GEERTGEN VAN HAARLEM (c. Dutch painter active in Haarlem. He was surnamed "tot Sint Jans," as he lived with the knights of St. John at Haarlem. He is one of the most interesting Dutch artists of the 15th century and he is important, as he represents a school of which very few works have survived destruction. According to Van Mander, who is the authority on what is known of his life, he was a pupil of Ouwater at Haarlem. Neither the year of his birth nor of his death is known, but only that he was 28 years old when he died. Diirer, on seeing his work, is said to have exclaimed : "Here is a born painter," but as Durer is not known to have visited Haarlem the truth of this story has been doubted. Geertgen painted a large triptych for the high altar of the knights of St. John. The central panel with the "crucifixion" and one of the wings were destroyed in the religious troubles; but the other wing has been identified with the aid of Van Mander's description. This wing is now in the Vienna gallery, sliced into two separate panels, front and back. The front represents the dead Christ being mourned by His friends. The pathos of the scene is expressed with deep feel ing. The influence of Rogier van der Weyden is seen in the Magdalen wringing her hands. In the background is a realistic burial scene on Mount Calvary. Here the artist broke away from the traditional symbolical assemblage of emblematic figures on the altarpieces of his time and felt his way towards the more vivid and dramatic style of the next generation of Dutch painters.
The same is true of the other panel (the back of the wing) on which the emperor Julian the Apostate is causing the bones of St. John the Baptist to be buried. In the mid-distance of this panel is an admirable group of portraits of the knights of St. John at Haarlem among whom the artist lived. They are life like studies of individual characters and seem to presage those great democratic portrait groups famous in Dutch paintings of the 17th century.
A number of pictures are ascribed to him on stylistic grounds. Among these is the "St. John the Baptist" of the Berlin museum, where the pensive saint is sitting in beautiful park-like scenery. In the same collection is "Virgin and Child." The Louvre contains the "Resurrection of Lazarus," the Amsterdam museum "The Virgin's Kindred" and the "Adoration of the Magi." The "Man of Sorrows" at Utrecht is a painful but wonderful picture ; a triptych at Prague represents the "Adoration of the Magi" in the centre and "Donors and Saints" on the wings. It is distin guished for the original conception of some of its figures and for its animated background. Another "Adoration of the Magi" is in the possession of Oscar Reinhart at Winterthur. The National Gallery, London, has recently acquired one of the most attractive pictures by the master. It represents "Nativity," a night scene, remarkable for its rendering of chiaroscuro.
See K. van Mander, Schilderboek; Leo Balet, Der Friihhollander Geertgen (191o) ; Sir Martin Conway, The Van Eycks and Their Followers (1921) ; M. Friedlander, Geertgen and Bosch (192 7) .