Milagro en la logia JAN VAN EYCK

The painter and his work Miracle in the Lodge The Virgin of Chancellor Ronen 1435 Jan van Eyck Bruges 1376–1441 Louvre Museum Paris The Virgin of Chancellor Ronen also known as the Madonna of Otto or the Virgin of the Donor is a small panel measuring 66 by 62 centimeters Created toward the end of the Gothic period it is one of the earliest known oil paintings Surrounding the four main characters it displays several hundred tiny details The Virgin Mary is seated on a golden-embroidered blue cushion placed atop a carved wooden chest Wears a purple mantle trimmed with golden letters She is a very young woman Her gaze is downcast The Child Jesus sits on His lap naked His face bears the solemnity of an adult His right hand raised in blessing In his left hand a crystal globe topped with a cross set with precious stones A small angel hovers a golden crown adorned with gems and pearls above Mary's head She wears a blue dress and has a pair of colorful wings A man is kneeling on a cushion covered with a greenish -blue cloth his hands pressed together in prayer He sports a fashionable haircut from the early 15th century with shaved sideburns and neck Strong evidence indicates this is Nicolás Rolén Born and died in Autun Burgundy Rolén played a significant role in the political and artistic life of his era In the background the two sentinels One peers over the battlement The other seen in profile carries a large staff They are dressed in the fashion of the 1430s A Romanesque-style lodge opens to the outside with three semicircular arches The capitals adorned with motifs evoke the Romanesque style of the twelfth century Several composite capitals display scenes from the Old Testament The arcade is adorned with a motif of grapevines and dragons On both sides there are additional enclosed spaces with white stained-glass windows made up of round cibes Above the lodge are two windows with colored glass The tiling features eight-pointed star patterns alternately black and white Before the gallery lies a small suspended garden and six steps leading to a battlemented walkway Below a landscape is split in two by a river flowing down from a hill range A bridge divides the city into two parts To the right a densely packed city with houses numerous churches and plazas To the left a suburb featuring an abbey houses with projecting timber frames ornamental half-timbering and paths leading into the countryside On this sun-facing shore forests and vine-covered slopes stretch out Along the riverbanks gardens and meadows flourish On the other side lies a plain covered in farmland and small villages A house is on fire People are on the roads In the middle of the river an island with trees and a castle The walls are flanked by large towers The wall widens toward the field to allow for the spread of light a distinctive feature of the urban planning of the era People enter churches walk past stalls at the cathedral's base and head off to work in the fields Women converse at the doorways of their homes A crowd crosses the bridge on foot or horseback moving from left to right Others cross the river in the opposite direction or by raft Goods are loaded onto ships at the docks Tied to the current mills with paddle wheels harnessing the river's power In this familial setting historians have believed they can identify the spire of the Utrecht Cathedral e Bridge of the Arcades in Liège the Cathedral of Saint Gudule in Brussels or the countryside of Burgundy They've also suggested Bruges León Prague or even Athens Although we may indeed find elements drawn from reality the landscape is entirely imagined His position as chancellor that is as minister of finance It allowed Nicolás Rolén to amass a vast fortune part of which benefited his hometown Otán The heart of Oton is the Cathedral of Saint Lazarus renowned for its tympanum depicting the Last Judgment s Romanesque capitals and Gothic spire Just a short distance from the cathedral stands the former private home of Nicolás Rolén now a museum Rolén was a patron who supported the work of scribes and illuminators He generously donated his parish of the Virgin of Châtel a church located between his home and the cathedral The painting was intended for a chapel founded by the chancellor's ancestors The scene appeared bathed in the glow of the altar where Rolén was presumably kneeling Founder of the hospices in Bonn several years later Rolén attributed the triptych of the Last Judgment to Roger van der Weyden He had himself portrayed on his outer panel alongside his third wife Gigon de Sanet These portraits of donors bear witness to the bourgeoisie's access to artistic patronage By performing acts of piety Rolén also sought to erase the negative reputation tied to his role as chancellor At the end of the Gothic period the Duchy of Burgundy encompassed the Low Countries Flanders and Burgundy Together with his brother Hubert Jan van Eyck painted the monumental altarpiece The Adoration of the Mystic Lamb in Lantos Twenty panels hundreds of figures—angels prophets evangelists Adam and Eve are among the first depictions of nudity in Northern European painting Other works portraits Cardinal Albergatti Margarita van Eyck wife of the painter a witch's goldsmith and various religious subjects including the Virgin of the Cartujos the Virgin of Luca and the Dresden Triptych The Man in the Turban might be a self-portrait The painter also portrays himself alongside the Virgin of Canon van der Paal A small figure in a red turban reflected in Saint George's armor In The Arnolfini Portrait and His Wife the painter depicts his own reflection in the mirror and inscribes above it: Jan van Eyck was here He often writes this motto on the frame of his paintings Alsikkan as I can Like most of his other paintings the Virgin of Chancellor Rolén likely once had an intricately carved wooden frame dated and signed The Church of Our Lady of Châtel was demolished during the Revolution In 1800 the painting that was in Aucoin was sent to the Louvre A sixteenth-century artist imagines the workshop of the Van Eycks Someone brings in a wooden panel A helper grinds the pigments in a mortar Another mixes them with linseed oil A third applies the paints to the wall