This is a painting by Hans Memling, a Netherlandish painter.
A man named Donne commissioned it.
He wanted Hans Memling to paint the painting of his family and the saints.
What draws me to it are the formal parts of putting this painting together, because that's
what I struggle with so much – is how to create space, how to draw the viewer in.
What excites the viewer to come in and say, 'I'm going to look at this painting instead
of all the other paintings that are around in this fantastic room'?
I look at the tile floor that has many patterns, and that I've used in my own work, that bring
your eye to the back of the painting; that bring you in and make you want to look at
the painting more.
The landscape with all the wonderful little things happening, and I think there's a funny
kind of strange scale play going on that doesn't seem correct, it just seems abnormal.
Also, what's wonderful is the light in this painting.
It seems as if there's been a light that's almost been placed outside on the left side
coming into the room that doesn't seem quite right.
It's not really that sunny a day.
Maybe, that's what makes the painting so mysterious, is these things that sort of seem wonderful,
but they just don't seem real.
And the jewellery; that beautiful little necklace.
Also, the wonderful thing that I love is resolution; in other words, focus.
And when you look at this necklace here, you see this fabulous resolution which, again,
is sort of disappearing, but I use a view camera, for instance, because I love the crispest,
most detailed resolution that you can find.
So, let's go look at the family then.
For instance, the baby sitting on the Virgin's lap looks as if, very much like in my photographs
where I would direct somebody in order to show a narrative.
It's almost as if Hans Memling had directed that little baby to grab that apple while
the mother's holding the baby on her lap.
How much was directed here?
How much was planned?
How much did Hans Memling say, for the woman in the left here, to 'Go like this' with her
hand?
I mean, can you imagine?
Did he say, 'Go like this'?
Or, 'Go like this'?
My work is known for the fact that I started directing the people in my photographs at
a time where that was very unusual and, actually, historically, a very drastic thing to do.
Beforehand, photographs were candid.
They were street photographs.
In the beginning, when I first started directing people in my photographs I would say, 'Well,
why don't you start talking about something?', because there's usually more than one person
and their family members in my photographs.
And, funnily enough, what would happen is that a lot of the family members would start
talking about things that were fairly personal, and then I'd take the picture.
And now, sometimes I also wanted someone to look into the lens.
And I'd say, 'Look into the lens', or something to that effect.
But then the other person would do something very impromptu.
And, to me, I always call that a gift.
And that's when I think it becomes very interesting, because then there's that fine line about
how much does the artist direct, and how much does the subject do what they want to do?
As time has gone by, and I've gotten more confident, I've let the subjects do more that
they want to do than I did 20 years ago.
See this little space here, between the baby's hand and the hand of the angel showing that
apple?
There's a little green space with the grass behind it.
That, for me, is very much the kind of thing that was very interesting to me in my photographs,
because I wanted to say that's too much space.
I want you to be closer.
I want those two hands to touch.
So that's very, very much part of my love of making photographs, and then also looking
at paintings like this.