How influential was Jan Van Eyck?

How influential was Jan Van Eyck?

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However Van Eyck’s influence is discernable in his approach. He takes realism further than any of his predecessors in its hair-splitting minuteness. His approach is akin to an attempt to get as close as possible to the perfection of

God by trying to reconstruct reality down to its minutes detail. The care that Van Eyck took to depict in meticulous detail even the most insignificant object must have had a considerable impact in laying the foundations for the development of still-life, which became an important genre in Dutch and European art in subsequent centuries.

The focused attention on every day objects, seeing them as sacred however insignificant, must have had an impact on the development of still-life. Looking for instance at the depiction of fruit in the Arnofini Wedding, the apple on the window sill, the oranges on the furniture, a gentle clear light falling on them.

It is easy to see how such an approach could have sown the seeds for the development of still-life. …

He also focuses in detail on rendering the texture and attached jewels on St Lawrence?s vestment and the embroidery on the hanging cloth which inevitably invites parallels with Van Eyck. Van Eyck had a medieval outlook.

He considered the whole of creation as a book of metaphors and symbols each representing various aspects of good and evil. What may appear to be a simple domestic interior is in fact an allegory with profound implications. In the Arnofini Marriage for instance we find the suggestive use of symbolism in the form of an orange on the window sill which in the context of what is being depicted takes on a whole new meaning.

Therefore seeing symbols in everyday objects and using them as such could be considered as an important aspect of Van Eyck’s influence. The minute realism that we find in Van Eyck, his compositions, and symbolism in the form of everyday objects are all for instance apparent in Rogier van der Weyden’s ‘Annunciation’.

Likewise there is a clear affinity in terms of composition between ‘St Luke Drawing a Portrait of the Virgin’ and Van Eyck’s ?Rolin Madonna?. Like in the ?Rolin Madonna? the figures are set in a logia and beyond the arches can be seen a town.

With respect to the treatment of symbolism, composition, and realistic depiction of reality a parallel can also be drawn between