St John Altarpiece (Memling)

[5] The Bruges civic authorities financed the hospital and oversaw its direction until the 1440s when a fiscal crisis resulted in decreased funding and increased supervision.

The hospital brothers and sisters placed themselves under the authority of the Bishop of Tournai, Jean Chevrot, directly aligned with Philip the Good.

[4] Memling probably began work on the piece as early as 1473, when plans were made to extend the already large 240-bed infirmary, which, with two patients per bed, served about 500 people.

[12] He is shown on the left hand panel with his emblematic pig, next to St James; the two saints stand behind two kneeling male donors.

He faces the center of the panel, flanked by his patron saint, Anthony, who leans on a tau staff with one hand and holds a bible in the other.

[13] Although the figures seem to be in two niches, they are enclosed in a single shallow space, with stone walls behind, trefoil arches above, and two columns adorning the outermost edges.

Harbison writes of Memling that "he has implied more strongly than earlier artists that it is donors' prayers which bridge the gap or crack leading to the visionary heart of the triptych.

[20] As a devotional piece it presents a narrative, meant to emulate a vision the donors or viewers would experience when viewing the inside panels.

[18] Unlike most altarpieces of these types, Memling's fails to present a single unifying iconographical focus and is quite generalized with themes that seem unsuited for its specific location, according to Blum.

It is an unusual painting in that it seems to "have served a double function: that of personal propitiation and that of public altarpiece, which portrayed the role of the religious community within the hospital and venerated the saints who might particularly favor the sick".

[22] The iconography conveys the hospital's brothers' and sisters' daily lives, including both their quiet religious devotion and their struggle against illness; borne out in the choice of patron saints.

He juxtaposed "an Italianate monumentality and simplification of form with a northern sense of atmosphere and light in a format that often placed his subjects before a charming locally inspired landscape background", according to Ainsworth.

[25] The central panel, called the Mystic Marriage of St Catherine, depicts Mary seated on a throne beneath a baldachin covered with sumptuous brocade.

[8] St Catherine of Alexandria, the patron saint of nuns,[22] sits to the left of the throne with her emblems, the breaking wheel on which she was tortured and the sword used for her beheading.

St Barbara, patron of soldiers,[22] sits opposite reading a missal in front of her emblem (the tower in which her father held her prisoner), which is shaped as a monstrance meant to hold the sacramental bread.

[8] Weale thought Catherine was an early portrait of Mary of Burgundy and that Memling's Barbara is perhaps the earliest likeness of Margaret of York.

[21] A subgenre of the more established sacra conversazione, Virgo inter Virgines became popular in Germany and the Low Countries in the 15th century.

[30] The more mundane and secular activities in the background, as evidenced by the image of the city crane used by the hospital to measure and fill wine barrels, place the altarpiece's spiritual vision in a worldly context.

[5] His headless body lies in the left foreground and seems to reach out of the picture,[5] as blood spurts from his severed neck, spraying his hands and the nearby plants.

Van der Weyden's depiction of St John's beheading includes the next sequence in the event: Salome delivering the head to the banquet table where her mother, Herodias, stabs it.

Furthermore, van der Weyden follows the prevailing iconography with Salome and the executioner, who were pagan and thus not permitted to look at the head (or that which it symbolized), twisting away and averting their gaze.

[33] In the far distance we can see the River Jordan with the Baptism of Jesus by John and as the skies open; the divine Dove, symbol of God the Holy Spirit, descending from heaven.

[5] John introduces Andrew and James to Christ on the riverbank, the same two apostles who are in Herod's courtyard, where they visited the Baptist during his imprisonment.

[23] In the mid-ground below on a sea, which Ridderbos likens to glass crystal, are the apparitions released as the seals are broken; the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse gallop across the flat islands, "scattering, spoiling, and slaying".

[41] According to Ridderbos, "We see hail and fire burning trees and grass, a burning mountain cast into the sea destroying ships, a falling star that poisons the waters, a wailing eagle, a second falling star that opens a bottomless pit from which monstrous locusts arise, and four angels and their horsemen sent out to kill".

On the horizon it finally surrenders its power to another seven-headed beast, like a leopard, which rises from the sea",[23] and Michael casts Satan out of heaven.

The dominant and largest features are John the Evangelist recording his visions at the bottom right, and God in Heaven at the top left.

[3] Another similar Memling work is the Diptych of Jean Cellier held at the Louvre, which Georges Hulin de Loo determined to have been completed earlier than the St John Altarpiece and the New York panel.

[43] The painting is heavily influenced by van der Weyden and contains elements characteristic of his later work; it is perhaps the first of his enthroned Virgins – with angels playing musical instruments or hovering holding her crown.

The blend of colors, her red dress, the blue angels, and in this triptych, a dark-green silk carpet-type floor-covering, are found, repeatedly, in his later paintings.