by Noah Charney
A stretch? Perhaps, but it would not be uncharacteristic of van Eyck to insert this play on letters that would prompt active discussions among the most scholarly of his peers, those who could read Hebrew but would be clever enough to catch his inside joke.
Van Eyck’s depiction of garments is another artistic innovation. The bodies beneath the clothes have a strength of form that was lacking in past works, where drapery clung amorphously beneath the painted heads of those who “wore” them. Van Eyck’s garments again recall the novel way in which Donatello sculpted drapery at Orsanmichele. Donatello used a technique in which he would create a miniature clay mockup of his sculpture as a nude. Then he would soak cloth in clay and water, and drape it as clothing over the nude figure. In this way, he would see how the clothing fit around the body, with the body as a solid physical presence beneath it. Van Eyck’s painted figures produce the same effect. They wear their clothes, rather than the clothes wearing the figures.
A cityscape appears in the distant horizon behind the altar and the Lamb. This represents the New Jerusalem, which will be founded, according to Revelation and the writings of Saint Augustine, upon the return of Christ to judge humankind. Only two buildings are architecturally identifiable. One is the tower of Utrecht Cathedral, at the center, considered an architectural wonder and tourist attraction in its day. The other is just to the right of the Utrecht tower, the spires of Saint Nicholas Church, in Ghent. The inclusion of the Utrecht tower, the icon of a rival city, is unusual and has led scholars to believe that it may have been added in 1550, during the first cleaning of the altarpiece, by the “conservator” who ruined the predella that he attempted to restore, Jan van Scorel, who was a Utrecht native.
The panels on the far left and right of the upper register depict Adam and Eve. Eve holds a gnarled lemon rather than the traditional apple, symbolizing the Forbidden Fruit. Her expression is difficult to read—at first glance she looks blank, while Adam’s look suggests soulful mourning, brow slightly knit in distant concern. Beneath these figures are inscribed: “Adam thrusts us into death” and “Eve has afflicted us with death.” These two are responsible for the “Fall of Man,” the reason why Christ had to be born—in order to die and, in doing so, to reverse their Original Sin.
In contrast to the idealized populace of the rest of the artwork, these two figures are the first unidealized nudes in painting of this period. They are depicted in exacting detail, with nostril hairs and awkwardly bulging stomachs—an affront to convention. While idealized nudes, like those in Greek and Roman statues, were acceptable, because they showed the human form as magnificent and perfect, van Eyck’s Adam and Eve were deemed too realistic by Enlightenment viewers. These panels were censored in 1781 and replaced by exact copies, on which bearskins were painted, to cover up the naughty bits. Between the Adam and Eve panels we see a heavenly choir singing to the left, and playing instruments to the right.
The unusual iconography of the tiled floor beneath the angels requires special examination. Beneath the musicians the minutely painted majolica tiles, which at the time would have been imported to Flanders from Valencia, are inscribed with “IECVC,” an approximation of the name Jesus, likely chosen for its proximity to an abbreviated signature of the painter (in Latin, Ioannes de Eyck). Also in the puzzle of the intricate green-and-white tiles on the floor beneath the angelic choir, we can see a lamb with a flag. Another seemingly enigmatic cluster of letters, in yet another of the painted tiles, reads “AGLA.” This is a Latin abbreviation for the Hebrew atta gibbor le’olam Adonai, “Thou art strong unto eternity, O Lord of Hosts.”
The original Adam and Eve panels, which so offended Emperor Joseph II that they were censored and eventually replaced by Victorian copies, in which bearskin covers were painted over the naked bodies
The tiled floor of the Angelic Choir panel
The Christogram, hidden in the tiles of the Angelic Choir panel
Also inscribed into the tiles is the so-called Christogram, the coat of arms of Christ. This symbol was promoted by van Eyck’s contemporary, Saint Bernardino of Siena, in an effort to rally squabbling families and political groups, particularly the rival Guelphs and Ghibellines, under the united battle flag of Catholicism. That van Eyck (or van Eyck and the theologian /designer) should incorporate a symbol that was at the heart of contemporary Italian politics shows a remarkable level of erudition and awareness of current events. Yet the subtlety of it (it is difficult to see even up close and with a magnifying glass) makes it more of a personal reference than anything else. This level of detail would only have been seen by a small group of peers and friends of the artist and the commissioner—those given access to peruse the painting at leisure, rather than the majority, who would see it only in a formal setting and at impersonal distance. Van Eyck was part of a rich tradition of artists who buried references that few could find, let alone recognize.
