B. Thom Stevenson

Hand painted.

Solo show this friday!

Solo show this friday!

Panoram of our studio.

(via polyesterfawn)

adsertoris:

1434 Jan van Eyck (Flemish 1395-1441) ~ The Arnolfini Portrait

This work is a portrait of Giovanni di Nicolao Arnolfini and his wife, but is not intended as a record of their wedding. His wife is not pregnant, as is often thought, but holding up her full-skirted dress in the contemporary fashion. Arnolfini was a member of a merchant family from Lucca living in Bruges. The couple are shown in a well-appointed interior. 

The ornate Latin signature translates as ‘Jan van Eyck was here 1434’. The similarity to modern graffiti is not accidental. Van Eyck often inscribed his pictures in a witty way. The mirror reflects two figures in the doorway. One may be the painter himself. Arnolfini raises his right hand as he faces them, perhaps as a greeting.
Van Eyck was intensely interested in the effects of light: oil paint allowed him to depict it with great subtlety in this picture, notably on the gleaming brass chandelier.

Source: Nationalgallery.org.uk

High resolution‎

The Arnolfini Portrait is an oil painting on oak panel dated 1434 by the Early Netherlandish painter Jan van Eyck. It is also known as The Arnolfini Wedding, The Arnolfini Marriage, The Arnolfini Double Portrait or the Portrait of Giovanni Arnolfini and his Wife.

This painting is believed to be a portrait of the Italian merchant Giovanni Arnolfini and his wife, presumably in their home in the Flemish city of Bruges. It is considered one of the most original and complex paintings in Western art history. Both signed and dated by Van Eyck in 1434, it is, with the Ghent Altarpiece by the same artist and his brother Hubert, the oldest very famous panel painting to have been executed in oils rather than in tempera. The painting was bought by the National Gallery in London in 1842.

The illusionism of the painting was remarkable for its time, in part for the rendering of detail, but particularly for the use of light to evoke space in an interior, for “its utterly convincing depiction of a room, as well of the people who inhabit it”.

Identity of subjects

This painting was long believed to be a portrait of Giovanni di Arrigo Arnolfini and his wife Giovanna Cenami in a Flemish bedchamber, but it was established in 1997 that they were married in 1447, thirteen years after the date on the painting and six years after van Eyck’s death. It is now believed that the subject is either Giovanni di Arrigo or his cousin, Giovanni di Nicolao Arnolfini, and an unknown wife of either one of them. This is either an undocumented first wife of Giovanni di Arrigo or a second wife of Giovanni di Nicolao, or, according to a recent proposal, Giovanni di Nicolao’s first wife Costanza Trenta, who had died by February 1433.   In the latter case, this would make the painting partly an unusual memorial portrait, showing one living and one dead person.

Description

The painting  is generally in very good condition, though with small losses of original paint and damages, which have mostly been retouched. Infra-red reflectograms of the painting show many small alterations, or pentimenti, in the underdrawing: to both faces, to the mirror, and to other elements.

The couple are shown in an upstairs room with a chest and a bed in it in early summer as indicated by the fruit on the cherry tree outside the window. The room probably functioned as a reception room, as it was the fashion in France and Burgundy where beds in reception rooms were used as seating, except, for example, when a mother with a new baby received visitors. The window has six interior wooden shutters, but only the top opening has glass, with clear bulls-eye pieces set in blue, red and green stained glass.

The two figures are very richly dressed; despite the season both their outer garments, his tabard and her dress, are trimmed and fully lined with fur.

The convex mirror at the back, in a wooden frame with scenes of The Passion painted behind glass, is shown larger than such mirrors could actually be made at this date - another discreet departure from realism by Van Eyck. There is also no sign of a fireplace (including in the mirror), nor anywhere obvious to put one. Even the oranges casually placed to the left are a sign of wealth; they were very expensive in Burgundy, and may have been one of the items dealt in by Arnolfini.

The view in the mirror shows two figures just inside the door that the couple are facing. The second figure, wearing red, is presumably the artist although, unlike Velázquez in Las Meninas, he does not seem to be painting. Scholars have made this assumption based on the appearance of figures wearing red headdresses in some other van Eyck works (e.g., the Portrait of a Man (Self Portrait?) and the figure in the background of the Madonna with Chancellor Rolin). The dog is an early form of the breed now known as the Brussels griffon.

“Johannes de eyck fuit hic 1434” (“Jan van Eyck was here. 1434”).

The painting is also signed, inscribed and dated on the wall above the mirror: “Johannes de eyck fuit hic. 1434” (“Jan van Eyck was here. 1434”). The inscription looks as if it were painted in large letters on the wall, as was done with proverbs and other phrases at this period. Other surviving van Eyck signatures are painted in trompe l’oeil on the wooden frame of his paintings, so that they appear to have been carved in the wood.

