Jan van Eyck

Jan van Eyck's paintings use oil color and close observation to give faces, fabrics, and reflective objects a precise material presence. Translucent layers of paint allow light and subtle changes of tone to become part of the description. The Arnolfini Portrait combines two figures with a closely rendered room, where reflected visitors, polished surfaces, and varied textiles create relationships between objects and people. His images of the Virgin similarly place sacred subjects among richly described surroundings. In Portrait of a Man, known as Léal Souvenir, a scroll and an inscribed stone parapet accompany the sitter, making writing and surface detail part of the painted likeness. Van Eyck served Philip the Good, Duke of Burgundy, while also making religious pictures and portraits for churchmen, merchants, nobles, and courtiers in the fifteenth-century Netherlands.