Van Eyck, Jan

Inventing van Eyck: The Remaking of an Artist for the Modern Age

Jan Van Eyck: Renaissance Realist (Basic Art)

Van Eyck left an indelible impression on Renaissance art and paved the way for future realist painters. This title in the Basic Art series features a detailed chronological summary of the artist's life and work, cultural and historical importance, illustrations from the artist, and more.

Vision, Reflection, and Desire in Western Painting (Bettie Allison Rand Lectures in Art History)

Spanning more than 2,500 years in the history of art, this book demonstrates how the rise and diffusion of the science of optics in ancient Greece and the Mediterranean world correlated to pictorial illusion in the development of Western painting from Hellenistic Greece to the present. The spread of understanding of how light is transmitted, reflected, and refracted is evident in the works of artists such as Brunelleschi, van Eyck, Alberti, and Leonardo. The interplay between optics and painting that influenced the course of Western art, Summers says, persisted as a framework for the realism of Caravaggio, Rembrandt, and Goya and continues today in modern photography and film. With 12 color and 79 b&w illus.

Van Eyck (Chaucer Art) (Chaucer Art)

Jan van Eyck, the most famous and innovative Flemish painter of the 15th century, is thought to have been born in the village of Maaseyck in Limbourg around 1390 and died in Bruges in 1441. He served as court painter to two powerful patrons, first John of Bavaria, Count of Holland (1422-24) and then Philip the Good, Duke of Burgundy, for whom he undertook many secret diplomatic missions including visits to Spain and Portugal. Van Eyck has been credited with the invention of painting in oils and, although this is incorrect, there is no doubt that he perfected the technique. He used the oil medium to represent a variety of subjects in microscopic detail with striking realism; for example, he infused painted jewels and precious metals with a glowing inner light by means of subtle glazes. Scholars consider Jan van Eyck to be the single most influential Flemish painter of the northern Renaissance and one of the greatest masters of all time. Illustrated with many of van Eyck's finest works, this book ably proves this assertion.

The Art of Arts: Rediscovering Painting

The lovingly crafted little tome The Art of Arts might become a cult classic if there are enough Jan van Eyck fans out there--or enough readers who can chew their way through 775 footnotes--to make this work of special genius even an underground bestseller. It is filled with delectable details (for example, that an image of a mill in a landscape connotes a wanton woman, complete with a page of explanations why) and myriad perspicacious observations. In discussing such masterworks as van Eyck's Madonna of Chancellor Rolin, author Anita Albus draws the reader into a vanished world of alternative perspectives, painterly depths of color and atmosphere, and the mesmerizing minutiae of late-medieval and Renaissance symbolism. The last chapter of the book, "Of Lost Colors," combines metallurgy, history, meticulous scholarship, and the author's passionate comprehension of colors in a discussion of antique pigments and their physical properties and pictorial uses.

The book's mostly paragraph-long sentences may put off some readers, and the warm, wry, even sly prose--its liveliness, in other words--may raise the hackles of the dowdy art-historical crowd (not the stylish, open-minded one). But this miniaturist's view of the northern Renaissance will copiously reward those who peruse it slowly, especially artists. Although it is possible to become lost in some chapters, as Albus tiptoes unhurriedly toward some arcane, elusive point, in the end it's hard to resist the sort of book that declares of the late 17th century: "Research into arthropods was in the air." This volume is a work of art, complete in itself, meticulously ordered according to the artist's unique vision, and handsomely "framed" by a sensitive designer. --Peggy Moorman

In this utterly original book, Anita Albus tells the story--in the birth and triumph of oil painting, the creation of perspective, and the very nature of paint itself--of how, when, and why the eye became king of all the senses.
Albus's subjects are the inventors of easel painting in oils, the van Eyck brothers and their followers. It was in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries in northern Europe that oil painting radically changed the way we perceived the world: the ear, through which we had previously received all knowledge, was replaced in importance by the eye. A painter of distinction herself, Albus re-creates this revolutionary time in all its intricacies, its familiarity, and its strangeness.
The Art of Arts is thus both a dazzling cultural history and the story of two explosive inventions: the so-called third dimension of deep space through perspective, and the shockingly vivid colors of a new kind of paint. Albus makes abundantly clear how, taken together, these breakthroughs not only created a new art but altered forever our perception of the world.

The Age of Van Eyck: The Mediterranean World and Early Netherlandish Painting 1430-1530

The emergence of early Netherlandish painting and its dissemination throughout Europe took place during one of the most intriguing epochs in the history of Western Europe. This age of transition from the late Middle Ages to early modern times was characterized by fundamental changes in economics, politics, religion, society, and—in its broadest sense—culture.

