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Geertgen tot Sint Jans (c. 1465 – c. 1495), also known as Geertgen van Haarlem, Gerrit van Haarlem, Gerrit Gerritsz, Gheertgen, Geerrit, Gheerrit, or any other diminutive form of Gerald, was an Early Netherlandish painter from the northern
:(Geertgen's) two paintings in Vienna indicate a self-assured artist; of the works attributed to Geertgen, they are certainly among the most mature and independent. If the artist was really only twenty-eight when he died, then the altarpiece began at about thirteen years of age and lasted four to six years, so that Geertgen can have ended his training at the earliest by the age of about eighteen. Should he have gone to work for one or two years as a journeyman, then the age at which he began to live by his art correspondingly rises. Accordingly, Geertgen worked a maximum of ten years independently. ...If one now dates the altarpiece for the Knights of St John to around 1490, then Geertgen must, roughly speaking, have been born around 1462/1467 – after the inscription on Matham's engraving in Leiden – and would have begun his apprenticeship around 1475/80.
In the 14th century Haarlem was a major city. It was the second largest city in historical Holland after 
Around 1428 the city was put under siege by the army of Jacqueline, Countess of Hainaut. Haarlem had taken sides with the Cods in the Hook and Cod wars, and thus against Jacoba of Bavaria. The entire Haarlemmerhout wood was burnt down by the enemy. In 1469 the commandry of St. John in Haarlem was promoted to a special status that fell directly under the grand Prior of Germany. Before that it was a subordinate commandry of the Balij of Utrecht, which had 12 commandries reporting to it. The commandry of St. John became quite wealthy from donations by the local families Berkenrode,
File:Geertgen_tot_Sint_Jans_006.jpg, Lamentation of Christ
File:Geertgen tot Sint Jans - detail Lamentation - goffered veils.jpg, Detail Lamentation
Of the paintings mentioned by Van Mander, the only one to survive is one wing of his
In his '' The Glorification of the Virgin'', also known as ''Madonna with Musical Angels'' and originally part of the so-called ''Rotterdam-Edinburgh Diptych'', the figures of Maria and the infant Jesus are surrounded by three concentric rings which appear to be surrounding a central halo. This "halo" is usually associated with the biblical verse in the Book of Revelation referring to the woman clothed in the Sun, interpreted as representing the Madonna in heaven.''The Technology of Salvation and the Art of Gertgen Tot Sint Jans.'' Chapter 2, pp. 37–60.
The original diptych was first presented with a left panel of identical size usually referred to as Geertgen's ''Passion of Christ''. Within the concentric rings of the halo in the ''Madonna with Musical Angels'' panel are found a variety of musical instruments. This painting shows some of the oldest pictures of musical instruments known in the Netherlands (c.1480–1490). In the central depiction of the infant Jesus with the Madonna, the infant Jesus is depicted as playing a pair of bells, and seems to be playing music as if in response to one of the angels in the outermost concentric ring, holding an identical set of bells and looking directly back at the infant Jesus.
Geertgen tot Sint Jans
at the Rijksmuseum Amsterdam
Geertgen van Haarlem
in ''Northern Renaissance Art'' (1966) by Wolfgang Stechow *
Low Countries
The term Low Countries, also known as the Low Lands ( nl, de Lage Landen, french: les Pays-Bas, lb, déi Niddereg Lännereien) and historically called the Netherlands ( nl, de Nederlanden), Flanders, or Belgica, is a coastal lowland region in N ...
in the Holy Roman Empire
The Holy Roman Empire was a political entity in Western, Central, and Southern Europe that developed during the Early Middle Ages and continued until its dissolution in 1806 during the Napoleonic Wars.
From the accession of Otto I in 962 unt ...
. No contemporary documentation of his life has been traced, and the earliest published account of his life and work is from 1604, in Karel van Mander
Karel van Mander (I) or Carel van Mander I (May 1548 – 2 September 1606) was a Flemish painter, poet, art historian and art theoretician, who established himself in the Dutch Republic in the latter part of his life. He is mainly remembere ...
