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Jan Van Eyck

Jan Van Eyck was born in the year of 1395 and was a prominent figure of the Early Netherlandish art of his time. Van Eyck served as an official to the ruler of Holland, John of Bavaria-Straubing. By this time he had assembled a small workshop and was involved in redecorating the Binnenhof palace. After John's death in 1425, he moved to Bruges and came to the attention of Philip the Good, and he was freed from commissions because of the court's salary. He used oils for his paintings and Van Eyck often conveyed what he saw as a harmony of the spiritual and material worlds using iconographic elements.



The painting above is called the Arnolfini Portrait done by Jan Van Eyck. It forms a full-length double portrait, believed to showcase an Italian merchant named Giovanni di Nicolao Arnolfini and his wife. This oil painting has unique feature that was revolutionary at the time: a mirror. In the background, you can see a mirror reflecting the couple in the portrait. This was not a common addition to paintings in Van Eyck's time because most paintings were done with a two-dimensional view. The mirror, however, gives the viewer an understanding of the depth of the room the couple is in.

Comments

  1. JinglinZFebruary 21, 2018 at 1:31 PM

    nice blog with a lot of details! i love it! i hope to see more images about his works!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Flora AckleyFebruary 21, 2018 at 4:21 PM

    I really like how you focused on the mirror and I didn't think about how it contributes to the depth of the painting until you pointed it out!

    ReplyDelete
  3. Matthew SanchezFebruary 21, 2018 at 5:27 PM

    I really like the color scheme of the blog, the detail of the writing is nice also.

    ReplyDelete

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