Arnolfini Portrait
The Arnolfini Portrait | |
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Artist | Jan van Eyck |
Year | 1434 |
Type | Oil on oak panel of 3 vertical boards |
Dimensions | 82.2 cm × 60 cm (32.4 in × 23.6 in); panel 84.5 cm × 62.5 cm (33.3 in × 24.6 in) |
Location | National Gallery, London |
The Arnolfini Portrait (or The Arnolfini Wedding, The Arnolfini Marriage, the Portrait of Giovanni Arnolfini and his Wife, or other titles) is a 1434 oil painting on oak panel by the Early Netherlandish painter Jan van Eyck. It forms a full-length double portrait, believed to depict the Italian merchant Giovanni di Nicolao Arnolfini and his wife, presumably in their residence at the Flemish city of Bruges.
It is considered one of the most original and complex paintings in Western art, because of its beauty, complex iconography,[1] geometric orthogonal perspective,[2] and expansion of the picture space with the use of a mirror.[3][4] According to Ernst Gombrich "in its own way it was as new and revolutionary as Donatello's or Masaccio's work in Italy. A simple corner of the real world had suddenly been fixed on to a panel as if by magic... For the first time in history the artist became the perfect eye-witness in the truest sense of the term".[5] The portrait has been considered by Erwin Panofsky and some other art historians as a unique form of marriage contract, recorded as a painting.[6] Signed and dated by van Eyck in 1434, it is, with the Ghent Altarpiece by the same artist and his brother Hubert, the oldest very famous panel painting to have been executed in oils rather than in tempera. The painting was bought by the National Gallery in London in 1842.
Van Eyck used the technique of applying several layers of thin translucent glazes to create a painting with an intensity of both tone and colour. The glowing colours also help to highlight the realism, and to show the material wealth and opulence of Arnolfini's world. Van Eyck took advantage of the longer drying time of oil paint, compared to tempera, to blend colours by painting
The
Description
Jan van Eyck's characteristic
The two figures are very richly dressed; despite the season both their outer garments, his
Although the woman's plain gold necklace and the rings that both wear are the only jewellery visible, both outfits would have been enormously expensive, and appreciated as such by a contemporary viewer. There may be an element of restraint in their clothes (especially the man) befitting their merchant status – portraits of aristocrats tend to show gold chains and more decorated cloth,[9] although "the restrained colours of the man's clothing correspond to those favoured by Duke Philip of Burgundy".[10]
The interior of the room has other signs of wealth; the brass
The view in the mirror shows two figures just inside the door that the couple are facing. The second figure, wearing red, is presumably the artist although, unlike
The painting is signed, inscribed and dated on the wall above the mirror: "Johannes de eyck fuit hic 1434" ("Jan van Eyck was here 1434"). The inscription looks as if it were painted in large letters on the wall, as was done with proverbs and other phrases at this period. Other surviving van Eyck signatures are painted in trompe-l'œil on the wooden frame of his paintings, so that they appear to have been carved in the wood.[9][11]
Identity of subjects
In their book published in 1857,
It is now believed that the subject is either Giovanni di Arrigo or his cousin, Giovanni di Nicolao Arnolfini, and a wife of either one of them. This is either an undocumented first wife of Giovanni di Arrigo or a second wife of Giovanni di Nicolao, or, according to a recent proposal, Giovanni di Nicolao's first wife Costanza Trenta, who had died perhaps in childbirth by February 1433.[15] In the latter case, this would make the painting partly an unusual memorial portrait, showing one living and one dead person. Details such as the snuffed candle above the woman, the scenes after Christ's death on her side of the background roundel, and the black garb of the man, support this view.[15] Both Giovanni di Arrigo and Giovanni di Nicolao Arnolfini were Italian merchants, originally from Lucca, but resident in Bruges since at least 1419.[11] The man in this painting is the subject of a further portrait by van Eyck in the Gemäldegalerie, Berlin, leading to speculation he was a friend of the artist.[16]
Scholarly debate
In 1934
Since then, there has been considerable scholarly argument among art historians on the occasion represented. Edwin Hall considers that the painting depicts a
Jan Baptist Bedaux agrees somewhat with Panofsky that this is a marriage contract portrait in his 1986 article "The reality of symbols: the question of disguised symbolism in Jan van Eyck's Arnolfini Portrait." However, he disagrees with Panofsky's idea of items in the portrait having hidden meanings. Bedaux argues, "if the symbols are disguised to such an extent that they do not clash with reality as conceived at the time ... there will be no means of proving that the painter actually intended such symbolism."[21] He also conjectures that if these disguised symbols were normal parts of the marriage ritual, then one could not say for sure whether the items were part of a "disguised symbolism" or just social reality.[21]
Craig Harbison takes the middle ground between Panofsky and Bedaux in their debate about "disguised symbolism" and realism. Harbison argues that "Jan van Eyck is there as storyteller ... [who] must have been able to understand that, within the context of people's lives, objects could have multiple associations", and that there are many possible purposes for the portrait and ways it can be interpreted.
