Critical Archive of the Visual and Related Arts
Unknown Artists: Netherlandish
16th-century
Cleveland, OH: Cleveland Museum of Art
76%
Virgin and Child Under a Canopy. 1520s. Oil on wood panel
The figure group has a subtle dynamism; the proportions of foreground stage to background cityscape and sky are handsome; the relationship between the richer colors up front and the dryer, duller ones out back is nice; there is a slight asymmetry to the whole arrangement — the Virgin's open stance, the mass of a building behind her to the left, the angel's wing poking out at right from behind the column — that both undermines and accentuates the regularity of the archway; the patterned floor below the figures contrasts well with the marbled ground that surrounds them. All of this makes this anonymous work an above average (if not exactly exceptional) early Netherlandish picture. What brings it even further is the gossamer indistinctness with which the gold edifice has been painted; its effect is similar to that of one of Ernst's spectral transfer paintings. (TFS, 2025)