Creator story
Surprising fact
In the Arnolfini Portrait a convex mirror reflects two figures entering the room, and above it van Eyck signed the wall in Latin: Jan van Eyck was here.
Source: Wikipedia / WikimediaNorthern Renaissance
Jan van Eyck
Jan van Eyck (c. 1390–1441) was the supreme master of the Early Netherlandish school and a pioneer of oil painting. His jewel-like precision and luminous detail — above all in the Arnolfini Portrait and the Ghent Altarpiece — astonished all of Europe.
Though he did not invent oil paint, van Eyck perfected it, making possible the deep, glowing realism that defined Northern art.
- Perfected oil painting, achieving detail and luminosity no tempera could match.
- Signed the Arnolfini Portrait on the wall itself — a witty, unprecedented act.
- Co-created the monumental Ghent Altarpiece, one of the most stolen artworks in history.
Key works
Two works that open the world of Jan van Eyck
These works make it easiest to see how the artist changed form, content, and the very way art could exist in culture.
1434
The Arnolfini Portrait
A domestic interior becomes a dense system of signs about status, marriage, wealth, and witnessed presence.
1432
Ghent Altarpiece
The Ghent Altarpiece, also called the Adoration of the Mystic Lamb, is a very large and complex 15th-century polyptych altarpiece in St Bavo's Cathedral, Ghent, Belgium. It was begun around the mid-1420s and completed by 1432, and it is attributed to the Early Netherlandish painters and brothers Hubert and Jan van Eyck.