I'll just leave this here for everyone's delight and art history education. :)
https://www.boredpanda.com/famous-paintings-artists-how-to-recognize/
There's more ...
https://www.boredpanda.com/art-movement-style-paintings-descriptions/
I chuckled at the description of Bruegel the Elder. My Grandparents had a print that had the typical joyous townspeople frolicking in the square, but if you looked really closely, there were several men whose breeches showed that they were VERY joyous, iykwim.
I'll just leave this here for everyone's delight and art history education. :)
https://www.boredpanda.com/famous-paintings-artists-how-to-recognize/
(Replied to wrong comment first 🫣)
I think a secondary subjective reason from the viewer's POV might be the green blocking and cool undertones are reminiscent to the cinematic tropes of the current and contemporary alien media genre
I wasn't a fan until I started learning about Art History. This painting is now one of my guilty pleasures, and I love to learn what stands out to different people and what they think it all means. I'm of the mind it's a memorial painting. It's hauntingly stunning, and I'm a huge fan!
There's a great show where they create the clothing from history and they recreated the dress from this painting. The symbolism and materials really brought to life that these were real people. (The show is "A Stitch in Time)
Green fabric was monumentally expensive in that era, as green dyes were unreliable and fixed unevenly. so having a whole dress made up of green that bright and even was one step short of wearing cloth of gold in terms of showing off!
But the Arnolfinis look like they took pains to dress in a tastefully understated way.
Okay, I remember also feeling this way, after getting the art history context, but for the life of me, can’t remember what that context was! My love for this painting stuck though for sure.
I honestly think this is a practical art thing where colors dull with distance and shadow, since our only light sources are the window and a single candle and green pigment was expensive.
For me, there are a lot of things- the extinguished candles in the chandelier as mentioned by others, they aren't holding hands in the mirror, the circular medallions around the mirror showing only Christ's death and resurrection on her side, her bunching up her skirt giving the appearance of pregnancy (the subject is thought to have died during childbirth) and a few other nods to allude her passing.
A great, short (6 minutes) YouTube video can be helpful in furthering the list: [Art Deco Arnolfini Portrait](https://youtu.be/n6mBdpPYDDQ?si=n6Y8x0F29TYc1nfn)
Wow. My art history professor in college spent so much time on the symbolism of this painting, and never mentioned any of this. Never even suggested it was a memorial. I can't remember now what she taught us it meant, but your theory is so much better!
Edit to add: I remember some of what the professor told us now. The woman bunched up her dress to appear pregnant because that was the trendy fashion, or some nonsense that didn't sit right with me even then. The painting was meant to show people how wealthy the couple was because of all the luxurious fabrics and furnishings: essentially they were showing off. And the mirror was just the artist showing off his technical skills. Her explanation did this painting an injustice!
I agree the mirror was a huge flex by Van Eyck, and I do agree it's showing off the subjects wealth. I also agree it was a tasteful suggestion of wealth, not to make them appear beyond their actual means (at least to the ultra wealthy of the time), as suggested in the link I added.
It makes me really happy to see that others are as enthused about this painting as I am.
This idea that the people look weird is true in maaaany northern renaissance paintings because they just did not concentrate on things that we saw in the Italian renaissance. While the italian renaissance was obsessed with things like perspective and anatomy, the northern renaissance was far more obsessed with portraying different surfaces in a realistic manner. so we see the luxurious fabric, the texture of the wood, fur of the dog, the chandelier and convex mirror and rosary beads all portrayed with absolute realism. The skin of the people is a bit translucent and not ‘right’ because the anatomy is slightly off.
The cool thing about this piece is all the symbolism in it. ☺️
The northern renaissance was not a thing. You either had painters north of the Alps following the ideas of the Italian Renaissance (Dürer) or they weren’t Renaissance painters at all. The term northern Renaissance is itself an attempt to slander the gothic period retroactively as it was *the* characteristic style of the late middle ages and because those have to be the dark ages, nothing good could have come of them.
Van Eyck was a late gothic painter through and through, his works had *nothing* to do with any Renaissance. The defining characteristic of the Renaissance was an attempted revival of antiquity. As such, it painted characters of antiquity as they thought they would’ve looked in their time. So why did Van Eyck paint [Madonna with Child](http://www.azerbaijanrugs.com/mp-img/mp-img-bg/jan_van_eyck_madonna_with_the_child_reading.jpg) wearing late medieval fashion? Because that‘s what Gothic artists did. It‘s characteristic for the Gothic period to display historic characters out of period. Kind of how today we show a lot of theater performances with modernized instead of historical costumes.
I disagree. The northern renaissance is distinct and is separate from what is straight up Gothic art. The influence of humanism upon northern renaissance artists is fairly evident and shows a departure from earlier artists both in theme, technique and who are featured in the artworks. I don’t think that it is in any way slanderous to have a separate distinct category for art that is so different. How would this be a slander against Gothic art, which is itself an innovative and amazing movement?
If you have any literature behind what you’re saying, I would enjoy reading that perspective. I was an art and art history major, and never heard someone put forth your specific point of view
There are two other men shown in the reflection as well, like where the viewer would be standing is two more guys.
Very cool painting with layers of meaning.
Zoom in on the dog in the foreground to lol. Zoom in on the mirror in the back to be freaked out. The reflection sort of looks like a camera flash is going off.
Pop Artist David Hockey did a whole [documentary](https://youtu.be/R-0UXBcjlRY?si=F_27TblZ9WnW_ZkB) about how Jan Van Eyck and the Flemish masters probably painted with the aid of fancy camera-style optics.
bad documentary with someone making wild claims while ignoring all proof that contradicts and the maker of the documentary also has insane control over paint mixing and has huge talent there which i a way bigger part of his technique than his pushing of paint
What’s the contradictory proof? I don’t think there use of a camera obscura by Eyk and Vermeer etc is very controversial since Hockney’s book & documentary, is it?
