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Europe 1300 - 1800
Course: Europe 1300 - 1800 > Unit 5
Lesson 6: Van Eyck- Van Eyck, Ghent Altarpiece (1 of 2)
- Jan van Eyck, The Ghent Altarpiece (2 of 2)
- Van Eyck, The Ghent Altarpiece
- Van Eyck, Ghent Altarpiece
- Jan van Eyck, Portrait of a Man in a Red Turban (Self-Portrait?), 1433
- Jan van Eyck, The Madonna in the Church
- Van Eyck, The Arnolfini Portrait
- Van Eyck, The Arnolfini Portrait
- The question of pregnancy in Jan van Eyck’s Arnolfini Portrait
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Jan van Eyck, The Ghent Altarpiece (2 of 2)
Jan van Eyck, Ghent Altarpiece (open), completed 1432, oil on wood, 11’ 5” x 7’ 6” (Saint Bavo Cathedral, Ghent, Belgium). Speakers: Dr. Steven Zucker and Dr. Beth Harris. Created by Beth Harris and Steven Zucker.
Want to join the conversation?
- At, you describe a bird image as a "pelican". That looks nothing like the pelicans I see in my area. Why do you describe it as a pelican? Is there some type of bird called a pelican aside from the sea bird with the big bag for a lower beak? 1:51(10 votes)
- Hi Ari,
You are correct that it looks nothing like a pelican. Nevertheless, it is a representation of one. Often likeness is less important than iconographic identifiers. In other words, the symbolism of sacrifice is more important here than a naturalistic representation and would have been clearer to visitors to Saint Bavo who might never have seen one.(25 votes)
- Why is Mary pictured reading a book?(3 votes)
- She is meant to be reading a Bible, because it demonstrates how pious she is. This was a common artistic convention during the Middle Ages and Renaissance.(5 votes)
- In my art history book (very well known, from Honour & Fleming) it says Jesus is portrayed in the centre, but people wrongfully assume it's God the Father.(4 votes)
- It seems for me very plausible, since also John and Mary are the common and typical surrounding for the Christ, God the Father isn't normally depicted like that, it is quite a striking idea.(1 vote)
- Was it unusual to depict God in human form at this time? Was it more common in the north, away from the tradition of the Madonna and Child in Italy?(4 votes)
- The question posed above considers, I believe, God the Father. Of course, according to the theological dogma, He has the same nature - or essence - like the Son, but He is a different Person than Christ. So for me the question is legitimate. I can imagine God the Father in scenes from the Old Testament in a very human form (later - even creating of Adam by Michelangelo), but here we have kind of a triumphal scene, what is more, Mary and John commonly surrond Christ, not God the Father, so actually that is a very interesting issue!(2 votes)
- Why is Jesus Christ represented time and again as a lamb?(2 votes)
- He is shown as a lamb because they were the animals most commonly killed in sacrificial ceremonies. According to the Christian tradition, God sent his son to Earth knowing that he would die as a sacrifice for the salvation of humanity, which is where this visual symbolism comes from.(6 votes)
- At 0.29, Why is the figure considered God the Father and not Christ? (I've heard both). Wouldn't John the Baptist, pointing to the Messiah indicate this to be Christ? Also, I've heard that the central figure, being flanked by Mary and john the Baptist is based on Byzantine prototypes. Aren't the Byzantine depictions of Christ? Isn't it rare to have a depiction of God the Father unless the scene depicts an event before Christs' arrival (Creation, e.g.), or if the Trinity is being shown, as in Masaccio's painting.(3 votes)
- That figure is God the Father because Christ is usually painted with the signs of passion : Wounds on his hands,on his feet and on his bust.(3 votes)
- What do the inscriptions above the heads of God the Father, Mary, and John say?(1 vote)
- The central figure faces the viewer with his hand raised in blessing, against a panel filled with inscriptions and symbols. Greek inscriptions decorated with pearls are on the hem of his robe or mantle, which, taken from Revelation, read REX REGUM ET DOMINUS DOMINANTIUM ("King of Kings, and Lord of Lords"). The golden brocade on the throne features pelicans and vine, probable references to the blood spilled during the Crucifixion of Jesus; pelicans were at the time believed to spill their own blood to feed their young, while the vines refer to sacramental wine, the eucharistic symbol of Christ's blood. A crown is at his feet, and on either side the step is lined with two levels of text. The left hand upper line reads VITA SINE MORTE IN CAPITE ("Life without death on his head"), that on the right LUVENTUS SINE SENECTUTE IN FRONTE ("Youth without age on his forehead"). These are placed above - on the left and right respectively - the words GAUDIUM SINE MERORE A DEXTRIS ("Joy without sorrow on his right side") and SECURITAS SINE TIMORE A SINISTRIS ("Safety without fear on his left side"). The crown serves as a transition to the Lamb panel directly below and perhaps serves to symbolize that those figures in the lower register panels who represent humanity flock to pay homage to God.