's ''Schilder-boeck
or is a book written by the Flemish writer and painter Karel van Mander first published in 1604 in Haarlem in the Dutch Republic, where van Mander resided. The book is written in 17th-century Dutch and its title is commonly translated into En ...
''.
According to van Mander, Geertgen was probably a pupil of Albert van Ouwater, one of the first oil painters in the northern Low Countries
The term Low Countries, also known as the Low Lands ( nl, de Lage Landen, french: les Pays-Bas, lb, déi Niddereg Lännereien) and historically called the Netherlands ( nl, de Nederlanden), Flanders, or Belgica, is a coastal lowland region in N ...
. Both painters lived in the city of Haarlem
Haarlem (; predecessor of ''Harlem'' in English) is a city and municipality in the Netherlands. It is the capital of the province of North Holland. Haarlem is situated at the northern edge of the Randstad, one of the most populated metropoli ...
, where Geertgen was attached to the house of the Knights of Saint John
The Order of Knights of the Hospital of Saint John of Jerusalem ( la, Ordo Fratrum Hospitalis Sancti Ioannis Hierosolymitani), commonly known as the Knights Hospitaller (), was a medieval and early modern Catholic military order. It was headqu ...
, perhaps as a lay brother, for whom he painted an altarpiece
An altarpiece is an artwork such as a painting, sculpture or relief representing a religious subject made for placing at the back of or behind the altar of a Christian church. Though most commonly used for a single work of art such as a painting ...
. In van Mander's book he states that Geertgen took the name of St. John without joining the order, thus his last name "tot Sint Jans" was derived from the order's name and means "unto Saint John".
Biography
Though van Mander calls him ''Geertgen tot Sint Jans, painter from Haarlem'', indicating he was from Haarlem, it is possible that he was perhaps born inLeiden
Leiden (; in English and archaic Dutch also Leyden) is a city and municipality in the province of South Holland, Netherlands. The municipality of Leiden has a population of 119,713, but the city forms one densely connected agglomeration w ...
, then in the Burgundian Netherlands
In the history of the Low Countries, the Burgundian Netherlands (french: Pays-Bas bourguignons, nl, Bourgondische Nederlanden, lb, Burgundeschen Nidderlanden, wa, Bas Payis borguignons) or the Burgundian Age is the period between 1384 and ...
in the Holy Roman Empire
The Holy Roman Empire was a political entity in Western, Central, and Southern Europe that developed during the Early Middle Ages and continued until its dissolution in 1806 during the Napoleonic Wars.
From the accession of Otto I in 962 unt ...
, around the year 1465. The assignment of Leiden as his birthplace is traceable to a 17th-century print by Jacob Matham, where he is referred to as ''Gerardus van Leydanus''. There is no known archival evidence for this claim by Matham. This print of ''The Lamentation of Christ'' from 1620, shows in the lower left corner "''Cum privil. Sa Cae. M. – Gerardus Leydanus Pictor ad S. Ia Bapt. Harlemi pinxit''" indicating he was a painter from Leiden
Leiden (; in English and archaic Dutch also Leyden) is a city and municipality in the province of South Holland, Netherlands. The municipality of Leiden has a population of 119,713, but the city forms one densely connected agglomeration w ...
at St John the Baptist in Haarlem. In the lower right hand corner it says "''Theodorus Matham Sculpsit. Iac Matham excud.''", which means that son Theo made the sketch from the painting, and father Jacob Matham engraved it. It was printed in Haarlem in 1620, indicating that the painting was still there at that time. According to van Mander, this painting of the ''Lamentation'' was originally on the inside right door of a wood-panel triptych
A triptych ( ; from the Greek adjective ''τρίπτυχον'' "''triptukhon''" ("three-fold"), from ''tri'', i.e., "three" and ''ptysso'', i.e., "to fold" or ''ptyx'', i.e., "fold") is a work of art (usually a panel painting) that is divided ...
for the high altar of the St. John's church in Haarlem, and the two side panels were sawed off from the central panel into two separate paintings after the Protestant Reformation
The Reformation (alternatively named the Protestant Reformation or the European Reformation) was a major movement within Western Christianity in 16th-century Europe that posed a religious and political challenge to the Catholic Church and i ...