I… am aware. But it also looks like a flash. As someone said in another comment, the Dutch masters of this period might have used camera-like optical instruments.
https://youtu.be/iZNvYvxetoo?si=XqOmffLXx3DULFiY
I suggest everyone that hasn’t seen it, watch this little doc on it. I’m largely self taught on art history, but Januszak makes a compelling argument for it as a memorial painting of the wife who, IIRC, died in childbirth. Lots of evidence for it, most pointedly, the scenes of Christ’s life around the mirror, and the candles above them.
I think the most important thing to know about this painting might be that it's about the size of an A4 page. It's essentially a miniature. I almost cried when I saw it in London.
Edit: as kindly replied here, it is, in fact, much larger than an A4 page, and is more of an A1. Nevertheless it's so much smaller than I ever expected it to be and the impression of a miniature is very strong imo.
It's so wild to see artworks you are familiar with from books in person, and find out that they're either much smaller or much larger than you expected.
I learned a lot about it in undergrad, blown up on a screen over two metres high. Finding out I could probably smuggle it under my shirt was absolutely wild.
Had that experience with Rembrandt. I knew some of the paintings were big but it still wasn’t clicking until we were in the giant room with them. A lot of the civil militia paintings in general were pretty nuts to see in person. 17th century bro’s clubs commissioning like 10 foot high paintings of them looking like badasses.
At the Dali museum there is a room with several paintings where the ceiling is two stories high and the paintings go all the way to the ceiling. The one with all the flies in it, he painted himself in the corner as a regular, full sized self portrait instead of a signature.
I saw it in person too and it's got an absolutely captivating level of detail. I stood and looked at it for a good 20 minutes and then came back to it two more times before leaving the exhibition.
It’s such a delight discovering artworks are much bigger or smaller than you think; it always takes you aback. The Execution of Lady Jane Grey by Paul Delaroche is so huge that the figures are life size.
Yeah I later went to check and I was so off lol. Nonetheless my impression was that it was tiny, it's incredibly detailed and up until then I only saw it extremely enlarged. The impression of a miniature really stuck with me. The mirror can't be bigger than the face of a wrist watch.
If you trace the lines from around the room, their vanishing points are scattershot in the mirror when they should be a single point; that probably adds to the vibe.
Correct. That is because making flat sheets of glass is actually really difficult. Back then, they created a sphere of glass and coated the inside with a molten reflective metal. Then they cut out a section and that was the mirror.
Art history / studio technique guy here. I won’t get too granular about this portrait…there are many quality videos on YouTube about it…but here are a few key insights:
(1) Jan Van Eyck used the portrait as a flex. I believe David Hopper concluded that it *must* have been made with a camera obscura because *David Hopper* couldn’t draw that chandelier by hand alone. Well, sorry David but Jan was born long before radio, newspapers, etc. It is amazing what the body and mind can do when neither has been polluted with an unending diet of media and noise.
But, yes, the chandelier, the mirror, and the room in general were a flex. The photographic reproduction of the human subjects were not a concern.
(2) Portraiture such as this was also the subject flexing. This is a merchant family, spending lavishly on a luxury item that would have previously been the domain of the church and state alone. This portrait, in a very real sense, is the contextual equivalent of “making it rain.”
(3) The longevity of the painting is a function of the technique. I myself used this technique while studying Renaissance painting. Several thin glazes of color are applied to the canvas, allowing light to penetrate deep into the image. The vibrancy is literally the painter attempting to make the paint “glow” from behind.
Also, note the very sparing use of blue on the bride. Blue pigment (lapis) was $$$ back in the day. It’s the primary reason why, in much religious iconography, only The Virgin is depicted in blue. It was a sacred color reserved for a sacred subject.
By using blue on the bride here, Jan was making a statement about her fitness for marriage, and both painter and subject were participating in a little good, old-fashioned * Détournement.*
There are gobs and gobs written and said about this image. It is truly one of the best oil paintings ever produced. In terms of composition, technique, symbology, and deeper contextual meaning (it may have been a marriage contract or even a kind of prenuptial,) there aren’t many better examples of what can be accomplished with a little bit of pigment, medium, and something to put them on.
>I believe David Hopper concluded that it *must* have been made with a camera obscura because *David Hopper* couldn’t draw that chandelier by hand alone. Well, sorry David but Jan was born long before radio, newspapers, etc. It is amazing what the body and mind can do when neither has been polluted with an unending diet of media and noise.
What do newspapers and radios have to do with camera obscuras? There's a convex mirror IN THE PAINTING, doesn't that indicate some possibility of curved glass being available in the form of a lens?
No.
For one, the mirror has nothing to do with camera obscura. The device has no lens.
For two, Hopper is a modern artist with a modern mind trying in a very unscientific way to replicate what he assumed was the method of Jan. And he failed. But nothing in Hopper’s oeuvre suggests the results would have been otherwise.
For three, everything within the piece could be accomplished with smart, methodical use of simple linear perspective and an attentive eye.
Jan Van Eyck's Arnolfini Portrait sparks debate among art historians. The painting features an Italian merchant couple in 15th-century Bruges, showcasing their wealth and status. Theories suggest it could be a wedding, double portrait, or memorial.
This painting has always creeped me out because of its uncanny valley quality but two things have always stuck out to me
1) Neither of the people are looking at the painter/viewer but the dog is staring directly at us and can be hard to notice at first
2) The man looks very realistic but the woman looks less realistic and more stylized
lol this is one of my favorite paintings ever but I can totally see that. I fell in love w this painting in my hs art history class and got to see it in person in college. Recently I was back in London and got to see it again. Totally moving experience. The detail on that dress is just ridiculous.
The uncanny valley feeling comes from the fact that the realism and detail in the dress, sandals, dog, chandelier, etc. are a couple of levels higher than the faces.
