Hans Memling, Triptych of John the Baptist and John the Evangelist

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0:00:06.6 Dr. Steven Zucker: We’re in Saint John’s Hospital in Bruges and we’re looking at this extraordinary altarpiece by Hans Memling. This is the Saint Johns’ Altarpiece, and I use Johns in the plural because it’s about Saint John the Baptist and Saint John the Evangelist.

0:00:23.4 Dr. Anna Koopstra: And it happens to be in Saint John’s Hospital, also quite extraordinary institution that was also dedicated to both of these saints John, founded by the city of Bruges to provide care, a bed, warmth, and food for a night, at least to those in need.

0:00:43.3 Dr. Zucker: And this painting, which originally stood at the high altar, would have been visible to many of the patients in their beds.

0:00:51.2 Dr. Koopstra: And they would also be able to hear when Mass was celebrated.

0:00:55.8 Dr. Zucker: And what a treat this must have been. This is a painting that would have been seen at a distance but also holds up under a magnifying glass.

0:01:07.1 Dr. Koopstra: Absolutely, and there’s just so much to see. We are in the presence of the Virgin and her son seated under a baldachin. The Virgin is crowned as the Queen of Heaven by two angels and she is surrounded by two male saints, Saint John the Baptist and Saint John the Evangelist, and by two female saints, Saint Catherine and Saint Barbara.

0:01:28.8 Dr. Zucker: Saint Catherine is in the process of what is often referred to as the mystical marriage. The young Christ child is placing a ring on her finger and she kneels before a broken wheel and a sword, which refer to her martyrdom, whereas Saint Barbara is seated reading a book just before a tower. So these are symbols that are almost like name tags.

0:01:50.6 Dr. Koopstra: And whenever you spot a lamb, you’ll know that you are looking at Saint John the Baptist. And whenever you spot a male Saint with a cup, with a tiny snake, you will know that this is Saint John the Evangelist.

0:02:05.9 Dr. Zucker: The sumptuousness, the sense of wealth that’s expressed through material objects is extraordinary here. The scene takes place over this beautiful West Asian carpet, but look at the brocade of Catherine’s dress. It’s fur lined and we can see the pattern of a pomegranate, which echoes the cloth of honor just directly behind the Virgin Mary. And there’s such a sense of tactility. It’s as if the folds of the fabric and the way that they fall give you a sense of their thickness. There’s such an attention to their physicality.

0:02:39.4 Dr. Koopstra: And this materiality and this abundance of materials, textures, colors, makes this an incredibly rich setting, which of course is very pertinent for divine figures and for the Virgin and her son. We also see two angels. One is carrying a portable organ and the other is carrying a book, probably liturgical manuscripts, that the Virgin is actually leafing through. This is an altarpiece. Prayer, reading, and music complement the service mass.

0:03:13.2 Dr. Zucker: The thing that strikes me more than anything in this painting is the brilliance of the color and its ability to render detail but also texture. And that’s a consequence of the fact that he’s using oil paint. And oil paint is a media that had really been perfected in the 15th century.

0:03:32.6 Dr. Koopstra: The first name that comes to mind when you say that is, of course, Jan van Eyck, who from 1430 onwards also lived and worked here in Bruges. And he died here in 1441. Hans Memling arrives in the city in 1465. He works in this same very perfected craft of painting on panel, humble materials. But the fact that you can then render with those tools, these incredible visions, illusions, on a flat surface, of worlds that are tactile, three-dimensional, your eye travels through them, this is something that Netherlandish painters of this period truly perfected.

0:04:18.6 Dr. Zucker: There is so much to look at. There are stories of each of the saints’ lives behind them. And this is a triptych, and so we have, in addition to the central panel, two hinged panels.

0:04:30.3 Dr. Koopstra: Everything to do with Saint John the Baptist is on our left. The right panel is devoted to Saint John the Evangelist, to his extraordinary vision.

0:04:39.9 Dr. Zucker: If we start with Saint John the Baptist, we see not only scenes from his life in the landscape directly behind him but even references in the capitals of the columns that stand just over him. To the extreme left of the central panel, you see Saint John the Baptist preaching, and just below that, his arrest.

