Van Eyck

This stunning compilation of the work of Jan van Eyck, the master Flemish painter, is being published to coincide with a once-in-a-lifetime exhibition in Ghent. Flemish painter Jan van Eyck (1390–1441) towered above his contemporaries. With his unprecedented technique, scientific knowledge, and unparalleled powers of observation, Van Eyck lifted oil painting to previously unknown heights and helped determine the course of Western art. In 2020, the Museum of Fine Arts in Ghent will host the largest ever exhibition of Van Eyck’s work. Van Eyck: An Optical Revolution includes artwork by Van Eyck, several pieces from his studio, and international masterpieces from the late Middle Ages while making the world of Van Eyck more tangible than ever. This tie-in exhibition catalog unravels some of the myths that surround Van Eyck and his techniques, while showing his complete oeuvre and influence in a new perspective. Including essays by leading experts from around the world, Van Eyck will prove to be an indispensable resource for Van Eyck fans and scholars alike.

Jan van Eyck's surviving work comprises a series of painstakingly detailed oil paintings of astonishing verisimilitude. In a fascinating recovery of the neglected human dimension that is clearly present in these works, Craig Harbison interrogates the personal histories of the worldly participants of such masterpieces as the Virgin and Child with George van der Paele, the Arnolfini Double Portrait and the Virgin and Child with Nicolas Rolin. With the aid of abundant visual evidence in color and in black and white, Harbison reveals how van Eyck presented his contemporaries with a more subtle and complex view of the value of appearances as a route to understanding the meaning of life. "I found this an enthralling study" The Sunday Telegraph "A fascinating investigation into the nature of the great pioneer's clients ... some fine photo details" Art Review"

This fascinating book looks at the work of Flemish painter Jan van Eyck (c. 1395-1441) under a magnifying glass. Famed for his focused observation of nature, Van Eyck studied fauna and flora in their natural environment and under carefully chosen light conditions, and then achieved a breathtaking and convincing realism in his paintings. Each panel is a collection of minuscule details rendered with superb clarity from foreground to background, or at least that is the impression at first glance. As this book reveals, that is precisely where Van Eyck's exceptional talent lies: he understood that the human brain is able to supplement visual perception where necessary. Here, details from Van Eyck's paintings are organized by such themes as nature, architecture, daily life, fabrics, glass, jewelry and mirrors, and portraits. Opening with a biographical note and an introduction on the technique of oil painting on panel, the authors explain the significance of the individual details and how Van Eyck achieved his innovative artistic results. This is an unprecedented look at the work of a popular master.

A significant new interpretation of the emergence of Western pictorial realism When Jan van Eyck (c. 1390–1441) completed the revolutionary Ghent Altarpiece in 1432, it was unprecedented in European visual culture. His novel visual strategies, including lifelike detail, not only helped make painting the defining medium of Western art, they also ushered in new ways of seeing the world. This highly original book explores Van Eyck’s pivotal work, as well as panels by Rogier van der Weyden and their followers, to understand how viewers came to appreciate a world depicted in two dimensions. Through careful examination of primary documents, Noa Turel reveals that paintings were consistently described as au vif: made not “from life” but “into life.” Animation, not representation, drove Van Eyck and his contemporaries. Turel’s interpretation reverses the commonly held belief that these artists were inspired by the era’s burgeoning empiricism, proposing instead that their “living pictures” helped create the conditions for empiricism. Illustrated with exquisite fifteenth-century paintings, this volume asserts these works’ key role in shaping, rather than simply mirroring, the early modern world.

Jan van Eyck's surviving work comprises a series of painstakingly detailed oil paintings of astonishing verisimilitude. In a fascinating recovery of the neglected human dimension that is clearly present in these works, Craig Harbison interrogates the personal histories of the worldly participants of such masterpieces as the Virgin and Child with George van der Paele, the Arnolfini Double Portrait and the Virgin and Child with Nicolas Rolin. With the aid of abundant visual evidence in color and in black and white, Harbison reveals how van Eyck presented his contemporaries with a more subtle and complex view of the value of appearances as a route to understanding the meaning of life. "I found this an enthralling study"--"The Sunday Telegraph "A fascinating investigation into the nature of the great pioneer's clients ... some fine photo details"--"Art Review Copyright © Libri GmbH. All rights reserved.

Offering a corrective to the common scholarly characterization of seventeenth-century Dutch landscape painting as modern, realistic and secularized, Boudewijn Bakker here explores the long history and purpose of landscape in Netherlandish painting. In Bakker's view, early Netherlandish as well as seventeenth-century Dutch painting can be understood only in the context of the intellectual climate of the day. Concentrating on landscape painting as the careful depiction of the visible world, Bakker's analysis takes in the thought of figures seldom consulted by traditional art historians, such as the fifteenth-century philosopher Dionysius the Carthusian, the sixteenth-century religious reformer John Calvin, the geographer Abraham Ortelius and the seventeenth-century poet Constantijn Huygens. Probing their conception of nature as 'the first Book of God' and art as its representation, Bakker identifies a world view that has its roots in the traditional Christian perceptions of God and creation. Landscape and Religion from Van Eyck to Rembrandt imposes a new layer of interpretation on the richly varied landscapes of the great masters. In so doing it adds a new dimension to the insights offered by modern art-historical research. Further, Bakker's explorations of early modern art and literature provide essential background for any student of European intellectual history.

Published in conjunction with the 1999 exhibition of the same name, ten essays and 317 illustrations (157 in color) depict northern Renaissance painting in Belgium and the Netherlands. This lovely book includes such artists as Van Eyck, Campin, Van der Weyden, David, Memling, and Bruegel, and contains commentaries on individual works, an appendix of paintings not covered in the text, artists' biographies, a glossary, a bibliography, and comparative illustrations. Oversize: 9.5x11.25"Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

Essays, chiefly delivered at the Jan van Eyck Symposium, held at the National Gallery, 13-14 March 1998.