Van Eyck Paintings

By artforus

See some fantastic Van Eyck paintings in this online gallery of his work. There is also some great detail on his career, much of which remains undiscovered because he was around back in the 15th century and much has been lost over the centuries since.

Jan van Eyck (also known as Johannes de Eyck) was a famous Flemish artist prominent in Bruges and respected as one of the best Northern European painters of the 15th century.

Jan van Eyck produced paintings for private clients in addition to his work at the court. Foremost among these is the Ghent Altarpiece painted for Jodocus Vijdts and his wife Elisabeth Borluut. Started sometime before 1426 and completed, at least partially, by 1432, this polyptych has been seen to represent “the final conquest of reality in the North”, differing from the great works of the Early Renaissance in Italy by virtue of its willingness to forgo classical idealization in favor of the faithful observation of nature. It is housed in its original location, the Cathedral of St. Bavo in Ghent, Belgium.

The cathedral has had a turbulent history, surviving the 16th-century iconoclastic riots, the French Revolution, changing tastes which led to its dissemination, and most recently Nazi looting. When World War II ended it was recovered in a salt mine, and the story of its restoration drew considerable interest from the general public and greatly advanced the discipline of the scientific study of paintings[citation needed]. No less turbulent was the history of the interpretation of this work. Since an inscription states that Hubert van Eyck maior quo nemo repertus (greater than anyone) started the altarpiece, but that Jan van Eyck – calling himself arte secundus (second best in the art) – finished it identifies it as a collaborative effort of Jan van Eyck and his brother Hubert. The question of who painted what, or “Jan or Hubert?” has become a mythical one among art historians. Some even question the validity of the inscription, and thus Hubert van Eyck’s involvement.

Throughout the 1930s, Emil Renders even argued that “Hubert van Eyck” was a complete fiction invented by Ghent humanists in the 16th century. More recently, Lotte Brand Philip (1971) has proposed that the Ghent Altarpiece’s inscription has been misread, and that Hubert was (in Latin) the “fictor”, not the “pictor”, of the work. She interprets this as meaning that Jan van Eyck painted the entire altarpiece, while his brother Hubert created its sculptural framework.

Below is a full list of paintings attributed to Jan Van Eyck:

• Crucifixion and Last Judgement
• Madonna in the Church
• Annunciation
• The Stygmata of St. Francis
• Portrait of a Goldsmith
• Saint Bavo Cathedral
• Ghent Altarpiece
• Portrait of a Young Man
• Madonna with Child Reading
• Portrait of a Man in a Turban
• Arnolfini Portrait
• The Virgin of Chancellor Rolin
• Portrait of Niccolò Albergati
• Portrait of a Man with Carnation
• Portrait of Baudouin de Lannoy
• Portrait of Giovanni Arnolfini
• St. Jerome in His Study
• Madonna and Child
• The Madonna with Canon van der Paele
• Portrait of Jan de Leeuw
• St. Barbara
• Head of Christ
• Portrait of Margareta van Eyck
• Madonna and Child at the Fountain
• Annunciation
• Portrait of Christ