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Jan
van Eyck is considered to be a founder of the Early Renaissance style in
the Northern Renaissance. We do not know the exact date and place of his
birth, it is believed that he was born in early 1390s in the eastern province
of the Netherlands Limburg. He probably was taught the art by his brother
Hubert van Eyck, with whom he created the masterpiece The
Ghent Altarpiece (1425-1432), which they started in 1425, but
after the death of Hubert, his younger brother finished it alone.
Until 1425 Jan van Eyck served at the court of Duke Johann of Bavaria in
Hague, painting and restoring pictures. Since 1425 he served at the court
of Philip the Good of Burgundy, where he was greatly valued not only as
an artist, but he also was entrusted by Duke with various diplomatic missions.
Since 1430 van Eyck lived and worked in Bruges as painter to the court
and city. It was believed, that Jan van Eyck invented painting with oils,
maybe it is not true, but his technique in painting with oils is exceptional.
His paint is so transparent that his works have a unique, almost luminous
sheen. In The Virgin of the Chancellor Rolin
(1434-1436) Van Eyck revealed himself as a master in representation of
space. Van Eyck was one of the first great masters of portrait painting
in Europe. His best portraits are Portrait of
Cardinal Nicola Albergati (c.1432), Portrait
of a Young Man (1432), Man in a
Red Turban (1433), which is probably a self-portrait, Portrait
of Margaret van Eyck, Artist's Wife(?) (1439) and also one
of the masterpieces of the Western world Giovanni
Arnolfini and His Wife Giovanna Cenami (The Arnolfini Marriage) (1434).
Among his other best works are Madonna from
the Inn's Hall (1433), The Lucca
Madonna (1436), The Madonna of
Canon van der Paele (1436), The
Virgin and Child in a Church (central section of a portable
altar) (1437), The Virgin and Child with
Saints and Donor (1441). Jan van Eyck died in 1441 in Bruges.
Notes
Cardinal Nicola Albergati was the prior
of the Church of the Holy Cross of Jerusalem in Rome. In 1431 he was sent
by the Pope as a papal legate to the French and English courts and to the
Burgundy to negotiate the peace to the 100 Years War. His missions was
successfully accomplished by signing the peace treaty of Arras between
England and France in 1432. The portrait was probably commissioned in 1431,
when Albergati visited Ghent and Bruges.
See: Jan van Eyck. Portrait of Cardinal
Nicola Albergati.
Giovanni Arnolfini was a silk merchant
from Lucca in Tuscany, who had settled in Bruges and was a friend of Jan
van Eyck, who it seems attended the wedding of Giovanni Arnolfini and Giovanna
Cenami. Van Eyck even left his signature on the wall above the mirror:
Jan
van Eyck was here 1434.
See: Jan van Eyck. Giovanni Arnolfini and
His Wife Giovanna Cenami (The Arnolfini Marriage). Giovanni
Arnolfini.
Nicolas Rolin (1376?-1462), Chancellor of
Burgundy and Brabant, was born into a bourgeois family. He became a prominent
figure at the court of Philip the Good of Burgundy. This picture was probably
ordered by his son, Johann, for the family chapel to commemorate his father.
See: Jan van Eyck. The Virgin of the Chancellor
Rolin.
also his portrait on the
Beaune
Altarpiece by Rogier van der Weyden.
Bibliography:
Jan van Eyck. by A. Sarabyanov. Moscow. 1990.
Painting of Europe. XIII-XX centuries. Encyclopedic Dictionary.
Moscow. Iskusstvo. 1999.
The
Arnolfini Betrothal: Medieval Marriage and the Enigma of Van Eyck's Double
Portrait (Discovery Series, 3)
by Edwin Hall. University of California Press, 1997.
Jan
Van Eyck: The Play of Realism by Craig Harbison. Reaktion Books,
1997.
Jan
Van Eyck: Two Paintings of Saint Francis Receiving the Stigmata
by J. R. J. Van Asperen De Boer, Kenneth Be, Marigene H. Butler, Peter
Klein, Katherine Crawford Luber, Joseph J. Rishel, Maurits Smeyers, James
Snyder, Carlenrica Spantigati. Philadelphia Museum of Art, 1997.
Van
Eyck: the Ghent altarpiece (Art in context) by Elisabeth Dhanens.
Viking Press, 1973.