Many viewers have contemplated over the mysterious curtains held up by two prophets on either side of the panel of Hugo van der Goes’ Adoration of the Shepherds, now in Berlin. Some say it alludes to the story of Parrhasius and Zeuxis,...
moreMany viewers have contemplated over the mysterious curtains held up by two prophets on either side of the panel of Hugo van der Goes’ Adoration of the Shepherds, now in Berlin. Some say it alludes to the story of Parrhasius and Zeuxis, battling for fame, others see it as a reference to curtains often draped over altarpieces, which this work was undoubtedly meant to be. A third group, to which this article belongs, sees a connection with contemporary theatre.
The mystery plays held during the Christmas mass show remarkable similarities to the scene depicted by Van der Goes in the later years of his life. The story seems to take place on a raised platform or stage with the two prophets serving as mediator between the public and the divine scene. The Old Testament men holding up the curtains seem to be taken straight from descriptions of the Ordo Prophetarum, a medieval liturgical play performed on Christmas day. In other descriptions of fifteenth-century nativity plays the angels are described as they are rendered here, the comedic figures of the shepherds too show similarities in their clownish behavior, just as the figure of the donkey. This article will argue that the painting doesn’t simply reference the play, but that it is a representation of a scene from the nativity plays that were held in many cities in the Netherlands at that time. Just after the shepherds were asked the question ‘who are you looking for’ and they had answered, the prophets, who had predicted to coming of the savior, would lift up the curtains to reveal the newborn child.
Furthermore Van der Goes’ motives to do so will be discussed in light of his newfound religious convictions. At the end of his career he became an Augustinian lay brother in a monastery adherent to the Modern Devotion. Through simplicity and immediacy, with the vernacular as its instrument, his movement sought immaterial transcendence. ‘When a learned man, for instance, hears something sacred expressed in his mother tongue, he seems to conceive in his mind something new or fresh by way of that mother tongue’. (Geert Grote, founder of the Modern Devotion) By making something recognizable Van der Goes used painting in the same way as priests used the vernacular. By bringing the scene of the adoration closer to the everyday life of the beholder, so this article will argue, Van der Goes attempted to aid the viewer in understanding of the depiction and to conceive something new or fresh. The adoration is as it were a step on the way to immaterial transcendence.
