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Geertgen Tot Sint Jans
Virgin and Child
26,8 x 20,5 cm Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam 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
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Juan de Flandes
Virgin and Child before a Landscape
1510 Oil on panel, 26 x 19,5 cm Private collection The composition of this remarkably refined little painting is based on a lost small work by Memling, which is best reflected in the Virgin of the Metropolitan Museum, New York. Since the dimensions correspond, the work must have been done with a tracing or punch-cardboard based on the original. The version discussed here shows the image in the right direction. The Virgin is represented high above a landscape, more monumental than the prototype. She stands behind a wall over which a white cloth is draped with very heavy folds. This also differs from the model. The panel was incorrectly ascribed to Michel Sittow, and later attributed to Juan de Flandes in 1966. On account of the quality, the typical facial features and the vaporous green-grey landscape, this attribution cannot be doubted. The panel originated about the time of the Retablo Mayor of Palencia (c. 1510) and may have been the central panel of a small triptych described in the accounts of Palencia Cathedral as the 'tabla oratorio de tress pie?as'. If so, it could have been a work in the style of Memling's Triptych of Benedetto Portinari (Florence, Galleria degli Uffizi), with a donor and a saint in front of a continuous landscape on the wings. Author: JUAN DE FLANDES Title: Virgin and Child before a Landscape , 1501-1550 , Spanish Form: painting , religious
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Sandro Botticelli
Madonna and Child with an Angel
1465-67 Tempera on panel, 87 x 60 cm Spedale degli Innocenti, Florence It is possible that this somewhat awkward painting of the Madonna was produced while Botticelli was still working in the workshop of his teacher, Filippo Lippi. The initial inspiration for the painting came from the latter's famous Madonna in the Uffizi. Botticelli replaced the landscape with an arched architecture which frames the heads of the mother and child and emphasizes the two main figures as the centre of the devotional scene
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MURILLO, Bartolome Esteban
Madonna and Child
1670 Oil on canvas, 166 x 115 cm Gem?ldegalerie, Dresden The painting is also called as Madonna Legan?s, because it is assumed that it represents Do?a Maria Legan?s.
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