Jan van Eyck
The master who perfected oil painting.
Jan van Eyck was court painter to the Duke of Burgundy and worked in Bruges. His layers of translucent oil paint gave a lustre and wealth of detail no one had seen before.
Jan van Eyck was born around 1390, probably in Maaseik in present-day Belgium. We know little about his training, but he was already an established artist when, in the early 1420s, he worked for the Count of Holland in The Hague. From 1425 he was court painter and valet de chambre to Philip the Good, Duke of Burgundy, one of the richest princes in Europe. He was also employed as a diplomat and travelled on secret missions. In 1428–29 he accompanied an embassy to Portugal to paint the future duchess, Isabella. Around 1430 he settled in the trading city of Bruges.
His most famous work is the Ghent Altarpiece, or The Adoration of the Mystic Lamb, in St Bavo’s Cathedral in Ghent. It was completed in 1432. An inscription says it was begun by his brother Hubert and finished by Jan, but how the work was divided is debated. The altarpiece has had a dramatic history. It has been looted by both Napoleon and the Nazis, and one of its panels, The Just Judges, was stolen in 1934 and has never been recovered. His other major works include The Arnolfini Portrait of 1434 in the National Gallery in London, The Madonna of Chancellor Rolin in the Louvre and The Madonna with Canon van der Paele in Bruges.
Van Eyck did not invent oil paint, as Vasari later claimed, but he perfected it. He built up the image in thin, translucent layers through which light passes and is reflected back. The result is a lustre and sharpness of detail that no one had achieved before. You can see individual hairs, the sparkle of gemstones and reflections in metal. In the Arnolfini Portrait the room appears in a convex mirror on the back wall, and above it he has written “Jan van Eyck was here 1434”.
He often signed his works, sometimes with the motto “Als ich can”, “as best I can”, a pun on his name. The Man in a Red Turban in London may be a self-portrait, and he also painted his wife Margaret. He died in Bruges in 1441.
Van Eyck laid the foundations of Flemish painting. His technique and his way of depicting the visible world down to the smallest detail influenced artists throughout Europe, including Italy.