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Showing posts with label Life of Van Eyck. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Life of Van Eyck. Show all posts

Netherlandish Great Artist Jan Van Eyck - Jewel like Perfection

Posted by Art Of Legend India [dot] Com On 11:34 PM 0 comments

The Madonna in a Church (c.1425), This delicate picture is Van Eyck's earliest known work. The architectural detail and masterly handling of light give the interior a sense of spatial reality unprecedented in Netherlandish painting. Jewel-like Perfection

The works of Jan van Eyck are celebrated for their visual splendour and precision of detail. Their brilliant colours and magnificent definition are due to Jan's refinement of the oil-painting technique.

Jan van Eyck was highly praised in his own time, and is traditionally renowned as the founder of the Netherlandish school of painting. His fame rests largely on the illusion of reality he created in his paintings and his delight in naturalistic detail and rich, decorative effects.

Little is known of Van Eyck's early career, and the paintings which survive are those of a mature artist, well-practiced in his craft. Most of Van Eyck's work for Philip of Burgundy was of a decorative and temporary nature, and has long since disappeared. His surviving works were painted for rich and aristocratic patrons, men moving in court circles. For them Van Eyck created majestic Madonnas, rather than the more homely women of his contemporary, Robert Campin, who worked for bourgeois patrons. Even when placing the Virgin and Child in a domestic setting, then popular, Van Eyck elevated his Madonna on a throne-like chair, with a brocaded canopy overhead and rich carpet underfoot. Elsewhere in The Ghent Altarpiece and The Madonna with Canon van der Paele he depicted the material splendour of bejewelled robes and crowns to speak of the richness of heaven.

VISUAL REALITY 

A preparatory sketch, This silverpoint drawing of Cardinal Albergati is the only surviving preparatory sketch for a painting by Van Eyck. The portrait includes detailed notes on colouring and is followed faithfully iii the painting.
This was a period of growing demand for life-like portraits, and a time when faith was direct and called for clear and 'real' images of religious doctrine. Van Eyck responded by exploiting his acute powers of observation and his formidable technique to produce unique illusions of reality. Whilst Van Eyck observed the world around him, he never attempted to reproduce it with topographical accuracy. Instead, he used his knowledge to create imaginative landscapes, townscapes and interiors that would appear familiar to his patrons. The background to The Madonna with Chancellor Rolin has the feel of the River Meuse, but the town cannot be identified.

By the 1430s, Van Eyck broke with tradition and refined a new plateau-type composition, where the foreground figures appear to be higher in the imagined space than those in the background. This enabled him to develop his interest in landscapes with far-reaching vistas. He also began to explore the relationship between interior and exterior, looking through a window or over a parapet, and was perhaps the first painter to present the back view of figures gazing into the landscape, in The Madonna with Chancellor Rolin.

A late portrait, The distinctive features of Giovanni Arnolfini are portray ed with Van Eyck's customary objectivity. The artist departs from the previous traditional formula for a portrait by including the arms and hands.
The exact, scientific perspective developed in Florence was unknown in Flanders, but Van Eyck explored an empirical method of perspective to paint his interiors. By the time of the compelling Arnolfini Wedding, he was perfectly able to create the novel effect of a real space opening forward, which seemed to continue beyond the frame and include the viewer.

Symbolism is an important element in Van Eyck's religious and secular works. In The Arnolfini Wedding he was concerned to include numerous symbols of faith, without disrupting the overall natural effect. The symbols appear at first sight to be everyday objects, but Van Eyck probably chose them for their traditional symbolism: a lighted candle in a chandelier indicating the presence of God, a griffon terrier, fidelity, a carafe of water, the purity of the Virgin, and a beam of light through a window, the Incarnation.

 

TRANSLUCENT GLAZES 

St Barbara (1437), This exquisite brush drawing shows the saint sitting in front of her tower. Although some experts consider this an unfinished work, the extraordinary detail suggests it was never meant to be painted.
Vasari and other early biographers credited Van Eyck with the invention of oil painting. In fact it had been known for many years but was used in a limited way. However, in Van Eyck's time, improved varnishes, diluents and driers were distilled, and Jan explored the possibilities of their use with an unprecedented sophistication. He painted on the usual wooden panel covered with a smooth layer of gesso (plaster), then, and after beginning his work with opaque paint, he would apply many thin layers of translucent, oil-based colour glazes to achieve the glowing and luminous effects characteristic of his work.