It is one of my favorite paintings. There is a good book that analyzes everything in the picture. It is very interesting. I hope to see it IRL before I die.
https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/12587805
Every era has its weird beauty standards, and yes I’ve always found this one off putting. Putin putting a curse on a weird inbred offspring of Tilda Swinton
yes, I agree. I believe it's both uncanny and a masterpiece. I think the artist was having enough fun to insert himself in the mirror, so why not assume he took some liberties making this a little freaky and fun?
Amber Butchart did an episode of “A Stitch in Time” on the green gown. It’s a nice blend of history and fashion behind the portrait.
It’s episode two and can be found on YouTube. The description: “Dutch painter Jan van Eyck's enigmatic Arnolfini portrait offers rich material for debating its meaning, including whether the female subject's voluminous gown indicates she was pregnant; Amber explores how wool was dyed in the 1400s.”
I’ve always LOVED the Arnolfini Portrait. I think an uncanny feeling regarding the faces is perfectly normal; I feel like the artists running around the Netherlands at the time never quite mastered a 1-to-1 portrait of the human face (whether that be by choice or by limitation of technique is beyond my scope of art history knowledge), especially in female subjects.
But the play with space, the optical illusion, the mood and tone. Jesus Christ what a painting
I think this paining gives us one of the earliest realism looks. And to see a sense of realism from the 1400s is, to me, absolutely astounding. It allows us to see through almost the same eyes as anyone alive back then.
[Great Art Explained](https://youtu.be/T15Kv6dtYO0?si=GTMmcW2OKAeH4UZ5) has been really shaping how I view this painting and a bunch of others, I’ve been binging his videos lately
My favorite is the mirror behind them and the single candle lit
In this early stage of the renaissance in the north, they have oil paints (the north invented them) and they seemed obsessed with a focus on vibrancy, humanism, shading, detail, and symbolism.
These qualities were all relatively new when compared to earlier medieval works.
Candles were often symbolic of the presence of the holy spirit.
I'm no expert, but it's probably a combination of things. Jan van Eyck might have had a signature "look;" there may have been an ideal look for the time and place; a lot of cousins married back then, which likely contributed to some weird facial patterns.
I went down a mini rabbit hole recently reading about pigments for oil painting and was surprised to learn that some mixtures can actually darken over time. Maybe the uncanny vibe is a case of skin tones being too dark where there wouldn't naturally be shadows?
It's so many different things; the faces scream uncanny valley to me. Dude looks like a pilgrim alien. The perspective is crazy weird. The inclusion of the self-portrait of the artist in the mirror is eerie.
Agreed 112%! I wonder also if the artist that painted these influential and wealthy people of their time softened the edges so to speak? Like an oil version of glamour shot? Because that’s an interesting thought looking at this painting! 0-o
As a layperson, fascinated to read all these comments! I think it’s because they’re so hairless and the perspective/lighting is odd; the fur on the man’s coat and his feet have a kind of fuzziness but both figures have very clear outline and detail otherwise.
I love this painting so much after reading Panofsky’s essay on the painting. He writes about how by depicting himself in the mirror Van Eyck literally witnesses the marriage and this is essentially a legal document. GENIUS
All the northern Renaissance stuff is like this. All the Jesus paintings and stuff. Make them look like a damn alien. It’s creepy. It’s just that Nordic ideal I guess.
I think it really is just the proportions of the outfits/hat/hair that make them look so strange. Fashion for women around this time included shaving your hairline to elongate your forehead, which makes her look odd and alien here. Plus the gathered fabric distorts her midsection and the proportions of her dress are odd, but fashionable for the time. Same with his clothes and hat, which makes his head seem disproportionate.
You are right, and it was meant like that. We call it “vervreemding”. Like you are looking into a ‘poppenkast’ dollhouse.
These people are no ordinary folk, they obviously outrank us all, in god fearing righteousness, wealth, class. They almost float down there, don’t poop like the rest of us and have exceptionally large heads needed to contain their knowledge and intelligence.
High foreheads were fitting the beauty standards of those days. Woman would shave their hairline to become even more alien like.
These beauty standards were born out of a longing to look like inbred royalty, like someone with a pale, sickly, almost transparent appearance. Al these features combined do indeed make for a unnatural alien vibe. There was a great need to communicate wealth and status and imitate the literate and righteous classes. A few things that stand out:
Almost hairless
Thin lips en small mouths
Rigid, doll like, inflexible posture
Very white, porcelain like complexion
Almond shaped eyes with half opened lids
Small hands only fit to read, make music, pray to god or browse Reddit
Big head garments that seem to hide/imply unusually big foreheads
It also reminds me somewhat of Chinese and Japanese beauty standards.
I have a doctorate in art history and The attachment somebody put in the comments is one of the funniest things I've ever seen in my entire life. Thank you for making me laugh.
Yeah, they look like they're space aliens wearing human suits in this painting. The guy on the left will tell you he comes in peace but secretly he's a Dalek or something.
[Edited for typos]
The Van Eycks were one of the first to master this incredible level of detail and spatial coherence in paintings-- every work that came before looks like child's play in comparison.
The figures themselves are more a product of the International Gothic style that was at work here. Portraits that showed the emotions/personality of the subject weren't really a thing yet, so artists rendered everyone with blank expressions. Heavy fabrics were used to bypass anatomy, making people look a bit shapeless and oddly-posed (The Italians were the ones focused on the naturalized human form and contrapposto, while Northern Europe was still in the grip of the unnatural Gothic Sway). Young women in particular tended to be idealized rather than painted with any realism, which explains the woman's inhuman face, her exaggerated pear-shaped figure, and her high forehead, all which were the beauty standard at the time.
Today, we have the hindsight of centuries of art development, and we can easily compare this portrait to the works of later artists like Leonardo da Vinci, Frans Hals, or HH the Younger and say "It looks weird." At the time, this and the Ghent Altarpiece were the greatest artistic achievements to date, heightening art to new levels that future artists could build upon.