Lorne Campbell in the National Gallery Catalogue sees no need to find a special meaning in the painting: "... there seems little reason to believe that the portrait has any significant narrative content. Only the unnecessary lighted candle and the strange signature provoke speculation."[23] He suggests that the double portrait was very possibly made to commemorate a marriage, but not a legal record and cites examples of miniatures from manuscripts showing similarly elaborate inscriptions on walls as a normal form of decoration at the time. Another portrait in the National Gallery by van Eyck, Portrait of a Man (Leal Souvenir), has a legalistic form of signature.[11]
Margaret Koster's new suggestion, discussed above and below, that the portrait is a memorial one, of a wife already dead for a year or so, would displace these theories. Art historian Maximiliaan Martens has suggested that the painting was meant as a gift for the Arnolfini family in Italy. It had the purpose of showing the prosperity and wealth of the couple depicted. He feels this might explain oddities in the painting, for example why the couple are standing in typical winter clothing while a cherry tree is in fruit outside, and why the phrase "Johannes de eyck fuit hic 1434" is featured so large in the centre of the painting. Herman Colenbrander has proposed that the painting may depict an old German custom of a husband promising a gift to his bride on the morning after their wedding night. He has also suggested that the painting may have been a present from the artist to his friend.[24]
In 2016, French physician Jean-Philippe Postel, in his book L'Affaire Arnolfini, agreed with Koster that the woman is dead, but he suggested that she is appearing to the man as a spectre, asking him to pray for her soul.[25]
Interpretation and symbolism
Figures and marriage
It is thought that the couple are already married because of the woman's headdress. A non-married woman would have her hair down, according to Margaret Carroll.
The symbolism behind the action of the couple's joined hands has also been debated among scholars. Many point to this gesture as proof of the painting's purpose. Is it a marriage contract or something else? Panofsky interprets the gesture as an act of fides, Latin for "marital oath". He calls the representation of the couple "qui desponsari videbantur per fidem" which means, "who were contracting their marriage by marital oath".
Although many viewers assume the wife to be pregnant, this is not believed to be so. Art historians point to numerous paintings of female virgin saints similarly dressed, and believe that this look was fashionable for women's dresses at the time.[32] Fashion would have been important to Arnolfini, especially since he was a cloth merchant. The more cloth a person wore, the more wealthy he or she was assumed to be. Another indication that the woman is not pregnant is that Giovanna Cenami (the identification of the woman according to most earlier scholars) died childless,[33] as did Costanza Trenta (a possible identification according to recent archival evidence);[15] whether a hypothetical unsuccessful pregnancy would have been left recorded in a portrait is questionable, although if it is indeed Costanza Trenta, as Koster proposed, and she died in childbirth, then the oblique reference to pregnancy gains strength. Moreover, the beauty ideal embodied in contemporary female portraits and clothing rest in the first place on the high valuation on the ability of women to bear children. Harbison maintains her gesture is merely an indication of the extreme desire of the couple shown for fertility and progeny.[34]
There is a carved figure as a finial on the bedpost, probably of
Mirror
The small medallions set into the frame of the
According to one author "The painting is often referenced for its immaculate depiction of
Other objects
The little dog may symbolize fidelity (fido), loyalty,[35] or alternatively lust, signifying the couple's desire to have a child.[41] Unlike the couple, he looks out to meet the gaze of the viewer.[42] The dog could be simply a lap dog, a gift from husband to wife. Many wealthy women in the court had lap dogs as companions, reflecting the wealth of the couple and their position in courtly life.[43] The dog appears to be a Griffon terrier, or perhaps an Affenpinscher.[44]
The green of the woman's dress symbolizes hope, possibly the hope of becoming a mother. Its intense brightness also indicates wealth, since dyeing fabric such a shade was difficult and expensive.[45] Her white cap could signify purity or her status as married. Behind the pair, the curtains of the marriage bed have been opened; the red curtains might allude to the physical act of love.