It was Van Eyck's technical expertise that enabled him to reproduce the visual world convincingly. His figures are enhanced by natural lighting and on occasion he even created the illusion of a foot or angel's wing projecting forward out of the picture. He also delighted in the precise rendering of texture.

The Madonna by the Fountain (completed 1439), The simplicity of this painting is probably due to its diminutive size (7½" x 4¾"). Van Eyck reverts to the medieval theme of the hurts concourses or closed garden, a symbol of the Madonna's virginity and paradise. Other iconographic details reinforce this symbolism. The rich canopy behind the Virgin provides a strong contrast between red and blue and represents the throne of the Queen of Heaven. The Fountain of Life symbolizes paradise and salvation, and roses and lily of the valley purity.
Van Eyck's contribution to portraiture was also significant. He abandoned the Gothic tradition of exaggerated physical features in favour of a life-like description of the individual face. He realized that the three-quarter view, with head turned halfway between profile and full-face, could be much more naturalistic than the conventional profile. He understood that if the face was turned towards the light, he could use the shadow playing over the visible side to describe minute details of the surface. With his usual ingenuity, he explored ways to include the hands to greatest effect, and experimented with the impact of a novel device a direct glance out of the picture.

Van Eyck also appears to have given considerable thought to the inclusion of appropriate inscriptions in many of his works. These were often incorporated into the painting itself, or worked into the picture frame. The motto 'As Best I Can' appears several times, reflecting a pride in his work and a becoming humility.

Writer – Marshall Cavendish
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Netherlandish Great Artist Jan Van Eyck - The Port of Bruges

Posted by Art Of Legend India [dot] Com On 2:04 AM 0 comments

The Port of Bruges

The Count of Flanders, Van Eyck's patron from 1425, Philip the Good, had various residences in the Low Countries but spent much of his life in Bruges. His court brought elegance and culture to the city.
Now a town of quiet tree-lined canals and fine medieval architecture, Bruges once led a very different life it was the trading centre of the whole of north-west Europe.

On a January day in 1430, the Flemish city of Bruges was on its best behaviour. Thousands of its citizens lined the narrow streets, jostling and straining to catch a glimpse of the Princess Isabella of Portugal as she passed by. She had arrived from her homeland to be with her future husband, Duke Philip the Good of Burgundy.

Among the Duke's enormous entourage that day was no less than 40 varlets de chamber. One of them was Jan van Eyck. For the last part of his life, Van Eyck was based in Bruges, a port on the Zwijn River, almost 10 miles inland from the North Sea. His works helped to characterize the city as the cradle of Flemish painting. But Bruges had already won an enviable reputation as a major centre of the medieval cloth industry, and as the main international emporium of north-west Europe.

As one French chronicler noted, when describing that royal entry of 1430, Bruges was 'thronged with visitors from foreign lands . . . a centre for merchandise and a meeting-place for those of other lands, where pass greater quantities of goods than, perchance, in any other city of Europe'. The chronicler added, 'and a great shame it would be if ever Bruges were destroyed. .

Wealth from wool, Much of Bruges' wealth depended on the wool trade. Raw wool was imported from England and turned into finished cloth for the merchants to carry all over Europe.
In subsequent centuries Bruges declined, but it never was destroyed. Thus the city of Van Eyck's era has not completely disappeared from view. Many of the homes of the medieval bourgeoisie are still standing tall, thin houses, mostly built of brick, subtly decorated with pink or grey sandstone, white stone from Brabant or blue Tournai limestone. Their large rooms are lit by spacious windows, which once allowed the householder's prized oil paintings to be seen to their best advantage. The old Market Hall can still be identified from afar by its distinctive belfry. The Town Hall, the Church of Notre Dame and the Beguinage a retreat for secular nuns all survives to recall the city's former prosperity.

EARLY TURMOIL 

The halletoren, The great belfry or 'halletoren' above the old market hall where merchants would meet in the 14th century dominates the city even today.
Yet this tangible legacy can easily mislead. The quiet canals and the dignified Gothic architecture create an atmosphere of tranquillity, even of serenity. But this belies the turmoil of the city's early history, when its citizens fiercely resisted the efforts of Flemish counts and French kings to subdue them; in their halcyon days the Three Members from Flanders' Bruges, Ghent and Ypres virtually governed the province between them. Bruges was no quaint medieval backwater. It was a tumultuous commercial city, where merchants from 17 nations operated, and 20 states were represented by official ministers.

