| Summary: | 碩士 === 國立臺灣師範大學 === 藝術史研究所 === 104 === The present study is dedicated to a particular type of altarpiece in the work of the German-Dutch painter Hans Memling (c. 1435–1490), which combines a continuous series of representational scenes and narrative episodes in a unified picture space. Two of Memling’s works handed down to us follow this scheme: a panel representing scenes from the Passion of Christ in the Galleria Sabauda in Turin, which can be dated around 1470, and the so-called Seven Joys of the Virgin of 1480 with episodes of the life of Christ and the Virgin and scenes from the legend of the Magi, today in the Alte Pinakothek in Munich. In the early 1970s, the German art historian Ehrenfried Kluckert coined the term “Simultanbild” for this category of altarpiece, an expression which is still nowadays commonly used by scholars.
In order to intensify the view on Memling’s narrative mode and to obtain more results concerning the position of this genre of painting in the master’s complete œuvre, this survey will concentrate on one single work, the Seven Joys of the Virgin in Munich, which had been created for the altar of the tanners’ chapel in the Church of Our Lady in Bruges. Recent studies have connected this altarpiece with devotional practices performed on the occasion of the major Church festivals in late medieval Flanders. Scholars have moreover argued that the painting may have invited contemporary viewers to a spiritual pilgrimage in reference to 15th-century religious texts that helped readers to imagine the events of Christ’s life and passion in terms of undertaking an imaginary pilgrimage to the Holy Land. While recent studies on Memling’s Simultanbilder were mainly focused on the works’ religious function and thus considered the paintings in general, the complex microcosm of the single narrative scenes was rather neglected.
It cannot pass unnoticed that the scene of the Adoration of the Magi in the central foreground holds a special position among the twenty-five episodes due to its scale, layout and formal isolation. Therefore, this paper first exam the relationship of the composition of Adoration scene to two Memling’s earlier triptychs that the subject of their central panel represents the same motif we have concerned. The core of the comparison, then, finds how Memling’s particular interest in geometric rendering works especially to the same ruined stable in two different events, Nativity and Adoration of the Magi. The centralized arrangement of figures is Stephan Lochner and Rogier van der Weyden’s major character in their famous work, which also represents Adoration of the Magi. Hence, this paper analyzes how Memling’s appropriation works on the same topic.
Not only the prominence of the Adoration scene is noteworthy, but also the detailed description of the legend of the Magi is an exceptional feature, which must have been related to the painting’s original function. Special attention will, hence, be paid to this particular iconographic subject and the meticulous attention Hans Memling had addressed in the details of the narrative. A principal question will, therefore, be why the story of the Magi is rendered in such a detailed manner. The paper will further analyze what effects of these details have given to its viewer. It is the goal of this thesis to examine more closely Memling’s narrative mode by focusing on the legend of the Magi. The analysis of these scenes might lead to a better understanding of the work’s function in the context of a chapel used by a lay corporation.
|
|---|
