And then there you are, face to face with the naked Adam and Eve. They’re painted in exquisite detail, right down to Adam’s curly chest hair. Few characters on the Ghent Altarpiece capture the imagination quite like they do. But how did people in Van Eyck’s time view them? And in the following decades?
Conservation is a wonderful profession because it combines so many things: art history and science, tangibility and chemistry. Thanks to today's technology, we are revealing The Ghent Altarpiece as it originally appeared in the 15th century – and that's a magical experience when you experience it right up close.
A whole library has been written about the role of Jan and Hubert Van Eyck. We do not know which one of the brothers painted what part of the Ghent Altarpiece. No other works of art by Hubert have been preserved, which makes him more mysterious. But that doesn’t mean he didn’t exist. This persistent myth was invented by a Nazi sympathiser from Bruges…
Are you someone who likes to know where the food you buy comes from? Who produced them, how they are produced, what you can do with them? Then, like me, you’re a fan of a short-chain food system, where the food on your plate has passed through as few intermediaries as possible. Local products and a short food chain are big in Ghent.
Large swathes of the Ghent Altarpiece had been painted over. That took place several times in the centuries after Van Eyck. Even the lamb got a facelift. It now looks us in straight in the eye once again, like it was originally intended. But why did subsequent generations decide to make alterations to this masterpiece?
How can mortals ever truly perceive God? This is a theological discussion people had been having for centuries in Van Eyck’s time. The artist himself attempted to answer this question through his art. He had a vision like no other and converted it into in oil paintings. But before we talk about this in more detail, we need to talk about something else first. Ghentians of that time never saw the Ghent Altarpiece the way we do today.
Since 2021, the Ghent Altarpiece has been displayed at a new location in the cathedral. This is the third time the painting has been given a new spot. We were pretty nervous about this relocation, but after centuries, the work can once again be seen in its original splendour.
The conservator Kathleen Froyen has been working full-time on The Ghent Altarpiece since 2018. She coordinates the conservation studio at the Museum of Fine Arts and sits on many steering committees and advisory committees, but most of all, she enjoys getting behind the microscope herself to do some real work: the conservation of Van Eyck's magnum opus.
Jan Dumolyn is professor of medieval history at Ghent University. As co-curator of Van Eyck — An optical revolution he re-examined the historical sources relating to the Van Eyck brothers. That was high time, because (too) many myths and half truths about the Ghent Altarpiece are endlessly repeated.
