BERNHARD RIDDERBOS Hugo van der Goes's Death of the Virgin and the Modern Devotion: an analysis of a creative process* Introduction The provenance of the Death of the Ilirgin by Hugo van der Goes, in Bruges (fig. i ), can be traced back to the late eighteenth century. According to a catalogue of rare and precious pictures in mortmain at Bruges, composed in 1777, it was in the possession of the Cistercian Abbey of the Dunes and painted by Jan van Scorel. We do not know, however, whether it was made for this abbey, that in Van der Goes's time was located in Koksijde. Since the end of the nineteenth century the panel has been ascribed to Hugo van der Goes, and this attribution is generally accepted.` In contrast to the majority of the connoisseurs, according to whom the Death of the Virgin should be considered a late work by Van der Goes, who died in 1481 or 1483, Otto Pacht dated it before the Portinari Altarpicce on which the artist must have been working around 1475, although it is uncertain when he started or finished its execution.2 An early date of the Death of the Virgin would be supported, Picht argued, by its supposed influence on an engraving with the same subject by Martin Schongauer, that was made after his visit to the Netherlands in 1469-1470 (fig. 2); at this occasion Schongauer could have seen the painting. Pacht invented a whole new theory on Van der Goes's artistic development, which he based on similarities of facial types. This implied that not only the Death of'tbe llirgin but also other works generally assigned to Hugo's ultima maniera, such as thc Adoration of the Shepherds, (fig. 3), would havc originated, together with the Monforte Altarpiece, before the Portinari Altarpiece and the Bonkil panels. The problem of the chronology of Van der Goes's works, which also concerned small-sized works, especially the diptych with the Fall of lvlan and the Lamentation, has been the subject of a study by Jochen Sander, who examined a number of these small works with technical methods, such as infrared reflectography.3 He concluded, among other things, that the panel with the Fall of Man dates from the same, early, years during which the Monforte Altarpiece was painted (c. 1467-1472), whereas the Lamentation (fig. 16) belongs to the artist's late period (c. 1477-1482), which ended with the Adoration of the Shepherds and the Death of the Virgin. Schongauer, Sander argued, was not influenced by Hugo van der Goes's painting but, on the contrary, Van der Goes used the engraving as one of his models. Recently, technical investigations of the Monforte Altarpiece and the Adoration of the Shepherds published by Rainald Grosshans have corroborated the view that the latter work and the Death of the Ilirgin are late paintings. Grosshans concludes: 'The change in style between the Monforte Altarpiece as Van der Goes's earliest large work, the Portinari Altarpiece as the pivotal work of his mature period and the Adoration o f 'the Shepherds and the Death qfthe Ilirgin as late works is evident.'4 Thus, the view already shared by most scholars before technical research on Van der Goes's paintings developed, namely that the Death of the Ifirgin originated during the last years of his life, need not to be doubted any longer. However, there is no agreement as to how the artistic character of this work can be explained, although authors have paid much attention to its peculiar style and have made many valuable I I. Hugovan der Goes,Dearth ofthe Yirgin,c. I48o-I48z,panel, 147,8 x 121,5cm (originally134,5 x 12 6,5 cm). Bruges,Stedelijke Musea, Groeningemuseum.Photo: Lukas, Art in Flanders. observations. Therefore, a number of these observations are summarized here, followed by a discussion of different interpretations of the picture as a specimen of his late style. My own interpretation will start from the relationship between the Adoration of the Shepherds and ideas on meditation propagated by the spiritual movement of the Modern Devotion, of which Hugo van der Goes was a member at the time he painted his late works. Subsequently, two earlier compositions of a Death of the Virgin by Hugo's hand, which are lost but known through copies, will be considered in order to analysc the creative process that led to the Bruges panel. I will try to demonstrate that ideals of the Modern Devotion were not only of importance to the Adoration, but also played a decisive part in this process. Former observations and interpretations ; a critical assessment When the Death of the Ilirgin was exhibited in the famous exposition of the Primitif.s flamands at Bruges, in r9o2, James Wealc pointed in his catalogue to the 'sentiment r6pandu sur les figures; while the remarkable palette made him wrongly assume that the colours had lost their harmony because of a removal of the glazes during a 2 .