monastic vows.

Geertgen’s Lamentation and The Bones of St John the Baptist in the Vienna museum make him the ancestor of the painters of “collective portraits”, of which Frans Hals and Rembrandt were to be the great masters.

According to a late medieval legend Anne was three times married and by each marriage had a child called Mary. Each Mary married and produced offspring. This was one attempt to reconcile the conflicting statements by the evangelists concerning the family of Christ. The three husbands were Joachim (the father of Virgin Mary), Cleophas (whose daughter Mary married Alpheus and had four sons, James the less, Joseph the Just, Simon, and Judas Thaddeus), and Salomas (whose daughter Mary married Zebedee and was the mother of James the Greater and John the Evangelist).

The subject of The Family of St Anne (Holy Kinship, Holy Company) is seen frequently in the art of northern Europe from the 15th century and shows the Virgin and Child surrounded by numerous members of this sizeable family. In Geertgen’s painting St Anne’s entire family is portrayed. On the left is the matriarch herself, with a book on her lap. Beside her is the Virgin Mary with the infant Christ. Elisabeth with her son, John the Baptist, also relatives, are depicted in the foreground.

Represented from left to right: Alpheus (back), Cleophas, Joseph the Just, Judas Thaddeus, Salomas, Zebedee, Mary Salome.

Represented from left to right: the Virgin Mary with Jesus, the children John the Evangelist, Simon, and James the Greater, Mary Cleophas, Elisabeth with the infant John the Baptist.

Represented from left to right: James the Less, Anne, the Virgin Mary with Jesus.

This independent panel was executed for private devotion, probably for a family chapel.

The artist interprets the subject in a fantastic and worldly way: the sparkling colours of the luxurious robes dominates the scene.

This small painting of the Madonna depicts a fragile female figure holding her newborn together with a vanquished dragon. The artist indicates her floating, vision-like quality with the use of fantastic lighting and an army of angels in concentric circles. By arranging the choir of angels in a manner reminiscent of spheres, it is also expressed that the infant Jesus in the centre of the picture is the ruler of the Universe. With a sweeping gesture and a look of concentration, the infant is shaking two bells, as if to be in concert with the angel doing the same thing on the left side of the picture. They are definitely looking at each other, and since they are the only two doing this, the action has special significance: it shows the “conductor” Jesus in the role of the universe’s prime mover. Thus the painting clearly expresses a concept formulated by St Thomas Aquinas, according to which Jesus created the harmony of the spheres.

In Geertgen’s painting the three attributes of Mary (glory, sadness and joy) are represented by angels encircling the Madonna in three rings. The inner circle contains six-winged cherubs and seraphs. The angels of the second circle hold above the head of Mary the early Christian symbols of glorification, scrolls with the word “Sanctus” appearing on them three times. The rest bear the objects associated with the Passion: the cross, the crown of thorns, a spear, nails, a hammer, and a column. The outside circle presents a multitude of musical angels, symbolizing heavenly happiness. Here we can see nearly all of the instruments of the period: lutes, violas, double recorders, trumpets, drums, bells, horns, bagpipes, hurdy-gurdies, etc. The larger keyboard instruments are located in the corners; on the organ we can see the hand-operated bellows. Obviously, the painter did not intend to reproduce the image of a real orchestra, that is why he included instruments which were never used together.

In this panel Geertgen reworks Hugo van der Goes’s models in charmingly simple fashion. A pensive Madonna and Child share a sad reverie, indicated by the columbine that Jesus clutches. Also known as ancholie, the flower symbolizes introspection or melancholy.