Panels displaying the Holy Hermits (left) and Holy Pilgrims (right) processing towards the Mystic Lamb in the central panel
In the two panels on the bottom register to the right of the Adoration of the Mystic Lamb, a group of figures approach the meadow to pay homage to the Lamb of God. These figures are identified by inscriptions on the frames that surround them: Heremite Sancti (“the Holy Hermits”) and Peregrini Sancti (“the Holy Pilgrims”). In the first of these two panels, the Holy Hermits are led by Saint Anthony, identified by his T-shaped walking stick. It is probable that the local hermit and namesake of the cathedral, Saint Bavo himself, is depicted among the Holy Hermits, though he has yet to be identified. Two female hermits may be seen among the bearded men, one of whom is Saint Mary Magdalen, carrying her hagiographic icon, a jar of ointment. The Holy Pilgrims, in the panel to the farthest right, are led by the giant Saint Christopher, patron saint of travelers. Behind him walks Saint James (Santiago di Compostela), patron saint of pilgrims, identified by the scallop shell in his hat.
Although easy to overlook, the vegetation in the background of these two panels, particularly the cypress and palm trees, would have seemed exotic to Flemish viewers. These warm-weather plants were painted with such botanical detail that scholars have assumed that van Eyck must have seen the trees during his travels. A voyage to Portugal could account for the astonishing naturalism of his tropical plants and craggy, desert landscapes. The more tantalizing possibility is that van Eyck may have traveled to the Holy Land—a theory proposed by several scholars, for which no documentary evidence exists.
These panels also show van Eyck anticipating a technique made famous by Leonardo da Vinci a generation later. The human eye sees objects and landscapes in the far distance through a haze of atmosphere; therefore what is farthest away appears least clear, as if covered in a sort of translucent gauze. Van Eyck was the first artist to mimic this aerial perspective.
On the opposite side of the Adoration of the Mystic Lamb, the two panels on the far bottom left, are the Cristi Milites, “the Knights of Christ,” on the inner left, and the Iusti Iudices, “the Righteous Judges.” While none of the young knights have been identified with historical individuals, the coats of arms on their shields have. The arms of the Knights of Saint John of Jerusalem are on the shield with a silver cross. The arms of the Order of Saint George, from which the English flag is derived, show a red cross on a white ground. The arms of the Order of Saint Sebastian show a cross and four gold crosslets.
Panels depicting the Righteous Judges (left) and the Knights of Christ (right). The Righteous Judges panel would be stolen in 1934.
The banners flutter with an enigmatic phrase, the origin of which is unknown: Deus Fortis Adonay T Sabaot V/Emanuel Ihesus T XPC A.G.L.A., “Mighty God, T, Lord of Hosts, V/God with us, Jesus, T, Christ, A.G.L.A.” The “AGLA,” also found in the tiles beneath the angelic choir, stands for atta gibbor le’olam Adonai, Hebrew meaning “Thou art strong unto eternity, O Lord of Hosts.” The knights may have had a contemporary resonance, because, in 1430, Philip the Good the Valois Duke of Burgund
y planned—but never carried out—a crusade of his own to the Holy Land.
The panel on the far left depicts the Righteous Judges, a work that would be stolen in the most bizarre of the many crimes involving the painting and the one still unsolved. Portraits of some key contemporary figures, including van Eyck himself, are thought to be hidden among this throng. There is no contemporary document attesting to this, but if one compares the likeness in Jan’s Portrait in a Red Turban, it seems clear that the man in the dark turban wearing a gold necklace, the only person besides God himself in the entire composition who stares directly out of the painting and at the viewer, is a self-portrait of Jan van Eyck. He would place himself in the background of a number of other paintings, including The Arnolfini Wedding Portrait and Madonna of Chancellor Rolin, always wearing a red turban.