In medieval times, the continent comprised two main commercial zones that of the Baltic and the North Sea, and that of the Mediterranean. Bruges began to prosper as a textile centre within the northern zone, and also as a convenient port for the commercial traffic between England and Flanders. As the Flemish cloth industry came to rely more and more heavily on English supplies of wool, so the trade of Bruges expanded rapidly.

TRADE GROWS

Barrels of wine, Among the many commodities entering the port of Bruges was wine by the barrel. Much of this wine was drunk by the locals themselves; average consumption of wine per head was 100 liters a year in 1420.
The port then evolved into something far more than a simple Anglo-Flemish trade junction. Germans, Normans, Bretons and Spaniards came in increasing numbers to buy and sell at Bruges's annual fair, established in 1200. Before the end of the 13th century, the great galleys of Genoa and Venice were heading regularly for the northern port. So at a time when land communications were unreliable, Bruges became the destination of seaborne merchants from both the northern and southern commercial centres of Europe.

The native Flemings did not themselves develop as international merchants. Instead, the foreign community of Bruges grew larger and it became a truly cosmopolitan city. Its prosperity came to rely not on intermittent fairs, but on permanent trade. Merchandise was sent there for distribution in all directions and the commodities which found their way on to the quayside came from around the world. There were Russian furs, northern cloths, wines from Burgundy, Bordeaux and the Rhine, and metals from Germany. There was wool, tin and cheeses from England, butter and pigs from Denmark, corn from Prussia, and salt fish and dried fish from Norway. And there was Baltic timber in abundance, and fruit from Spain. Perhaps the most exotic goods were those stocked in the warehouses of the spice-importers, cinnamon from Ceylon, cloves from the Molucca Islands, mace from Arabia not forgetting the saffron, cinnabar, ivory and oil of white poppy which were used as artists' materials.

FINANCE THRIVES 

The Marriage of Philip and Isabella, One of the most splendid events in Bruges in Van Eyck's time was Philip's marriage to Isabella of Portugal in 1430.
Such a thriving commercial centre naturally attracted businessmen. By 1369 there were 15 separate 'merchant banks' there. Italian bankers and money-lenders were keen to establish their northern branches in the city. In 1469, the Medici of Florence had a staff of eight at Bruges, one of whom was responsible for purchases of cloth and wool, while another had the duty of selling silks and velvets to the Burgundian court. Giovanni Arnolfini, whose wedding portrait was painted by Van Eyck, was himself an Italian expatriate from Lucca. He was one of the leading importers of alum, a substance essential for the dyeing of wool.

Germans as well as Italians found the city to be a profitable home-from-home. Bruges was one of the Hanseatic League's overseas trading posts, along with London, Bergen and Novgorod. The League had been formed by German merchants to give political backing to their trading agreements. The trading posts, or kontore, were independent from their host country. Within them, members were under the jurisdiction of German law; houses, offices and warehouses were all corporately owned and here the League members lived and traded.

Hanseatic merchants, The merchants of the Hanseatic League were always welcome in Bruges as they brought prosperity.
Communities of foreign merchants at this time, were often encouraged to live in a particular area of a city, separate from the native citizens. In Bruges, however, the Hanseatic League were not confined to specific quarters of the city but lived among the Flemings. Elsewhere in northern Europe, these privileged German League communities often encountered native resentment, but their kontore was welcomed in Bruges and seen as a source of extra trade and revenue, increasing the city's prosperity.

A large proportion of the citizens, however, did not share in the general affluence. They had to endure the rigours and squalor of medieval urban life as best they could. 'This is no place for poor people', wrote Tafur of Seville, a scandalized visitor, in 1435. He also commented with disapproval on the bourgeoisie, with their 'baths for men and women in common, a practice which they look on as normal and decent as we do going to Mass. There is no doubt he went on, 'that there is considerable licence . . .' He probably noticed local zeal for alcohol too in 1420 the annual consumption of wine per head of the population was 100 litres.