The single candle in the left-front holder of the ornate six-branched chandelier is possibly the candle used in traditional Flemish marriage customs.
The cherries present on the tree outside the window may symbolize love. The oranges which lie on the window sill and chest may symbolize the purity and innocence that reigned in the Garden of Eden before the Fall of Man.[35] They were uncommon and a sign of wealth in the Netherlands, but in Italy were a symbol of fecundity in marriage.[47] More simply, the fruit could be a sign of the couple's wealth, since oranges were very expensive imports.
The male subject's over-shoes, called
In January 2018 the woman's dress was the subject of the BBC Four programme A Stitch in Time with fashion historian Amber Butchart.[48]
Provenance
The provenance of the painting begins in 1435 when it was dated by van Eyck and presumably owned by the sitter(s). At some point before 1516 it came into the possession of Don Diego de Guevara (d. Brussels 1520), a Spanish career courtier of the Habsburgs (himself the subject of a fine portrait by Michael Sittow in the National Gallery of Art). He lived most of his life in the Netherlands, and may have known the Arnolfinis in their later years.[49]
By 1516 he had given the portrait to Margaret of Austria, Habsburg Regent of the Netherlands, when it shows up as the first item in an inventory of her paintings, made in her presence at Mechelen. The item says (in French): "a large picture which is called Hernoul le Fin with his wife in a chamber, which was given to Madame by Don Diego, whose arms are on the cover of the said picture; done by the painter Johannes." A note in the margin says "It is necessary to put on a lock to close it: which Madame has ordered to be done." In a 1523–4 Mechelen inventory, a similar description is given, although this time the name of the subject is given as "Arnoult Fin".[49]
In 1530 the painting was inherited by Margaret's niece
The painting survived the fire in the Alcazar which destroyed some of the Spanish royal collection, and by 1794 had been moved to the "Palacio Nuevo", the present Royal Palace of Madrid. In 1816 the painting was in London, in the possession of Colonel James Hay, a Scottish soldier. He claimed that after he was seriously wounded at the Battle of Waterloo the previous year, the painting hung in the room where he convalesced in Brussels. He fell in love with it, and persuaded the owner to sell. More relevant to the real facts is no doubt Hay's presence at the Battle of Vitoria (1813) in Spain, where a large coach loaded by King Joseph Bonaparte with easily portable artworks from the royal collections was first plundered by British troops, before what was left was recovered by their commanders and returned to the Spanish.
Hay offered the painting to the Prince Regent, later
Notes
- ^ Ward, John. "Disguised Symbolism as Enactive Symbolism in Van Eyck's Paintings". Artibus et Historiae, Vol. 15, No. 29 (1994), pp. 9–53
- ^ Elkins, James, "On the Arnolfini Portrait and the Lucca Madonna: Did Jan van Eyck Have a Perspectival System?". The Art Bulletin, Vol. 73, No. 1 (March 1991), pp. 53–62
- ^ Ward, John L. "On the Mathematics of the Perspective of the "Arnolfini Portrait" and similar works of Jan van Eyck", Art Bulletin, Vol. 65, No. 4 (1983) p.680
- ^ Seidel, Linda. "Jan van Eyck's Arnolfini Portrait": Business as Usual?". Critical Inquiry, Vol. 16, No. 1 (Autumn, 1989), pp. 54–86
- ISBN 0-7148-1841-0
- ^ Harbison, Craig. "Sexuality and Social Standing in Arnolfini's Double Portrait". Renaissance Quarterly, Vol. 43, No. 2 (Summer, 1990), pp. 249–291
- ^ a b "The Arnolfini Portrait by Jan van Eyck". Articonog.
- ISBN 0-300-05070-4
- ^ a b c d e f g Campbell 1998, 186–191 for all this section, except as otherwise indicated.
- ^ a b Harbison 1991, 37
- ^ a b c Campbell 1998, 174–211
- ^ Hall 1994, 4; Crowe and Cavalcaselle 1857, 65–66
- ^ Weale 1861, 27–28; Campbell 1998, 193
- ^ Campbell 1998, 195
- ^ a b c Koster 2003. Also see Giovanni Arnolfini for a fuller discussion of the issue
- ^ See the Giovanni Arnolfini article for the portrait.