To the right of van Eyck, wearing an ermine collar and riding a horse that looks out at the viewer, is a likeness of Philip the Good. The rider to van Eyck’s left, wearing an unusual fur hat with the front flap pulled up, is thought to be the artist’s brother, Hubert van Eyck. These portraits were identified in the sixteenth century and first published in the work of a biographer of Renaissance artists, Karel van Mander, in his Lives of the Illustrious Netherlandish and German Painters (1604): “Hubertus sits on the right-hand side of his brother, according to seniority; he looks, compared to his brother, quite old. On his head he wears a strange hat with a raised, turned-back brim at the front of precious fur. Joannes wears a very ingenious hat, something like a turban which hangs down behind.”
The Vijd Chapel, for which the altarpiece was created, is too small to contain the altarpiece with the wings spread open fully—the width of the chapel is such that the wings can only be opened at an angle. This is an unusual feature, considering the fact that the chapel predates the painting and that van Eyck surely knew the intended location of the altarpiece. Perhaps this was a way of showing off the artist’s skill. The altarpiece, as a work with the grandeur of wall painting but painted on panel, outdid even the frescoes of the time, which lacked the vibrancy of color and the minute detail that oil painting boasts. The fact that the altarpiece could not be opened completely meant that the wings would thrust out towards the viewers at an angle, providing an extra dimensionality of which wall painting was wholly incapable. In this way, van Eyck emphasizes the fact that this is a work on panel, whose monumentality can only be compared with frescoes, but whose level of detail recalls tiny manuscript illuminations.
Finally, the upper register of the inside of the altarpiece features three monumental figures—the first monumental figures (much larger than those around them) to appear in Northern European panel painting.
In the center, God the Father is seated, face forward with a hand up-raised in blessing. This panel overflows in both text and symbol. The pelican and the vine on the brocade over God’s shoulder refer to the blood Christ spilt for humankind. Pelicans were erroneously thought to pierce their flesh in order to feed the young from their own blood in times of famine, while vines produce grapes that yield the sacral communion wine, representative of Christ’s blood. The inscription in the triple molding behind God’s papal tiara-clad head reads:THIS IS GOD, THE ALMIGHTY BY REASON OF HIS DIVINE
MAJESTY; THE HIGHEST, THE BEST, BY REASON OF HIS
SWEET GOODNESS; THE MOST LIBERAL REMUNERATOR
BY REASON OF HIS BOUNDLESS GENEROSITY.
The inscription continues along the edge of the raised step on which God the Father is seated:ETERNAL LIFE SHINES FORTH FROM HIS HEAD. ETERNAL
YOUTH SITS ON HIS BROW. UNTROUBLED JOY AT HIS
RIGHT HAND. FEARLESS SECURITY AT HIS LEFT HAND.
A description of Christ enthroned as the king of Heaven comes in Revelation, a direct quotation of which is embroidered into God’s garment, Rex Regnum et Dominus Dominantium: “King of Kings and Lord of Lords.”
This quotation indicates an origin source for the imagery of this central figure in majesty as Revelation 19:12-16:His eyes [were] as a flame of fire, and on his head [were] many crowns; and he had a name written, that no man knew, but he himself. And he [was] clothed with a vesture dipped in blood: and his name is called The Word of God. And the armies [which were] in heaven followed him upon white horses, clothed in fine linen, white and clean. And out of his mouth goes a sharp sword, that with it he should smite the nations: and he shall rule them with a rod of iron: and he treads the winepress of the fierceness and wrath of Almighty God. And he hath on [his] vesture and on his thigh a name written, KING OF KINGS, AND LORD OF LORDS.
Though, for the sake of modesty, we are not privy to God’s thigh, “King of Kings and Lord of Lords” may be found embroidered onto the “vesture dipped in blood,” in this case a gilt-edged scarlet garment.
