Van Eyck Studies Colloquium, Brussels, 19-21 Sept 2012 Originally published as a guest post on 3 Pipe Problem 06 Oct 2012
On Sept 19 2012, I attended a full day of lectures delivered by an international gathering of Van Eyck experts at the 2012 Van Eyck Studies Colloquium in Brussels. This event, hosted by The Royal Institute for Cultural Heritage (KIK-IRPA), followed two years of intense technical examination of the Ghent Altarpiece, which was undergoing urgent restoration. The results of this work as well as high resolution imagery is available at Closer to Van Eyck, supported by The Getty Foundation. The conference provided a timely opportunity for academics and scientists to synthesise this and other recent research into Van Eyck’s life and art.
6 May 1432 Harvard professor Hugo Van der Velden got the day off to an arresting start with his re-interpretation of the original purpose and symbolism of the Ghent Altarpiece. His keynote lecture, 6 May 1432, focused on the interpretive possibilities of the Latin quatrain inscribed on the four lower frames of the altarpiece wings:
Pictor hubertus eeyck • maior quo nemo repertus Incepit • pondus • que johannes arte secundus Frater perfecit • judoci vyd prece fretus Versu sexta mai • vos collocat acta tueri
This can be translated as:
Prof Van der Velden’s transcription of these quatrains can be found here: The year 1432 is extracted from the red letters doubling as Roman numerals in the last line.
According to Van der Velden, Hubert may have started the painting as a commission for the town hall, but died in 1426 before completion. In fact, one of the few remaining documents concerning Hubert van Eyck concerns a commission from the magistrates of Ghent. (ref 2) Only several years later did Jodocus Vijd commission Jan van Eyck to complete it for the occasion of the baptism of Prince Joos of Burgundy, the son of Duke Philip the Good and Isabella of Portugal. This took place on the 6 May 1432, in the church of St John (now St Bavo’s Cathedral). Here the painting was premiered directly above Hubert’s tombstone.
This hasty re-commission may explain the later addition of the baptismal fountain of life. The lack of underdrawing for the fountain can be seen clearly in this infrared reflectography.
He proposes only the lower tier of the painting would have been completed and displayed for the occasion, along with the lost predella.
The predella is understood to have depicted hell or purgatory, and Van der Velden argues the case for purgatory. The baptismal water in the central panel is flowing directly down toward the predella, but there is no holy water (nor hope) in hell. By contrast he offers the possibility of living waters flowing down to wash the sins of the hopeful in purgatory, cleansing in particular the soul of Hubert van Eyck, who was resting in his tomb below the painting.
Thus on this day, Hubert was nourished through his art to eternal life, and the circle of life – birth, baptism, death, and redemption – was complete.
The day was a joyous celebration, and the painting such a sensation, Van der Velden suggests, that a commission to extend it and add second tier was made on the back of this success.
He further discussed evidence of the painting being displayed at the grand private residence of Jodocus Vijd after the baptism, supporting the notion that the painting was originally a celebratory commission rather than a consecrated altarpiece. Moving it to a private residence would have de-consecrated it.
This charismatically presented lecture threw down the gauntlet for the rest of the day and the room noticeably perked up whenever Van der Velden’s hypothesis resurfaced.
The altarpiece as a unified commission The first challenger was Bernard Ridderbos, of the University of Groningen, who focused on the life and motivations of the Ghent Altarpiece‘s patron, Jodocus Vijd. He wonders why such an unremarkable Ghent politician ended up commissioning the largest and most complex set of panel paintings executed in fifteenth century Netherlands. Jodocus Vijd, he infers, suffered from deep social insecurity despite his considerable wealth. Firstly he suffered the shame of his father’s disgrace at being found guilty of financial fraud. Secondly, his political career was unremarkable, and finally, he and his wife were childless. He chose to secure his family’s legacy with a grand altarpiece intended for his specially commissioned Vijd Chapel in the church of St John.
The Soldiers of Christ could refer to the knighthood of Jodocus’s father Clais and of his brother Christoffel, the Holy Pilgrims, led by Saint Christopher, patron of Christoffel Vijd, to Jodocus’s foundation of a hospice for pilgrims, and the Holy Hermits to the Charterhouse at Rooigem patronized and chosen as a burial site by Clais Vijd. (ref 3)
He argued against the keynote hypothesis of an independent lower tier.