- ^ Panofsky 1934
- ^ Harbison 1991, 36–39
- ^ Carroll 1993
- ^ Carroll 2008, 13–15
- ^ a b Bedaux 1986, 5
- ^ Harbison 1990, 288–289
- ^ Campbell 1998, 200
- ^ Colenbrander 2005
- ^ Postel 2016
- ^ Carroll 1993, 101
- ^ Harbison 1990, 282
- ^ Panofsky 1970, 8
- ^ a b Bedaux 1986, 8–9
- ^ Carroll 2008, 12–15
- ^ Carroll 2008, 18
- ^ Hall 1994, 105–106
- ^ Harbison 1990, 267
- ^ Harbison 1990, 265
- ^ a b c d e Panofsky 1953, 202–203
- ^ Harbison 1991, 36–37
- ^ Bedaux 1986, 19
- ^ Harbison 1991, 36
- ^ Levin 2002, 55
- ^ A. Criminisi, M. Kempz and S. B. Kang (2004). Reflections of Reality in Jan van Eyck and Robert Campin. Historical Methods 37(3).
- ^ as the art historian Craig Harbison has argued
- ^ Harbison 1991, 33–34
- ^ Harbison 1990, 270
- JSTOR 865802– via JSTOR.
- OCLC 936144129.
- ^ Koster
- ^ The orange blossom remains the traditional flower for a bride to wear in her hair.
- ^ "BBC Four - A Stitch in Time, Series 1, Arnolfini". BBC.
- ^ a b c d Campbell 1998, 175–178 for all this section
References
- Bedaux, Jan Baptist, "The reality of symbols: the question of disguised symbolism in Jan van Eyck's Arnolfini portrait", Simiolus: Netherlands Quarterly for the History of Art, volume 16, issue 1, pages 5–28, 1986, JSTOR
- ISBN 0-300-07701-7
- Carroll, Margaret D., "In the name of God and profit: Jan van Eyck's Arnolfini portrait", Representations, volume 44, pages 96–132, Autumn 1993, JSTOR
- Carroll, Margaret D., Painting and Politics in Northern Europe: Van Eyck, Bruegel, Rubens, and their Contemporaries, University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2008, ISBN 0-271-02954-4
- Colenbrander, Herman Th., "'In promises anyone can be rich!' Jan van Eyck's Arnolfini double portrait: a 'Morgengave'", Zeitschrift für Kunstgeschichte, volume 68, issue 3, pages 413–424, 2005, JSTOR
- Crowe, Joseph A. and Cavalcaselle, Giovanni B., The Early Flemish Painters: Notices of their Lives and Works, London: John Murray, 1857
- Hall, Edwin, The Arnolfini Betrothal: Medieval Marriage and the Enigma of Van Eyck's Double Portrait, Berkeley: University of California Press, 1994, ISBN 0-520-08251-6. The text is also available from the California Digital Library.
- Harbison, Craig, "Sexuality and social standing in Jan van Eyck's Arnolfini double portrait", Renaissance Quarterly, volume 43, issue 2, pages 249–291, Summer 1990, JSTOR
- Harbison, Craig, Jan van Eyck, The Play of Realism, Reaktion Books, London, 1991, ISBN 0-948462-18-3
- Koster, Margaret L., "The Arnolfini double portrait: a simple solution", Apollo, volume 158, issue 499, pages 3–14, September 2003
- ISBN 1-4000-3272-5
- Panofsky, Erwin, "Jan van Eyck's Arnolfini Portrait", The Burlington Magazine for Connoisseurs, volume 64, issue 372, pages 117–119 + 122–127, March 1934, JSTOR
- Panofsky, Erwin, Early Netherlandish Painting, its Origins and Character (Volume 1), Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1953
- Panofsky, Erwin, "Jan van Eyck's Arnolfini portrait", in Creighton, Gilbert, Renaissance Art, New York: Harper and Row, pages 1–20, 1970
- Postel, Jean-Philippe, L'Affaire Arnolfini, Arles: Actes Sud, 2016
- Weale, W.H. James, Notes sur Jean van Eyck, London: Barthès and Lowell, 1861 (In French)
Further reading
External videos | |
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Van Eyck's Portrait of Giovanni Arnolfini and his Wife, Smarthistory |
- ISBN 0-7011-8337-3
- Ridderbos, Bernhard, in Early Netherlandish Paintings: Rediscovery, Reception and Research, eds. Bernhard Ridderbos, Henk Th. van Veen, Anne van Buren, pp. 59–77, 2005 (2nd edn), Getty/Amsterdam University Press, ISBN 9053566147 9789053566145, google books
- Seidel, Linda, "'Jan van Eyck's Portrait': business as usual?", Critical Inquiry, volume 16, issue 1, pages 54–86, Autumn 1989, JSTOR