. Both side panels are quite fragile and are located in separate museums today. Modern acceptance of Leiden as Geertgen's birthplace is roughly traceable to Johann Kessler's dissertation of 1930.
He died, probably still in his twenties, around the year 1495, in Haarlem, where he was buried in the commandry. Modern scholars have attempted to calculate the artist's death date with the information from ''The Painting-Book'' (Middle Dutch
Middle Dutch is a collective name for a number of closely related West Germanic dialects whose ancestor was Old Dutch. It was spoken and written between 1150 and 1500. Until the advent of Modern Dutch after 1500 or c. 1550, there was no overarc ...
: ''Het Schilder-boeck
or is a book written by the Flemish writer and painter Karel van Mander first published in 1604 in Haarlem in the Dutch Republic, where van Mander resided. The book is written in 17th-century Dutch and its title is commonly translated into En ...
'') by Karel van Mander
Karel van Mander (I) or Carel van Mander I (May 1548 – 2 September 1606) was a Flemish painter, poet, art historian and art theoretician, who established himself in the Dutch Republic in the latter part of his life. He is mainly remembere ...
, published in 1604. The reconstruction of Geertgen's active dates has recently been done by Kemperdick and Sander in 2007 stating:
:(Geertgen's) two paintings in Vienna indicate a self-assured artist; of the works attributed to Geertgen, they are certainly among the most mature and independent. If the artist was really only twenty-eight when he died, then the altarpiece began at about thirteen years of age and lasted four to six years, so that Geertgen can have ended his training at the earliest by the age of about eighteen. Should he have gone to work for one or two years as a journeyman, then the age at which he began to live by his art correspondingly rises. Accordingly, Geertgen worked a maximum of ten years independently. ...If one now dates the altarpiece for the Knights of St John to around 1490, then Geertgen must, roughly speaking, have been born around 1462/1467 – after the inscription on Matham's engraving in Leiden – and would have begun his apprenticeship around 1475/80.
In the 14th century Haarlem was a major city. It was the second largest city in historical Holland after Dordrecht
Dordrecht (), historically known in English as Dordt (still colloquially used in Dutch, ) or Dort, is a city and municipality in the Western Netherlands, located in the province of South Holland. It is the province's fifth-largest city after ...
and before Delft
Delft () is a city and municipality in the province of South Holland, Netherlands. It is located between Rotterdam, to the southeast, and The Hague, to the northwest. Together with them, it is part of both the Rotterdam–The Hague metropolita ...
, Leiden
Leiden (; in English and archaic Dutch also Leyden) is a city and municipality in the province of South Holland, Netherlands. The municipality of Leiden has a population of 119,713, but the city forms one densely connected agglomeration w ...
, Amsterdam
Amsterdam ( , , , lit. ''The Dam on the River Amstel'') is the capital and most populous city of the Netherlands, with The Hague being the seat of government. It has a population of 907,976 within the city proper, 1,558,755 in the urban ar ...
, Gouda and Rotterdam
Rotterdam ( , , , lit. ''The Dam on the River Rotte (river), Rotte'') is the second largest List of cities in the Netherlands by province, city and List of municipalities of the Netherlands, municipality in the Netherlands. It is in the Prov ...
. In 1429 the city gained the right to collect tolls, including ships passing the city on the Spaarne river. At the end of the Middle Ages
In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the late 5th to the late 15th centuries, similar to the post-classical period of global history. It began with the fall of the Western Roman Empire ...
Haarlem was a flourishing city with a large textile industry, shipyards and beer breweries.
