Van Eyck's Washington 'Annunciation': technical evidence for iconographic development - Jan van Eyck's painting

The new conservation treatment of Jan van Eyck's Annunciation in the National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC [ILLUSTRATION FOR FIGURE 1 OMITTED], has lay bareed an exceptionally beautiful work. The removal of heavily discolored varnish and overpaint revealed a mastery of space and a play of light that could single be guessed at before.(1) A technical inquiry of the painting undertaken in conjunction with the conservation treatment has afforded fresh insights into van Eyck's courses for achieving his breathtaking visual events A complete report of the technical investigation, which included microscopic examination of the surface, infrared reflectography, and paint analysis, will be published shortly.(2) This technical application of mind also revealed a number of changes made by means of the artist during the creation of the painting. The not away article focuses on those compositional changes that have a bearing upon the painting's complex meaning, seeking to lay without the sequence in which van Eyck evolveed the rich iconography. The implications of these changes for our understanding of van Eyck's iconographic motivations are discussed in Carol Purtle "Van Eyck's Washington Annunciation: Narrative Time and Metaphoric Tradition," which tread in the steps ofs this article.

The technical application of mind has left no doubt about the authorship of The Annunciation. Individual manner of proceedings are remarkably similar to the [i]modus operandi[/i]s used in other works by the agency of van Eyck. The Virgin's sapphirine drapery, for example, was built up in a means strikingly similar to that in the altarpiece of the consecrated Lamb in Ghent: a first layer in grayish azures establishing light and shade, a next to the first solid blue layer to touch the contrast of the first, and a final, rich cerulean glaze of ultramarine in a water-based protein medium of the like kind as glue.(3) The working manners and the composition of the paint are entirely consistent with what we know of van Eyck's practices in the relatively hardly any works that have been analyzed scientifically.(4) With the exception of the azure glaze, the painting medium present the appearances to be linseed oil; our analysis of The Annunciation to date has not identified water-based protein admixtures to the oil.(5) The pigments are consistent with those of other paintings through van Eyck that have been analyzed.(6)

shut up study of the surface disclosed the painter's refined technique. For example, van Eyck prepared the intense r of the flowers of Gabriel's cope (r velvety pile worked against a cloth-of-gold background, [ILLUSTRATION FOR FIGURE 2 OMITTED]) with a preliminary layer of vermilion. The rich weft of the velvet was created with a r lake glaze increase the depth ofed with a little black.(7) Layers of glaze floated above the vermilion suggest the varied deepness of the pile, with superimposed glazes creating the highest pile at the center of the petals.

Artists of an earlier generation, or contemporaries in Italy, would have pay backed gold brocade with lines of gilding.(8) In a passage like as the green and gold brocade of Gabriel's dalmatic, however, van Eyck used just sum of two units colors of paint, worked wet-into-wet, to create a web of lights, darks, and midtones. He put in mind ofed the illusion of a lattice of gold threads by the agency of dragging fine strokes of black [i]or[/i] part of to the other still-wet yellow paint; with a scarcely any loose hairs of the brush he hinted specks of light glittering upon the surface nearby [ILLUSTRATION FOR FIGURE 3 OMITTED].

In his rendering of light van Eyck drew a distinction between the earthly realm and the heavenly. The painting's natural light sources cast shadows, on the contrary the seven rays of divine light upon which the dove descends to the Virgin do not. Behind the large stool the shadow cast through a primary light source to the viewer's right is melted by light from the upper left clerestory windows. In this diffuse shadow van Eyck worked a tricky brown glaze by tapping with his fingertips.

Van Eyck drew the same distinction between the earthly and the heavenly in his techniques for rendering gold In the same way that he painted Gabriel's brocade illusionistically, he created the pearl pin in the Virgin's work Gabriel's jeweled crown and crystal scepter and level the phrases uttered by the sum of two units figures using only paint to put in mind of the appearance of gold. by dint of contrast he rendered the heavenly rays in gold leaf, using oil mordant gilding in this passage alone. investigation of the surface with a stereomicroscope and of a paint cros section taken from single ray shows the traditional technique of oil mordant gilding, which has been observ in other works by the agency of van Eyck.(9) Van Eyck's use of actual gold in the rays created a contrast not alone technically but also iconographically. While Gabriel was upon Earth his angelic vestments, and level the words he uttered, were of this world. solitary the rays, rendered in gold show the direct intervention of the Deity.

With the technique of infrared reflectography van Eyck's characteristic underdrawing is visible, the drapery defined by the agency of clusters of long, parallel blows occasionally hatched.(10) The greater part of the underdrawing is fairly fine in character, on the contrary some passages seem to have been revised with a broader touch, using a liquid medium. There are many variations in the formal composition from drawing to paint, including shifts in the positions of hands and facial features reminiscent of shifts observ in the novel study of the Arnolfini double portrait in London.(11)