The most prominent figure in this lecture, at least for me, was Jan van Eyck. Recognized even by his contemporaries as one of the best and most influential (artistically and otherwise, since he’s working at service of the Duke of Burgundy). Despite not having invented oil painting, Jan van Eyck had created some highly foundational pieces of art, his detailed, realistic and natural manner of painting as well as his usage of disguised symbolism has become a great source of inspiration and admiration. One distinct example of this being the wonderful Arnolfini Portrait. Secular as its subject matter is, this painting retains a sense of otherworldliness and divinity by the artist’s symbolist portrayal of love, marriage, and fidelity, rendered to the most minute of detail, up to the point where if we close in quite enough, we could see the painter himself standing at the couple’s door as one of their witnesses.
We could see clearly his influence on other younger artists of the same period, one being Hans Memling. His Diptych of Maarten van Nieuwenhove, with the implementation of a mirror and the revelation of the coexistence of the two depicted figures clearly being inspired by that of van Eyck’s, still managed to engender a sense of development. By using a clearly naturalistic and familiar space (as opposed to van Eyck’s dark, detail-less background), the artist situates their figures into a believable, existing world, thus allowing the observers to engage in the reality of the piece of work. This is made even more incredible by the fact that that exactly was the point of this commission: it’s a religious diptych that Martin himself uses to pray with.
An artist that has both a similar and completely contrasting stylistic approach to van Eyck is Rogier van der Weyden, the official painter of the town of Brussel. Rogier’s St. Luke drawing the Virgin is one instance where this artist depicts the divine and classic, but through a contemporary scenery and style: the garments of the characters, their manners, the buildings, all is put into the painting to represent this fresh, new way of veneration. Rogier’s way of creating symbols is also distinct from Jan van Eyck. Other than making these symbols subtle and barely noticeable, he decides to put them right next to the main subjects, aligning them with the meanings while leaving no room for misinterpretation.