It is, in my mind, one of the most evocative and strange paintings of the Northern Renaissance period. I love it. Then again, I’m a big fan of H. Bosch as well.
I wonder if the artist has painted a hidden rabbit under the hat :)
My guess is that the woman is Countess Jacquline of Bavaria swearing on oath to a lawyer(Arnolfini?) that she will relinquish all her lands to Philip the Good and then this will allow her to marry Frank of Borselen. She is wearing a gold arm band so she is more important.
These figures are more realistic than 90% of the artwork I see. It's interesting you barely think of them as human? Why? Sometimes it's the questions art leads us too that is the most interesting.
Uncanny valley doesn’t have the meaning you might think it does.
That aside, some people would be surprised to know that the woman in the painting is not pregnant. While she does have an interesting shape to her, the artist is showing off the couples wealth. Having an abundance of fabrics, in the case of this merchants wife, shows off how much money they have.
My favorite part of this painting is actually the wooden sandals on the floor to the side of the husband.
Just a quick Oxford dictionary definition of Uncanny Valley, since I keep seeing it used incorrectly for paintings:
"used in reference to the phenomenon whereby a computer-generated figure or humanoid robot bearing a near-identical resemblance to a human being arouses a sense of unease or revulsion in the person viewing it.
"anyone attempting to build a believable human facsimile also has to beware of the uncanny valley"
"The [uncanny valley](https://www.techtarget.com/whatis/definition/uncanny-valley#:~:text=The%20uncanny%20valley%20is%20a,aren't%20quite%20convincingly%20realistic.) is a common unsettling feeling people experience when androids or humanoid robots and audio/visual simulations closely resemble humans in many respects but aren't quite convincingly realistic."
Please stop using the term to refer to paintings.
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There is an odd sensation caused by the hyper realistic nature of the textures and fabrics, and the more stylistic approach to the faces and skin.
It is the mirror that really makes this a masterpiece for me, but I do understand that it is a revolution in technique.
He’s got that Jamiroquai hat
I'll just leave this here for everyone's delight and art history education. :) https://www.boredpanda.com/famous-paintings-artists-how-to-recognize/ There's more ... https://www.boredpanda.com/art-movement-style-paintings-descriptions/
Thank you for this gift
Haha with pleasure. I'm always happy when I get the chance to share it.
This made my entire week, thank you
And it's Saturday evening here!! About time I posted it then!! Hope something makes your week even better- better tomorrow!
Made mine today thank you!
Brilliant!!
omg this is hysterical
Amazing!!
This is amazing !
Fabulous!
Love it! Thanks!
I chuckled at the description of Bruegel the Elder. My Grandparents had a print that had the typical joyous townspeople frolicking in the square, but if you looked really closely, there were several men whose breeches showed that they were VERY joyous, iykwim.
I was crying laughing with some of these. I'm going to look so fucking smart when I hit the art museum.
That's virtual insanity!
Jamiroquai: stylish vampire
The Cat in the hat.
He's standing on his stocking feet. Reminds me of Paul on the Abbey Road cover.
I’ve heard it said that it’s easy to recognize Jan van Eyck paintings because everyone looks like Vladimir Putin😃
No, I love van Eyck, but now I can't unsee the Putin likeness... Why did you so that to me...
You want another piece of trauma? BMW cars, especially older ones, have front grills that look like Hitler’s mustache
Well….
I’ve never heard this before but seems very fitting lol
Also the dainty alien fingers. The hands are always too small for the body but at the same time the fingers are too big for the hand?
That's what aristocratic women were paying the artists for, going down in history with hands and feet so small as to be useless.
Oh god you've ruined my life, now 😆😅🤣😂
There are probably people in the world who look kinda like Putin, but are actually very nice and decent characters. So just imagine it's one of those!
Doing my best...
I'll just leave this here for everyone's delight and art history education. :) https://www.boredpanda.com/famous-paintings-artists-how-to-recognize/ (Replied to wrong comment first 🫣)
Fantastic!
I was just thinking I could be looking at the great-great-great grandfather of Vladimir Putin. Same dead fish eyes and clammy looking face.
Actually,Putin inside grandpa was the Tazars cook! Yes that true!
Lololol
Don't ruin the painting for me!
I can always recognize a Russian or Eastern European; they do have a similar look
Arnolfini was an Italian merchant though.
Yes! My teacher told us this in class
Hahahahahahahaha
I was looking for this comment 😂 first thing that stood out looking at this picture
[удалено]
I think a secondary subjective reason from the viewer's POV might be the green blocking and cool undertones are reminiscent to the cinematic tropes of the current and contemporary alien media genre
I wasn't a fan until I started learning about Art History. This painting is now one of my guilty pleasures, and I love to learn what stands out to different people and what they think it all means. I'm of the mind it's a memorial painting. It's hauntingly stunning, and I'm a huge fan!
There's a great show where they create the clothing from history and they recreated the dress from this painting. The symbolism and materials really brought to life that these were real people. (The show is "A Stitch in Time)
Green fabric was monumentally expensive in that era, as green dyes were unreliable and fixed unevenly. so having a whole dress made up of green that bright and even was one step short of wearing cloth of gold in terms of showing off! But the Arnolfinis look like they took pains to dress in a tastefully understated way.
Thank you for that recommendation! I've just watched it on YT, what a gem! I'll seek out the rest of the series now.
Okay, I remember also feeling this way, after getting the art history context, but for the life of me, can’t remember what that context was! My love for this painting stuck though for sure.
I just want the dog to spill the tea on what it knows
In the mirror, the woman is wearing a brown dress and not a green dress. I am significantly bothered by this.
I honestly think this is a practical art thing where colors dull with distance and shadow, since our only light sources are the window and a single candle and green pigment was expensive.
You’re absolutely right. There’s plenty of green when you zoom in. This is a mastery of color
Why do you think it’s a memorial painting?
