Lecture 14: Jan van Eyck and Northern Renaissance Art
Jan van Eyck (c. 1390–1441) is one of the most famous artists of the
Northern Renaissance, often thought of as the “inventor” of oil painting.
Van Eyck served as a diplomat and painter, and his art was known and
collected throughout Europe. Although he actually did not invent oil
painting, he employed it with great skill. Oil painting is the medium in
which pigments are suspended in linseed or walnut oil. This method was
widely used in the southern Netherlands when van Eyck began to paint. It is
a slow-drying medium but durable when dry. The artist is able to paint more
slowly, add detail more easily than when working in tempera or fresco, and
render changes invisible. Oil painting also offers transparency and brilliant
color. The effects of light and shade, reÀ ection and atmosphere, gave the
artist more possibilities than in tempera painting and created a greater
illusion of realism.Our example shows van Eyck’s Arnol¿ ni Wedding Portrait (c. 1434). We see
a man and a woman in a bedchamber with a dog at their feet. Their size is
relatively large, but they are not looking at us. The room is lit by a window at
the left; light glides across the back wall to the bed at right, and the couple is
lit by an unseen source. Some 90 years ago, a critic observed that in its color
effect, this and other paintings by van Eyck showed the same characteristics
as Rembrandt’s paintings. They are warm and golden, with a darkness that
glows with color. This is made possible by the oil medium, but it is a measure
of van Eyck’ s genius that he could use the medium at a level that could be
compared with Rembrandt’s painting of two centuries later.The painting has long been called the Arnol¿ ni Wedding or Marriage, but
the idea that it represents a wedding, which evolved in the 16th century,
is much disputed. The couple is almost certainly Giovanni Arnol¿ ni, an
Italian merchant in the Netherlands, and his wife, Giovanna Cenami. The
scholar Erwin Panofsky tried to demonstrate that this was a private marriage
ceremony. It was unnecessary to have either a priest or a civil authority for
a valid marriage, but there are two witnesses reÀ ected in the convex mirror.
One is the painter, who also signed the painting above the mirror: “Jan van
Eyck was here, 1434.” In Panofsky’s view, the painting serves as a kind of
marriage certi¿ cate.