Granada diptych, right wing, the holy women and St. John 1475

Curator: This is the right wing of Hans Memling’s "Granada Diptych," completed around 1475. Editor: A wash of sorrow. Their expressions – a silent chorus of grief. I'm struck by the pervasive solemnity and the uniformity of the light complexions. Curator: Observe the symbolic gestures. Many hands are raised, which might signal mourning, lamentation, or even supplication to the heavens. Note, too, that white head coverings denote purity and a connection to sacred ritual. Editor: Thinking about it as an oil painting, imagine the multiple layers—the cost of ultramarine for Mary’s robe, the pigments painstakingly ground. Who commissioned this work and where? Those details materially shape our reading. Curator: These depictions were, in their time, models of refined emotion, prompting contemplation of faith, pain, and spiritual endurance in a viewer. There is much iconographic resonance to this display of mourning, a trope that reflects common social and spiritual attitudes of the era. Editor: The arrangement almost flattens the figures; the detailed landscape competes with the foreground figures. Was Memling working quickly, pressed for time, perhaps responding to patron demands? We might find clues about workshop practices if we x-ray the surface. Curator: One can feel Memling's conscious placement of Mary as a focus point in this sorrowful throng of figures. She becomes the emotional focal point for the grief within this sacred narrative, eliciting a sense of sympathy and shared humanity, even centuries later. Editor: Indeed, seeing it as a constructed object deeply enmeshed within a historical process provides a richer, less idealized encounter than merely observing it through the prism of its themes. This work serves as a potent reminder of the material and cultural forces shaping art and grief alike.