Conservators and art historians have relied heavily on scientific evidence from the Ghent Altarpiece to support theories about the working methods and materials of Jan van Eyck. However, should these theories be directly applied to van Eyck's other paintings?
Noëlle Streeton has examined surviving paintings attributed to van Eyck, his contemporaries and earlier artists, alongside the conservation dossiers for these works. By focusing on demonstrable physical differences between the Ghent panels and other paintings, especially those in the van Eyck corpus, she has woven a narrative for van Eyck that brings greater clarity to ideas that surround this painter's workshop practices and choices of materials over time. This might be considered an end in itself, but for some these results on their own fail to offer satisfying insight into the much-debated nature of van Eyck's technique. For this reason, she also proposes a broader context for painting in late medieval Bruges.
Key to abbreviations
Biography of Jan van Eyck
Foreword and acknowledgements
Illustration credits
Introduction
Chapter 1 Van Eyck and technical scholarship
Van Eyck the innovator
Early technical scholarship
Technical Studies in the Field of Fine Arts
The Ghent Altarpiece
Materials research and the art historian
Chapter 2 Van Eyck and the tradition of oil painting
The materials of northern European painters: research since the 1950s
Pigments and paint systems
Describing painted surfaces
Past and present: rethinking the literary tradition of oil painting
Chapter 3 The Ghent Altarpiece: rethinking the paradigm
Making the masterpiece
Early reception
Claiming van Eyck
Post-war initiatives
Benchmark?
From the specific to the general: the roots of misconception
L’Agneau mystique au laboratoire
‘La technique picturale eyckienne’
Setting the standard
Three Marys at the Tomb
Chapter 4 Van Eyck and colour
Observing differences: Crucifixion and Last Judgement
Van Eyck’s uses of blue
Copper green and the landscape tradition
The Virgin in red
The importance of lead white
Chapter 5 Where from here? Building a context for van Eyck’s workshop
Bruges and the North Sea economy
Scholarship on late medieval Bruges
The Hanseatic League and Baltic oak
From the Mediterranean by sea
Merchant fleets
Staple monopolies and Bruges
Merchant bankers and credit
Economic contraction and bullion famines
Depression and artistic production
Shortages of gold and silver
Chapter 6 Impediments to merchants. Impediments to craftsmen?
Merchants and the Anglo-Burgundian alliance
The Peace of Arras and its consequences
Massacre, embargo, siege and revolt
Flux?
Consequences for van Eyck?
Resolution
Chapter 7 Problems and strategies for a technical history for the paintings of van Eyck
Technical art history
Collaboration
Framework
Strategies
Conclusions
Summary of technical findings
A context for painting in Bruges
Appendix I Paintings under investigation
Appendix II Technical examination and access
Appendix III Cross-sections and reconstructions
Appendix IV Glossary of analytical techniques
Bibliography
Primary sources: paintings and dossiers
Manuscripts
Printed original sources
Secondary sources
Index
Reviews
This gorgeously illustrated volume is at once interesting and informative, giving a neat overview of the artist and his most famous work that highlights the importance of the technical data but also reflects on the wider context surrounding it. [...] A highly recommended read, not just for van Eyck enthusiasts but also for anyone with an interest in technical art scholarship relating to fifteenth century art.
The Picture Restorer - No. 44, Spring 2014