The pleasures of the table, The well-to-do merchant middle class of 14th century Bruges drank and ate well, as this illustration from a Flemish Book of Hours shows.
There were certainly plenty of opportunities to over-indulge on occasions such as the 24 great tournaments held at Bruges between 1405 and 1482 for example. Those well-heeled burghers, who liked to have themselves depicted in attitudes of pious austerity, also revelled in their conspicuous consumption. Bruges in the mid 15th century was, however, a city that had already started to decline. The river Zwijn began to silt up during the 14th century. By 1490 it was completely blocked and Bruges then ceased to be an important port commercially, although it flourished artistically under the Dukes of Burgundy.

By 1500, Antwerp had taken over the commercial mantle and some people began to talk of 'Bruges le mort' (Bruges the dead). But it could almost be said that its great painters at this time had already conferred a kind of immortality on the city.

Writer – Marshall Cavendish 
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Netherlandish Great Artist Jan Van Eyck - A year in the life 1429

Posted by Art Of Legend India [dot] Com On 1:56 AM 0 comments

1429


The peasant who crowned a king, From the age of 13, Joan of Arc was exhorted by visions to lead the dauphin Charles to victory against the English, and to his place on the French throne. Against the wishes of her father, who would rather have drowned her with his own hands, she found Charles, and ensured him the crucial victory at Orleans in 1429. In gratitude for her courage and success, she was ennobled at the end of December, and Domremy, her home town, was exempted from tax.
While Van Eyck was fulfilling a delicate commission to paint a likeness of the Portuguese princess Isabella, so that Philip of Burgundy could decide whether or not to marry her, a young French girl was embarking on a military career which would tip the balance of power between France and England.

As the New Year, 1429, dawned, France was in a turmoil. The French crown was claimed for the English boy king, Henry VI; and the claim seemed likely to be made good. Leaving their Burgundian allies to guard the north-east, the English were pressing south and had besieged the important town of Orleans. The French had become demoralized by a string of English victories, and the dauphin, Charles (last Charles VII), was still uncrowned; his legitimacy was in doubt and he was only recognized as king south of the Loire. But the next few months were to see one of the most remarkable phenomena of the late Middle Ages, the brief but spectacular career of Joan of Arc, whose convictions changed history.

Sir John Falstolf, The antecedent of Shakespeare's Falstaff, Falstolf was one of the few tattered survivors of the battle of Patay, which marked the turning point for French fortunes.
In January, 1429, Joan was 17 years old, a simple farmer's daughter from the village of Domremy in Lorraine. But from the age of 13 she had seen visions and heard voices she identified as the Archangel Michael and Saints Catherine and Margaret. Her voices told her that it was her mission to lead France to victory and see Charles crowned at Reims.

HEROINE DRESSED AS A BOY 

The previous summer, in 1428, she had tried to persuade the local French captain at Vaucouleurs, 12 miles away, to help her in her mission. The captain did little, and when the news of the siege of Orleans came through, she dressed in men's clothes, had her hair cut short and, in January, 1429, set off to find the dauphin herself. Early in March, she presented herself at the Chateau of Chinon, where she proved immediately that she was either heaven-sent or extremely intelligent. For Charles had told one of his courtiers to take his place on the throne before Joan entered the room, but she had no trouble in picking out the true king at first sight which may or may not have had something to do with his notoriously unprepossessing appearance. At any rate, Charles was won over, and after a thorough investigation into her religious credentials, Joan was given a suit of white armour, a black charger and her own banner and pennon, and sent to Tours to join the army. Joan is said to have supplied her own sword, miraculously indicating the spot where one lay buried behind an altar.

Uncertain ally, Philip the Good, Duke of Burgundy (1396-1467), changed his allegiance after the siege of Orleans from England to France. At around this time he celebrated his marriage to Isabella of Portugal by founding the knightly order of The Golden Fleece.
Whether inspired or simply fanatical, Joan had immense charisma and even greater courage. Where she led, the soldiers of France would follow. She was absolutely convinced that God was on the side of France. The three letters she dictated and sent to her enemies reflect her confidence 'You Englishmen, who have no right in the kingdom of France the King of Heaven commands you by me, Joan the Maid, to leave your strong-holds and return to your own country!'. By May, the French had driven the English besiegers from Orleans and, as the French overran the English bastilles, it was Joan who planted the first scaling ladder. A series of brilliant victories followed. With the enemy badly shaken, Joan spurred on the dilatory Charles to enter Reims, and in July he was finally crowned in the Cathedral with 'the Maid of Orleans' standing by his side.

