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  • (piano playing)

  • Dr. Zucker: We're in the National Gallery

  • and we're looking at Jan Van Eyck's portrait of ...

  • well, I learned this painting as the Arnolfini wedding portrait.

  • Dr. Harris: So did I.

  • Dr. Zucker: But there's been a lot of scholarship subsequently

  • and there's a lot of disagreement

  • over what this painting actually represents.

  • Dr. Harris: But the National Gallery,

  • which probably represents the most authoritative view right now,

  • or the most widely accepted says that,

  • in fact, this is not an actual wedding taking place

  • or being witnessed as you and I were taught,

  • but that it's simply a double portrait

  • of a couple who are already married.

  • Dr. Zucker: Some scholars suggested that perhaps

  • it's a memorial portrait and the woman on the right

  • actually had passed away the previous year,

  • but that's only one of a variety of theories.

  • Dr. Harris: No.

  • Dr. Zucker: What we do know is,

  • is that whoever is represented here was an Italian

  • merchant who worked in Bruges.

  • Dr. Harris: Bruges was a thriving economic town in the early 15th Century.

  • Dr. Zucker: His wealth is quite apparently throughout this portrait.

  • Dr. Harris: In a way, this portrait is about his wealth.

  • Everything from both their clothing to the furnishings of the house.

  • Dr. Zucker: Some have suggested that perhaps

  • this is a kind of witnessing of the male

  • actually giving a kind of authority to the women in legal affairs.

  • Dr. Harris: I don't think we'll ever know

  • exactly what this represents.

  • The thing is, that it's [unintelligible]

  • to me that it can't simply be just a double portrait

  • because it really looks like something important is happening.

  • They're joining their hands, their shoes are off,

  • Dr. Zucker: Now those all have symbolic value.

  • This is a period when there's tremendous importance

  • put on symbolism, so the shoes being off,

  • for instance, as you mentioned is often a reference

  • to a sacred event taking place.

  • Dr. Harris: We have a single candle in the chandelier,

  • which I was taught is a symbol of the presence of God,

  • but again, we're just not really sure.

  • But the way that they're joined together,

  • the way his hand is up,

  • perhaps he's just greeting the visitors who we see in the mirror.

  • Dr. Zucker: There are two people who are in the doorway, actually,

  • wonderfully situated where we would be looking at this painting.

  • Dr. Harris: It does seem to me like something significant is going on.

  • Dr. Zucker: That there is a kind of witnessing taking place.

  • Dr. Harris: Yeah, I think that that's reinforced

  • by the signature that we see above the mirror

  • and below the chandelier that says,

  • "Johannes van eyck fuit hic"

  • or translated, Johannes van eyck was here.

  • So there is that sense of the artists presences,

  • the artist witnessing, the artist being here in this room with these figures.

  • Dr. Zucker: Let's go about this painting

  • and really look at the different elements

  • because there are many things that

  • we do agree about as our historians.

  • The mirror in the center is really one of

  • the most compelling elements you have,

  • not only in a sense, the greater visual reality

  • of this room depicted because we can actually see

  • as if we're standing in the back of the room looking forward,

  • Dr. Harris: Scenes from the passion of Christ.

  • Dr. Zucker: ... painted on the back pieces

  • of glass panels that are set into that wooden frame.

  • Dr. Harris: I have to say that it's hard

  • to get a sense of this when you're watching a video

  • or looking at illustrations in a book,

  • but those little roundels around the mirror,

  • how big would you say those are?

  • Dr. Zucker: They are, I would say, about half the size ...

  • Dr. Zucker: ... half the size of my fingernail.

  • Dr. Harris: Yeah, they're tiny.

  • And yet we can make out what scenes

  • from the Passion of Christ are represented there,

  • there's that attention to detail

  • and detail painted in enormous clarity

  • that we associate with the Northern Renaissance.

  • Dr. Zucker: Some of this painting seems to

  • have been painted with a single [hair brush].

