Als Ich Kan/ As I Can

 Angel Gabriel from the Ghent Altarpiece.

Jan Van Eyck’s motto, Als Ich Kan, As I can, implies that he always made the best possible effort for any task. His ‘best possible’ is superb as evidenced in The Optical Revolution, an exhibition of his work currently on view at the MSK, the Museum of Fine Arts in Ghent which is focused on the restored side panels of the Ghent Altarpiece, The Adoration of the Mystic Lamb, normally on view in St Bavo’s Cathedral. This major exhibition includes twelve of his circa 20 known paintings among the eighty works of art exhibited.

Self portrait.
Portrait of a Man in A Turban
1433.

I visited last week with six friends and we were collectively stunned by the magnificence of the exhibition itself and in particular by the luminous artistry of Van Eyck. He was not a miniaturist but his detailed and perfect works are achieved through the finest and most exquisitely wrought of detail. The several panels from the Mystic Lamb in the exhibition demonstrate the painstaking and extensive restoration work carried out since 2012. There is still one panel, stolen in 1934, unrecovered, but the whole altarpiece has had quite a chequered career over ownership and location, detailed in the following blog.

 Philip the Good.
Rogier van der Weyden.

The man himself has achieved a virtual immortality through his extraordinary artistic talent. Jan, born in Maaseik between 1385 and 1395, had a sister, Margaret, an artist, and two brothers, Hubert, a talented painter who obtained the commission for, and started to compose, the famous altarpiece, probably with Jan, circa 1420, which Jan took over when his brother died. He completed The Mystic Lamb in 1432 following which it was consecrated in St Bavo’s Cathedral in Ghent, on 6^th May, 1432.  There is evidence of many hands involved in the creation of the masterpiece,

 Woodcut of Hubert Van Eyck
1386?-1420
By Edme de Boulonois.
Mid 16th century

undoubtedly those of Jan's apprentices. Another artist brother, Lambert, active between 1431 and 1442, stepped in to lead Jan’s workshop when he died. Jan moved from restoring the Binnenhof Palace in the Hague after the death of his patron, John of Bavaria, to Brugge in 1425, becoming Court Painter and diplomat to Philip the Good. Nothing is known of Jan’s formal education though he had knowledge of Latin and used Greek and Hebrew alphabets in his inscriptions indicating he had been schooled in the Classics, rare for a painter. His early artistic education was provided by his gifted elder brother, Hubert, an artist of at least equal talent to that of Jan.

A generous Court salary from Philip freed Jan from seeking commissions and his technical and artistic ability developed, with his reputation, over the next decade. His innovative approaches towards the handling and manipulation of oil paint led to a subsequent myth, led by Vasari, that he had invented oil painting; his inspired speciality was actually that of layering thin glazes of oil paint over the surface which brought an astonishing realism to

Margareta van Eyck
by her husband.
1432.

both his religious art and secular portraiture. Considered revolutionary within his lifetime, Van Eyck’s designs and methods were heavily copied. His motto, Als Ich Kan, As I Can, first appeared in 1433 on Portrait of a Man in a Turban, perhaps an indication of his increasing self-confidence. The years 1434 to 1436 are generally considered to be when Jan was at the zenith of his powers when Madonna of Chancellor Rolin; Lucca Madonna, and Virgin and Child with Canon van der Paele were produced. Van Eyck married Margaret around 1432; from the clothes she wore in her portrait, fashionable but not sumptuous, she is judged to have, perhaps, belonged to minor aristocracy though her family name has never been recorded. Their marriage suggests that with his increasing fame and his highly-regarded position at Court, came higher social status.

Isabella of Portugal and Philip the Good.
Diptych shows the couple later, in middle age.

A well-known incident transcribed in Wolfgang Stechow's Northern Renaissance Art: Sources and Documents highlights the respect Philip held for the artist. When the exchequer withheld payment from the artist, the duke rebuked this decision, writing: "We have heard that you do not readily verify certain of our letters granting life pension to our well-beloved equerry painter, Jan van Eyck, whereby he cannot be paid said pension; and for this reason, he will find it necessary to leave our service, which would cause us great displeasure, for we would retain him for certain great works with which we intend henceforth to occupy him and we would not find his like more to our taste, one so excellent in his art and science." Subsequently, van Eyck received his annual payments without fail.

Man in the Blue Chaperon with extensive
use of lapis lazuli.
Perhaps my favourite van Eyck.
c 1430.

Jan van Eyck undertook many ‘secret’ commissions for Philip, Duke of Burgundy, probably acting as envoy; he was paid many times his annual salary for these undertakings, one of which was to ‘certain distant and secret lands’, possibly to the Holy Land. The authentic depiction of Jerusalem in his workshop’s painting, The Three Marys at the Tomb, gives weight to this theory. He was an important part of a group sent by the Duke to Lisbon, Portugal to prepare the ground for the subsequent marriage of Philip to Isabella; Jan painted her portrait twice and sent one by land, one by sea, to Philip for his perusal. Both arrived but have been subsequently lost.

Jan van Eyck died on 9 July 1441 in Brugge where he had lived and worked since 1425 and he was buried first in the churchyard, a year later, in the Church itself, of St Donaas. The actual location of the grave was lost during the destruction by the French of the Cathedral in 1799. As a mark of respect, Philip made a one-off payment equal to a year’s salary, to Jan’s widow, Margareta. Jan van Eyck left many unfinished works for his workshop and post death, his reputation became evermore burnished.

 Diptych: The Annunciation.
From the Ghent Altarpiece.