Why Was Jan van Eyck here?

« previous article | next article »

DC Field	Value
dc.identifier	ECF_article_1073
dc.title	Why Was Jan van Eyck here?. The Subject, Sitters, and Significance of The Arnolfini Marriage Portrait
dc.contributor.author	Binstock Benjamin
dc.publisher	Edizioni Ca’ Foscari - Digital Publishing
dc.type	Research Article
dc.language.iso	en
dc.identifier.uri	http://edizionicafoscari.it/en/edizioni4/riviste/venezia-arti/2017/1/why-was-jan-van-eyck-here/
dc.description.abstract	Jan van Eyck’s Arnolfini Marriage Portrait of 1434 still poses fundamental questions. An overlooked account explained the groom’s left hand holding his bride’s right hand as a secular, legal morganatic marriage with a bride of lower social rank and wealth. That would explain Van Eyck’s presence as witness in the mirror and through his inscription, and corresponds to the recent identification of the bride and groom as Giovanni di Arrigo Arnolfini and his previously unknown first wife Helene of unknown last name. Van Eyck’s scene can be called the first modern painting, as the earliest autonomous, illusionistic representation of secular reality, provided with the earliest artist’s signature of the modern type, framing his scene as perceived and represented by a particular individual. That is why Jan van Eyck was here.
dc.relation.ispartof	Venezia Arti
dc.relation.ispartof	Vol. 26 \| December 2017
dc.issued	2017-12-20
dc.dateAccepted	2017-09-21
dc.dateSubmitted	2017-07-17
dc.identifier.issn
dc.identifier.eissn	2385-2720
dc.rights	Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International Public License
dc.rights.uri	http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
dc.identifier.doi	10.14277/2385-2720/VA-26-17-7
dc.peer-review	yes
dc.subject	Arnolfini
dc.subject	Arnolfini
dc.subject	Jan van Eyck
dc.subject	Jan van Eyck
dc.subject	Modern painting
dc.subject	Modern painting
dc.subject	Morganatic Marriage
dc.subject	Morganatic Marriage
dc.subject	Signature
dc.subject	Signature

Research Article
open access peer reviewed

The Subject, Sitters, and Significance of The Arnolfini Marriage Portrait

Benjamin Binstock Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art, New York City, USA

VIEW PDF DOWNLOAD PDF

abstract

Jan van Eyck’s Arnolfini Marriage Portrait of 1434 still poses fundamental questions. An overlooked account explained the groom’s left hand holding his bride’s right hand as a secular, legal morganatic marriage with a bride of lower social rank and wealth. That would explain Van Eyck’s presence as witness in the mirror and through his inscription, and corresponds to the recent identification of the bride and groom as Giovanni di Arrigo Arnolfini and his previously unknown first wife Helene of unknown last name. Van Eyck’s scene can be called the first modern painting, as the earliest autonomous, illusionistic representation of secular reality, provided with the earliest artist’s signature of the modern type, framing his scene as perceived and represented by a particular individual. That is why Jan van Eyck was here.

Published

Dec. 20, 2017

Accepted

Sept. 21, 2017

Submitted

July 17, 2017

Language

Keywords: Morganatic Marriage • Jan van Eyck • Arnolfini • Signature • Modern painting

permalink http://doi.org/10.14277/2385-2720/VA-26-17-7

Copyright: © 2017 Benjamin Binstock. This is an open-access work distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction is permitted, provided that the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. The license allows for commercial use. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

References to this chapter

How to cite