In today’s class, we continued to shift our focus to fifteenth century art in northern Europe. We were introduced to the artistic design of “disguised symbolism,” which was a technique used at the time during the best artists. It was a way of disguising the meaning of symbols within artist’s paintings. The viewer would be able to spot these hidden symbols if they understood the culture of the area. We learned that the greatest artist of this era was Jan van Eyck. He was loved so much that he was even associated with the Duke of Burgundy. He was paid for being at the court of the Duke regularly and the Duke gave him “secret travels” which consisted of ambassador work and most likely “spy work” as well.

We discussed one of van Eyck’s masterpieces, “The Arnolfini Portrait” which he created in 1434. The painting depicts Arnolfini, a wealthy Italian merchant and businessman, with an unknown woman, who is speculated to be his future wife. The painting dhows Arnolfini and this woman holding hands and Arnolfini is taking an oath at the same time. This tells us that it is a marriage scene. There is a “disguised symbol” within the scene as well. There are two pairs of shoes not put aware in the house which shows that the two people are not wearing shoes, and are standing on holy ground, emphasizing the sacred moment taking place. There is also a dog in the painting which symbolizes faithfulness and loyalty. The peaches in the background represent fertility, as once you get married you hope to have children some day. There is also a sculpture of Saint Margaret praying in the background. This is the saint you pray to for giving birth safely, so it makes sense as to why it is in this marriage scene. There is also a mirror at the back of the room which allows us to see there are two other people in the room which is necessary for a marriage to take place. Two witnesses are needed, and a priest was not required at the time. To conclude, today’s class outlined the brilliance of Jan van Eyck’s artwork during fifteenth century northern European culture.

A large portion of this class was spent discussing Jan van Eyck, more specifically, his 1434 painting, The Arnolfini Portrait. We used this painting to look at van Eyck’s use of “disguised symbolism.” The portrait is considered a reflection of marriage, and van Eyck hides religious and social commentary in ordinary objects; however, the detail he includes shows they are not so ordinary. One of the painting’s most prominent examples of “disguised symbolism” is the scattered shoes on the floor. While it seems that the room is just messy, the two subjects’ bare feet call back to Moses removing his shoes in the presence of God in the Bible, indicating that they are on holy ground and the painting is a religious metaphor. Additionally, we looked at how he included himself and the viewer in the painting through the reflection in the painting. We also looked at other Northern European painters from the same time and how they attempted to employ “disguised symbolism.”

We ended class by looking at Conrad Witz’s The Miraculous Draught of Fishes from 1444. The painting merges two events from the Bible, the Miraculous Draught of Fishes and Christ Walking on Water, into one scene in mid-15th Century Lake Geneva. Witz uses the painting to demonstrate how the Pope needs the Bishops’ assistance to be a good leader. At the time of the commission, this was being discussed by a council. This painting demonstrates how artists used their work to reflect a political message.

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.

Class began with emphasizing that Northern European artists were focused on representing a convincing reality – whether through sculptures, or paintings (both religious and secular). Jan van Eyck was a Dutch painter whose work I found especially engaging during class. He was one of the earliest painters to sign and date his work, helping artists today identify and track his pieces. Throughout his career, van Eyck was a painter for the Duke of Burgundy and part of his court. This gave van Eyck the freedom to paint what he wanted as he wasn’t living off commissions. The Arnolfini Portrait was fascinating to dissect when looking for “disguised symbolism.” The details of shoes, fruit, little statues, and even which side of the room the figures stand on, show that van Eyck put much thought into his portraits. Even his suspected self portrait has details such as wrinkles that make his subject appear real.

Hans Hemling continued this idea of a convincing reality with his diptych of prayer to Mary and child. He created an image where The Virgin comes into your space as a result of prayer. He even creatively uses mirrors to show space and the reflection of saint and human together. This tactic is similar to one used by van Eyck in the Arnolfini Portrait, where he shows extra figures not in the painting’s perspective through the reflection of a mirror. The detail, precision, and vision it took to add those details to these works of art is amazing.

