The Arnolfini Portrait by Jan van Eyck (1434)

The Arnolfini Portrait is an incredibly famous painting.

A masterpiece of Early Netherlandish painting by Jan van Eyck at London’s National Gallery.

He was formerly credited (thanks to Vasari) as the “father of oil paintings”. But this is to overly simplify the story. Robert Campin was a contemporary of Jan van Eyck. He was the pioneer of the realistic style of oil painting in the Netherlands. According to wikipedia, they even met 1427: “On 18 October 1427, [van Eyck] travelled to Tournai to attend a banquet in his honour, also attended by Robert Campin and Rogier van der Weyden”.  That’s 7 years before this painting. Campin was the teacher of Rogier van der Weyden and Jacques Daret. They are known as “the Flemish Primitives” for their collective influence.

Robert Campin’s shift marked a departure from the stylised, flat, iconic, and decorative orientation of Late Gothic art in the North with detailed realism and the use of symbolism/perspective - which were taken up by Van Eyck and Van der Weyden (his peer) to their highest degree. The beauty and naturalism of Flemish & Northern portraiture was later admired by the early Italians - reaching its acme in Italy in the depth and realism of Raphael (e.g. see Saint Catherine of Alexandria by Raphael which I just blogged about). The early Italian Renaissance artists, while v. innovative, prioritised classical ideals of beauty and the harmony of the ideal form (e.g. Paolo Uccello, Fra Filippo Lippi etc.)

Jan van Eyck’s paintings are revolutionary for their true-to-life naturalism and convincing sense of perspective/space through meticulous rendering of the interior.

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For me, what’s incredible is his ability to convincingly imitate any surface texture - softer wood panel flooring, warm light infiltrating through a window, shadows, silky hairs of the small dog, the shining polished brass of the chandelier, the convex silvered glass of the mirror and the crystal rosary beads hanging on the wall.

The light is a palpable force - it casts shadows which flow behind and between the figures, and you can feel it in the tonal relationship - e.g. Arnolfini’s right shoulder lighter against the dark shutter. In a book, it had this to say: 

It is van Eyck’s ability to match the appearance of light-in-air which enables him to evoke space, not linear perspective, which he employs only approximately. The illusion is so potent that not even the elongated proportions and tiny heads of the figures dispel our belief in the reality of this scene.

Art historians are not absolutely sure on the identity of the sitters. We have good guesses, and much has been written about the marriage depicted. The dog symbolize their fidelity etc. The wife is supposed to be “fashionably round-bellied” as opposed to being pregnant (it was a fashion of its day: for a woman to appear pregnant, that’s why her dress has the folds). The gestures, the clogs, the mirror, the oranges, etc. Giselle Ohayon has written an interesting blog that covers the elements of this painting.

Overall, a beautiful portrait of a prosperous and God-fearing couple. 

 

Incredible hat was the fashion headwear of its day.

Convex mirror with the artist probably depicted.

Latin inscription on the back wall reads “Jan van Eyck was here/1434”

Perhaps his witness to the marriage, or his authorship?

This is the painting in its controversial new frame.

The “new frame” is nearly as old as the painting itself.