Jan van Eyck, Madonna with Canon Joris van der Paele

0:00:05.4 Dr. Beth Harris: We’re in the Groeningemuseum in Bruges in Flanders and we’re standing in front of a large painting by Jan van Eyck. This is the Virgin and Child with the Canon van der Paele. In addition, we see on the right Saint George and on the left Saint Donatian.

0:00:22.8 Dr. Anna Koopstra: And Saint Donatian is the patron saint of the Cathedral of Saint Donatian, and that was where this painting was located.

0:00:33.5 Dr. Harris: This was a memorial that van der Paele set up, accompanied by a large donation so that masses could be said for his soul.

0:00:42.2 Dr. Koopstra: And the key to this is the original frame. This inscription is painted in such a way that it looks as if it is in a different material than wood, brass-like, so it has shadows around it that actually make this look as if it’s three-dimensional. And this inscription gives this information that the painting is part of several provisions that van der Paele made to his memory and for his afterlife.

0:01:10.4 Dr. Harris: So the inscription along the bottom tells us about the commission, and the coats of arms relate to van der Paele’s family and inscriptions on the sides tell us on the left about Saint Donatian, on the right about Saint George, and along the top, we have a lovely passage that van Eyck actually uses in other paintings about the Virgin Mary. And I think it’s so interesting that we often in the modern world think about paintings. But van der Paele donated other liturgical items for use by priests, for masses to be said.

0:01:46.9 Dr. Koopstra: Yes, this means that a lot of the context in which such a painting would have functioned is indeed lost.

0:01:55.0 Dr. Harris: So the canon was a very wealthy man. He is committed to spending his wealth in the last years of his life to ensure that his soul will be released as quickly as possible from purgatory. He’s chosen the most famous artist to paint his memorial.

0:02:15.2 Dr. Koopstra: Van der Paele was born in Bruges but was, in fact, a man of the world. He was very high clergy, he had a splendid career, was very ambitious, and in fact worked for the papal curia. And that career took him all over Europe. And Jan van Eyck had a very similar itinerant career, also in the highest places as a court painter for Philip the Good.

0:02:39.6 Dr. Harris: And we see van der Paele on his knees in a position that suggests his humility in what can only be described as the court of heaven. And he’s got his glasses in his hand. He’s got a prayer book open. He’s wearing his official church garments. And van Eyck painted every wrinkle, every vein, almost like a map of this man’s face.

0:03:06.9 Dr. Koopstra: He’s very close to them, so he’s very privileged. He’s touching the Virgin’s robe. So this is part of van der Paele’s wish, but also his importance.

0:03:19.1 Dr. Harris: And he’s being introduced to Mary and Christ by Saint George.

0:03:23.9 Dr. Koopstra: He’s so close to them, and yet his eyes seem very unfocused, so there’s also this play with seeing or seeing something in one’s mind’s eye.

0:03:32.9 Dr. Harris: And in fact, we know that at this time, people were encouraged in prayer to visualize Mary, to visualize Christ, to visualize episodes from their lives. And this lack of focus does suggest that kind of internal, imaginative kind of seeing.

0:03:51.4 Dr. Koopstra: Exactly. But then there’s this wonderful complexity. You can see how shiny the tiled floor is, how heavy the carpet feels, how it’s woven, how it folds over the steps. You can also see how incredibly heavy the cope of Saint Donatian is with that very thick brocade, how it’s even lined also with a different color, the wonderful glass in the back, the stone sculptures, the capitals. All of these materials, all of these colors, all of these motifs, together they make for an incredibly rich environment.

0:04:31.5 Dr. Harris: And it appears as though we’re in the rounded space of the apse of a church, basically where the altar would be.

0:04:38.8 Dr. Koopstra: On the throne, we see Cain slaying Abel. On the other side of the throne, we see Samson and the lion. There are sculptures in niches of Adam and Eve.

0:04:49.4 Dr. Harris: Adam and Eve who eat the apple in the Garden of Eden, the fall of man, and then the violence that ensues with Cain and Abel, but also the victory over death.

