The Arnolfini Portrait is easily one of my favorite paintings ever. It is so interesting. I had a lovely time discussing it in class but I could talk about it for the next couple of lectures and have the absolute best time. There is so much to discuss that I don’t even know where to start.
I think there is something so eerie about the way Van Eyck treated the practice of painting. He really turned something that he got so good at into a game that he could enjoy beyond making beautiful art. There are layers to the way his paintings are supposed to be experienced. My favorite detail is by far the mirror and the inscription in the wall. Something I did not mention in class is the fact that the writing on the wall is done in such a style that it does not look like a signature in the middle of a painting but rather a scripture in the wall, as if he is not signing his work he is signing the room he is later painting, he is signing his participation in this act of marriage.
I think it is also important to note just how weird it is, and would have been at the time for an artist to include himself in a portrait he was making of someone else, I also wonder, at who the other witness was. I am pretty sure this