Some apprentices sketch One of the brothers paints a religious subject The other creates a portrait of a woman The table nearly square consists of three pieces of oak with vertical grain These pieces have been slightly chamfered And in some places the seams are visible The techniques used to prepare the tables are the same ones still employed today by luthiers and guitar makers Choice of wood grain direction sanding joinery gluing—everything mattered for a successful outcome Dendrochronology determines the age of woods by analyzing their annual growth rings The analysis has revealed that tables 1 and 3 come from the same tree planted around 1215 Table 2 from a tree planted around 1247 Cut down around 1426 The timber dried in less than 10 years meaning the table's manufacture can be dated to around 1436 The board was coated with plaster a mixture of animal glue and fine gypsum After the initial sanding which brought out the wood's grain the board was sanded again Then thick layers were applied each one polished in turn until a surface as hard and smooth as ivory was achieved Then a detailed sketch was made using a fine brush as we can see in this Saint Barbara from Antwerp unfinished sketches in which objects and figures are outlined in gray and shadows are lightly shaded with fine strokes Infrared rays penetrate the pigments and reveal underlying layers that would otherwise remain invisible As you examine the surface of the painting closely you can uncover the original sketch and the changes the artist made to their initial concept The most obvious hidden detail is the large bag beside the chancellor's right side It was the symbol of his office and bore the seal of the Duke of Burgundy Perhaps Rouen himself had asked the painter to erase this object a far too obvious reference to his immense wealth It may have been the chancellor who suggested to the painter that Jesus's hand be repositioned so he could bless it Until Van Eyck paintings were prepared by mixing pigments with egg white The tempera technique which gave rise to many masterpieces It was difficult to work with The legend credits Van Eyck with the invention of oil painting In reality it appears that this technique It was already known in the twelfth century Linseed oil dries poorly Van Eyck managed to discover that Mixing it with turpentine essence caused the oil to dry faster Extracted from the resin of certain pines turpentine dissolves fatty substances and imparts fluidity to oil-based pigments The oil enhances the colors ' saturation and preserves their shine It dries slowly allowing for touch-ups It works very effectively for creating textures The pigment's smooth flow also allows for the introduction of tiny details using brushes with few bristles The characters crossing the bridge on foot are less than a millimeter tall In many other paintings Van Eyck repeated these displays of virtuosity The superiority of oil is evident in the glazing technique where multiple layers of fluid transparent paint are applied one over the other For a red drapery the painter would begin by applying a wash of the drapery's color across the entire surface The frost still revealed the design but now it gave it depth Then for the fabric shadows and to shape the folds he used a darker shade of red Finally using a lighter shade of red he blended the highlights and tints The Virgin's mantle is covered by a network of wide cracks that stand out even more infrared photography The top layer dried faster than the bottom one causing it to crack These premature cracks were repaired by the painter himself Another type of cracks—those of age The wood's fiber stress has caused cracks to form perpendicular to the stresses It's the regular crack we see in the sky where the layer of paint is thinnest In other areas the less regular cracks are due to the slow shrinkage of the pigment layers a movement intensified by temperature changes emperature or humidity A Romanesque architecture therefore already ancient by Van Eyck's time frames the scene The grapevines evoke Christ's words I am the true vine the stars in the tiles point to the Virgin often called the morning star or star of the sea On the capitals appear Adam and Eve expelled from paradise e sacrifice of Abel Cain murdering Abel and scenes from Noah's life we see the ark with the return of the dove and especially the scene in which Noah the inventor of the vineyard gets drunk and his sons mock him because he is naked Only a single emblem remains White circles repeat symbolizing eternity The triple arch may allude to the Holy Trinity The hurracas often depicted on gallows They announce the crucifixion of Christ A column crushes some rabbits prolific creatures symbols of carnal labor Peacocks whose flesh was believed to be incorruptible they remember the promise of heavenly immortality The little garden is the enclosed garden from the Song of Songs a reference to Mary's virginity in it we find marguerites the innocence of Jesus the humility of Mary Poppies according to Saint Ambrose are like roses in paradise that had no thorns the Virgin is likewise called the rose without thorns Gabanzas the rosary the great crown of roses with which the Virgin was adorned Lilies the future royalty of Christ Finally Azucenas the purity of the Virgin and of Christ Some of these images drawn from the Litany of the Virgin They are written in the embroidery of the cloak The successive cleanings of the painting have partially erased the gold letters but some are still legible A passage from Ecclesiastes that says: " Like a cedar I have risen above Lebanon " On the page of the Book of Hours the letter D perhaps marking the beginning of Matins that start with "Domine labia mea aperies " Sir open my lips In the Bible the angel is a messenger of God in human form wearing the blue garments of the cherubim Her dark lashes repeat the colors of the rainbow a symbol of the covenant between God and humanity The crown a type of halo was once reserved for virgins The pearl is associated with the Virgin Pearls and precious stones also appear in the embroidery of the cloak and in the golden cross of Christ symbol of their sovereignty over the world Christ blesses Roland and the world around him His hand rests at the