Hermen Rode (fl. c. 1468 – c. 1504) was a German Gothic painter.

Life and works

Very little is known about Rode. He lived and worked in

Lübeck Lübeck (; or ; Latin: ), officially the Hanseatic League, Hanseatic City of Lübeck (), is a city in Northern Germany. With around 220,000 inhabitants, it is the second-largest city on the German Baltic Sea, Baltic coast and the second-larg ...

, and from 1468 owned a house on Johannisstrasse street in the city, implying a certain degree of wealth and fame. A number of altarpieces have been attributed to him, although only one bears his signature: the altarpiece of St. Luke, executed 1484 for St. Catherine's church in Lübeck and today in St. Anne's Museum, Lübeck. Several of the altarpieces attributed to Rode are today found in different parts of

Sweden Sweden, formally the Kingdom of Sweden, is a Nordic countries, Nordic country located on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. It borders Norway to the west and north, and Finland to the east. At , Sweden is the largest Nordic count ...

and seem to have been made specifically for a Swedish market, as they include depictions of national Swedish saints. Some of these paintings are now in the

Swedish Museum of National Antiquities The Swedish History Museum () is a museum located in Stockholm, Sweden, that covers Swedish archaeology and cultural history from the Mesolithic period to present day. Founded in 1866, it operates as a government agency and is tasked with preservi ...

, while others are in churches around the country, such as an altar dedicated to St. Mary in Sorunda church and an altarpiece dedicated to St. Gertrude and St. Dorothy in Falsterbo church. One of Rode's most imposing works of art is his mature High Altar of St. Nicholas' Church, Tallinn. It is currently on display at the Niguliste Museum, branch of the

Art Museum of Estonia The Art Museum of Estonia () was established in 1919. Originally based in Kadriorg Palace, the museum has expanded across several sites and today exhibits both international and local art works. At the end of the 1970s, in the 1980s the first br ...

. This painting includes the first known view of the skyline of

with its then eight church towers as background. Of his art, ''The Grove Encyclopedia of Northern Renaissance Art'' notes that it displays: In his importance he stands equally next to his fellow countryman

Bernt Notke Bernt Notke (; – before May 1509) was a late Gothic artist from the Baltic region. He has been described as one of the foremost artists of his time in northern Europe. Life Very little is known about the life of Bernt Notke. The Notke fa ...

. Together they were the most important exporters of art into the countries around the

Baltic Sea The Baltic Sea is an arm of the Atlantic Ocean that is enclosed by the countries of Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Germany, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Russia, Sweden, and the North European Plain, North and Central European Plain regions. It is the ...

Gallery

File:Hermen Rode 001.jpg, St. Luke's Altar (Lübeck), ca. 1484 File:Niguliste church.altar.jpg, High Altar of St. Nicholas church (Tallinn), ca. 1478-1481 File:SorundaChurch 2triptych.jpg, Altarpiece (Sorunda, Sweden), date unknown File:WP Hinrich Lipperade.jpg, Portrait of Hinrich Lipperade, ca. 1480-1490

References

External links

Picture gallery images from Hermen Rode's altarpiece for St. Nicholas' church, Tallinn, at the Art Museum of EstoniaLübeck's and Tallinn's altar multimedia exhibition
{{DEFAULTSORT:Rode, Hermen 15th-century births 16th-century deaths 15th-century German painters German male painters 16th-century German painters Gothic painters Artists from Lübeck