Van Eyck



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It has been awhile since I shared anything on social media. My attention for the past couple of months has gone to my Color/Design class, and non-art working. I have been enjoying long walks around Bloomington. Taking in the subtle colors of winter that I enjoy, and acclimating to cold weather. Without leaves on the trees the vistas open up. I’m glad for the hilly terrain around here.

Here is a little sketch from Jan Van Eyck, the Dresden Triptych. This is my rendition of the central figure. It is an amazing piece, overloaded with finely drawn detail, but also wonderfully composed in a large way. St. Catherine, on the right panel, is in much stronger light than anything on either of the other two panels, which I love. I can see everything else in the other two panels acting as a foil for the figure way off to one side, which I find wonderfully eccentric and energizing. There is also something of a sense going through the three panels of a movement from dark to light, going from left to right, which I also find intriguing, particularly regarding potential meaning in the piece.

I’m often seeing art through David Hockney’s lens of lenses, his study Secret Knowledge of the history of the use of lenses and optics in art making. How did artists like Van Eyck and Van Der Goes make such realistic looking people, all of a sudden in about 1430? I agree with Hockney’s hypothesis that optical technology was involved.


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