Facing the fifteenth century: The portraits of Jan van Eyck

Beginning with a discussion of van Eyck's court appointment, the role of portraiture at court is discussed, including his documented work, offering a description of lost works that may have been his. I then investigate how van Eyck's likenesses were traditionally related to concepts of realism and representation, and present an alternative model for approaching them, including the larger question of the nature of portraiture itself. Next I trace the relationship of Eyckian portraits to its preceding tradition. Only a handful of surviving likenesses on panel precede Jan's, who appeared on the scene after the demand for portraits was already well-established in all media.; I then study the independent portraits, arguing that collaboratively, van Eyck and his sitters forged a new approach to the genre. His likenesses display an increased concern for depiction conveying physiognomy and occasionally attribute with a sense of decorum proper to the subject's social station. The panels also evidence the sitters' need to convey the way they wished to be seen at court and in Netherlandish society. In examining van Eyck's devotional paintings, I concentrate upon the concept of piety, investigating its presentation in these images, and exploring what role observance, and in turn, these paintings, played in fifteenth-century identity construction.; Van Eyck's Portrait of a Man, signed and dated 1433, is generally believed to be the artist's self-portrait. I support this view with an argument for identifying it as such, showing how van Eyck uses his motto, signature, composition and style to transform the conventional understanding of what being an artist meant in his time. Finally, I discuss the implications of infra-red reflectography analysis conducted on Eyckian portraits, suggesting what this research can tell us about the artist's working method.