0:05:01.0 Dr. Koopstra: Exactly. George also being a victorious saint, but of course mostly through Christ. In a way, the Virgin herself functions as an altar, you could say.

0:05:12.8 Dr. Harris: Notably, Christ sits on a white cloth.

0:05:14.6 Dr. Koopstra: Yes.

0:05:15.7 Dr. Harris: The same white cloth that would cover an altar. We do have the idea of the body of Christ and the miraculous transformation of the bread into the body of Christ during the miracle of the Eucharist. And van Eyck, although he was credited with inventing oil paint, didn’t actually do that. But boy, can he make oil paint look like all of these different textures. And I suppose the one that gets most noticed is the reflection in the armor of Saint George.

0:05:46.9 Dr. Koopstra: We see a standing figure wearing a long garment and a red headpiece.

0:05:53.5 Dr. Harris: All of this material splendor, jewels, pearls, gold, expensive fabric, embroidery, suggest to us the beauty of heaven.

0:06:05.9 Dr. Koopstra: And it also reflects the material wealth that was present in the city. Bruges, at this point in time, was a very wealthy city, buzzing with people from all over the world. And Bruges had a very important function because of its location and because it was close to the sea. It was also one of the important land routes that connected other commercial centers. And people of the time, we have records of them saying everything that you would wish for, you could find it here in Bruges. The carpet we know was imported. It was made in what is present-day Turkey.

0:06:42.3 Dr. Harris: And the tiles, too, imported from Valencia, perhaps indicating an origin in Islamic tile work. And so it does speak to this idea of Bruges as this commercial center, one that not only imported goods, but also produced luxury goods.

0:06:58.0 Dr. Koopstra: This painting, in itself, being a very prominent luxury good, also elements like the parakeet. It was said to speak, of course, and then speak “Ave”. On the other hand, birds like these were also kept at court and thus, at the same time, are also an important marker of wealth and of status.

0:07:21.0 Dr. Harris: I think it’s important to remember that at this moment, van Eyck is court painter for Philip the Good, who is, for all intents and purposes, the wealthiest man in all of Europe. So a person who could command the most expensive luxury goods and the best artists of his day to come work for him and we’re not talking just about painters, but all manner of luxury items could be found at Philip’s court.

0:07:48.1 Dr. Koopstra: But those artists, in turn, benefited from that milieu, being able to use the best materials, of course, the most expensive materials. So the space, at the same time, is very convincing, with these beautiful columns and capitals and glass. At the same time, it’s manipulated in such a way that this group is very closely knit, very close to one another. Van der Paele is humbly kneeling here. The saints are standing. The Virgin is seated on a raised throne, but if the Virgin were to stand up, she would go literally through the baldachin, right? She would be huge, I think, if she would actually stand up.

0:08:30.2 Dr. Harris: And that’s one of the things that we see often in Netherlandish art. We see not a perfectly rational, linear perspective created illusion of space, but one that is intensified and that is working to communicate the meaning of the painting above all.

0:08:49.8 Dr. Koopstra: This is part of why they still are so fascinating to us as well, because the enormous craftsmanship that was developed in the Low Countries in the art of painting makes us still amazed to realize, if we just look a little bit closer or a little bit longer, that even though it looks as if everything here is as real as it could get, that this is an illusion and this is what Jan van Eyck has made us see.

This work at the Groeningemuseum

More on Jan van Eyck from VISITFLANDERS

Jan van Eyck on the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History

Till-Holger Borchert, Van Eyck (London: Thames & Hudson, 2020).

Stephen Hanley, “Optical Symbolism as Optical Description: A Case Study of Canon van der Paele’s Spectacles,” JHNA, volume 1, number 1 (Winter 2009).

Craig Harbison, Jan Van Eyck: The Play of Realism (London: Reaktion Books, 2012).

Craig Harbison, The Mirror of the Artist: Northern Renaissance Art in Its Historical Context (New York: Harry N. Abrams, 1995).

Stephanie Porras, Art of the Northern Renaissance: Courts, Commerce and Devotion (London: Laurence King Publishing, 2018).

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