Jan van Eyck: The Play of Realism

by Craig Harbison

Jan van Eyck's surviving work comprises a series of painstakingly detailed oil paintings of astonishing verisimilitude. In a fascinating recovery of the neglected human dimension that is clearly present in these works, Craig Harbison interrogates the personal histories of the worldly participants of such masterpieces as the Virgin and Child with George van der Paele, the Arnolfini Double Portrait and the Virgin and Child with Nicolas Rolin. With the aid of abundant visual evidence in color and in black and white, Harbison reveals how van Eyck presented his contemporaries with a more subtle and complex view of the value of appearances as a route to understanding the meaning of life.

"I found this an enthralling study"— The Sunday Telegraph

"A fascinating investigation into the nature of the great pioneer's clients ... some fine photo details"— Art Review

Genres: Art, Art History, History

228 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1992

Reviews

[Arjen Taselaar · Rating 4 out of 5]

I bought this book after the Van Eyck exhibition in Rotterdam in 2012. No easy read, Harbison doesn't have much patience with the iconographic and iconological analysis analysis (read: Panofsky) that was long fashionable. He looks instead at Van Eyck's work through the lens of his patrons and their expectations. Van Eyck' masterful technique and painterly exuberance take pride of place as well. I never knew Van Eyck painted tiny spider webs in his church interiors! I want to see his work again, with magnifying glasses!

[Michael Pennington · Rating 3 out of 5]

Illustrations could be better

[Jesse · Rating 2 out of 5]

In this beautiful volume, Harbison announces in the beginning that too much of art history delves too deeply into the symbolic meaning of all the details found in the paintings of Van Eyck and that he plans to avoid that trap. In my view, if that is a trap, he has allowed himself to be pulled in as well. It's true that his approach is looking for a bigger picture--almost a cultural study, but in the end, I don't see that he succeeds in pulling far enough away from the paintings to accomplish what he claims to do. Moreover, I find myself unconvinced by some of Harbison's arguments.

My favorite point (although not an entirely original one) is that the surviving paintings of Van Eyck in no way reflect this court artist's career as chamberlain to the Duke of Burgundy. The aspiration of the wealthy, but non-noble patrons of the surviving works was to imitate in paint (and thereby render static) the ephemerity of Burgundian court life.