The Portinari Altarpiece

On the bare ground the newborn Christ lies adored by Mary, angels, and three shepherds whose weathered, astonished faces broke with every idealized peasant before them (Luke 2:8-20). Hugo van der Goes painted this towering triptych in Bruges for Tommaso Portinari, the Medici bank's agent there; shipped to Florence, its sheer scale, its oil-borne naturalism, and those raw shepherds left a deep mark on local painters. In front, an exact still life - irises, columbines, a sheaf of wheat for Bethlehem, 'the house of bread' - carries the Eucharist in code. On the wings the Portinari family kneels with patron saints, dwarfed by the holy event.