Jan van Eyck and Hubert van Eyck

Flemish painters

• Hubert van Eyck
• Born: Before 1390
• Birthplace: Possibly Maaseik, Bishopric of Liège, Holy Roman Empire (now in Belgium)
• Died: Probably September 18, 1426
• Place of death: Ghent, Flanders (now in Belgium)

• Jan van Eyck
• Born: c. 1390
• Birthplace: Possibly Maaseik, Bishopric of Liège, Holy Roman Empire (now in Belgium)
• Died: July 9, 1441
• Place of death: Bruges, Flanders (now in Belgium)

In paintings of unprecedented accuracy of observation and coherence of form, the van Eycks achieved a fusion of Christian religious content with a passionate devotion to visual fact.

Early Lives

The commonplace facts of the lives of Jan (yahn) and Hubert van Eyck (HYEW-burt van ik) are almost entirely absent from the historical record. Jan’s estimated year of birth, 1390, seems reasonable in view of the established details of his early career, as well as his date of death, 1441. Of Hubert, whose very existence has occasionally been called into question by scholars, evidence suggests that he was an elder brother; a taxation document from 1426 establishes that he died at about that time.

Both Hubert and Jan may have worked in The Hague (now in the Netherlands) from about 1415 to 1417, and it is certain that Jan was employed in that city from 1422 to 1424 by John of Bavaria, who as count of Holland maintained his court there. A document indicates that Jan was accompanied in his work there by at least two assistants. In early 1425, civil war broke out in Holland, and Jan sought refuge in Flanders, where Hubert had already gone. On May 19, Jan van Eyck entered the service of Philip III, duke of Burgundy. Philip the Good, as he was known, had a high regard both for Jan’s artistic abilities and for his skills as a negotiator, since over the next several years Jan was engaged in various missions on Philip’s behalf, including a journey in 1428 to negotiate Philip’s marriage to Isabella, daughter of King John I of Portugal. Jan’s role, at minimum, was to paint portraits of Isabella to help Philip come to a decision about the match. For the sake of security, two pictures were returned to Bruges, one by sea and the other by land.

Of the circumstances of Hubert’s death, and of its effect on the work in which he and Jan may have been jointly engaged, there is no documentation; their artistic and professional relationship can only be inferred from the paintings that have been attributed to them. A third brother, Lambert, who survived Jan, seems not to have been an artist.

Around 1432, Jan van Eyck bought a house in Bruges. By 1434 he had married, and in that year, his son was born; a daughter was born several years later. Only the first name of Jan’s wife, Margaretha, is known; of her social origins there is no record, but it may be assumed that a renowned artist of van Eyck’s stature would seek a favorable marriage. Jan’s portrait of her when she was thirty-three, painted in 1439, shows a woman of great intelligence, if not beauty. If Jan’s painting of 1433, known as The Man with the Red Turban, is, as seems likely, a self-portrait, the modern viewer has a visual document of a prosperous fifteenth century husband and wife.

Life’s Work

The dominant form of painting in northern Europe during the youth of Jan and Hubert van Eyck was manuscript illumination, a form that dominated the art of the Middle Ages and that was a particularly vital element of what came to be known as Gothic art . The small scale of manuscript illumination required extremely precise technique; that, and the need to include decorative elements and writing within the page, tended to favor qualities of abstract form and color rather than observation of nature. Around 1400, however, a trend toward naturalism in manuscript painting gained momentum in many northern European centers, including the region of Limbourg, near the van Eycks’ birthplace. The origins of this new attention to natural appearances are varied, but the influence of Giotto of Florence and his successors is certain. These fourteenth century Italian masters irreversibly influenced the depiction of the human figure, presenting it as a three-dimensional mass in an illusionistic space. The representation of natural light and the convincing portrayal of action and emotion were other progressive elements of Italian art that spread to major centers of artistic production in fifteenth century Europe.

In the earlier parts of their careers, the van Eycks were almost certainly occupied with manuscript painting. Probably the earliest works attributable to Jan or Hubert are the Heures de Turin (the Turin hours), several paintings that were once part of a book of miniatures, Très Belles Heures de Notre Dame. This volume was the effort of many artists working over an extended period of time whose identities are elusive, but in the case of the Heures de Turin, the modernity of the use of space in landscape and the subtle modulation of tones suggest the involvement of artists of very progressive tendencies. No more likely candidates than the van Eycks have been proposed, but opinion has always been divided about which particular characteristics in the works can be attributed to Hubert and which to Jan, or in fact whether the works represent a collaborative effort at all. All that can be said with assurance is that the Heures de Turin represent the vital trends that reach fulfillment in later works of the van Eycks.