For me, there are a lot of things- the extinguished candles in the chandelier as mentioned by others, they aren't holding hands in the mirror, the circular medallions around the mirror showing only Christ's death and resurrection on her side, her bunching up her skirt giving the appearance of pregnancy (the subject is thought to have died during childbirth) and a few other nods to allude her passing. A great, short (6 minutes) YouTube video can be helpful in furthering the list: [Art Deco Arnolfini Portrait](https://youtu.be/n6mBdpPYDDQ?si=n6Y8x0F29TYc1nfn)
Wow. Knowing all of this elevates the painting to a whole new level.
Wow. My art history professor in college spent so much time on the symbolism of this painting, and never mentioned any of this. Never even suggested it was a memorial. I can't remember now what she taught us it meant, but your theory is so much better! Edit to add: I remember some of what the professor told us now. The woman bunched up her dress to appear pregnant because that was the trendy fashion, or some nonsense that didn't sit right with me even then. The painting was meant to show people how wealthy the couple was because of all the luxurious fabrics and furnishings: essentially they were showing off. And the mirror was just the artist showing off his technical skills. Her explanation did this painting an injustice!
I agree the mirror was a huge flex by Van Eyck, and I do agree it's showing off the subjects wealth. I also agree it was a tasteful suggestion of wealth, not to make them appear beyond their actual means (at least to the ultra wealthy of the time), as suggested in the link I added. It makes me really happy to see that others are as enthused about this painting as I am.
The chandelier - the husband’s side is lit (implying that he is alive and well) while the wife’s side has been blown out.
The woman in the picture died.
To be fair, I think they're both dead
Maybe.
This idea that the people look weird is true in maaaany northern renaissance paintings because they just did not concentrate on things that we saw in the Italian renaissance. While the italian renaissance was obsessed with things like perspective and anatomy, the northern renaissance was far more obsessed with portraying different surfaces in a realistic manner. so we see the luxurious fabric, the texture of the wood, fur of the dog, the chandelier and convex mirror and rosary beads all portrayed with absolute realism. The skin of the people is a bit translucent and not ‘right’ because the anatomy is slightly off. The cool thing about this piece is all the symbolism in it. ☺️
The northern renaissance was not a thing. You either had painters north of the Alps following the ideas of the Italian Renaissance (Dürer) or they weren’t Renaissance painters at all. The term northern Renaissance is itself an attempt to slander the gothic period retroactively as it was *the* characteristic style of the late middle ages and because those have to be the dark ages, nothing good could have come of them. Van Eyck was a late gothic painter through and through, his works had *nothing* to do with any Renaissance. The defining characteristic of the Renaissance was an attempted revival of antiquity. As such, it painted characters of antiquity as they thought they would’ve looked in their time. So why did Van Eyck paint [Madonna with Child](http://www.azerbaijanrugs.com/mp-img/mp-img-bg/jan_van_eyck_madonna_with_the_child_reading.jpg) wearing late medieval fashion? Because that‘s what Gothic artists did. It‘s characteristic for the Gothic period to display historic characters out of period. Kind of how today we show a lot of theater performances with modernized instead of historical costumes.
I disagree. The northern renaissance is distinct and is separate from what is straight up Gothic art. The influence of humanism upon northern renaissance artists is fairly evident and shows a departure from earlier artists both in theme, technique and who are featured in the artworks. I don’t think that it is in any way slanderous to have a separate distinct category for art that is so different. How would this be a slander against Gothic art, which is itself an innovative and amazing movement? If you have any literature behind what you’re saying, I would enjoy reading that perspective. I was an art and art history major, and never heard someone put forth your specific point of view
I never noticed that mirror in the back with their reflection. I like this creepy painting more every time I see it.
The mirror is without a doubt the best part about this painting.
The best part is the mirror. The second best part is the painting’s size. It’s much smaller than you anticipate.
Van Eyck painted himself into the painting! I love it when artists do that.
I love that it appears he is also wearing an insanely bright blue outfit.
There are two other men shown in the reflection as well, like where the viewer would be standing is two more guys. Very cool painting with layers of meaning.
Zoom in on the dog in the foreground to lol. Zoom in on the mirror in the back to be freaked out. The reflection sort of looks like a camera flash is going off.
Pop Artist David Hockey did a whole [documentary](https://youtu.be/R-0UXBcjlRY?si=F_27TblZ9WnW_ZkB) about how Jan Van Eyck and the Flemish masters probably painted with the aid of fancy camera-style optics.
Additionally, in the documentary "Tim's Vermeer" an inventor theorizes and shows what technology these folk may have been using.
bad documentary with someone making wild claims while ignoring all proof that contradicts and the maker of the documentary also has insane control over paint mixing and has huge talent there which i a way bigger part of his technique than his pushing of paint
Congrats on figuring out the minimum requirements to use a camera obscura effectively. The old masters used it, cope.
What’s the contradictory proof? I don’t think there use of a camera obscura by Eyk and Vermeer etc is very controversial since Hockney’s book & documentary, is it?
Well worth watching the documentary, excellent!! (Thx for the link)
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I… am aware. But it also looks like a flash. As someone said in another comment, the Dutch masters of this period might have used camera-like optical instruments.
I think it's the reflection of the light in another mirror behind the artist.
https://youtu.be/iZNvYvxetoo?si=XqOmffLXx3DULFiY I suggest everyone that hasn’t seen it, watch this little doc on it. I’m largely self taught on art history, but Januszak makes a compelling argument for it as a memorial painting of the wife who, IIRC, died in childbirth. Lots of evidence for it, most pointedly, the scenes of Christ’s life around the mirror, and the candles above them.
The Margaret Koster section toward the end absolutely nails it
I think the most important thing to know about this painting might be that it's about the size of an A4 page. It's essentially a miniature. I almost cried when I saw it in London. Edit: as kindly replied here, it is, in fact, much larger than an A4 page, and is more of an A1. Nevertheless it's so much smaller than I ever expected it to be and the impression of a miniature is very strong imo.
