Hugo van der Goes reading Johannes Tauler?
a literary context for the Berlin nativity
pp. 75-83
in: Enik Sepsi, Aniko Daróczi (eds), The immediacy of mystical experience in the European tradition, Berlin, Springer, 2017Abstract
A few years after 1476, when the painter Hugo van der Goes had come to live in the Augustinian canonry of Rooklooster, in the forests south of Brussels, he suffered from a mysterious form of melancholy that almost turned into madness. Hugo's fellow brothers had to keep the painter from injuring himself or committing suicide. The prior of Rooklooster was convinced that Hugo had fallen victim to the same delusions as king Saul in the Old Testament. Saul had shown relief when David played the harp. Therefore, the brothers thought Hugo would benefit from musical therapy as well.