Disguised symbolism appears in many Dutch paintings produced in the Renaissance, a time when realism and naturalism became prominent trends and began to replace the abstract, conceptual approach that artists in the Middle Age took to represent religious scenes/figures. In the context where artists sought to depict their living environments faithfully according to observation by sight, disguised symbolism provided a means for them to imbue more complex and lasting meaning into an otherwise everyday (and uninteresting) setting, a mere section in time. The traditional Christian way of allegorical preaching and moralization—that individuals should not indulge the life of worldly pleasures but find transcendence in higher virtues—finds a proper medium in the symbolic potential of everyday objects/entities such as fruits, flowers, candles, mirrors, and animals. Jan van Eyck’s Arnolfini Portrait, for example, incorporates a rich amount of seemingly ornamental/minor details in portraying the interior of the bedroom where the groom and bride stand: casually placed shoes, which likens the floor to a sacred ground and suggests at the sacramental moment of oath-taking; fruits on a cabinet, almost hidden behind the robe the groom is wearing, which allude to fertility; and the backs of two additional figures in the convex mirror, who presumedly serve as witnesses for the wedding, but van Eyck also suggests at his own presence at the scene by incorporating a figure with a red turban—a signature of the artist himself. The inclusion of these commonplace but metaphorical objects envelops the Arnolfini Portrait in a mysterious air, while opening up its narrative to interpretation (e.g., concerning the relationship between the bride and groom, and concerning the religious nature of the wedding depicted on canvas). Many paintings like such present themselves as delicately designed puzzles similar to word games, and they imply the underlying philosophy that there is not one clear objective reality as perceived by the senses, but the everyday is capable of concealing many different stories that take place at other times or an alternate version of what seems to be happening.

I learned from today’s class that it was common for artists in early Renaissance (i.e. 14th century Italy) to paint about certain frequently revisited biblical scenes, such as Madonna holding baby Jesus and Jesus Christ’s return to Jerusalem. Different artists, however, took different approaches to portraying these scenes, and often turned to their predecessors’ work for reference and for a model to improve on. In Giotto’s 1310 altarpiece Madonna Enthroned, though the painter retained most of the biblical figures and their general placements in Cimabue’s earlier counterpart (dated c. 1280-90), Giotto employed a naturalistic approach to depicting the saints, angels, and Madonna/Jesus themselves, emphasizing on displaying the delicate lights and shadows enveloping the folds on their clothings. He also considerably expanded the sense of space in the panel by drawing from contemporary architectural influences, placing Madonna and Jesus in a recess under a Gothic-styled dome behind several finely painted steps. Transposing the biblical figures from a conceptual, mental space to a real-life setting, Giotto suggests at the possibility of the biblical canon overlapping with the everyday life in Renaissance.

Another interesting case where different artists’ portrayed the same source material from different points of view was Giotto and Duccio’s portrayal of Christ entering Jerusalem. Giotto used intense shades of blue and white and designed dramatic/emotive postures for the human characters present in the panel, by such means creating a contemplative mood and building a sense of mystery—through which viewers who approach this painting may “feel” or search for a religious presence within themselves. Duccio, on the other hand, established a much more lively urban setting through combining layers of naturalistically painted architecture (as seen in any Renaissance town) with a large, bustling crowd of men, women, and children playing on the side. It is evident that Duccio’s primary focus was to tell the narrative of Christ in a convincing and realistic setting fleshed out with interesting story-like details.

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.

Today, we finished talking about the Well of Moses by Claus Sluter. We discussed the significance of these life-size figures of profits holding scrolls to represent the coming of Christ. 

We then moved on to intricately picking apart “The Arnolfini Portrait” by Jan Van Eyck, who was a painter at the service of the Duke of Burgundy and was a part of his household as a notable painter. In this portrait, Eyck hides symbols such as objects and specific details to convey the meaning behind the picture. For example, he paints merchants and “wife” shoes in sight for the viewer to see and symbolize standing on holy ground. He told loyalty by placing the dog in the foreground and putting fruit (peaches) by the window, symbolizing fertility. It is unknown whether this portrait was a marriage ceremony. Still, from the two witnesses in the mirror, the one candle was lit at midday, which was a wedding tradition, and from the placement of the merchant and wife, we can infer it was. 

We looked more into Jan Van Eyck’s self-portrait made in 1433. This self-portrait was made with oil paint due to the detail of the face. It is exciting that Eyck’s painting of The Arnolfini was only 33 by 22 inches, which is tiny for the detail added to it. 

Today, we continued our discussion of northern Europe and focused on a few artists. We looked at Jan Van Eyck and his painting “The Arnolfini Portrait”. This discussion of the painting was a highlight of the class for me. When talking about disguised symbolism, I realized that this is very prominent in art today. Disguised symbolism is really something that extends beyond art, as many objects in day to day life have meanings that extend beyond their expected meaning.

I found the use of the dog interesting partially because of how the symbol has remained the same. The small dog from the 15th century represented loyalty, and if the same dog were put in a painting today, people would still recognize it as a symbol of loyalty. Another piece of the painting that stuck out to me was the way that Van Eyck signed the painting right in the middle. He did it in a way that the signature looks to just be something on the wall and is seamlessly in the painting.

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