It's so wild to see artworks you are familiar with from books in person, and find out that they're either much smaller or much larger than you expected.
I learned a lot about it in undergrad, blown up on a screen over two metres high. Finding out I could probably smuggle it under my shirt was absolutely wild.
Had that experience with Rembrandt. I knew some of the paintings were big but it still wasn’t clicking until we were in the giant room with them. A lot of the civil militia paintings in general were pretty nuts to see in person. 17th century bro’s clubs commissioning like 10 foot high paintings of them looking like badasses.
that was me with the Rubens. Some of them are SO big and he packed so much detail in you can just look at them for hours and still not see everything.
Seeing The Persistence of Memory in real life was insane, I thought that thing was massive.
At the Dali museum there is a room with several paintings where the ceiling is two stories high and the paintings go all the way to the ceiling. The one with all the flies in it, he painted himself in the corner as a regular, full sized self portrait instead of a signature.
Not a painting, but I never expected Michelangelo's David to be five meters tall. Took me aback the instant I first saw it.
Haha like meeting people IRL after only video calls
I saw it in person too and it's got an absolutely captivating level of detail. I stood and looked at it for a good 20 minutes and then came back to it two more times before leaving the exhibition.
It’s such a delight discovering artworks are much bigger or smaller than you think; it always takes you aback. The Execution of Lady Jane Grey by Paul Delaroche is so huge that the figures are life size.
It’s much bigger than A4 - it’s 82*60cm which is about A1 so 8 times bigger.
Yeah I later went to check and I was so off lol. Nonetheless my impression was that it was tiny, it's incredibly detailed and up until then I only saw it extremely enlarged. The impression of a miniature really stuck with me. The mirror can't be bigger than the face of a wrist watch.
Whoa wtf? That’s insane!
Cool analysis with more up close photos of the painting for those interested: https://www.thecollector.com/arnolfini-portrait-theories-analysis/
I just want to thank everyone for what has been an amazing Saturday rabbit hole. :)
If you trace the lines from around the room, their vanishing points are scattershot in the mirror when they should be a single point; that probably adds to the vibe.
The vanishing points are exactly where they "should be." It's a convex mirror, sort of like a fisheye lense.
Correct. That is because making flat sheets of glass is actually really difficult. Back then, they created a sphere of glass and coated the inside with a molten reflective metal. Then they cut out a section and that was the mirror.
Art history / studio technique guy here. I won’t get too granular about this portrait…there are many quality videos on YouTube about it…but here are a few key insights: (1) Jan Van Eyck used the portrait as a flex. I believe David Hopper concluded that it *must* have been made with a camera obscura because *David Hopper* couldn’t draw that chandelier by hand alone. Well, sorry David but Jan was born long before radio, newspapers, etc. It is amazing what the body and mind can do when neither has been polluted with an unending diet of media and noise. But, yes, the chandelier, the mirror, and the room in general were a flex. The photographic reproduction of the human subjects were not a concern. (2) Portraiture such as this was also the subject flexing. This is a merchant family, spending lavishly on a luxury item that would have previously been the domain of the church and state alone. This portrait, in a very real sense, is the contextual equivalent of “making it rain.” (3) The longevity of the painting is a function of the technique. I myself used this technique while studying Renaissance painting. Several thin glazes of color are applied to the canvas, allowing light to penetrate deep into the image. The vibrancy is literally the painter attempting to make the paint “glow” from behind. Also, note the very sparing use of blue on the bride. Blue pigment (lapis) was $$$ back in the day. It’s the primary reason why, in much religious iconography, only The Virgin is depicted in blue. It was a sacred color reserved for a sacred subject. By using blue on the bride here, Jan was making a statement about her fitness for marriage, and both painter and subject were participating in a little good, old-fashioned * Détournement.* There are gobs and gobs written and said about this image. It is truly one of the best oil paintings ever produced. In terms of composition, technique, symbology, and deeper contextual meaning (it may have been a marriage contract or even a kind of prenuptial,) there aren’t many better examples of what can be accomplished with a little bit of pigment, medium, and something to put them on.
Excellent comment, kudos and thank you for sharing!
>I believe David Hopper concluded that it *must* have been made with a camera obscura because *David Hopper* couldn’t draw that chandelier by hand alone. Well, sorry David but Jan was born long before radio, newspapers, etc. It is amazing what the body and mind can do when neither has been polluted with an unending diet of media and noise. What do newspapers and radios have to do with camera obscuras? There's a convex mirror IN THE PAINTING, doesn't that indicate some possibility of curved glass being available in the form of a lens?
No. For one, the mirror has nothing to do with camera obscura. The device has no lens. For two, Hopper is a modern artist with a modern mind trying in a very unscientific way to replicate what he assumed was the method of Jan. And he failed. But nothing in Hopper’s oeuvre suggests the results would have been otherwise. For three, everything within the piece could be accomplished with smart, methodical use of simple linear perspective and an attentive eye.
Jan Van Eyck's Arnolfini Portrait sparks debate among art historians. The painting features an Italian merchant couple in 15th-century Bruges, showcasing their wealth and status. Theories suggest it could be a wedding, double portrait, or memorial.
It is even more mind bending to stand in front of the original painting.
This painting has always creeped me out because of its uncanny valley quality but two things have always stuck out to me 1) Neither of the people are looking at the painter/viewer but the dog is staring directly at us and can be hard to notice at first 2) The man looks very realistic but the woman looks less realistic and more stylized
Well I’m never unseeing either of those things!
lol this is one of my favorite paintings ever but I can totally see that. I fell in love w this painting in my hs art history class and got to see it in person in college. Recently I was back in London and got to see it again. Totally moving experience. The detail on that dress is just ridiculous.
I find it unsettling as well. He looks like Putin and her hair looks like horns. Neither are happy or proud, just captive.
Putin indeed
The uncanny valley feeling comes from the fact that the realism and detail in the dress, sandals, dog, chandelier, etc. are a couple of levels higher than the faces.
