Day 228 - Durer and David



 December 26, 2020

Gallery 603 houses paintings of religious scenes by 15th and 16 century Northern and Italian painters. It turns out that interconnections and influences are a major theme of this new installation, and that is very clear in this gallery. We see how Bellini influenced Durer and Memling influenced ... everyone. 

The Durer painting, entitled "Virgin and Child with Saint Anne," was painted in oil on wood around 1519 and measures approximately 24 inches high and 18 inches wide.  The three figures occupy almost the entire canvas and have a kind of solidity I associate with Italian works of the period - partly a result of Durer's trips to Italy, I assume. Both the composition (a triangle, essentially) and the color scheme (shades of rose in the Virgin's dress and in the flesh tones of the faces; white in Saint Anne's garment, which looks like a nun's habit) are simple, so that our attention is drawn to the expressions of the figures. Again, the Virgin appears incredibly young to me - maybe 14 or so - and her mother not that much older. Mary's hands are folded in prayer, but both she and the infant seem to be lost in peaceful sleep.  What isn't peaceful is the gaze of Saint Anne, whose eyes are wide open. The placard describing the painting suggests that Anne has a premonition of Christ's Passion, and I would agree.

(Parenthetically, I want to note that all the paintings in these galleries are accompanied by brief texts, which are generally excellent, I wish this were true throughout the museum.) 

In contrast, the "Virgin and Child with Four Angels," painted by Gerard David in oil on wood around 1510-1515, is a small work (perhaps 24 inches tall and 16 inches wide) that strikes me as full of a quiet joy. The Virgin, clad in an eye-catching red dress, is shown standing in an arched doorway that opens onto a serene landscape that's partly real (the placard identifies the city in the backdrop as contemporary Bruges) but undoubtedly also partly imaginary (I don't recall any snow-covered mountains anywhere near Bruges!)   The four angels are much smaller in scale than the Virgin. Two, clad in swirling robes, hover in the air, holding a crown over the Virgin's head; one of these has the rainbow-hued wings I've seen in other works of the period.  But for me, what makes this such a happy scene are the two musician angels, stationed on either side of the Virgin.  They serenade her with a lyre and a mandolin. 


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