GOES, UCO van der. — Painter, probably born in Ghent in the first half of the 15th century, he is to be regarded as one of the greatest Flemish artists of his time, heir to the van Eycks and to Roger van der Weyden. Little is known of his life. In 1467 he was appointed “master”; subsequently he was a “juror” of the painters’ guild of Ghent, until in 1474–75 he became dean of the Guild. He held this office only briefly, for later he is recorded as a lay brother in a convent in the vicinity of Brussels. In the cloister (where he had taken refuge following amorous disappointments) he continued his activity as a painter until, stricken by illness and troubled by profound religious scruples, he died in 1482.
The painter’s masterpiece (since it is impossible to judge the many works executed in gouache and now lost) remains the triptych executed for the Portinari family of Florence, formerly in S. Maria Nuova in that city and now displayed in the Uffizi Gallery. Tommaso Portinari, the Medici representative in Bruges, commissioned the painting directly from the artist, and it aroused great admiration in Florentine artistic circles. Domenico Ghirlandajo was the foremost interpreter of this admiration: he imitated the Flemish painter’s Adoration in a famous panel, now in the church of S. Trinita.
An acute observer of nature and a great colorist, the painter reveals his strong personality in his portraits, full of life and character, and in the felicitous compositions, so rich in illustrative elements, of his sacred scenes, in which the landscape, represented realistically and objectively, is of great importance (the Florentine painters studied the landscapes of the Portinari triptych attentively). Besides the painting mentioned above, other works by U. V. d. G. are found in Berlin, Frankfurt, Bruges, and Philadelphia. The influence exerted by the painter on other Flemish artists, including Gerard David and Albrecht Bouts, was considerable.