arnolfini Portrait

The Arnolfini portrait is one of the appreciable paintings of the Netherlandish Renaissance, filled with fabulous details and complex symbolism. It is also known as The Arnolfini Wedding, The Arnolfini Marriage or The Arnolfini Double Portrait. This artwork is an oil painting dated 1434 by the early Dutch painter Jan Van Eyck and it has been exhibited in The National Gallery in London since 1842. This painting is small full-length double portrait, which is believed by art historians in order to represent a marriage ceremony of Arnolfini couple in their home in Bruges. Van Eyck applies a complex iconography to demonstrate medieval ideas on domestic life, wealth, status and gender roles in this masterpiece.

Jan Van Eyck was a Flemish painter who was born around 1390, in Maaseik and works in mostly Bruges and is generally considered one of the most important Northern European painters of the 15th century. “Van Eyck was not the inventor of oil-based paint, but he is recognized as being one of the first to perfect its use” (Kloss 95). Van Eyck is known as the pioneer of oil painting, he made major contribution to the improvement of oil painting. He applied new techniques by using oil-based paint to benefit from the longer drying time of oil-paint because it give him chance to blend wet-to-wet in order to increase three-dimension effect and to add more details. In addition these, using oil paint also allowed Van Eyck to differentiate surfaces and to emphasize different textures. It permitted to him “to capture rich jewel-like colors and subtle changes in textures and surfaces” (Stokstad 596).The brilliant colors also help to heighten the realism effect and to demonstrate the wealth and prosperity of Arnolfini.

Jan Van Eyck produced pain...

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...ns and Van Eyck had in mind, they have become immortal trough art” Scallen 30)

Works Cited

Crenshaw, Paul, Rebecca Tucker, and Alexandra Bonfante-Warren.Discovering the Great Masters – the Art LoVan Eyckr’s Guide to Understanding Symbols in Paintings. New York: UniVan Eyckrse, 2009. Print.

Hall, Edwin. The Arnolfini Betrothal – Medieval Marriage and the Enigma of Van Eyck’s Double Portrait. Berkeley: UniVan Eyckrsity of California, 1997. Print.

Kloss, William. A History of European Art. Chantilly: Teaching, 2005. Print.

Scallen, Catherine B. The Art of the Northern Renaissance. Chantilly: Teaching, 2005. Print.

Seidel, Linda. Jan Van Eyck's Arnolfini portrait: stories of an icon, Cambridge [England]; New York : Cambridge University Press, 1993.

Stokstad, Marilyn. Art History. Ed. Sarah Touborg. 3rd ed. Upper Saddle RiVan Eyckr: Person Prentice Hall, 2008. Print.