History of World Art II: Day 20

Jan van Eyck (birth date unknown, before c. 1395 – before July 9, 1441) was a Flemish painter who worked in Bruges. He is considered one of the best Northern European painters of the 15th century and was a contemporary of Rogier van der Weyden. van Eyck gained popularity before van der Weyden, and he was wrongly credited, during the 16th century, with inventing oil painting. Oil painting has roots from much further back and there are instructions for oil-based painting in Theophilus' On Divers Arts, written in 1125.
The van Eyck brothers were early Netherlandish pioneers and among the first painters to use it for very detailed panels and use of glazes and other techniques used to create luminescence in their work. Because of his mastery of these techniques he was traditionally known as the "father of oil painting."

Where van der Weyden focused much attention on hands, making them stars in his portraits, Jan van Eyck focused attention on fabric creating dramatic characters out of dresses, turbans, and drapery - even the draping of statues clothing is beautifully rendered in his painting on the exterior of The Ghent Altarpiece, painted in 1432. The colors are crisp and bright and the attention to all detail within his subjects environment does not go unnoticed. This portraits are definitely stoic, but they hint at expression and the eyes meet the gaze of the viewer, which is something that was not done during the Gothic period. The interiors are also well rendered and the use of perspective withing the structures painted create volume and depth within; in the Annunciation he is beginning to use linear perspective to organize the setting and create a dramatic stage within the stage of the painting.

Below are some examples of his work; look at the fabric he has made into characters within his paintings: