Yesterday in class we continued the lecture on 15th century art in Northern Europe. We began by returning to a discussion of the Well of Moses and then transitioned into considering some of the painted works from the time. In these paintings we can see a shift with the emergence of the artist’s desire to represent reality in a convincing manner. This is paired with what we call “disguised symbolism” as a system of conveying meaning within a painting. Artists would hide symbols within a painting, but these objects still had a sense of belonging within the work, or are objects that could naturally be found within the scene. In order to better understand how artists were using “disguised symbolism” we spent lots of time considering a single painting and breaking down the elements individually. One painting that we took our time considering was Jan van Eyck’s “The Arnolfini Portrait”. I really enjoyed the time we dedicated to processing each individual element within the painting, from the location to the relationship dynamic to elements found within the scene such as the mirror and fruit by the window. It is the small elements that require careful attention which give us a more whole understanding of this painting and the purpose which it may have been serving.