The Ghent Altarpiece was part of the equipment of the church of Saint John and even of the city, because John the Baptist was also patron of Ghent. His prominence in the upper register and that of his usual attribute, the Lamb, below, can be explained by this double function and underscores the character of the work as a civic monument. (ref 4)
Although important, the civic and Vijd family symbolism is trumped by its function as an altarpiece for the Mass. A treatise on the Eucharist by a Ghent author, completed in 1440 revealed that ‘the inscriptions and images on the interior of the Ghent Altarpiece all relate coherently and simply to a single theme: the communion of the mystical body with its head, through the sacrament of the Eucharist’. (ref 5)
He argues the living water from the fountain symbolically flowed in the direction of the priest’s Eucharist on the altar.
Jewish political symbolism Also challenging Van der Velden’s hypothesis was Luc Dequeker of K.U Leuven. He proposed that the painting wasn’t purely a devotional painting, but also illustrated political themes. He agrees that the date May 6, 1432, as well as the cityscapes of Ghent and Sluis refer to Philip the Good, represented on the panel of the Just Judges.
He sees a Jewish theme throughout coinciding with a political hot topic of the time – equal rights for Jewish converts to Christianity. Note that Eve is holding an etrog, a citrus fruit associated with the forbidden fruit in Jewish tradition. He sees the central panel as depicting a Messianic vision of paradise on earth before the end of time. Within this, the presence of the converted Jewish prophets support the theme of universal salvation of humanity and the ultimate conversion of the Jews.
He proposes that it was originally intended to as a diplomatic gift for Philip the Good’s residence in Ghent, the Prisenhof, but was later adjusted symbolically and installed in the church of St John.
Dendrochronological analysis Following this lively sparring of theories, Pascale Fraiture’s presentation of dendrochronological analysis offered some fascinating facts to the mix. The panels of the Ghent Altarpiece came from 20 Baltic oak trees. Slow growth trees are the most resistant to shrinkage, and 66% of the panels of the altarpiece are from slow growth trees several centuries old, the oldest reaching 400 years old. The trees for the lower section would have been felled between 1415 and 1432 and those for the upper section between 1417 and 1434.
Three times a pair of planks from the same tree was identified. The most intriguing instance of this occurs on two panels located on the upper central and lower central tiers of the altarpiece. These planks don’t appear to be prepared by the same workshop, however. How to sensibly explain this? The two planks could have been part of the stock of the original workshop that began the commission. One plank would have been included on the bottom and the other recovered by a workshop that continued the work. This would support the narrative that Jan’s workshop finished the work that Hubert’s workshop began. Tantalisingly, it does not contradict Van der Velden’s theory of a temporarily independent existence of the lower tier.
Ms. Fraiture’s research can be downloaded.
Finally, the amazing possibility that computers could be programmed to distinguish between artists’ hands was raised in the poster presentation, Spatiogram Features to Characterize Pearls in the Ghent Altarpiece, by Ljiljana Platiša, Bruno Cornelis, Tijana Ružić, Aleksandra Pižurica, Ann Dooms, Maximiliaan .P.J. Martens, Marc De Mey, and Ingrid Daubechie.
The team measured and analysed the spatial characteristics of pearls painted by Van der Weyden and Van Eyck. The outcome was a unique mathematical ‘pearl technique’ signature for each artist. I wonder if they have applied this approach to the Ghent altarpiece to see if they can distinguish between Hubert and Jan’s hands?
References 1. Ridderbos, B, A.van Buren, and H.van Veen, eds. Early Netherlandish Paintings: Rediscovery, Reception, and Research. Amsterdam University Press (2005), p. 52.
2. Harbison, C. Jan van Eyck, The Play of Realism. Reaktion Books, (1997), p. 194.
3. Ridderbos et al. op sit p. 53.
4, 5. Ridderbos et al. ibid p. 55.
Resources
Closer to Van Eyck, an initiative of the Getty Foundation. All Ghent altarpiece imagery appears courtesy of this web resource.
Archived Comments
Jan Bustin 14 Oct 2012 I attended all three days of the Colloquium. And besides that I was lucky to be given the opportunity to visit the KIK-IRPA studio’s on the day before. They will be restoring the panels of the Mystic Lamb. As a painter myself I am doing practical research on historic painting techniques of the Flemish Primitives. So you can immagine for me it was verry interesting to exchange idea’s about the use of authentic pigments, oils and varnishes by painters during the 15th century Have a look at the picture-gallery at my website. There you can find some examples of copies I made and some current reconstruction-projects. http://www.janbustin.nl/gallery.php?id=4
Caroline Niesley 25 Nov 2014 Has anyone explored the suggestion Hubert van Eyck may have been a priest or a religious or in a minor order? He was not known to be a member of a guild and there is no known record of any marriage. Whoever painted the design certainly had a seminary education or the guidance of someone who did. Thanks for this marvelous post.