Generally accepted as a work of Hubert is The Three Marys at the Sepulcher , a painting on a wooden panel that is substantially larger than a typical manuscript illumination. Although undated, it is considered a work of Hubert’s mature years and exhibits many qualities thought to be uniquely his own, such as a sharply inclined ground plane, awkward perspective, and slender, small-headed figures. There is an intensity of narrative interest in the figures thought to be atypical of the work of Jan. Its great significance, however, is that, in it, the vigor and monumentality of the style of the Heures de Turin are rendered on a larger scale.

The scholarly problem of distinguishing between the work of Jan and Hubert recurs in connection with the great polyptych, The Ghent Altarpiece , but here a consensus has emerged from decades of study. An inscription on the painting, placed there by order of the patron who commissioned it, states “Hubert van Eyck, the greatest painter who ever lived, began the work, which his brother Jan, the second in art, finished at the instigation of Jodocus Vijdt. With this verse, on 6 May [1432] he invites you to look at this work.” Given such a documentary starting point, if the altarpiece were less complex, attribution of its design and execution would not be problematic. The altarpiece is, however, composed of twenty panels of differing shapes, dimensions, and representational scales. When closed, the work’s eight exterior panels comprise an area 218 centimeters (86 inches) wide and 314 centimeters (124 inches) high; opened, its twelve panels together measure 455 centimeters (179 inches) in width. Within this impressive format, a multitude of figures is presented in an upper and lower register; centrally placed in the upper register is the seated figure of God, representing the Trinity. This figure, larger than life-size, is clothed in resplendent garments painted with an almost miraculous precision and vibrancy of color. To the left is the Virgin, and to the right is Saint John the Baptist. On either side of this central group are panels depicting angel musicians, and at the sides of this upper portion are the figures of Adam on the left and Eve on the right.

The lower register consists of five panels that together form a continuous landscape. The large central panel, which is the width of the four flanking panels combined, is a scene of the Adoration of the Lamb representing Revelation 7:2-10: “After this I beheld, and, lo, a great multitude, which no man could number, of all nations, and kindreds, and people, and tongues, stood before the throne, and before the Lamb, clothed with white robes, and palms in their hands.” The outer panels show the Just Judges, the Warriors of Christ, the Holy Hermits, and the Holy Pilgrims. In its entirety, the Adoration panels may be considered as the evocation of either an Earthly Paradise or the New Jerusalem. There is everywhere a profusion of grass, flowers, trees, and fruit, enveloped by a radiant, unifying light.

The consensus of scholars, which seems unlikely to be changed by further study, is that Hubert was largely responsible for the design of the altarpiece and for much of its execution, while Jan was the designer and painter of the figures of Adam and Eve and of parts of the rest, including the orange trees, palms, and cypresses of the Adoration of the Lamb. The question has been raised whether The Ghent Altarpiece was actually envisioned from the start in its present form by either Hubert or Jan, calling into question the unity of the overall structure. Yet few believe that the difference in scale, for example, of the figures in the upper and lower parts is anything but intentional; the contrast in scale seems visually and emotionally effective, and it is theologically sound.

With The Ghent Altarpiece, the technique of painting reached a degree of perfection that was the envy of painters in succeeding generations. The impression was given by the Italian artist Giorgio Vasari, writing in 1550, that Jan van Eyck had invented the technique of painting with oil. Oil had been used in the Low Countries as a medium before the van Eycks, but it is clear that the reputation for brilliance and subtlety gained by their works was in some measure the result of new methods in the preparation of paint, probably involving the use of a superior oil and more painstaking grinding of the pigment. The effects of their improvements were both aesthetic a gain in the ease and flexibility with which paint could be applied and physical, in that the paintings proved remarkably durable.

While working on The Ghent Altarpiece, Jan van Eyck accepted other commissions, but his next major works appeared after its completion in 1432. The Arnolfini Wedding , perhaps his best-known painting, was finished in 1434. It represents the wedding of Giovanni Arnolfini and Giovanna Cenami, natives of Lucca who resided in Bruges. It has been shown that each detail of the work has symbolic meaning and that the painting is in a sense almost a legal documentation of a wedding, with the two witnesses (the painter himself, and his wife a priest was not strictly necessary) shown reflected in a convex mirror at the back of a small room in which the ceremony takes place.