level of the bridge a sign that the blessing Despite all obstacles it is universal Between Roland and María an empty row of tiles divides the world into two parts María's side is devoted to churches which are typically used to compare María Roland's side by contrast focuses more on civil buildings Together they form the City of God magined by Saint Augustine the heavenly Jerusalem crossed by the river of life the round island at the center It is a memory of paradise and also an evocation of Dalí's tower The moon the mountains the flight of birds They also refer to the images in sacred texts The world painted by Van Eyck is entirely filled with symbols Roland was praying He had lifted his gaze It bears witness to the Virgin's coronation Yet in this painting other clues can also be discovered Roland wears a brown brocade cassock with gold embroidery and a mink trim and a black belt with a gold buckle a gift from Philip the Good Above him Noah the inventor of the vineyard At the level of his face the terraced vineyards hints of Roland's fortune founder of the hospices in Bonn with rich vineyards 1419 during the Hundred Years' War Negotiations begin between France Burgundy and England A meeting is organized between the king of France and the duke of Burgundy in Montereau at the Mion bridge A fortified bridge with a tower connected in turn to the opposite bank by a temporary pontoon At the moment he advances toward the Dolphin Juan without Fear is slain with an axe blow The rift between France and Burgundy is deep It is the time of Joan of Arc The war continues Roland who had been Juan without Fear 's lawyer becomes chancellor to his son Philip the Good 1435 16 years after the Monteró incident Roland manages to bring the three parties back together It is the Treaty of Arras Charles VII makes territorial concessions to Burgundy for the murder of John the Fearless The king of France also commits to having daily requiem masses held in the church of Our Lady of Monteró o found a monastery nearby and to erect a golden cross at the site of the crime Van Eyck has placed the monastery the pontoon the tower the bridge and the cross within his landscape Pedestrians and gentlemen crossing the bridge may be heading to the requiem mass at the church of Our Lady It has been suggested that the two sentinels might be Charles VII and Philip the Good finally reconciled or alternatively the painter's self-portrait accompanied by his brother Iver who had died ten years earlier Roland one of the principal architects of the Peace Treaty It is therefore a figure at the pinnacle of his political glory With a touch of humor the painter places peacocks at his level symbols of pride In the 15th century the painting becomes autonomous—no longer merely a religious ornament but a window opened to the world The painter's challenge is to guide the viewer's gaze through an illusion of reality In this case the solution is elegant as with the gallery positioned overhead Van Eyck commands a deep landscape The reduction of the tiles allows suggesting distance From this period onward tiling and architecture became the primary supports of perspective The Arnolfini couple have a three-point perspective system The Virgin of Canon Van der Pael features a double system In The Virgin of Chancellor Roland the tile patterns converge toward a central point —the river island The lines of the capitals converge toward points located slightly higher up so that the vanishing points are very close together Yet their deviation might perhaps be due to the arrangement of the pieces on the board Initially the points may have been a single point or aligned vertically With Arnolfini or Van der Pael the painter empirically experimented in search of a system of perspective With Roland the central perspective and single vanishing point are nearly achieved Another way to suggest depth The gradual fading of colors Indeed in nature The vidness of the colors fades as they recede into the distance Finally the columns emphasize the landscape's texture by enclosing it The composition is based on solid principles of symmetry and contrast—symmetry between the left and the right Contrast between the open upper section and the closed lower section Between the outer public space and the inner private space Roland and Jesús exist midway in both spaces Contrast between indoor and outdoor lighting Contrasts and symmetries between complementary colors The red of the Virgin's mantle contrasts with the blue of the angel's garment Likewise the greenish-blue of Roland's prayer stool is edged with a red braid and features a dark red cushion on top At the center of the composition a repetition of these contrasts in the colors of the two sentinels The browns of the room and Roland's dress Mix these basic colors Outside another complementary system Red fabric roofs green foliage Green appears only in the landscape While this landscape exhibits remarkable continuity discontinuity reigns within The contrast between shapes textures and colors is highly pronounced The strongest tensions occur in the foreground where the main scene takes place Despite the abundance of detail Van Eyck maintains the harmony of his painting through the strict organization of colors Their range encompasses the full spectrum of colors The angel's wing model encapsulates the painting's color scheme as if the artist had intended to demonstrate e richness of his palette at the edge of his canvas Van Eyck is one of the first painters to show his subject exactly as they were without flattery He invents the portrait at the same time as the landscape Her way of observing the smallest detail and connecting each object to the rest of the universe reveals a new vision of the world—realistic and allegorical at once It has been said that moving from the Mystic Lamb to the Virgin of Chancellor Rolén marks Van Eyck's transition from the Middle Ages to the Renaissance When the symbols prove exceedingly difficult to decipher Van Eyck's pictorial investigations are more relevant than ever All the formal questions that the painter raises will emerge later in the history of painting Detail and whole Shadow and light Order and chaos Shape and color Interior and exterior Text and image Myth and history