David, the Virgin and Child with Saints and Donor
Look at that gold stitching on the red fabric
and the ermine lining of the clothing worn by St. Catherine.
And on St. Barbara, look at the jewels in her headdress.
They're just spectacular.
Look at the perfection of the white lilies
in the garden between Mary and St. Barbara.
Or between Catherine and Mary.
Look at the iris.
It looks like it's got dew on it.
Look at the transparency of the fabric
Or how about the grape arbor in the background?
Each leaf is carefully delineated.
Look at the perfect foreshortening
of St. Catherine's right hand.
Not to mention the foreshortening
of the tiles on the floor.
And then, look at the way in which the folds are falling out
of the gray garment on top of the fur worn by the patron.
And what about the red fabric underneath Mary's feet
and the way that her blue gown with the gold stitching
at the edges falls over that?
And then, of course, there's the infinity
of the city in back of the garden.
It looks like there's a crane on the chimney
of the house on the left.
Perhaps there's a woman in the window.
The tiles of the roof are visible.
There's so much to see in this painting.
We're looking at Gerhard David's The Virgin and Child
with Saints and Donor, which brings together
not only the patron, the man who paid for the painting,
a series of female saints, but Mary and the Christ child.
As well as an angel and Saint Anthony Abbott,
who can just barely be seen in the garden beyond.
We know that the patron was a senior cleric
for a church in Bruges, who was restoring a chapel
dedicated to Saint Anthony Abbott,
and that this altarpiece was probably made for that chapel.
So this is that aspect of Northern painting
that I find so compelling.
This deep sense of spirituality that's combined
with this interest in the precise rendering
of the material world.
Right, it's the way that the material world
reveals the spiritual that's such a part
of the Northern Renaissance.
The care that David took with everything in this painting
makes our eye want to linger,
helping us to meditate on these figures.
The more learned viewer would also recognize
quite a number of symbols in this painting.
For instance, on the extreme left side,
we see an angel who's clearly picking grapes
from the arbor, and that's a reference
to the wine of the Eucharist and Christ's announcement
at the Last Supper, that that was his blood.
And then we have Saint Catherine,
who's accompanied by her attributes, a wheel and a sword.
We have the enclosed garden itself,
which is a traditional symbol of Mary's virginity.
And we have the lilies and the irises.
The lily is a symbol of Mary's virginity.
The iris, a symbol of her faithfulness.
And then on the right side, in the lap of Mary Magdalene,
a jar of ointment, a reminder
that she anointed the feet of Christ.
But for all the solemnity,
there's a little bit of activity as well.
You see Christ in Mary's lap,
but Christ is reaching over towards Catherine,
and he's handing her a ring.
And this is a reminder that she was martyred,
according to legend, because she refused
to marry the emperor of Rome,
because she said she was already married to Christ.
And we also see Mary Magdalene reaching out
to a page of the Bible that is held by St. Barbara.
So there's little bits of activity and informality
within this otherwise very solemn and serious image.