ABOUT THIS BOOK

A new assessment of the inventive and influential artist Jan van Eyck.

Jan van Eyck (1390–1441) was one of the most inventive and influential artists in the entire European tradition. The realism of his paintings continues to astound observers more than six centuries on, even though our world is saturated by high-resolution images. However, viewers today are as like to be absorbed by Van Eyck’s personality as his realism. While he sometimes directly painted himself into his works, he also suggested his presence through an array of inscriptions, signatures, and even a personal motto. Incorporating a wealth of new research and recent discoveries within a fresh exploration of the paintings themselves, this book reveals how profoundly Jan van Eyck transformed the very idea of what an artist could be.

AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY

Alfred Acres is the Wright Family Associate Professor of Art History at Georgetown University and is the author of Renaissance Invention and the Haunted Infancy.

REVIEWS

“Throughout the pages of this beautifully written book . . . Acres invites us to see what this supremely inventive artist was seeking to do with his arresting depictions, and aims to give meaning to the many astounding and delightful details of Van Eyck’s work. This is a study not only of Van Eyck as an individual, but of Van Eyck’s interests, talents, inventiveness, and commitment to communication and signification, by looking not just at, but within the art of Van Eyck.”

— Beth Williamson, professor of medieval culture and chair in the history of art, University of Bristol

"By way of clever observations and pictorial analysis, this eloquently written monograph is highly commendable. It offers a concise introduction to the work of one of the most influential Renaissance artists of his time and addresses in eight chapters the career and clusters of Van Eyck's paintings. Alfred Acres presents impressively erudite perspectives and refreshingly balanced views on even some of the most persistent problems in art history like the authorship of the Ghent Altarpiece. It will be welcomed by the general reader and will inspire specialists to think anew."

— Till-Holger Borchert, Director of Suermondt-Ludwig-Museum, Aachen

"The author presents a novel discussion of van Eyck’s patrons and his self-positioning in the cosmopolitan city of Bruges, and he includes recent archival research that fleshes out an otherwise fragmentary understanding of the artist’s life. Acres reviews the documented history of van Eyck’s life and working practice in order to shake out the sense of mystery and disguised symbolism that has permeated historical interpretations of his work. . . . By showing his works as a series of encounters, Acres demonstrates how van Eyck crafted his paintings to actively engage with the audience, a novel concept in European art, where physical and psychological boundaries were beginning to dissolve via a pervasive realism that could only be fully accomplished by the most skilled artists."

— Choice

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Introduction: As I Can
1 A Career
2 The Painter at Work
3 Hubert, Jan and the Ghent Altarpiece
4 Annunciations and Other Encounters
5 In the Company of the Virgin and Child
6 Situating Saints
7 Portraiture and Presence
Epilogue: Another Mirror

CHRONOLOGY
REFERENCES
BIBLIOGRAPHY
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
PHOTO ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
INDEX

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