A Door to Another World

Posted by on Oct 15, 2024

They will say it is the picture of a wedding, but in fact it is the portrait of a lie.

 

The Door in the Mirror

I have loved Jan Van Eyck’s riddling painting — beautiful and disturbing in equal measure — since I first laid eyes on it in the National Gallery in London, while I was in college. I stood there, caught out of time, for I don’t know how long. The woman looks young and innocent, as well as very pregnant; she seems to shine with a light from within. But the man next to her has the eyes of a wolf; shadows cling to him. As a friend of mine once said with a grimace, “He looks like Putin.”

For a long time, this painting was known as The Arnolfini Wedding. But what if it didn’t picture a wedding at all, I suddenly thought. What if it was a work of blackmail?

Ever since, I have wanted to tell its story.

At the moment, I’m calling my novel The Door in the Mirror.
 

The Arnolfini Wedding by Jan Van Eyck (Image by petrus.agricola on Flickr)

The Arnolfini Portrait
By Jan Van Eyck (1434)
The National Gallery, London

 

Lady Greensleeves

The lady looks terribly young: more girl than woman. She also looks pregnant. I think of her as “Greensleeves,” though to be precise, her sleeves are blue: it’s her gown that’s green. Of late, art historians tend to dismiss the curve in her dress and talk about medieval fashion and folds of cloth as wealth displays (the fifteenth-century version of the Birken bag or an armload of Patek Philippe), but every woman I’ve looked at the picture with instinctively sides with the old tradition: she is resting one hand on a belly swollen with child. Even so, she radiates innocence. Furthermore, she looks curiously like a portrait the painter later made of his wife Margaret. So much so, in fact, that for a while during the nineteenth century, the National Gallery exhibited the painting as a self-portrait of the artist with his wife.
 

Mr. “Arnolfini”

Since then, however, documents have come to light suggesting that the man is not Van Eyck, but a wealthy Italian merchant — an investment banker in today’s parlance — from the house of Arnolfini, based in the Tuscan city of Lucca. Scholars quibble about which particular member of the family he might be, but the painting is now known as The Arnolfini Portrait. Whoever he is, he looks cold and calculating, even cruel. There is something disturbing about such a man gripping young innocence by the hand.

If he is indeed an Arnolfini, goes the general reasoning, then the woman in green must be his wife, rather than the painter’s. A fair assumption, but also a dull one. (It’s also proved impossible to square with the biographies of any of the Arnolfinis in Bruges at the time.) The storyteller’s response — my response — is to ask, “Why is Margaret Van Eyck standing there pregnant, her hand in the grip of a cold-souled banker?”

Other questions bloom from the paint, as well: Who’s watching them from the doorway reflected in the mirror? Why did the painter scrawl such an odd signatureJan Van Eyck was here — across the wall? The ghost of a smile hovers around Lady Greensleeves’ mouth and mischief glints in her eyes, as if to say Figure it out. I dare you.

My novel is the answer to her dare.

3 Comments

  1. I love this! And Jennifer, why are his shoes off? And who is the blue clothed person in the mirror on the wall reflecting? And for goodness sakes, why in the world are they painted in a BEDROOM next to the bed??? I have always loved this painting since I saw it in the National Gallery as well! WRITE ON Jennifer Carrell!

  2. Jennifer, I get SO excited when I tell people that my favorite book is “Interred with their Bones”…I usually get a slightly cocked head, glazed over look in their eyes & I just grin & begin to share how much this book filled my thirsty soul! I’m SO excited & cannot wait, seriously….Can’t Wait here!!! ….for your new novel to hit stores or amazon! I check online often & ask when i frequent B&N ;0)Please keep us in the loop for a release date!!! I loved your other works as well…but Interred is by far my Fave! Blessings & wishes writing!
    Love, your biggest fan

    Kandis

    P.S.Being today is my bday…I think I’ll reread Interred with their Bones!

  3. I would like to know when this novel is published. Thanks.

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