Around 1428 the city was put under siege by the army of Jacqueline, Countess of Hainaut. Haarlem had taken sides with the Cods in the Hook and Cod wars, and thus against Jacoba of Bavaria. The entire Haarlemmerhout wood was burnt down by the enemy. In 1469 the commandry of St. John in Haarlem was promoted to a special status that fell directly under the grand Prior of Germany. Before that it was a subordinate commandry of the Balij of Utrecht, which had 12 commandries reporting to it. The commandry of St. John became quite wealthy from donations by the local families Berkenrode, Assendelft
Assendelft () is a town in the province of North Holland, Netherlands. It is a part of the municipality of Zaanstad. Assendelft was a separate municipality until 1974, when the municipality of Zaanstad was formed. However, Assendelft didn't want ...
, van Brederode, Tetrode
A tetrode is a vacuum tube (called ''valve'' in British English) having four active electrodes. The four electrodes in order from the centre are: a thermionic cathode, first and second grids and a plate (called ''anode'' in British English). ...
, Schoten, and Adrichem. Schoten was also the location of a St. Lazarus church (currently part of Het Dolhuys) that later came into the possession of the St. Janskerk.
Geertgen painted ''The Lamentation of Christ'' for the altarpiece
An altarpiece is an artwork such as a painting, sculpture or relief representing a religious subject made for placing at the back of or behind the altar of a Christian church. Though most commonly used for a single work of art such as a painting ...
of the church of the Knights of Saint John
The Order of Knights of the Hospital of Saint John of Jerusalem ( la, Ordo Fratrum Hospitalis Sancti Ioannis Hierosolymitani), commonly known as the Knights Hospitaller (), was a medieval and early modern Catholic military order. It was headqu ...
in Haarlem. The painting Lamentation was copied by Jacob Matham in 1620, a mirror image engraving, that includes a Latin poem by 
Joan Albert Ban Joan Albert Ban (1597–1644) was a Dutch Catholic priest and composer.
Life
From 1628-42 he was canon priest of the Haarlem chapter (Kapittel). In 1630 he became priest of the Begijnhof in Haarlem, across the street from the Janskerk (Haarlem).
M ...
, a dedication to Jacob van Campen, and Latin quote by Albrecht Dürer
Albrecht Dürer (; ; hu, Ajtósi Adalbert; 21 May 1471 – 6 April 1528),Müller, Peter O. (1993) ''Substantiv-Derivation in Den Schriften Albrecht Dürers'', Walter de Gruyter. . sometimes spelled in English as Durer (without an umlaut) or Due ...
, showing that three men were inspired by this painting. The other side of this altarpiece is showing the burning of the bones of St. John and probably contains a group portrait of the Haarlem members of the order of St. John, with the Commandeur or Precepteur holding the finger of St. John. The St. John's church in 
Haarlem
Haarlem (; predecessor of ''Harlem'' in English) is a city and municipality in the Netherlands. It is the capital of the province of North Holland. Haarlem is situated at the northern edge of the Randstad, one of the most populated metropoli ...
is where this painting formed the main altarpiece, currently home for the North Holland Archives.
Painting
Of the paintings mentioned by Van Mander, the only one to survive is one wing of his triptych
A triptych ( ; from the Greek adjective ''τρίπτυχον'' "''triptukhon''" ("three-fold"), from ''tri'', i.e., "three" and ''ptysso'', i.e., "to fold" or ''ptyx'', i.e., "fold") is a work of art (usually a panel painting) that is divided ...
for an altar of the Knights of St. John
The Order of Knights of the Hospital of Saint John of Jerusalem ( la, Ordo Fratrum Hospitalis Sancti Ioannis Hierosolymitani), commonly known as the Knights Hospitaller (), was a medieval and early modern Catholic military order. It was headqu ...
at Haarlem, the two sides of which were sawn apart in about 1600, and are now in Vienna
en, Viennese
, iso_code = AT-9
, registration_plate = W
, postal_code_type = Postal code
, postal_code =
, timezone = CET
, utc_offset = +1
, timezone_DST ...
as ''The Legend of the Relics of St. John the Baptist
John the Baptist or , , or , ;Wetterau, Bruce. ''World history''. New York: Henry Holt and Company. 1994. syc, ܝܘܿܚܲܢܵܢ ܡܲܥܡܕ݂ܵܢܵܐ, Yoḥanān Maʿmḏānā; he, יוחנן המטביל, Yohanān HaMatbil; la, Ioannes Bapti ...