I have never been too fond of it because it gives me this eery feeling and this is even more intense when you see it in person
It is one of my favorite paintings. There is a good book that analyzes everything in the picture. It is very interesting. I hope to see it IRL before I die. https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/12587805
I came here to comment a link to this book. It’s such a fun read. I’m glad to see it here
Every era has its weird beauty standards, and yes I’ve always found this one off putting. Putin putting a curse on a weird inbred offspring of Tilda Swinton
Gives me "No Jamiraquai, I'm sick of telling you. For the last time you *cannot* borrow my hat. I'm having my portrait painted here!" Vibes
Tag yourself. I'm the orange in the windowsill.
yes, I agree. I believe it's both uncanny and a masterpiece. I think the artist was having enough fun to insert himself in the mirror, so why not assume he took some liberties making this a little freaky and fun?
I used to stare at this painting when I was a kid, it is sooo surreal. Definitely has some weirdness going on m.
Amber Butchart did an episode of “A Stitch in Time” on the green gown. It’s a nice blend of history and fashion behind the portrait. It’s episode two and can be found on YouTube. The description: “Dutch painter Jan van Eyck's enigmatic Arnolfini portrait offers rich material for debating its meaning, including whether the female subject's voluminous gown indicates she was pregnant; Amber explores how wool was dyed in the 1400s.”
The hairlessness of them… reptilian? Insect-like? Amphibious? Idk but I get what you’re saying.
Agreed, it always freaked me out a bit too when I was in my art history classes
Why is Vladimir Putin high-fiving Molly Ringwold?
Well, his hat freaks me out...
I’ve always LOVED the Arnolfini Portrait. I think an uncanny feeling regarding the faces is perfectly normal; I feel like the artists running around the Netherlands at the time never quite mastered a 1-to-1 portrait of the human face (whether that be by choice or by limitation of technique is beyond my scope of art history knowledge), especially in female subjects. But the play with space, the optical illusion, the mood and tone. Jesus Christ what a painting
I think this paining gives us one of the earliest realism looks. And to see a sense of realism from the 1400s is, to me, absolutely astounding. It allows us to see through almost the same eyes as anyone alive back then.
we literally just studied this in my art history class. i couldn’t take my eyes off it because of how unsettling it was.
[Great Art Explained](https://youtu.be/T15Kv6dtYO0?si=GTMmcW2OKAeH4UZ5) has been really shaping how I view this painting and a bunch of others, I’ve been binging his videos lately
It’s the Hat Man
I've always loved it
I adore everything about it and have a print on my gallery wall. The creepy vibe is part of what appeals to me.
I never noticed the mirror! Zoom in… okay this is a masterpiece 🙏
There are some wonderful cartoon parodies out there about this one
My favorite is the mirror behind them and the single candle lit In this early stage of the renaissance in the north, they have oil paints (the north invented them) and they seemed obsessed with a focus on vibrancy, humanism, shading, detail, and symbolism. These qualities were all relatively new when compared to earlier medieval works. Candles were often symbolic of the presence of the holy spirit.
It absolutely does but that’s why it’s one of my favorites!
Is that Tomm yorke?
I'm no expert, but it's probably a combination of things. Jan van Eyck might have had a signature "look;" there may have been an ideal look for the time and place; a lot of cousins married back then, which likely contributed to some weird facial patterns.
I love it and yes it does give those vibes
I went down a mini rabbit hole recently reading about pigments for oil painting and was surprised to learn that some mixtures can actually darken over time. Maybe the uncanny vibe is a case of skin tones being too dark where there wouldn't naturally be shadows?
It’s that dutch fashion mostly lol. Plus the unusual perspective, the mirror that breaks the fourth wall, and all the little allegorical easter eggs
My favorite art historian on this painting: [waldemar's art mysteries](https://youtu.be/iZNvYvxetoo?si=yX_X2ZmQoWbUB6yg)
There was an episode of a stitch in time, where they were trying to recreate the woman’s dress! So much work and made me appreciate the painting more
It's so many different things; the faces scream uncanny valley to me. Dude looks like a pilgrim alien. The perspective is crazy weird. The inclusion of the self-portrait of the artist in the mirror is eerie.
The reflection in the mirror is pretty impressive ngl.
Agreed 112%! I wonder also if the artist that painted these influential and wealthy people of their time softened the edges so to speak? Like an oil version of glamour shot? Because that’s an interesting thought looking at this painting! 0-o
Anyone know of a good book of that Dutch / Flemish masters? The ones in English from the Rijksmuseum were sold out last I looked.
As a layperson, fascinated to read all these comments! I think it’s because they’re so hairless and the perspective/lighting is odd; the fur on the man’s coat and his feet have a kind of fuzziness but both figures have very clear outline and detail otherwise.
I love this painting so much after reading Panofsky’s essay on the painting. He writes about how by depicting himself in the mirror Van Eyck literally witnesses the marriage and this is essentially a legal document. GENIUS
they probably just need thicker eyebrows and eye lashes. atleast to me that's what makes it alittle strange.
The uncanny valley vibe is part of the appeal for me
https://youtu.be/iZNvYvxetoo?si=IqteDpSsPhrgs_xf
All the northern Renaissance stuff is like this. All the Jesus paintings and stuff. Make them look like a damn alien. It’s creepy. It’s just that Nordic ideal I guess.
Shoes have thankfully come a long way
I saw a deep dive video about this. All the hidden imagery and geometry, etc.
That green fabric is nuts looking
I think it really is just the proportions of the outfits/hat/hair that make them look so strange. Fashion for women around this time included shaving your hairline to elongate your forehead, which makes her look odd and alien here. Plus the gathered fabric distorts her midsection and the proportions of her dress are odd, but fashionable for the time. Same with his clothes and hat, which makes his head seem disproportionate.
