We’ll give you the short version first. The Ghent Altarpiece captures the essence of Christianity. Christ sacrificed himself like a lamb in order to save mankind. That’s why the whole world comes to worship the innocent animal in gratitude. The lower register is therefore a kind of parade of groups, each representing part of society: the Warriors of Christ, the Just Judges, the holy hermits, the holy virgins, the Fathers of the Church, etc. They are all looking towards the lamb.
The upper register is the Glorification of Christ in Heaven, where he is by his mother and the first man to recognise him as saviour, John the Baptist. The angels form the heavenly choir. And the connection to man himself, to the beholder, is made through Adam and Eve. This explains the other perspective: you see them from below, from the point of view of the beholder.
The exterior panels are very different in terms of iconography. They portray the archangel Gabriel’s announcement of the coming of Christ, the Annunciation. Tradition says that the prophets and sibyls portrayed in the lunettes at the top had already foretold this coming. At the bottom, you can see Joos Vijd and Elisabeth Borluut, who commissioned the altarpiece, next to John the Baptist, who was patron saint of St John’s church (as St Bavo’s Cathedral was called at the time).
The last figure, John the Evangelist, is a special case. To understand this, you need to know when the Ghent Altarpiece was shown for the first time. On 6 May 1432, the baptism celebration of Josse of Burgundy took place in St John’s church. He was the son of Philip the Good, Duke of Burgundy, and the intended heir to the throne (but died two years later). The masterpiece was displayed for the first time during this celebration. 6 May is the saint’s day of John the Evangelist, which is why he is featured in the work.
It’s important to note that the Ghent Altarpiece’s details are full of symbolism. The angel’s lily represents Mary’s purity. The light in the decanter of water symbolises the immaculate conception. In the group of the holy virgins, you can recognise everyone by their usual attribute: St Dorothy carries her flower basket, St Agnes a lamb and St Barbara a tower. St Livinus is holding his tongue in tongs: according to legend, his tongue was ripped out. These are the hints by which you can recognise everyone.
I call them hints, but that doesn’t mean that the Ghent Altarpiece was a puzzle to spectators at the time. Just the mere fact that John the Baptist points to Christ, has a shaggy beard and wears a coat of camel hair made it clear to everyone who he was. These were iconographic evidences: things that people of the time recognised immediately, just like we recognise Ghent hit songs such as Het Vliegerken or Mia today.
It’s one thing to understand who is who, and what is what. But if you want to grasp the interrelation, why exactly these figures come together and not others, you end up in the endless theological discussion to which we still have no definitive answer.
Other examples include the pelican on the golden brocade behind the figure of God. This is a Christological motif, because, according to legend, the pelican pecked open her chest to feed her young with blood. This bird is therefore an analogy of Christ spilling his own blood. A 15th-century Ghentian understood that reference immediately, as it was considered general knowledge that was also featured in sermons, for example.
Eve is not holding an apple, but an etrog, a citrus fruit from the Middle East with a characteristic indentation or ‘bite’ at the bottom. The Flemish name for this fruit is “Adam’s apple”, so this might be a pun. But it definitely is no ordinary apple. The fruit refers to the Old Testament and Jewish customs. The etrog plays a ceremonial role in the Jewish Sukkot (or Festival of Ingathering). To this day, you can buy liquor made of these etrogs in the Jewish Quarter in Antwerp.
It’s one thing to understand who is who, and what is what. But if you want to grasp the interrelation, why exactly these figures come together and not others, you end up in the endless theological discussion to which we still have no definitive answer. A good example of this is the figure on the throne at the top. Is he God or Christ? Much has already been written about this particular question.
It is a complicated question after all. We know the combination of these three figures from Byzantine iconography where the central figure is always Christ. Mary and Joseph are always to his right and left. In Greek, this is called the Deisis. In Orthodox churches in Russia and Greece, this trio is everywhere. But this motif is much less known in our Western world. So that makes us doubt again. Moreover, Hebrew words referring to God can be found in the golden brocade behind him.
Instead of looking at it from a horizontal perspective, you might also look at it from a vertical perspective. And then you might see the Holy Trinity: God at the top, below him the Holy Spirit as a dove and Jesus as a sheep at the bottom. But then again, we’re not 100% sure the dove was painted by Van Eyck. And so, the discussion continues. Art historian Erwin Panofsky swore the figure represented God. Peter Schmidt, one of the great theologians of the Ghent Altarpiece, believes it’s Christ.
What do I think? According to my colleague and co-author Danny Praet, the point is precisely that this figure remains ambiguous, as the very concept of the figure of God is incomprehensible. This would mean Van Eyck deliberately painted him as a divine mystery. It might be a bit postmodern, but I do think it’s an interesting theory. And I find it more fascinating to think about than the theft of the panel of the Just Judges.
Maximiliaan Martens is professor of Art History at Ghent University and is a world-renowned expert on Van Eyck. Since 2010, he has been heavily involved in the restoration of the Ghent Altarpiece and the expo Van Eyck. An Optical Revolution. He is still fascinated by the topic that interested him in his student days: how can technology and scientific research help us shed new light on the old masters?
