The Arnolfini Wedding Portrait by Jan Van Eyck
National Gallery, London
The novel I’m working on now weaves a tale of love, intrigue, betrayal, and a shimmer of magic about the great Renaissance painter and spy Jan Van Eyck, told by the woman he loved, and loved to paint: a woman with the face of an angel.
In 1434, Van Eyck signed and dated the double portrait above. I have loved it since I first laid eyes on the original in London’s National Gallery and stood frozen before it, caught out of time, for I don’t know how long. To me, it seems like a door to another world. Ever since, I have wanted to tell its story.
It’s often called a wedding portrait, but even a passing glance gives the lie to that easy title. The painting is a masterpiece of mysteries, from the brooding, shadowed man in his purple velvet to the woman standing next to him, shining with a light all her own. He holds up his right hand as if he’s swearing some kind of oath: but what? What is he staring at so intently: and why can’t he look at her, or at us? With her green finery bunched before her, is she pregnant, or not? On the back wall, the painter scrawled Jan Van Eyck was here: but where, exactly? Most mysterious of all, the mirror stares out like an eye, keeping watch on all of us fleeting creatures moving about in the world outside the painting’s still surface.
The historian Johan Huizinga once wrote that the fifteenth century — a time of mad kings and mounted knights, of Joan of Arc, angelic inspiration, witchcraft, and fiery fanaticism — “bore the mixed scent of blood and roses.” I hope you’ll follow me into a world of beauty and violence, dark magic and bright passion…