Read Stealing the Mystic Lamb for Free Online Page A

trompe l’oeil painted phrase, his personal motto, into the frame of his (Self) Portrait in a Red Turban : Ais Ich Kan (“As well as I can”), knowing full well that what he had created was perfection itself. This was also a means of self-aggrandizement because,
traditionally, only nobles had mottos. So while the phrase “He will beautify” is a legitimate inclusion in this religious work, it could also be a statement about van Eyck’s painting ability—he will beautify all that he touches with his brush.

    Hebrew letters hidden in the band around a prophet’s red hat
    Van Eyck loved ambiguity, lacing his works with discussion points for even the most educated of his viewers. If the gold letters on the hat band are indeed yod feh aleph , this may be a subtle means of signing the work. One scholar has suggested that yod feh aleph could be transliterated into Jan van Eyck’s initials. Yod is the “y” sound of Jan, feh is the Flemish pronunciation of “van” (which sounds more like “fahn”), and aleph is the start of Eyck.
    A stretch? Perhaps, but it would not be uncharacteristic of van Eyck to insert this play on letters that would prompt active discussions among the most scholarly of his peers, those who could read Hebrew but would be clever enough to catch his inside joke.
    Van Eyck’s depiction of garments is another artistic innovation. The bodies beneath the clothes have a strength of form that was lacking in past works, where drapery clung amorphously beneath the painted heads of those who “wore” them. Van Eyck’s garments again recall the novel way in which Donatello sculpted drapery at Orsanmichele. Donatello used a technique in which he would create a miniature clay mockup of his sculpture as a nude. Then he would soak cloth in clay and water, and drape it as clothing over the nude figure. In this way, he would see how the clothing fit around the body, with the body as a solid physical presence beneath it. Van Eyck’s painted figures produce the same effect. They wear their clothes, rather than the clothes wearing the figures.
    A cityscape appears in the distant horizon behind the altar and the Lamb. This represents the New Jerusalem, which will be founded, according to Revelation and the writings of Saint Augustine, upon the return of Christ to judge humankind. Only two buildings are architecturally identifiable. One is the tower of Utrecht Cathedral, at the center, considered an architectural wonder and tourist attraction in its
day. The other is just to the right of the Utrecht tower, the spires of Saint Nicholas Church, in Ghent. The inclusion of the Utrecht tower, the icon of a rival city, is unusual and has led scholars to believe that it may have been added in 1550, during the first cleaning of the altarpiece, by the “conservator” who ruined the predella that he attempted to restore, Jan van Scorel, who was a Utrecht native.

    The panels on the far left and right of the upper register depict Adam and Eve. Eve holds a gnarled lemon rather than the traditional apple, symbolizing the Forbidden Fruit. Her expression is difficult to read—at first glance she looks blank, while Adam’s look suggests soulful mourning, brow slightly knit in distant concern. Beneath these figures are inscribed: “Adam thrusts us into death” and “Eve has afflicted us with death.” These two are responsible for the “Fall of Man,” the reason why Christ had to be born—in order to die and, in doing so, to reverse their Original Sin.
    In contrast to the idealized populace of the rest of the artwork, these two figures are the first unidealized nudes in painting of this period. They are depicted in exacting detail, with nostril hairs and awkwardly bulging stomachs—an affront to convention. While idealized nudes, like those in Greek and Roman statues, were acceptable, because they showed the human form as magnificent and perfect, van Eyck’s Adam and Eve were deemed too realistic by Enlightenment