4/4 Northern Renaissance : The Supreme Art (Ep1)

• Northern Renaissance
First broadcast 15 Nov 2007.
Series in which Joseph Leo Koerner argues that the Renaissance in Northern Europe - more so than its Italian counterpart - laid the foundations of modern art. In the early 15th century, the remarkable oil paintings of Flemish artist Jan Van Eyck transformed a lowly craft into the supreme art and began an image revolution that would change art forever.

[@tlpricescope7772]

Holbein was the greatest portrait painter of Northern Renaissance art. He should have been discussed, so underrated as an artist!!!

[@rubysmith2299]

a better name for this might be "a love letter to Jan Van Eyck"

[@MSYNGWIE12]

This interpretation of the Arnulfini's is interesting is it not. The wife as deceased? I found it fascinating. I loved this work as a student and I still wish I had a really good copy/poster of it- it is so enigmatic. Those heavy-lidded eyes, the mirror on the wall with the painter visible to us centuries later. The more you look the more her take makes sense and the more you (well I do!) relax and enter into their world- one of those paintings I never tire of and can stare at for hours- unlike poor Mona Lisa!

[@ina268]

Seems like with the Arnolfini portrait Jan van Eyck envisioned quite a few concepts: interactivity, interplay, art detectives, wax museums (the couple looks like 3D wax sculptures against a realistic background), advertisement (with the painter's unmatched mastery in rendering rich textiles and fur, I cannot get rid of the feeling that the portrait, among many other things, meant to be seen by potential business partners of the merchant, showing off the fabrics he was trading.)

[@HansHeinerBuhr]

great, thanks a lot

[@fifirodriguez52]

I'd be very interested to know whether Giovanni and Costanza had any children. The painting is littered with fertility symbols, which make perfect sense if it's a wedding portrait, but I wonder how the Costanza Memorial theory accounts for them.

[@ina268]

Wikipedia says Constanza Trenta died childless. As for me it makes almost definite that the lady in question is more likely to be an undocumented second wife of Mr.Arnolfini. Albeit my heart's vote goes to the theory of a memorial portrait, but it doesn't seem plausible if she indeed died with no issue.

[@fifirodriguez52]

@@ina268 Possibly the fertility imagery in a memorial painting could be a sort of memorial to the family they could have had together had she lived-- mourning lost potential, essentially. But that's a bit of a stretch.

[@ina268]

@@fifirodriguez52 I thought this way initially, in case she passed away during childbirth, but trying to make an uninformed guess (not really knowing that time's norms isn't helpful!): if the main role of a good wife in the society was to give a new life, for the husband to have a successor (especially for a merchant) was paramount, they probably haven't our romantic view of love, marriage. But if Constanza died childless after approximately seven years of marriage, I guess her society could have seen her as a failure, defective commodity (I bet they had no idea that men could be infertile as well). As for me it would have been mockery of her supposed infertility, her fruitlessnes, to put all these fertility symbols in the painting. I feel like the painter was a well-wisher and he put there many fertility and prosperity symbols, pertinent to this material world. But of course if this painting wasn't open to multiple different interpretations, it wouldn't be so enchanting!

[@shellymay4324]

I was really hoping that they would cover the garden of earthly delights

[@sagaunn7217]

what is the name of the concept expressed around 1:00?? About images enter the eye, I'd like to further research this belief but I can't not knowing what it is called... If anyone knows it would be very helpful.

[@MSYNGWIE12]

is it the "portal of the eye" tried to stop it at about 1 minute. hope that helps!

[@rosemarynibler9944]

that particular number and that particular bird?

[@rosemarynibler9944]

Who are you with the number and the bird?

[@TheFranceskaTree]

Wow at the empty National Gallery....if only I could wander through those halls without millions of people next to me.

[@ThePolistiren]

The vineyards parts is really grasping at straws. Seems like a regular part of the city to me.

[@babybutchie]

Hold up the front of your gown, and it drapes nearly straight down. Now do that over a pregnant tummy, as in this picture, and it continues downward in the arc caused by the underlying mass.