During this last lecture we continued our discussion of northern Europe with a focus on a few artists in particular. One of these artists was Jan Van Eyck and his painting “The Arnolfini Portrait”. I really enjoyed looking at all of the examples of hidden symbolism such as the shoes left around the room representing that the figures were on holy ground, as well as the presence of the fruit representing fertility. I also really appreciated the use of the dog as a double symbol of both loyalty and wealth. The dog stuck out to me specifically because the meaning of the dog would be slightly different today, not as much of a status symbol, which the use of fruit could likely have a similar meaning as in the 15th century painting.
The concept of disguised symbolism was very interesting to me because to have these hidden meanings inside a painting felt very clever and revolutionary. I can also see aspects of disguised symbolism in paintings now but also in books and non-visual art forms.