How was this painted 600 years ago?

There are paintings that are impossible to understand how they were created, and this is one of them. The work you are looking at right now was painted almost 600 years ago, and yet, if we look at it carefully enough, we find details so small and so precise that art historians still cannot fully explain how a human being could have painted them. Individual eyelashes, the reflection of a window inside the eye of a figure, the shadow cast by a pair of glasses on the page of a book, the light of a suit of armour reflecting and refracting across multiple surfaces at the same time, all painted by hand, and most incredibly, 600 years ago. This work is called The Virgin and Child with Canon van der Puyl, and it was painted by the Flemish artist Jan van Eyck around 1434 and 1436. In it we see the Virgin Mary seated on a large throne, with the Christ Child on her lap. To her right stands Saint Donatian, former Bishop of Rams and patron saint of the church for which the painting was created. To her left stands Saint George, recognisable by his knight's armour, and kneeling beside Saint George, there is an elderly man in a white robe. That man is Joris van der Puyl, the canon who commissioned this painting, and the story of why he commissioned it tells us a great deal about what van Eyck set out to create with it. Van der Puyl was over 60 years old when he commissioned this work. By this point he was a prominent figure in the city of Bruges, but his health had deteriorated seriously. This man knew that death was approaching, and like many men of his time and position, he wanted to secure his legacy before he died. But there is something in this image that goes beyond a simple religious commission. Van der Puyl did not simply want to appear in a painting, he wanted to be presented before the Virgin and the Christ Child. He wanted Saint George, his patron saint, to introduce him personally, and he wanted Mary and the child to turn and look at him directly, as if confirming that paradise was near. John van Eyck was the person chosen for this commission, and he managed to transform it into one of the most complex and most extraordinary works in the entire history of art. The art historian Erwin Panofsky, one of the greatest experts in Flemish painting of the 20th century, stated in his analysis of this painting that van Eyck's eye operates as a microscope and a telescope at the same time. If we look closely at the figure of van der Puyl, we can see that his glasses cast a shadow on the and beneath one of the lenses, the text of the book appears visibly distorted by the effect of the glass. Van Eyck painted the optical refraction of a pair of glasses, and we must remember, this was the 15th century. If we look carefully enough at the eyes of the figures, we can also find reflections, but not generic reflections, specific reflections of the light source that illuminates the scene. And then there is Saint George's armour. The light that falls on that armour does not simply illuminate it, it reflects off it, bounces toward other surfaces, and creates an interplay of indirect light that modern researchers have described as one of the most sophisticated optical effects in all of renaissance painting. Van Eyck used layers of translucent oil paint over a reflective ground to manipulate the real light that reaches the canvas, creating sensations of luminosity that are still difficult to reproduce today. But van Eyck's technical mastery was not separate from his symbolic content. For him, every detail had a purpose. The two pillars flanking Mary's throne are not simply decorative. At the top of each one, van Eyck painted a small carved scene, each chosen with considerable precision. The left pillar shows the moment Cain raises his arm to strike his brother Abel. The right one shows Samson overpowering a lion with his bare hands. In the theological language of the time, these two scenes together could be interpreted as the moment sin entered the world through an act of violence, and that only faith in God has the power to overcome it. Additionally, beneath these carvings, there are two more figures. These two figures are Adam and Eve, naked after their expulsion from the Garden of Eden, perhaps placed there as a reminder of the fall and of everything that made the arrival of Christ necessary. Finally, the Christ child holds a parrot in his right hand and a small bunch of flowers in his left, which Mary also holds at the same time. The red flowers are carnations, known in Old Dutch as nagelblom, or nail flower, a reference to the nails of the crucifixion, and the white flowers belong to the plant family, known in Latin as cruciferi, meaning those who bear the cross. As you can see, every element of this painting points toward the same idea, and the longer we observe this work, the more clearly you can see how deliberately every single detail was placed. And although at this point in the video, you may already be astonished by the incredible level of detail in this painting, there is still one detail that in my opinion is the hardest to believe was painted 600 years ago. But before we continue, I would like to take a few seconds to remind you that this painting, along with over 900 other carefully selected works, is available in our catalogue. In the link in the description, you can browse our full catalogue and choose your favourite works to decorate with and begin your own art collection. You will also find phone cases that not only protect your device but let you carry a work of art in your pocket at all times. Shipping is completely free worldwide, and by purchasing from the store, you will be supporting me enormously in continuing to create videos like this every week. Now then, let's continue. If we look very carefully at Saint George's shield, on its polished surface we can make out a small, distorted reflection. The historians who have studied this painting for decades believe that reflection is not just any figure, but a self-portrait of Van Eyck himself. The theory that the person reflected wearing a turban is the artist is not far-fetched at all, especially when we consider that this would not be the first time Van Eyck did something like this. We already analysed his famous Arnolfini portrait in another video on the channel, and there we could see that at the back of the scene, he painted a convex mirror, and in the reflection, two figures appear, one of whom is believed to be himself. This was very possibly his way of saying he was present, a signature hidden in plain sight, in a painting that already had more hidden details than most artists could fit in an entire career. 600 years after it was created, this painting continues to generate questions that modern science is still trying to answer. In 2021, a team of researchers from the University of Antwerp developed a completely new scientific technique called macroscopic x-ray powder diffraction scanning, specifically to analyse the pigments of this painting with a level of precision that no previous technology had been able to achieve. What they found was that Van Eyck used a combination of pigments and layering techniques that we still do not fully understand. His methods were so precise and so sophisticated that modern researchers, with all the technology available today, still cannot fully explain how he applied them. Perhaps that is the most extraordinary thing of all, not only that Van Eyck painted something of impressive precision, but that he did so in a way that today, with all the resources we have, we have still not been able to fully replicate. Thank you for watching the video until the end. I would love for you to leave me in the comments which detail of this painting you found most incredible. See you in the next video.