Art Analysis on Portrait of a Man With a Red Turban

January van Eyck: Portrait of a Human being (Self Portrait) - 1433

London, National Gallery

The direct stare of the subject of this picture contrasts with the detached demeanour of many of van Eyck'due south sitters. Some scholars see this as evidence that the painting is a self portrait. However other portraits do be by Jan where a similar direct gaze has been used, so why should this particular work be seen equally a depiction of the artist?

Supporters of the theory would signal to the trompe l'oeil inscriptions which look every bit if they have been carved into this rare instance of a fifteenth-century original frame. The bottom edge is taken up with a Latin fable which translates as 'Jan van Eyck fabricated me 1433 21 October'. Along the tiptop the Flemish words Als ich kan are inscribed — 'As I can' in English. This seems to be a shortening of a Flemish proverb, 'As I can but non as I would (or wish)', and it may as well be that the artist intended the phrase to exist a pun on his name; the two personal pronouns, ich in Flemish, written partially in Greek as IXH, were to exist interpreted as 'Eyck'. In any outcome the proverb implies some fake modesty on his part although it may not lead us any nearer to an interpretation of this picture equally a cocky portrait. In fact the three words were something of a personal motto which were used on several other paintings.

The face of the sitter seems to materialise from the stygian depths of the very nighttime background. A lite source plays on the confront and headgear but does not penetrate elsewhere — our attention is thus fixed on the subject of the portrait and his extraordinary hat.

The wealthy and powerful denizens of the netherlands at this fourth dimension seem to have had a penchant for eye-catching hats. Giovanni Arnolfini chose an oversized chapeau for the famous double portrait. You might think that information technology was a courageous option — the voluminous character of the hat over-accentuates his thin, angular, rat-like features. A like hat appears in another van Eyck portrait, that of Baudouin de Lannoy and both van Eyck and his contemporary Robert Campin (probably to be identified with the painter known as the Master of Flémalle) painted other portraits of men with identical red turbans, albeit tied in a looser fashion. Yous can contrast van Eyck'due south and Campin's handling of the field of study as the latter's picture is too in the National Gallery. So red turbans seem to have been all the rage and van Eyck's representation of this particular example is a tour de strength using the raking light to emphasise every fold and crease; the luminosity of the red paint used for the turban also shows how he exploits the potential of oil pigment to the full.

But it is the creative person'due south treatment of the confront which is of grade the greatest marvel. He has delineated every individual stubble hair on the mentum and those of united states of america who shave can almost feel that stubble catch annoyingly on the fur collar. Information technology also looks as though the sitter may have enjoyed 1 as well many glasses of wine before his sittings considering van Eyck has taken his passion for veracity to the extent of outlining the burst blood vessels in the discipline's left eye.

The usual impassivity that one expects in a van Eyck portrait lends an air of inscrutability which compounds the mystery of who this is. Could this really exist van Eyck? It would be nice to recollect so only of course we will never know.

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Paradigm: Courtesy of the National Gallery, London

Gimmicky Works

1430 Robert Campin: Portrait of a Man; London, National Gallery

1433 Fra Angelico: Linaiuoli Madonna; Florence, Museo di San Marco

Farther Paintings of Interest

Christ Mocked (the Crowning with Thorns)

Hieronymus Bosch

Braque Family triptych

Rogier van der Weyden

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