An Art Revolution in Flanders

In the early 15th century, Jan van Eyck truly was a revolutionary painter. To appreciate just how groundbreaking the art he made was, you need to head to Belgium this spring to take the unparalleled opportunity to see more than half of his extant pictures gathered together for one absolute blockbuster of an exhibition.

Van Eyck: An Optical Revolution at Ghent's Museum of Fine Arts presents newly restored panels from the magnificent altarpiece in the city's St Bavo's Cathedral painted by van Eyck and his brother Hubert, a selection of other religious paintings full of astonishing detail and colour, and portraits conveying a realism that no one had been able to achieve previously.

Van Eyck's stunning artistic and technical breakthrough, including his use of the oil paint that made his depictions so much richer and more vibrant, is made all the more clear as we go through this show by being presented alongside contemporary paintings in egg tempera from Italy that appear pale and simplistic in comparison. The Renaissance may have been under way south of the Alps, but the real revolution in art was getting going in what was then the economic powerhouse of northern Europe, the cities of Flanders, led by Bruges and Ghent.

For those of us in Britain, the van Eyck picture we're most familiar with is The Arnolfini Portrait, which probably depicts a wealthy Italian merchant working in Bruges and his wife. That fragile masterpiece isn't part of the Ghent show, but we're here to see less familiar but equally stunning pictures -- paintings that set a new standard.

Portraits for example. While others were painting their sitters in side-on profile, van Eyck found a new, more three-dimensional way of capturing likenesses, one that made those pictured seem more alive, more flesh-and-blood. Here's the three-quarter profile view of a Man with a Blue Chaperon (from the Brukenthal Museum in Transylvania -- bet you haven't been there). Your eye is clearly caught by the wonderfully intricate blue headgear, but it's the details of the face that are breathtaking -- the stubble and the lines around the eyes. Although painted nearly six centuries ago, this man is startlingly real. We don't know his identity, but he's holding a ring, so this could be an engagement portrait.

We'll get back to more portraits later on, but this extensive and detailed exhibition starts by setting the scene of van Eyck's Flanders. Not a huge amount is known about him, including how he trained as an artist, but he's assumed to have been born in about 1390, probably in Maaseik, a town just north of Maastricht that is these days just inside Belgium. In 1425 he became court painter to Philip the Good, the Duke of Burgundy, whose territories extended into much of the southern Netherlands. The trading centre of Ghent was the second-largest city north of the Alps, after Paris, and Philip's court was a brilliant one. The Duke prized van Eyck not only for his painting skills but also as a diplomat.

Van Eyck wasn't the first artist to use oil paint, as Giorgio Vasari suggested, but he was able to exploit new techniques that allowed oils to dry more quickly. But it wasn't just that that makes his work so special, there's also the incredibly detailed observation of the world around him.

Take this astonishing picture: Saint Francis of Assisi Receiving the Stigmata. It's really small, less than 13x15 cm, and yet it's packed with spellbindingly accurate representations of plants, rocks and folds of garments, not to mention the cityscape and the mountain range in the distance.

How was van Eyck able to do this? For comparison, there's a painting on the same theme by Fra Angelico made at about the same time, hung very close by. The Fra Angelico version is certainly a lot more drama-packed, but van Eyck's painting places this spiritual event in a naturalistic setting in a world that, while imagined, looks a lot more real. 

At this moment when modern painting was born, van Eyck was able to recreate textures, surfaces, the effects of light and shade, with the sort of accuracy that would still be astonishing in the Dutch Golden Age two centuries later. 

The outer panels from the Ghent altarpiece have been taken from the cathedral and are displayed as separate paintings in various galleries in this exhibition, and they're all stupendous -- just admire the statue-like drapery of the gowns of the Archangel and the Virgin in the Annunciation scene.   

But in some ways it's the most modest panels here that are the most mind-blowing. To the right of the Archangel, a stunning Flemish townscape (the links in this section take you to a website where you can zoom in on the detail). There are people in the windows of the buildings, birds on the roofs. The sun throws accurate shadows across this outside view, all only visible in the closest of close-ups. And next to it, to the left of the Virgin Mary, in a Gothic niche, a copper kettle and wash basin, and, most prosaic of all but represented with the most faithful accuracy, a linen towel. 

And before we get on to a couple more Annunciations, let's start at the very beginning: with Adam and Eve. It's often said that nudes in pre-modern art are rather idealised. Not on van Eyck's altarpiece: Eve may be holding a fig leaf, but she's got plenty of pubic hair visible (John Ruskin must never have travelled to Ghent). And what about those frizzy locks on her head? Adam's pretty hirsute too: You can see every hair painted on those legs, just above the foot that appears to jut out over the painted frame.

Copper, linen, body hair. You name it, Jan van Eyck could paint it. Brocade and angels' wings, too, as here in The Madonna at the Fountain. All right, he struggled a bit with the baby Jesus, but so did so many artists. 