It is no coincidence that the art of Jan van Eyck, the Master of Flémalle, Rogier van der Weyden, Hugo van der Goes, Hans Memling, and Gerard David flowered in the period that saw the formation and expansion of a mighty Burgundian state in the prosperous provinces of the Netherlands and the neighboring regions. The ever-growing political significance of Burgundy was reflected by the success of Burgundian culture abroad. From the outset, members of the Italian, Spanish, and Portuguese business communities residing in Flanders, such as the Arnolfini and Portinari, took pride in commissioning works by Netherlandish painters that were eagerly sought after by the princes and urban entrepreneurs of their homelands. The Sforza of Milan sent their court painter to Bugatto to train with Rogier van der Weyden; Alphonso V of Aragon ordered his painter Dalmau to travel to the Netherlands; and Isabella of Castile appointed Juan de Flandes alongside other Northerners as her court painter. The presence of Netherlandish works of art in the South inspired Iberian, French, and Italian artists such as Jean Fouquet, Filippino Lippi, Antonello da Messina, Bartolomé Bermejo, and Nuño Gonçalves.

This book explores the complex artistic, cultural, socioeconomic, and political relationships between Burgundian Netherlands and the Mediterranean. It offers a lavishly illustrated panorama of the work of Jan van Eyck and his followers, and focuses on their share in the development of painting in southern France, Italy, Spain, and Portugal, reproducing many of the finest works of European Renaissance painting. 380 illustrations, 220 in color.

The Arnolfini Betrothal: Medieval Marriage and the Enigma of Van Eyck's Double Portrait (Discovery Series, 3)

Commonly known as the "Arnolfini Wedding" or "Giovanni Arnolfini and His Bride," Jan van Eyck's double portrait, painted in 1434, is probably the most widely recognized panel painting of the fifteenth century. One of the great masterpieces of early Flemish art, this enigmatic picture has also aroused intense speculation as to its precise meaning. Edwin Hall's accessible study--firmly grounded in Roman and canon law, theology, literature, and the social history of the period--offers a compelling new interpretation of this wonderful painting.
Instead of depicting the sacrament of marriage, Hall argues, the painting commemorates the alliance between two wealthy and important Italian mercantile families, a ceremonious betrothal that reflects the social conventions of the time. Hall not only unlocks the mystery that has surrounded this work of art, he also makes a unique contribution to the fascinating history of betrothal and marriage custom, ritual, and ceremony, tracing their evolution from the late Roman Empire through the fifteenth century and providing persuasive visual evidence for their development. His illuminating view of Van Eyck's quintessential work is a striking example of how art continues to endure and engage us over the centuries.

Jan van Eyck: The Play of Realism

Jan Van Eyck: Two Paintings of Saint Francis Receiving the Stigmata

Aldo van Eyck: The Shape of Relativity

Aldo van Eyck: the Shape of Relativity is the first monograph on an architect whose poetic vision has exerted a far-reaching influence on architectural thinking since the Second World War. It is the story of an eventful career and an intensive study of an oeuvre. Far from limiting itself to architecture, this book deals primarily with the architect's ideas. It traces the roots of his thinking to early childhood, throwing light on his early passion for poetry, in turn related to the classical thinking of his father the poet P.N.van Eyck. It recounts his discovery of the twentieth-century avant-garde and of archaic cultures while in Zurich and Paris. It develops his role in Cobra movement and in 'de 8 en Opbouw', in international CIAM, and the dissident Team 10, and further in architectural education in Amsterdam and Delft. The book pays considerable attention to the concept of relativity, which Van Eyck regards as the foundation of the culture of the twentieth century. And, of course, the book includes a detailed examination of his projects and buildings, ranging from the children's playgrounds of Amsterdam and the Municipal Orphanage, from the introverted Sonsbeek Pavilion to the exuberant Auditor's Office in The Hague. The English edition of this indispensable study of the most eminent postwar architect of the Netherlands will be published on the 80th birthday of Aldo van Eyck. The book contains more than 600 illustrations, of which 100 are in colour, a bibliography of writings by Aldo van Eyck, a selected bibliography of literature about Aldo van Eyck and a list of designs and completed works. Francis Strauven is professor at the Academy of Art and Science in Brussels. From 1971 to 1992, he was editor of the magazines Wonen TABK and Archis, in which he wrote articles on Art Nouveau, Functionalism and contemporary developments. His publications include Bouwen in België (1945-1970), L.H. de Koninck (1980), L' Architecture en Belgique 1970-1980 (1981), Renaat Braem (1983), Aldo van Eyck's Orphanage, a modern monument (1987) and Jos Bascourt, art nouveau in Antwerp (1993).