The years that remained to Jan van Eyck were as productive as those preceding The Arnolfini Wedding. In addition to portraits of Arnolfini, Margaretha van Eyck, and others, he completed several panels in which the donor is represented appearing before the infant Christ and the Madonna in a contemporary setting. Of these, the finest is perhaps Madonna with Chancellor Rolin , which places the subjects in a beautifully rendered Romanesque palace, with a view of a city on a river receding to a distant mountain landscape.

Significance

Jan and Hubert van Eyck began their careers in a milieu in which artistic endeavor tended to be anonymous and guilds controlled the standards and methods of production in the arts. Jan’s career there is no direct evidence of a “career” for Hubert, in this respect demonstrated that an artist could achieve individual distinction and be recognized not merely by fellow artists but by citizens generally. Artists began to gain status beyond that of mere specialized craftspeople. Jan van Eyck’s missions on behalf of his patron Philip the Good show that he was a trusted representative in political and personal matters, and one can infer that he was a man of substantial intellect.

Regardless of the credit due individually to Hubert or Jan in their works, each possessed a receptiveness to new ways of seeing the world, with the skill and sense of organization to complete projects of major physical and spiritual scope. On the slender evidence of Hubert’s attributed works, one might say that he was the more passionate and Jan the more analytical personality. Both, however, presented the world as suffused with a unifying light and color that incarnate spiritual unity. The diversity of the natural world is seen with a fresh eye, but not as purely optical phenomena.

The paintings of the van Eycks belong to the first flowering of the Renaissance in the art of northern Europe. Their conquest of natural appearances, even though it was pursued in the realm of religious art, contributed to a process of secularization that affected all facets of life.

Bibliography

Baldass, Ludwig. Jan van Eyck. London: Phaidon Press, 1952. This major monograph is exceptionally detailed both in text and illustrations, and it gives a good account of the historical context of the van Eycks’ work and has thorough appendices. The quality black-and-white reproductions are more sympathetic to the works than those in most later publications.

Borchert, Till-Holger. Age of Van Eyck: The Mediterranean World and Early Netherlandish Painting, 1430-1530. New York: Thames and Hudson, 2002. Published concurrently with an exhibit held in Bruges in 2002, this collection explores painting in Southern Europe influenced by the van Eycks. One chapter looks at “Van Eyck and the Invention of Oil Painting.” Includes color illustrations, a bibliography, and index.

De Hamel, Christopher. The British Library Guide to Manuscript Illumination: History and Techniques. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2001. Presents in a very brief format, with some illustrations, the ins and outs of manuscript illumination, including a history of the fine, detailed art.

De Vos, Dirk. The Flemish Primitives: The Masterpieces. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2002. A historical look at several Flemish master painters, including Jan van Eyck. Includes mostly color illustrations, a map, and a bibliography.

Faggin, Giorgio T. The Complete Paintings of the Van Eycks. New York: Penguin Books, 1986. Presents all the known paintings of the van Eycks. Major works are reproduced in color, many of them accompanied by enlarged details. The remainder of the reproductions are found in a separate section at the back of the book, which also contains extensive notes ranging from anecdotes to scholarly information. Includes a selection of comments on the van Eycks by writers through the centuries, a chronology, and appendices.

Foister, Susan, Sue Jones, and Delphine Cool, eds. Investigating Jan van Eyck. Turnhout, Belgium: Brepols, 2000. A collection of papers, most read at a symposium on Jan van Eyck in 1998, which cover topics such as Jan’s painting style and technique, handwriting, and underdrawing, and the use of dress and silk textiles in his work. Includes color illustrations, a bibliography, and index.

Panofsky, Erwin. “Jan van Eyck’s Arnolfini Portrait.” In Renaissance Art, edited by Gilbert Creighton. New York: Harper and Row, 1970. This classic essay was first published in Burlington Magazine in 1934, introducing the theory of “disguised symbolism,” which became a standard tool of art history. The author was one of the great scholars of art history, and he remains one of the most readable.

Van Puyvelde, Leo. Flemish Painting from the Van Eycks to Metsys. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1970. This text devotes about one-fifth of its pages to the van Eycks. Reproductions vary in quality from good to very good.