Hugo van der Goes (1474 to 76). Portinari Altarpiece (open) [tempera and oil on wood]. Galleria degli Uffizi, Florence.

A sense of heaviness within the mind space of the observer is inspired. There is motion present, but it is implied, generated from stationary subjects and calibrated to the minimal amount required to create two centers of gravity on the slight figure of the Child, and the cluster of objects bottom-center of the canvas. While the artist does not aim to create chaos on the canvas, he successfully builds a sense of disquiet. This painting reveals the ground-breaking realism western artists had achieved in the fifteenth century, as well as the multilayered purposes behind it (message, inspiration, optical realism, formal cohesiveness).

Shapes and subject blocks are built through roughly equal measures of color and value contrast. Van der Goes uses intersecting lines of motion by arranging vertically-repeating straight edges and figurative shapes moving at roughly cross-angles to multiple lines of sight. Logical differences when the scenes are compared against each other imply separate moments of time, as though the depicted act of blessing and praying for the Messiah occupied a handful of hours in the same day. The illusion of depth is well crafted through modelling, calibration of interior shape details and hints of convergence and atmospheric perspective. Part of this blending is the somewhat subjective use of value, where tones bleed in to adjacent areas as the scenes recede.

Each scene carries the same balanced pictorial weight, resulting in a repetition of this effect when taken in combination. Vertically-oriented subjects are arranged on laterally-oriented scenes. Distortions in scale are present across all scenes. Some figures are appropriately sized, while others seem unnaturally diminished and slight. Harmonic relationships based on the dimensions of color, tone, shape type and value create an image with supernatural subject matter and optical fidelity. This groundwork presents this triptychs complicated content/tone blend foremost against it’s other components.

Secondary areas of interest are built on individual interactions. For example, the gesture and strikingly contrasting dress of the slightly haloed shepherd figure, and the interaction between the young women on the opposite panel. The observer prays with the mourners and angels, close at-hand. Shifts in place and time are organized by the individual panels.

The time periods and perspectives of the three scenes are the same. The terminal scenes show devotees and mourners praying, while the right has a procession slowly filing in to pay their respects. The lower-most mortal and immortal figures seem to be praying to a bushel of straw and decaying flowers, while the rest are gesturing to the Child. Van der Goes has subtly installed tension and confusion in this complicated work in terms of time and interest.

The terminal panels represent through well-known biblical figures the commissioners of this series of works and their families. The cluster of objects center-bottom of the middle panel require an entire essay on their own to fully explore. The bushel is of wheat; the vase is decorated with a grape and vine motif; the glass is rendered with the passage of light; there are seven columbines, dying violets, a single red lily and three irises (two white, one purple). It turns out they are soaked in symbolic meaning.