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EYCK, Jan van
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The_Ghent_Altarpiece:_Singing_Angels
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| EYCK,_Jan_van
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The Ghent Altarpiece: Singing Angels
new22/EYCK, Jan van-778249.jpg
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| 1427-29 Oil on wood, 164,5 x 71,5 cm Cathedral of St Bavo, Ghent The two panels depicting the angels playing music and singing are the most famous details of the altar-piece. Although it has been proposed that they were originally designed to be parts of an organ housing, they clearly fit into the iconographic concept. Connected with the trio of God the Father, surrounded by the Virgin Mary and St John the Baptist, these wingless angels belong to the "heavenly domain", and they not only sing the praises of the Lord but also invoke the music of the spheres. At the same time, their presence is connected to the events depicted in the lower part of the panels: the use of identical sky background proves this. , EYCK, Jan van , The Ghent Altarpiece: Singing Angels , 1401-1450 , Flemish , painting , religious |
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Flemish Northern Renaissance Painter, ca.1395-1441
Painter and illuminator, brother of Hubert van Eyck. According to a 16th-century Ghent tradition, represented by van Vaernewijck and Lucas d'Heere, Jan trained with his brother Hubert. Pietro Summonte's assertion (1524) that he began work as an illuminator is supported by the fine technique and small scale of most of Jan's works, by manuscript precedents for certain of his motifs, and by his payment in 1439 for initials in a book (untraced) for Philip the Good, Duke of Burgundy. Jan is first documented in The Hague in August 1422 as an established artist with an assistant and the title of 'Master', working for John III, Count of Holland (John of Bavaria; reg 1419-25), who evidently discovered the artist while he was bishop (1389-1417) of the principality of Liege.
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