Hugo van der Goes was likely born in Ghent or its environs around 1440.[1] Nothing is known with certainty about the artist's life prior to 1467, when he became a master in the painters' guild in Ghent. The sponsors for his membership of the guild were Joos van Wassenhove, master painter in Ghent from 1464, and Daneel Ruthaert. It is likely that he had trained elsewhere before he became a master in Ghent. Some historians have suggested that Dieric Bouts was possibly the master of van der Goes but there is no independent evidence for this.
In 1468 the artist was commissioned by the city of Ghent to execute some works in connection with the grant of the Great Indulgence of the city. In the following years, van der Goes created further decorations such as papal blazons at the behest of the city. In 1468 he was in the town of Bruges making decorations to celebrate the marriage between Charles the Bold and Margaret of York. On 18 October 1468 van der Goes and other members of the painter's guild invited painters from Tournai to their assembly in Ghent on the occasion of St. Luke's day. St. Luke was the patron saint of painters.
In 1469 Hugo van der Goes and Joos van Wassenhove vouched for Alexander Bening for his entry as a master in the Ghent painter's guild. In 1480 Alexander Bening married Catherina van der Goes, a cousin of Hugo van der Goes. Van der Goes and his workshop worked on commissions of the city of Ghent to provide heraldic decorations for Charles the Bold's Joyous Entry in Ghent in 1469 and later in 1472.
When in 1470 Joos van Wassenhove left Ghent for Italy to work in the service of Federico da Montefeltro, the Duke of Urbino, van der Goes became the leading painter in Ghent. In 1473 the Burgundian court paid van der Goes for the paintings and blazons on the occasion of Charles the Good's funeral. The painter was repeatedly elected as deacon of the Ghent painter's guild and served as its deacon from 1474 to 1476.
In this period, van der Goes painted the Adoration of the Magi (also referred to as the Monforte Altarpiece (Gemäldegalerie, Berlin)) and worked in the service of Tommaso Portinari on the monumental Portinari Altarpiece (Galleria degli Uffizi, Florence) which arrived in Florence only in 1483, after the death of the artist.
Van der Goes achieved considerable success and secured important commissions from the Burgundian court, church institutions, affluent Flemish bourgeoisie and Italian business associations that were located in the Burgundian Low Countries.[1] At the highpoint of his career, van der Goes closed up his studio in Ghent in 1477 to become a frater conversus (i.e. a lay brother) at the monastic community of the Rood Klooster (or Rooklooster) near Auderghem (now in Brussels).[4] The Rood Klooster was part of the monastic wing of the Modern Devotion movement and belonged to theWindesheim Congregation. At the monastery he enjoyed certain privileges. He was allowed to continue working on painting commissions and to drink wine. According to the chronicle written up in Latin some time between 1509-1513 by Gaspar Ofhuys, a fellow monk in the Rood Klooster, van der Goes received visits by eminent persons including Archduke Maximillian.
During his time at the cloister he was appointed in 1482 by the City of Leuven to assess the unfinished works of Dieric Bouts for the Leuven city hall. From the city administration he received a jug of Rhine whine for this service. Van der Goes probably also completed Bouts' unfinished Triptych for Hyppolite Berthoz. On the left panel he painted the patron portraits of the couple. In 1482 van der Goes was sent on a trip to Cologne together with his half-brother Nicolaes who had also taken religious vows and another brother of the monastery. On the return trip from this visit to Cologne he was struck by an acute depression and declared himself to be damned. He tried to kill himself unsuccessfully. His entourage decided to take him to Brussels and from there to the Rood Klooster. After first making a brief recovery, he died not long thereafter in the Rood Klooster.
There is speculation that anxiety about his artistic achievements may have contributed to his madness, for 'he was deeply troubled by the thought of how he would ever finish the works of art he had to paint, and it was said then that nine years would scarcely suffice'.[2] A report by a German physician, Hieronymus Münzer, from 1495, according to which a painter from Ghent was driven to melancholy by the attempt to equal the Ghent Altarpiece, may refer to Hugo van der Goes.