See more at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ghent_Altarpiece(5 votes)
- Is Eve supposed to be pregnant? Because that baby is way to low, relative to her belly button.(2 votes)
- She's pregnant. The proportions and forms of her body are stylized. Women grow differently when pregnant, and appearance can change weekly. They don't always look the same.(2 votes)
- How does this artwork remain in such a pristine condition? Is it due to high quality materials? Was it somehow preserved in the early days? I mean the colors remain particularly rich and deep and yet this artwork is almost 600 years old!(2 votes)
- I'm pretty sure that it's because of the canvas and paint that the artists used.(2 votes)
- What are the paintings above adam and eve? Maybe the one on the right can be Cain and Abel but I couldnt figure it out anything about the one on the left.(1 vote)
- The lesson you'll find at https://www.khanacademy.org/humanities/renaissance-reformation/northern-renaissance1/burgundy-netherlands/a/vaneyck-ghentaltar has diagrams of everything clearly labeled. The one above Adam is labeled "Cain and Abel". Find the diagram, and read about the one you mis-identified.(2 votes)
Video transcript
(jazzy music) Male: Let's open it up
and take a look inside. Female: We're struck immediately by an explosion of rich colors. Male: This is color that's really possible because of the luminousness of oil paint, especially in the way that
the northerners handled it. Female: So there's an incredible material beauty that is very palpable as soon as one opens it up. We're struck immediately
by this very large figure in the center of God the Father, dressed like a King with
a Papal crown on his head, a crown at his feet to show
that he's King of kings; holding a scepter, a symbol of power. Male: That scepter is exquisite. It's so clearly rendered
out of rock crystal. The crown at his feet
is an amazing display of jewelry design, of jewelry-making. If we look past the exterior of the crown to the inside of it, we can actually see how it was hammered from the inside out. Female: We have a theme
running through here of God's saving grace, God's saving power, his plan to forgive and redeem mankind. Male: That issue is so critical here. This is one of the early, great examples of God being remade in
what we will come to know as the Renaissance, as
opposed to the earlier Medieval God that was
wrathful, was terrifying. Here we have a God that
is a God of forgiveness. It is an expression of
the humanist tradition that is developing in Europe at this time. Female: On either side of God we have, on the left, Mary, also wearing a crown, looking like a queen; the crown has roses and lilies in it, and on the right, St. John the Baptist. To go back to that theme
of God's redemption and forgiveness, in that gold embroidery, which we have in that tapestry behind God the Father, an image of a pelican. In the Medieval tradition, the pelican, if its young were
starving, it was believed to pick at its own
flesh to feed its young. Male: This notion of God making this extraordinary sacrifice is
explicitly rendered here. Female: On the left, we have the angels singing in heaven and on the right, the angels playing music in heaven. We have this not only
incredibly rich environment visually of gold and jewels, but also the sounds of heaven. Male: If you look at
the choir on the left, and look at the richly carved furniture of the music stand and, on
the right, of the organ, I imagine that this is
some indication of what the original frame of this
painting might have looked like. Female: One of the
things that I really love is that each of the angels
wears a different crown. On left as they sing and they make slightly different faces
as though you can tell the different notes that
they're each singing. Male: Even though their faces are actually quite similar, they become, I imagine, a kind of ideal of beauty
in van Eyck's imagination. Female: Then when we go
a little bit further out, we see the panels of Adam and Eve who are represented very realistically, very sort of deeply human in their bodies; not at all idealized the way that we would see with Masaccio or the artists of the Italian Renaissance. Of course the artists of
the Northern Renaissance don't have ancient Greek
and Roman sculpture everywhere to look at, which would suggest a tradition of idealizing
or making perfect of the human body. Here Adam and Eve look
like two real people that van Eyck had model
for him in his studio. Male: You have throughout this painting a kind of grandeur. Then you have these two figures naked, seem so vulnerable. They seem so out of place. They seem so mismatched. This painting is really
about God's willingness to reach out to man in
all of his imperfection. Female: Exactly. Male: Their jarring presence,
this sense of discord, I think is a potent
expression of the painter's interest in representing God's willingness to reach down to our imperfect world. Female: One of the other
things that I'm really struck by is the gold
embroidery in the figure on the right who's playing the organ, and the [urman] on her gown and even the attention that's being
paid to the tiles on the floor, the pipes of the organ. We have that thing that happens in the Northern Renaissance where artists pay an enormous amount
of attention to things that are seemingly unimportant. We know that the artists
of the Northern Renaissance lavished so much attention
and care and detail and clarity on objects
because they represent the heavenly and the spiritual; they link us to the
heavenly and the spiritual. Male: It does something else as well, which is it makes concrete
the heavenly world, and it makes it so understandable. It also makes it very believable, and in a sense, very tangible. Female: In the scene below, when we see an image with four groups of people coming toward a scene at the center, which is an alter with a lamb. The lamb has a wound in
its side and is bleeding into a chalice. Male: The lamb, of course, is a symbol of Christ, of Christ's sacrifice. Yet here we have this
lamb that has overcome any earthly pain, any earthly suffering, and is here functioning in
the purely symbolic realm. Female: Surrounding that
alter, we have angels who carry the instruments
of Christ's suffering; the cross, the crown of thorns, the column that he was bound
to when he was flagellated. We have this sense of
sacrifice for man's redemption. Male: And then man, in
these four large groups, come to pay homage. Female: We have prophets
and saints and popes and figures from the Old Testament who all make their way toward Christ; and below that, the Fountain of Life, which has a stream that leads out and down toward us and toward
the alter in the chapel. Male: This is all played
out in this glorious and divine landscape,
this gem-like landscape, where there's a kind of specificity that is overwhelming visually. Every leaf is rendered. Every windowpane in the
city beyond is rendered. You have not only a sense of the magnificence of God's realm, but you have this sense
of overwhelming awe because our eyes are
incapable of taking in this much visual
information simultaneously. This is a painting that's
almost cinemagraphic in that you have to look
through it over time in order to be able to take it all in. It is simply too much. Female: So in a way it
suggests a kind of vision that transcends human
vision; a divine vision. In fact, one of the things that's said about van Eyck as an artist
is that he had an eye like a microscope and a telescope, showing us things very far away as though they were under a microscope, a kind of vision that
only is possible for God. Male: So this juncture
between man's limited vision, which we feel as we look at this painting, and this notion of God's complete vision. Female: Through this painting transcending our earthly realm and coming
face-to-face with God. (jazzy music)