Synopsis
When the ‘Flemish Primitives’ were rediscovered in the 19th century, Hans Memling (c. 1435-1494) was even more esteemed than the great ‘founders’ of early Netherlandish painting, Jan van Eyck and Rogier van der Weyden, and was the first artist to have a museum dedicated to him (in St John’s Hospital, Bruges). This was in part due to the many surviving works by him in Bruges, where he was the ‘go to’ painter for the local patriciate, churches and confraternities, and the international merchant community. By contrast, the Ghent painter Hugo van der Goes (c. 1435-82) – arguably a greater artist – is much less well known. Visitors to the Uffizi may be familiar with his great, indeed huge, altarpiece, the Portinari triptych, but less so with his magisterial paintings in Berlin, Edinburgh and Bruges (although that is likely to change, as the first exhibition ever devoted to him is scheduled for Berlin in 2022). Both Memling and Van der Goes built on the new art of the Van Eycks and Rogier van der Weyden, and their work is often seen as the last flowering of that tradition. By contrast, Hieronymus Bosch (c. 1455-1516), working on the ‘periphery’ of the sophisticated Burgundian Netherlands in ‘s-Hertogenbosch, is generally discussed in terms of his late medieval imagery. In fact, Bosch was in many respects also an innovator, working in, but pushing the boundaries of the 15th century Netherlandish tradition.