'', and the '' Lamentation of Jesus''. The rest was destroyed during the siege of Haarlem in 1573.
As is typical of the art of the time it was done primarily on oak panels with oil paints made by mixing pigments with drying oil. This allowed the painter to build up layers of paint to provide different visual effects.
The number of works attributed to him (varying between 12 and 16) is under dispute among scholars who discuss the artist (Kessler, Boon, Snyder, Chatelet, Fiero, and Koch).
His paintings are in the collections of the Rijksmuseum
The Rijksmuseum () is the national museum of the Netherlands dedicated to Dutch arts and history and is located in Amsterdam. The museum is located at the Museum Square in the borough of Amsterdam South, close to the Van Gogh Museum, the ...
in Amsterdam, the Gemäldegalerie in Berlin
Berlin ( , ) is the capital and largest city of Germany by both area and population. Its 3.7 million inhabitants make it the European Union's most populous city, according to population within city limits. One of Germany's sixteen constitu ...
, the National Gallery, London
The National Gallery is an art museum in Trafalgar Square in the City of Westminster, in Central London, England. Founded in 1824, it houses a collection of over 2,300 paintings dating from the mid-13th century to 1900. The current Director of ...
('' Nativity at Night''), the Musée du Louvre
The Louvre ( ), or the Louvre Museum ( ), is the world's most-visited museum, and an historic landmark in Paris, France. It is the home of some of the best-known works of art, including the ''Mona Lisa'' and the ''Venus de Milo''. A central l ...
(''The raising of Lazarus'') in Paris
Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. Si ...
, Museum Catharijneconvent
The Museum Catharijneconvent (St. Catherine's Convent Museum) is a museum of religious art in Utrecht, Netherlands. It is located in the former St. Catharine convent, having been sited there since 1979. Its collections include many artifacts f ...
in Utrecht
Utrecht ( , , ) is the fourth-largest city and a municipality of the Netherlands, capital and most populous city of the province of Utrecht. It is located in the eastern corner of the Randstad conurbation, in the very centre of mainland Net ...
(''Man of Sorrows'') and the Kunsthistorisches Museum
The Kunsthistorisches Museum ( "Museum of Art History", often referred to as the "Museum of Fine Arts") is an art museum in Vienna, Austria. Housed in its festive palatial building on the Vienna Ring Road, it is crowned with an octagonal d ...
in Vienna
en, Viennese
, iso_code = AT-9
, registration_plate = W
, postal_code_type = Postal code
, postal_code =
, timezone = CET
, utc_offset = +1
, timezone_DST ...
.
Reception
Van Mander states thatAlbrecht Dürer
Albrecht Dürer (; ; hu, Ajtósi Adalbert; 21 May 1471 – 6 April 1528),Müller, Peter O. (1993) ''Substantiv-Derivation in Den Schriften Albrecht Dürers'', Walter de Gruyter. . sometimes spelled in English as Durer (without an umlaut) or Due ...
said of Geertgen "Truly he was a painter in his mother's womb", although Dürer's journal of his Netherlandish travels doesn't mention the painter, and it has been suggested that Van Mander was using a form of epideictic rhetoric to build esteem for a fellow Haarlemer.
Technique
Like most painters of his time, he painted withoil paint
Oil paint is a type of slow-drying paint that consists of particles of pigment suspended in a drying oil, commonly linseed oil. The viscosity of the paint may be modified by the addition of a solvent such as turpentine or white spirit, and ...
on wood panels. His paintings depict scenes derived from the New Testament
The New Testament grc, Ἡ Καινὴ Διαθήκη, transl. ; la, Novum Testamentum. (NT) is the second division of the Christian biblical canon. It discusses the teachings and person of Jesus, as well as events in first-century Chris ...
and belong to the early Dutch School. Some of his paintings were destroyed during the Reformation
The Reformation (alternatively named the Protestant Reformation or the European Reformation) was a major movement within Western Christianity in 16th-century Europe that posed a religious and political challenge to the Catholic Church and in ...