Ill-fated monarch, Henry VI (1421-1471) was crowned at Westminster on 6 November 1429, having been proclaimed king of France and England from his first year. His reign was consumed in struggles at home and in France. The trust and honesty which made him good man undermined him as a king, and he died dispossessed.
By the end of the year, Joan's run of success began to falter and in the autumn she was wounded in the thigh with an arrow though her fellow soldiers had to drag her by force from the battlefield. But she remained an enormous inspiration to the French and when the English captured her the following year they tried desperately to have her discredited with a show trial, before allowing her to be burned at the stake as a dangerous and influential heretic.

ENGLAND'S LOSSES 


The English dislike of Joan was understandable. At the beginning of 1429, they were poised to overrun all France. By December, they had been pushed back into the region round Paris and the alliance with Burgundy was less sound than it had been before the maid intervened.

Writer – Marshall Cavendish
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Netherlandish Great Artist - Jan Van Eyck Painting Gallery

Posted by Art Of Legend India [dot] Com On 2:47 AM 0 comments
All of Jan van Eyck’s dated paintings are from the last decade of his life, when he was complete master of the new oil-painting technique. Subsequent painters have developed other aspects of the rich potential of oil, but no-one has ever surpassed Jan's skill in the minute rendition of texture or the creation of glowing effects of colour. The Ghent Altarpiece, with its countless figures, its beautiful landscape and townscape backgrounds, and its exquisite still-life details, is like I a manifesto of the possibilities of oil paint.


Van Eyck’s other paintings are either religious paintings or’ portraits. Sometimes he combined the two, as in The Madonna with Chancellor Rolin and The Madonna with Canon van der Paele, and his most famous portrait The Amolfini Wedding has religious P overtones in its symbolic references to the sanctity of marriage. His individual portraits, such as Cardinal Albergati and Baudouin de Lannoy, show his matchless ability to combine unrelenting physical scrutiny with a feeling for the sitter’ s inner life.

The Great Artist Van Eyck Painting “The Ghent Altarpiece” c. 1425-32 138" x 131" Sint Baaf, Ghent
This portrait has an inscription in Greek characters reading Timotheos’, the name of a famous musician of antiquity. This has led to speculation that the sitter was a musician, perhaps Gilles Binchois, one of the leading Flemish composers of the period and like Jan van Eyck a member of Philip the Good’s court.



The Great Artist Van Eyck Painting “Giovanni Amolfini and his Wife or The Amolfini Wedding” 1434 32 1/4" X 231/2" National Gallery, London
Giovanni Amolfini was a merchant from Lucca in Italy who settled in Bruges in 1420. His wife, Giovanna Cenami, was also from Lucca. This painting was almost certainly commissioned as a document of their wedding; varioussymbolic details (such as the dog, representing fidelity) attest to this, and it has an appropriate solemn dignity.
The Great Artist Van Eyck Painting “The Madonna with Chancellor Rolin” c. 1435 26" X 241/2” Louvre, Paris
Nicolas Rolin, who is shown praying in front of the Virgin and Child, was Chancellor of Burgundy and Brabant. The three arches are probably intended to symbolize the Trinity (Father, Son and Holy Ghost); through them is seen a breathtaking landscape that shows Van Eyck's mastery of space and atmosphere.










The Great Artist Van Eyck Painting “The Angel and The Virgin of the Annunciation” c.1435 each panel 153/4" X 91/2 "Fundacion Thyssen-Bornezmisza, Madrid
 These two panels, painted in grisaille (shades of grey) may originally have been the outer wings of an altarpiece, but it is possible that they always formed a diptych (a pair of pictures hinged down the middle). They are remarkable pieces of illusionistic skill; the figures, which are like miniature statues, appear to stand in front of the frames (painted, not real) and they cast delicately observed reflections on the polished background.



The Great Artist Van Eyck Painting “The Madonna in Her Chamber” c.1435 25 3/4" X 19 1/2" Stadelsches Kunstinstitut, Frankfurt
This painting is also known as the Lucca Madonna, as it was once owned by the Duke of Lucca. It is one of Van Eyck‘s most tender and intimate works, but it also has great dignity. As with so many of Van Eyck’s paintings, the beautifully observed details can often be symbolically interpreted; the four lions on the Virgin's splendid canopied throne, for example, make reference to those on the throne of Solomon, wlzere they symbolized royal power.

 Writer - Marshall Cavendish
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