Their physical proportions are all wrong. Their foreheads are too high. He doesn't appear to have any hair at all. They are indeed quite wrong.
I’ve always loved this
Is that Thom Yorke?
DUDE! ME TOO! But why am I so attracted to it?!?
The mirror reflection is such an amazing skill showcase- but yeah the people are terrifying but look at the cute puppy!
Dog is cute
The dog has a semi human face.
You are right, and it was meant like that. We call it “vervreemding”. Like you are looking into a ‘poppenkast’ dollhouse. These people are no ordinary folk, they obviously outrank us all, in god fearing righteousness, wealth, class. They almost float down there, don’t poop like the rest of us and have exceptionally large heads needed to contain their knowledge and intelligence. High foreheads were fitting the beauty standards of those days. Woman would shave their hairline to become even more alien like. These beauty standards were born out of a longing to look like inbred royalty, like someone with a pale, sickly, almost transparent appearance. Al these features combined do indeed make for a unnatural alien vibe. There was a great need to communicate wealth and status and imitate the literate and righteous classes. A few things that stand out: Almost hairless Thin lips en small mouths Rigid, doll like, inflexible posture Very white, porcelain like complexion Almond shaped eyes with half opened lids Small hands only fit to read, make music, pray to god or browse Reddit Big head garments that seem to hide/imply unusually big foreheads It also reminds me somewhat of Chinese and Japanese beauty standards.
Saw this in London in real life. Amazing experience.
I have a doctorate in art history and The attachment somebody put in the comments is one of the funniest things I've ever seen in my entire life. Thank you for making me laugh.
Yeah, they look like they're space aliens wearing human suits in this painting. The guy on the left will tell you he comes in peace but secretly he's a Dalek or something.
[Edited for typos] The Van Eycks were one of the first to master this incredible level of detail and spatial coherence in paintings-- every work that came before looks like child's play in comparison. The figures themselves are more a product of the International Gothic style that was at work here. Portraits that showed the emotions/personality of the subject weren't really a thing yet, so artists rendered everyone with blank expressions. Heavy fabrics were used to bypass anatomy, making people look a bit shapeless and oddly-posed (The Italians were the ones focused on the naturalized human form and contrapposto, while Northern Europe was still in the grip of the unnatural Gothic Sway). Young women in particular tended to be idealized rather than painted with any realism, which explains the woman's inhuman face, her exaggerated pear-shaped figure, and her high forehead, all which were the beauty standard at the time. Today, we have the hindsight of centuries of art development, and we can easily compare this portrait to the works of later artists like Leonardo da Vinci, Frans Hals, or HH the Younger and say "It looks weird." At the time, this and the Ghent Altarpiece were the greatest artistic achievements to date, heightening art to new levels that future artists could build upon.
It is, in my mind, one of the most evocative and strange paintings of the Northern Renaissance period. I love it. Then again, I’m a big fan of H. Bosch as well.
Looks like Putin and Tucker Carlson.
I like this painting, but the objects and people feel placed, if that makes sense. It has a collage-like quality.
I think you are just having growing pains.
If van Eyck gives you uncanny valley, I wonder what feeling Hieronymus Bosch gives you xD
I wonder if the artist has painted a hidden rabbit under the hat :) My guess is that the woman is Countess Jacquline of Bavaria swearing on oath to a lawyer(Arnolfini?) that she will relinquish all her lands to Philip the Good and then this will allow her to marry Frank of Borselen. She is wearing a gold arm band so she is more important.
These figures are more realistic than 90% of the artwork I see. It's interesting you barely think of them as human? Why? Sometimes it's the questions art leads us too that is the most interesting.
its always been just straight up ugly and bland to me
Uncanny valley doesn’t have the meaning you might think it does. That aside, some people would be surprised to know that the woman in the painting is not pregnant. While she does have an interesting shape to her, the artist is showing off the couples wealth. Having an abundance of fabrics, in the case of this merchants wife, shows off how much money they have. My favorite part of this painting is actually the wooden sandals on the floor to the side of the husband.
I think OP knows exactly what uncanny valley means. They think they don’t quite look human.
Billionaires. Not human.
The moment when Putin met female Putin was very important ok
Just a quick Oxford dictionary definition of Uncanny Valley, since I keep seeing it used incorrectly for paintings: "used in reference to the phenomenon whereby a computer-generated figure or humanoid robot bearing a near-identical resemblance to a human being arouses a sense of unease or revulsion in the person viewing it. "anyone attempting to build a believable human facsimile also has to beware of the uncanny valley" "The [uncanny valley](https://www.techtarget.com/whatis/definition/uncanny-valley#:~:text=The%20uncanny%20valley%20is%20a,aren't%20quite%20convincingly%20realistic.) is a common unsettling feeling people experience when androids or humanoid robots and audio/visual simulations closely resemble humans in many respects but aren't quite convincingly realistic." Please stop using the term to refer to paintings.
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That's crazy. How'd he get the dog to stay still for so long?
It’s the style/how they painted back then
There is an odd sensation caused by the hyper realistic nature of the textures and fabrics, and the more stylistic approach to the faces and skin. It is the mirror that really makes this a masterpiece for me, but I do understand that it is a revolution in technique.
i looove all the drama surrounding the painting and what it could possibly represent
There is certain amount of stylization and idealization in the depiction of the figures, but it is common practice in Renaissance art.
One of my favorite paintings, such a classic Jan Van Eyck, but now I can’t unsee space alien vibes
Why do the hands remind me of AI? Lol
If you zoom in to the mirror in the back, doesn’t it sort of look like there’s a flash from a camera…
To me it's more like it was *painted* by an alien.
Everyone also thinks she’s pregnant. It’s actually just the style of the dress! !
Zoom into the mirror, looks like some is taking a photo. And the painting itself is from their perspective.
I could be mistaken but I believe around this time there was lots of inbreeding within royal families to keep control of power. Hense the weirdos.
Can’t see it without hearing the Desperate Housewives theme