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By Paul Dunwell, writing for EasyFrame
© Copyright EasyFrame 2021
Jan van Eyck was an innovator. He used oils when most artists, until around 1500, relied on egg tempera to make fast-drying, long-lasting paint. A century ahead of his time, he worked 'wet-on-wet' in oils and added multiple thin layers of translucent glaze, creating detailed, realistic pictures in rich, deep colours. There is a myth that he invented oil painting. He didn't. But he came close.
He was also adept at hidden symbolism, leaving viewers to ponder the meaning of objects in the picture. His sitters may not have realised that the painter was being mischievous. See below right for an example.
Van Eyck is variously described as 'Early Netherlandish', 'Early Northern Renaissance', 'Medieval' and 'International Gothic'. Take your pick. What is beyond argument is that, as a court and religious painter, he was one of the most capable artists of the 15th century, and part of a northern European school that rivalled what was happening in Italy.
He left at least 20 works that are clearly his. Attribution is easier because he was one of the few painters of his era to sign his work, and its frames too, which were painted as part of the piece. Perplexingly, he sometimes encoded his name in Greek or Latin. His work is sometimes confused with that of his brothers. After his death his widow, Margaret, kept his studio running under his brother Lambert, so other hands finished work Jan had started. All of this blurs the record.
Van Eyck was born in the early to mid 1380s, certainly before 1395. The place may have been Maaseik, in present-day Belgium, which would explain his name; or Maasland in the Netherlands, in whose dialect he wrote; or even Bergeijk. He was active in Bruges, in Flanders, and in The Hague.
He travelled widely. As a painter with court patronage he was often sent out as a diplomat, and would have been expected to paint accurate likenesses of potential brides, long before the selfie. He even reached the Holy Land, which was rare in the 15th century.
Van Eyck had a sister, Margareta, and two brothers, Hubert and Lambert, both artists with whom he collaborated. There was also a Barthélemy van Eyck working in France at the time, though it's not clear whether they were related.
He married, and his much younger wife, Margaret, bore him two daughters, Helena and Lievine, who became a nun.
By 1422 Van Eyck was already a master painter with assistants. He began work as court painter to John the Pitiless, who earned his name by executing rebels and was himself poisoned in 1425, reputedly by means of a prayer book.
Van Eyck then worked for Philip the Good, Duke of Burgundy, first in Lille and then in Bruges, where he was based for the rest of his life. He was well educated and knew Hebrew, Latin and Greek, which he used in ciphers on frames and elsewhere, so he appealed to the cultivated duke. In 1428 Philip sent him to meet and paint Isabella of Portugal, a potential bride. (Van Eyck is said to have painted 'dignified warts-and-all' portraits.) This was long before you could put a picture on Tinder.
Recognising his worth, Philip put him on a generous stipend, with freedom to paint whatever, whenever and wherever he wanted. He also paid him handsomely for still mysterious cloak-and-dagger missions between 1426 and 1429. Such journeys were always dangerous. When Van Eyck died, Philip gave his widow a year's salary, and the city of Bruges gave her a pension.
Van Eyck's key contemporaries were the Italians Pisanello (about 1394 - 1455) and Gentile da Fabriano (about 1370 - 1427) and the Netherlandish painter Rogier van der Weyden (about 1400 - 1464). It's not clear whether he met any of them. His journey to the Holy Land would probably have taken him through Italy, so it's anybody's guess whom he met and what he saw.
Jan van Eyck did not invent oil painting, but he has a fair claim to be its father. He was one of its earliest and most adept exponents, and used the new medium to record his times with awesome accuracy.
You can buy unframed prints of his work easily and affordably. Try the National Gallery page at www.nationalgallery.co.uk/products/van-eyck, which has lots of his work for sale, or www.fruugo.co.uk/eyck-jan-van-poster-print. There are many others.
You'll want to frame whatever you buy. Any good framers will show you a range of solutions and advise on what suits the work and where it will hang. EasyFrame is on 01234 856 501 and sales@EasyFrame.co.uk, and they'll always chat even if you don't want to buy!
Article Posted: 12/03/2021 10:56:40