By Paul Dunwell, writing for EasyFrame
© Copyright EasyFrame 2021
Jan Van Eyck was an innovator, using oils instead of egg tempera, which until around 1500 was the way in which most artists could create fast-drying and long-lasting paint. So a century ahead of his time he was harnessing a 'wet-on-wet' approach with oils, one that was enhanced by multiple thin layers of translucent glaze too, in order to create detailed and realistic depictions in rich and deep colours. There is a myth that Van Eyck invented oil-painting. He didn't. But he came close. He was also adept at embedded iconography, leaving viewers to ponder the significance of in-frame objects though his subjects, the sitters, may not have been aware that the painter was effectively being mischievous. See below right for an example.
Van Eyck is variously described as being ‘Early Netherlandish’, ‘Early Northern Renaissance’, ‘Medieval’ and ‘International Gothic’. Take your pick. What is unarguable is that as a court and religious painter he was one of the most capable 15th century artists and part of a Northern European school that rivalled what was going on in Italy at that time.
He did leave at least 20 works that are clearly his, with the attribution made easier because he was one of the few painters in his era who signed their work and the frames too (frames being painted as part of the creation). Perplexingly he could sometimes encode his name in Greek or Latin. His work is sometimes confused with that of his siblings. And after his death his widow Margaret continued to run his studio so other artists would have finished off work that Jan had started under the new direction of his brother Lambert. All of the above has self-evidently fudged provenance.
Born in Maaseyck or Masseik (within what is present-day Belgium, hence perhaps Van Eyck's name), or in Maasland (an area of the Netherlands from which he definitely had the dialect in which he wrote), or even in Bergeijk (there is a link to a coat of arms), we think during the early-to-mid 1380s but definitely before 1395, Jan Van Eyck was active in Bruges, Flanders and The Hague, now the capital of what is the modern-day Netherlands. But he certainly travelled quite widely because, as a painter enjoying court patronage during what was the Holy Roman Empire (quite a vast area at that time, it stretched from the North Sea down to the Adriatic and incorporated what are now Switzerland, Austria, The Netherlands, Belgium, Luxemburg and Germany), he was often despatched as a diplomat and would have been expected to accurately depict potential brides in the days before the 'selfie'. He even got to the Holy Land, rare in the 15th century (the crusades had only been in the 11th to 13th centuries, so they'd finished, and with them a matchless opportunity to go to foreign lands and kill people!)
Van Eyck certainly had a sister Margareta, two brothers Hubert and Lambert who were both artists with whom he collaborated and whose work is sometimes confused with Jan's. There was also a Barth'lemy Van Eyck, who worked in France at that time but it's not clear what their relationship was if any.
He was to marry, 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 when he started work as the court painter for John the Pitiless (who won his name for executing rebels but was ultimately poisoned in 1425 by an aide he'd already sacked and who, although John had renounced the church, managed to kill him with a prayer-book). Van Eyck then went to work for Phillip the Good (Duke of Burgundy, of the famous Valois dynasty) in Lille, France, before moving to Bruges (Phillip had a roving court) where he remained based for the rest of his life despite his travels. Van Eyck was well-educated and knew Hebrew, Latin and Greek (which he used to use in ciphers or coded messages on frames and suchlike) so he'd appeal to the cultivated-and-aspirational duke. It was Phillip who sent the artist off in 1428 to meet and paint Isabella of Portugal who, until Philip saw the painting, was a potential bride. (It is said that Van Eyck painted 'dignified warts-and-all' portraits.) One recognises that this was long before you could just put a piccie on Tinder.
Phillip, realising Van Eyck's worth (if not just as somebody who could save him from marrying a lady he didn't fancy), put the artist on a generous stipend, allowing him the freedom to paint whatever, whenever and wherever he wanted. But he was also exceptionally generous in payments to Van Eyck when he sent him on still-mysterious cloak-and-dagger missions between 1426 and 1429 (of course such travels, including to the Holy Land, were always going to be potentially dangerous). And Phillip furthermore gave Van Eyck's widow Margaret a one-off payment of a year's salary when her husband died though the city, Bruges, gave her a pension too.
Van Eyck's key contemporaries were the Italian Pisanello (ca 1394 - 1455), the Flemish / Dutch painter Rogier van der Weyden (ca 1400 - 1464) and the Italian Gentile da Fabriano (ca 1370 - 1427). But it's not clear if he met any or all of them. Certainly his travels to the Holy Land would have taken him, in all probability, via Italy. So it's anybody's guess who he met and what he saw that inspired him.
In summary Jan Van Eyck was not the inventor of oil-painting but he might have a fair claim to be the father of it. He certainly was one of its earliest exponents and an adept one too, a man who utilised the medium-of-the-moment to chart his times with awesome accuracy.
You can easily and affordably buy unframed prints of his work. Try going to the National Gallery page at www.nationalgallery.co.uk/products/van-eyck. The Tate has lots of his work for sale. But it is not alone. Try www.fruugo.co.uk/eyck-jan-van-poster-print too. There are many others.
You'll want to frame whatever you buy. Any good framers will be able to show you a vast range of different solutions and advise on what might be the most suitable given the work and its proposed location.
EasyFrame is on 01234 856 501 and / or sales@EasyFrame.co.uk and they'll always chat even if you don't want to buy!
Article Posted: 12/03/2021 11:56:40