Van Eyck's Annunciation from the National Gallery of Art in Washington contains many elements that sum up the painter's achievements. Zoom in on this painting to marvel at the fall of the Archangel Gabriel's brocade robe, seeing how it just slightly covers the bejewelled border. The play of light on the garment itself is uncanny, and the way the floor tiles have been reproduced. What an eye for detail this man must have had.

Painting or sculpture? Which could most accurately represent reality, was the question that had been posed since ancient times. Well, van Eyck had his own solution to the conundrum. He painted sculpture that appears astonishingly three-dimensional. We see it on the Ghent Altarpiece, but the effect is most wondrous in this Annunciation Diptych, now in the Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum in Madrid.

The sculptures van Eyck has painted seem to protrude visibly from their niches, casting realistic shadows (the Archangel's wing is particularly impressive) and to be reflected in a black marble backdrop.

Italian painters of this era -- Fra Angelico and others -- were using mathematical perspective to give depth to their paintings, but pictures such as The Annunciation by Domenico Veneziano still appear somehow flatter and less real than van Eyck's works. Van Eyck painted using what is called intuitive perspective -- not scientifically true, but based on visual instinct. What he painted wouldn't actually fit together in real life, but our eyes perceive it as being correct.

So van Eyck painted what he saw -- warts and all, when it came to portraits. There's an amazing room towards the end of this show that brings together seven of them, including the Man with a Blue Chaperon. You can see the blemishes and wrinkles on the faces of Baudouin de Lannoy, the Governor of Lille, and Joos Vijd, the patron who commissioned the Ghent altarpiece.

Here is Jan de Leeuw, a goldsmith from Bruges, looking straight at us, confidently, holding a gold ring probably as a sign of his profession. As a fellow master craftsman, he must have moved in the same circles as van Eyck; they may have been friends.

And finally, van Eyck's wife Margareta, with the most astonishing frilled headdress. And on the frame at the bottom, the painter's motto: "Als ich can" -- "As well as I can."

This wonderful exhibition brings together 10 panels from the Ghent Altarpiece and 14 other oils either by van Eyck alone or together with his workshop, as well as many other works from the era and in imitation of the painter. You're unlikely to get the chance to see such a show ever again. Even at this early stage of the year, we can't imagine seeing many better exhibitions in 2020.

Practicalities

Van Eyck: An Optical Revolution is on at the Museum of Fine Arts in Ghent until April 30. It's open seven days a week, starting at 0930. The museum closes at 1800 on Wednesdays, 1900 on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Sundays and 2300 on Mondays, Fridays and Saturdays. You should really allow three to four hours to take it all in. While some tickets may be available on the day (they certainly were on the opening weekend), you're best off booking online in advance here to avoid disappointment. Full-price tickets cost 25 euros online, 28 euros at the museum. An audioguide is included in the price.

The gallery is situated on Fernand Scribedreef, about 15 minutes' walk from Ghent's main Sint-Pieters station. Trains to Ghent from Brussels run about every 15 minutes on weekdays, taking less than half an hour from Bruxelles Midi, where the Eurostar from London arrives.

The Ghent Altarpiece

After the exhibition, you shouldn't miss a visit to see the rest of the van Eyck altarpiece in St Bavo's Cathedral in Ghent's historic city centre, about 25 minutes' walk from the Museum of Fine Arts. This gives you the chance in particular to view the central panel, with the Adoration of the Mystic Lamb itself. The small chapel containing the altarpiece is open from 1030 (1300 on Sundays) to 1600, and entry costs 4 euros, including a detailed audioguide. Be warned that the altarpiece is surrounded by an armoured glass case, so you can't get that close. It can also get incredibly packed inside the chapel, so you may need to be patient before you can shuffle into a decent viewing position. Allow a good half an hour to see what is one of the world's great works of art.

Images

Jan van Eyck, Portrait of a Man with a Blue Chaperon, c. 1428-30, Muzeul National Brukenthal, Sibiu, Romania
Jan van Eyck, Saint Francis of Assisi Receiving the Stigmata, c. 1430-32, Philadelphia Museum of Art. Courtesy of the Philadelphia Museum of Art
Jan and Hubert van Eyck, The Adoration of the Mystic Lamb (Outer panels of the closed altarpiece), 1432, St Bavo’s Cathedral, Ghent. © www.lukasweb.be - Art in Flanders

Jan van Eyck, The Madonna at the Fountain, 1439, Royal Museum of Fine Arts, Antwerp. © www.lukasweb.be -- Art in Flanders; Photo: Hugo Maertens

Jan van Eyck, The Annunciation, c. 1434-36, National Gallery of Art, Washington

Jan van Eyck, The Annunciation Diptych, c. 1433-35, Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid
Jan van Eyck, Portrait of Jan de Leeuw, 1436, Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna
Jan van Eyck, Portrait of Margareta van Eyck, 1439, Musea Brugge -- Groeningemuseum, Bruges. © Musea Brugge, www.lukasweb.be -- Art in Flanders; Photo: Hugo Maertens