. Around twelve surviving paintings are attributed to him (see below), with others believed to be copies by others of lost originals by him. Painting at that time was a trade to which one entered by apprenticeship at a young age in an established workshop. With modern techniques it is now possible to see some underdrawings that Geertgen made on his panels.
Portrayal of music
In his '' The Glorification of the Virgin'', also known as ''Madonna with Musical Angels'' and originally part of the so-called ''Rotterdam-Edinburgh Diptych'', the figures of Maria and the infant Jesus are surrounded by three concentric rings which appear to be surrounding a central halo. This "halo" is usually associated with the biblical verse in the Book of Revelation referring to the woman clothed in the Sun, interpreted as representing the Madonna in heaven.''The Technology of Salvation and the Art of Gertgen Tot Sint Jans.'' Chapter 2, pp. 37–60.
The original diptych was first presented with a left panel of identical size usually referred to as Geertgen's ''Passion of Christ''. Within the concentric rings of the halo in the ''Madonna with Musical Angels'' panel are found a variety of musical instruments. This painting shows some of the oldest pictures of musical instruments known in the Netherlands (c.1480–1490). In the central depiction of the infant Jesus with the Madonna, the infant Jesus is depicted as playing a pair of bells, and seems to be playing music as if in response to one of the angels in the outermost concentric ring, holding an identical set of bells and looking directly back at the infant Jesus.
List of works
*'' The raising of Lazarus'' (1480s) *'' St Bavo with falcon'' (c. 1490) *'' The Lamentation of Christ'' (after 1484) *'' The Holy Kinship'' (c. 1485–1496) *''
The Adoration of the Magi
The Adoration of the Magi or Adoration of the Kings is the name traditionally given to the subject in the Nativity of Jesus in art in which the three Magi, represented as kings, especially in the West, having found Jesus by following a star ...
'' (c. 1480–1485)
*'' Adoration of the Kings'' (c. 1485)
*'' St Bavo with Donor'' – the left side of the ''Adoration of the Kings'' from ca. 1485
*'' St. Hadrian with Donor'' – the right side of the ''Adoration of the Kings'' from ca. 1485
*'' Madonna and child'' (c. 1490)
*'' John the Baptist in the Wilderness'' (c. 1490)
*'' The Glorification of the Virgin'' (c. 1490–1495), also named ''Virgin and Child''
*'' Nativity at Night'' (c. 1490?)
Notes
:* The title is ''Geschiedenis van het gebeente (beenderen) van Johannes de Doper'' inDutch
Dutch commonly refers to:
* Something of, from, or related to the Netherlands
* Dutch people ()
* Dutch language ()
Dutch may also refer to:
Places
* Dutch, West Virginia, a community in the United States
* Pennsylvania Dutch Country
People E ...
.
:* For more information on Karel van Mander
Karel van Mander (I) or Carel van Mander I (May 1548 – 2 September 1606) was a Flemish painter, poet, art historian and art theoretician, who established himself in the Dutch Republic in the latter part of his life. He is mainly remembere ...
's "nationalistic" project, see Walter Melion's ''Shaping the Netherlandish Canon''.
References
*National Gallery Catalogues (new series): ''The Fifteenth Century Netherlandish Paintings'', Lorne Campbell, 1998, * Deugd boven geweld, Een geschiedenis van Haarlem, 1245–1995, edited by Gineke van der Ree-Scholtens, 1995, * Geertgen was hier: meesterschilder, lekenbroeder en inspirator, 2009, exhibition catalog edited by Maarten Brock, Amstelveen,External links
Geertgen tot Sint Jans
at the Rijksmuseum Amsterdam
Geertgen van Haarlem
in ''Northern Renaissance Art'' (1966) by Wolfgang Stechow *