0:05:00.8 Dr. Koopstra: Your eye then goes to the left panel where we see the beheading of Saint John the Baptist with this lovely figure in the back that helps us to feel that we’re eyewitnesses to this event. And we see Salome carrying the head of John the Baptist.

0:05:18.4 Dr. Zucker: And that idea of what comes after is beautifully expressed in the right panel where we see the other Saint John, that is Saint John the Evangelist, having an extraordinary vision. This is the vision that is expressed in the Book of Revelation.

0:05:34.6 Dr. Koopstra: Because the Apocalypse is so rich with narrative detail and drama, the way to do that traditionally was in multiple scenes. And so we have tapestries, for example, that do that, or in manuscripts, illuminations as well. Memling combines all these different elements of the Apocalypse in this one composition. Memling is a very good narrator. We see the saint writing this book, having this vision, and then the rest of the panel leads you through via the apocalyptic horsemen. Your eye follows them, meanders back through all these horrific explosions and fire and stars falling out of the sky, angels. And then there’s this double halo where we see God seated on his throne, surrounded by elders. There is so much going on, but still you have the feeling that you can read this composition.

0:06:39.3 Dr. Zucker: If you look at the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, look at the attention that the artist has taken, not only with the individual riders and their mounts, but even in their reflections in the water below. There is this way that the artist has been able to make clear that John is taking this in, but the expression on his face almost seems as if he’s turned inward, that he’s seeing this in his mind. And when you look closely, he’s got his inkwell, he’s got his book, his pen, his quill, but I’m not sure that he’s actively writing. He may have just paused to take this in, and it is breathtaking, both for him and for us.

0:07:21.4 Dr. Koopstra: This is very much to the core of the function, again, of this altarpiece, The End of Days. And this makes this subject very pertinent for this occasion and for this audience, for people who are thinking about the end of their life. There were friars and nuns who were in charge of the hospital.

0:07:41.6 Dr. Zucker: And the likenesses of two nuns and two friars can be seen on the outer panels, and it’s important to remember when this building was being used as a hospital, for much of the year, the triptych would be closed, so it would be those friars and those nuns and their spiritual namesakes standing behind them that would be visible.

0:08:01.2 Dr. Koopstra: These male governors would have been more responsible for financial things.

0:08:06.5 Dr. Zucker: And that figure who was responsible for the money of the hospital would go on to have an additional role where he was able to collect money by having the responsibility of assessing quantities of wine that were brought into the city. You can see this large wooden object that’s being powered by two men on a treadmill. This is actually an enormous crane that really existed in the city of Bruges that helped to load and unload barrels of wine.

0:08:31.9 Dr. Koopstra: If you look very closely, you can see two monks measuring and discussing with merchants the wine that has just come in, so this privilege that was granted to them by the city that was very important for their income.

0:08:45.2 Dr. Zucker: And it’s a reminder that the expense of the hospital, of creating objects like this panel painting are a result of the wealth that was generated by the city of Bruges.

0:08:55.1 Dr. Koopstra: The city at this point in time was a mercantile city. Artists come here. Memling came here in 1465, and there are all kinds of goods coming in. This is an incredibly attractive and wealthy city to be working in because demand is also high for altarpieces, but also for portraits. Memling was a prolific painter of portraits as well. The hospital has… Many of its accounts are still there. And curiously, even though Memling painted this altarpiece for them, it is signed by him, his name is on the original frame, his name is nowhere to be found in any of the accounts. So this suggests that maybe the funds for this were not drawn from the general funds of the hospital. Maybe this was something where people like these friars and nuns who were in charge and who were from wealthy families, maybe they pitched in. Maybe there were other benefactors as well who did the same, but there is no evidence that this was drawn from general funds.

0:10:01.2 Dr. Zucker: So truly charitable work.

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This work at Museum Saint John’s Hospital

Arts and heritage from VISITFLANDERS

Take a video tour of Saint John’s Hospital, Bruges with VISITFLANDERS

Flemish Masters

Early Netherlandish Painting on the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History

Shirley Neilsen Blum, Early Netherlandish Triptychs: A Study in Patronage (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1969).

Lynn F. Jacobs, Opening doors: The Early Netherlandish Triptych Reinterpreted (University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2011).

Barbara Lane, Hans Memling, Master Painter in Fifteenth-Century Bruges (Turnhout: Brepols, 2010).

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