Theologically, the Godhead consists of three parts: the Father (God), the Son (Christ), and the Holy Spirit (usually rendered as a white dove). The Holy Spirit as a dove is in the panel directly below the enthroned God the Father, creating an imaginary vertical line linking the two. The dove, a symbol of divine light, radiates sunlight over the New Jerusalem described in the Book of Revelation, for New Jerusalem “had no need of the sun, nor of the moon, to shine above it; for the glory of God did illuminate it” (Revelation 21:23).
The Lamb of God on the altar in The Adoration of the Mystic Lamb is a symbol of Christ, who, like the lambs sacrificed by pagans to appease the gods, sacrificed himself to save humankind and reverse the Original Sin of the Fall of Adam. The Lamb, from whose head light shines and who bleeds into a golden chalice, is an icon that represents Christ and has been used as such since the earliest Christian artworks were scrawled or mosaicked in underground catacomb churches, hidden from the persecutions of the Romans on the earth above them.
God the Father, enthroned. The crown at his feet has been considered a wonder of naturalistic detail since the fifteenth century.
The image originates from the Gospel of Saint John: “Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sins of the world.” This quotation is inscribed in gold on the red velvet antependium of the painted altar on which stands the Lamb: Ecce Agnus Dei Qui Tollit Peccata Mundi. One must approach the altarpiece in order to read this inscription. In doing so, the viewer is physically drawn in to examine the naturalistic wonders of the painting. Van Eyck tricks the viewer into seeing the whole picture, an astounding wash of color and form and figures, as well as the loving minutiae that leap out.
In 1887 art historian William Martin Conway wrote: “Such a [poetic] symbol was the Lamb of God. Medieval sculptors and painters never represented the lamb as a mere animal. They always made it carry a banner, emblematic of the resurrection. . . . In the Ghent Altarpiece, on the contrary, the symbolic creature is painted with perfect realistic veracity. It does not look like a symbol, it looks like a sheep.” Erwin Panofsky later showed how van Eyck used striking realism to convey the symbols of Christianity: “A way had to be found to reconcile the new naturalism with a thousand years of Christian tradition; and this attempt resulted in what may be termed concealed or disguised symbolism, as opposed to open or obvious symbolism. . . . As van Eyck rejoiced in the discovery and reproduction of the visible world, the more intensely could he saturate all of its elements with meaning.”
In van Eyck’s union of realism with Christian symbolism, art historians saw the union of two periods of art—the symbolic and often awkwardly realized medieval paintings and the increasing naturalism, vibrancy, beauty, and detail of the Renaissance and periods thereafter. In 1860, German art historian and director of the Berlin Museum Gustav Waagen would describe The Ghent Altarpiece as “a perfect riddle” of the union of two artistic periods, the Middle Ages and the Renaissance.
The three figures of the upper center picture are designed with all the dignity of statue-like repose belonging to the early style; they are painted too on a ground of gold and tapestry, as was constantly the practice in earlier times: but united with the traditional type we already find a successful re
presentation of life and nature in all their truth. They stand on the frontier of two different styles and, from the excellences of both, form a wonderful and most impressive whole. [Van Eyck became the first to] express spiritual meaning through the medium of the forms of real life . . . rendering these forms with the utmost distinctness and truth of drawing, coloring, perspective, and light and shadow, and filling up the space with scenes from nature, or objects created by the hand of man, in which the smallest detail was carefully given.
Perhaps the most dazzling example of this naturalism in the entire painting is the crown, placed on the floor at God’s feet, sparkling as if spotlit, crusted in pearls, emeralds, rubies, sapphires, and diamonds. That the crown, a symbol of secular, earthly might (as opposed to eternal, heavenly sovereignty), is placed on the floor at God’s feet shows its subordination to the rule of Heaven.
A close examination of the pearls on this crown reveals that most were painted in exactly three brush strokes. A dark sweep for the body of the pearl, a white lower edge to indicate the reflective curvature of the pearl’s underside, and one dollop of bright white for the light caught in the pearlescent surface. Vermeer would study van Eyck’s technique two hundred years later and go one better, painting the single pearl in his Girl with a Pearl Earring with exactly one brushstroke.
Mary, enthroned in Heaven, sits to the right of God, while Saint John the Baptist sits on God’s left
Saint John the Baptist, enthroned
