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.

A Noble Quarantine

 Eyam village, Derbyshire.

 William Mompesson, rector of
St Lawrence's Church, Eyam.

I used to live in Derbyshire, that beautiful county, for many years so how come, given the current hysteria about the Coronavirus, that I didn’t immediately remember Eyam, the plague village, famous in the seventeenth century for the truly remarkable way in which it decided to self-isolate as the current phrase has it, during a vicious return of the bubonic plague? It was an item by Peter Wilby in last week’s New Statesman referring to the famous Plague Village story which pulled me up instantly. The narrative of Eyam is inspiring.

 Plague scenes in stained glass,
St Lawrence's.

It began in the summer of 1665 when a bale of cloth arrived from London where the plague had already killed thousands. A tailor’s assistant, George Viccars, opened the damp bale and hung it in front of a fire to dry, unwittingly stirring the disease-ridden fleas contained within the parcel.. George was visiting Eyam to help make clothes for Wakes Week but became the first victim of the plague in Eyam. The pestilence swept through the community and between September and December 1665, 42 villagers had died; by Spring of 1666, many were about to flee to save their lives.

 During the plague, Sunday services were held  outside.
Any communal gathering was held in the open air.

 Mompesson's chair still remains in
Eyam church.

The recently-appointed (and unpopular) rector, William Mompesson decided that the village must be quarantinedHis predecessorThomas Stanley, had been summarily removed from his Church position, after refusing to acknowledge the Act of Uniformity (1662) which made it compulsory for churches to use the Book of Common Prayer introduced by Charles 11. He, and most of the village, were fervent supporters of Cromwell’s Puritan Government before the restoration of the monarchy. Stanley lived on the edge of the village more or less in exile but Mompesson realised that he needed the support of Stanley whom the villagers trusted. Together, they devised a remarkable plan: on 24 June, 1666 Mompesson told his assembled parishioners that the village must be closed with no one entering or leaving. The Earl of Devonshire who lived nearby at Chatsworth, had offered to send food and supplies if the villagers agreed to be quarantined. Mompesson said he would do everything in his power to help them and he and his wife would stay.

His wife’s diary recorded that the difficult decision William had asked of the village was helped by

 Catherine Mompesson's grave.

the fact that the popular Rev. Thomas Stanley stood by his side, in strong support of the quarantine. Though, she also recorded, that there were many misgivings over the wisdom of the plan which eventually received the reluctant support of the whole village. There is a nobility about the Eyam decision which resonates today. No one else, outside Eyam, in Derbyshire caught the plague; no one else died but the villagers knew the huge risks to which they were condemning themselves. By August 1666 there were five or six deaths a day. The weather was remarkably hot, the fleas were highly active and the pestilence spread unchecked through the village. In spite of this, no one broke the cordon sanitaire and whole families died. Elizabeth Hancock, for instance, buried six of her children and her husband, all of whom had died within eight days.

Mompesson’s letters record his appreciation of his young wife, Catherine, who had worked unstintingly among the victims and in so doing, had contracted the plague herself. On 22 August 1666 they went for a walk in the hills and she spoke of the sweet smell in the air. This sweet smell in the nostrils of the afflicted, was a common feature of the bubonic plague and she died the following morning, aged 27. Mompesson wrote of the smell of ‘sadness and death’ in the air saying, ‘I am a dying man.’ He did, in fact, survive. The worst was over and the number of cases fell in September and October and by November 1, 1666, the disease had gone. In just over a year, 260 of Eyam’s inhabitants from 76 families, had died. Historians estimate the size of the village before the plague, as between 350 and 500.

 Mompesson's well.

It seems to me that the self-imposed Eyam quarantine is of a different order from today’s cancellation of public events and those afflicted by the Coronavirus imposing a self-isolation. The inhabitants of the village sentenced themselves to remain in the highly-infected theatre of the disease with no defence for anyone against the plague swirling around them. Poor Mompesson remained unloved in Eyam, and left in 1669 to work in Eakring, Nottinghamshire but such was the reputation of the plague village that he was forced to live in a hut in Rufford Park until eventually, the villagers’ fears died away.

 St Lawrence's Church, Eyam, Derbyshire.

Post Script

Until a vaccine is discovered, tested and is ready to be administered, perhaps 9-12 months in the future] it is interesting to note that the only techniques available for limiting the spread of the epidemic today are essentially mediaeval. Isolation of the afflicted while waiting to see if the patient has the illness and can survive or not. No large groups of people assembling inside; groups outside to be avoided.