  • Dr. Harris: If you look at the hair of the dog, for example.

  • Dr. Zucker: The dog is an interesting element

  • because you wouldn't expect to see a dog in a formal portrait.

  • How many wedding photographs have you seen with a dog in it?

  • Dr. Harris: Actually, dogs are common symbols in paintings of couples

  • because the dog is a symbol of fidelity or loyalty.

  • Dr. Zucker: Of course, there's tremendous attention

  • that's been paid to the dress of both figures

  • and there's a kind of curious element

  • because they're wearing fur-lined clothing

  • and yet there is fruit on the tree outside.

  • So, it's a war moment and yet they're wearing their finest winter wear,

  • that's an issue that has, I think, perplexed our historians.

  • Dr. Harris: And that fruit on the window sill

  • may also be a symbol, or a sign I should say,

  • of their wealth since oranges were very expensive in Flanders.

  • Dr. Zucker: Someone suggested that that was

  • one of the items that the Arnolfini's actually imported

  • a reference to the source of their wealth.

  • Dr. Harris: This is a good example of one of the ways

  • that it's easy to misinterpret,

  • it looks as though the scene is taking place

  • in what we would think of as the bedroom,

  • in a kind of private space,

  • but in fact, bedrooms were not that in the 15th Century.

  • They were rooms where you received visitors.

  • Dr. Zucker: And a symbol of wealth.

  • There are all kinds of symbols of wealth here,

  • beyond the oranges if you look at the carpet down on the floor,

  • that would have been an example of both taste and wealth.

  • Dr. Harris: Look at the way that the ...

  • you see those teeny little cuts in the green robe that she wears, those heavy ...

  • Dr. Zucker: That's been frayed out that was ...

  • Dr. Zucker: ... that was a very fashionable.

  • Dr. Harris: And the crispness of the lace

  • that she wears around her head.

  • Dr. Zucker: Now, there's a mistake that is often made,

  • which is people often look at the sort of bulge of her belly

  • and suggest that she's pregnant,

  • Dr. Harris: Right.

  • Dr. Zucker: This was very much an expression of the fashion of the day.

  • Dr. Harris: Right and another way that it's easy

  • to misinterpret based on what we know in the 21st Century.

  • Dr. Zucker: Van Ecyk is, I think, critically important

  • not only because of the brilliance of his painting,

  • but because he was using oil paint

  • in a way that had never really been used.

  • He was able to create a luminous quality,

  • a richness of color that tempera simply couldn't achieve.

  • Dr. Harris: Yeah, and he's doing this

  • because he's applying thin, multiple layers,

  • or glazes of thinned out oil painting

  • so that each layer is translucent

  • and layer after layer applied creates these

  • incredibly deep rich colors.

  • Dr. Zucker: Which allows him to then

  • produce this rich, luminous, incredibly subtle light.

  • Dr. Harris: I know.

  • Dr. Zucker: ... and moves across the faces of the figures,

  • their hands, across the furniture.

  • Dr. Harris: On the chandelier, the little shadow

  • cast by that bottom bar of the window.

  • There's a real love of light here

  • that also is very typical of the Northern Renaissance.

  • Dr. Zucker: And the way they can sort of brilliantly pick up a color,

  • like on the oranges, for instance,

  • or to find an object such as Arnolfini's shoes.

  • Dr. Harris: The figures are kind elongated.

  • The base of the room seems very cramped,

  • it's filled with all of these material objects.

  • Dr. Zucker: It's certainly not [perspectogoly] correct.

  • Dr. Harris: Right and both of those things,

  • that lack of interest in human anatomy

  • and the rational prospectively correct space

  • really tells that we're not in the Italian Renaissance

  • we're in the Northern Renaissance,

  • that love of texture, the use of oil paint,

  • the attention to detail.

  • Van Eyck is a master, or 'the' master of the Northern Renaissance.

  • (piano playing)

(piano playing)

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