Interpretation and symbolism

• The placement of the two figures suggests conventional 15th century views of marriage and gender roles – the woman stands near the bed and well into the room, symbolic of her role as the caretaker of the house, whereas Giovanni stands near the open window, symbolic of his role in the outside world. Giovanni looks directly out at the viewer, his wife gazes obediently at her husband. His hand is vertically raised, representing his commanding position of authority, whilst she has her hand in a lower, horizontal, more submissive pose. However, her gaze at her husband can also show her equality to him because she is not looking down at the floor as lower class women would. They are part of the Burgundian court life and in that system she is his equal not his subordinate.
• Although many viewers assume the wife to be pregnant, this is not believed to be so. Art historians point to numerous paintings of female virgin saints similarly dressed, and believe that this look was fashionable for women’s dresses at the time. Fashion would have been important to Arnolfini, especially since he was a cloth merchant. The more cloth a person wore, the more wealthy he or she was assumed to be.
• The cherries on the tree outside the window may symbolize love. The oranges which lie on the window sill and chest may symbolize the purity and innocence that reigned in the Garden of Eden before the Fall of Man. They were uncommon and a sign of wealth in the Netherlands, but in Italy were a symbol of fecundity in marriage. The fruit could more simply be a sign of the couple’s wealth since fruit was very expensive during this time.
• The cast-aside patten clogs are possibly a gesture of respect for the wedding ceremony and also indicate that this event is taking place on holy ground, although these were normally only worn outside. Husbands traditionally presented brides with clogs. It can also be seen as indicative of domestic stability and tranquility. According to Harbison , the removal of shoes associated with the candle and the statue of St Margaret could all reflect “the couple’s love, sexual union, and the fruitfulness of the woman.” The removal of shoes was often seen as an indicator of “the presence of sexual passion in seventeenth century Dutch art.” Likewise, the candle also indicated love and sexual union because it was often brought into the bedchamber by newlyweds to burn all night. As discussed below, the figure of Saint Margaret beside the bed could relate to the couple’s desire for fertility, as revealed by both Panofsky and Harbison.
• The little dog symbolizes loyalty, or can be seen as an emblem of lust, signifying the couple’s desire to have a child. The dog could also be simply a lap dog, a gift from husband to wife. Many wealthy women in the court had lap dogs as companions. So, the dog could reflect the wealth of the couple and their position in courtly life.
• The green of the woman’s dress symbolizes hope, possibly the hope of becoming a mother. Her white cap could signify purity, but probably signifies her being married.
• Behind the pair, the curtains of the marriage bed have been opened; the red curtains might allude to the physical act of love between the married couple.
• The single candle in the left rear holder of the ornate seven-branched chandelier is possibly the candle used in traditional Flemish marriage customs. Lit in full daylight, like the sanctuary lamp in a church, the candle may allude to the presence of the Holy Ghost or the ever-present eye of God.
• Alternatively, in Margaret Koster’s theory that the painting is a memorial portrait, the single lit candle on Giovanni’s side contrasts with the burnt-out candle whose wax stub can just be seen on his wife’s side. In a metaphor commonly used in literature, he lives on, she is dead.
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  Panofsky and Koster draw very different conclusions from the single lighted candle; note the burned-out one opposite it on the right

• There is a carved figure of Saint Margaret, patron saint of pregnancy and childbirth, as a finial on the bedpost. Saint Margaret was invoked to assist women in labor and to cure infertility. The figure could also represent Saint Martha the patroness of housewives as Harbison suggests. From the bedpost hangs a brush, symbolic of domestic care. Furthermore, the brush and the rosary (a popular wedding gift) appearing together on either side of the mirror may also allude to the dual Christian injunctions ora et labora (pray and work). According to Jan Baptist Bedaux, the broom could also symbolize proverbial chastity; it “sweeps out impurities.”

• The small medallions set into the frame of the convex mirror at the back of the room show tiny scenes from the Passion of Christ and may represent God’s promise of salvation for the figures reflected on the mirror’s convex surface. Furthering the Memorial theory, all the scenes on the wife’s side are of Christ’s death and resurrection. Those on the husbands side concern Christ’s life. See mirror detail under Reproductions below.

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  Detail of the convex mirror
• The mirror itself may represent the eye of God observing the vows of the wedding. A spotless mirror was also an established symbol of Mary, referring to the Holy Virgin’s immaculate conception and purity.
• The mirror reflects two figures in the doorway, one of whom may be the painter himself. In Panofsky’s controversial view, the figures are shown to prove that the two witnesses required to make a wedding legal were present, and Van Eyck’s signature on the wall acts as some form of actual documentation of an event at which he was himself present. according to one author “The painting is often referenced for its immaculate depiction of non-Euclidean geometry”, referring to the image on the convex mirror.

Technique

See also: Hockney-Falco thesis

Van Eyck created a painting with an almost reflective surface by applying layer after layer of translucent thin glazes. The intense glowing colours also help to highlight the realism, and to show the material wealth and opulence of Arnolfini’s world. Van Eyck took advantage of the longer drying time, compared to tempera, of oil paint to blend colours by painting wet-in-wet to achieve subtle variations in light and shade to heighten the illusion of three-dimensional forms. He carefully distinguished textures and captured surface appearance precisely. He also rendered effects of both direct and diffuse light by showing the light from the window on the left reflected by various surfaces. It has been suggested that he used a magnifying glass in order to paint the minute details such as the individual highlights on each of the amber beads hanging beside the mirror.

The rapture.

Unnatural histories (Taken with Instagram at American Museum of Natural History)

Ringz

He thought it made him look smart.

Just finished this in LA. On my way home now.