The significance of Jan and Hubert Van Eyck's Ghent Altarpiece (closed view) as discussed in MyArtLab's Closer Look

Question

What will be an ideal response?

Answer 1

The closed view of the Altarpiece shows the work as worshipers would have seen it during the week. The Altarpiece was opened on feast days. The closed view shows the annunciation with the donors of the work looking on. It is housed in the St Bavo Cathedral in Ghent and was completed in 1432. The work is described as a ‘heavy task' in the dedicatory inscription leading some to conclude that Hubert died while working on it and left it to his brother Jan to complete.

Interestingly the work includes pre-Christian sibyls or prophetesses in the two upper central panels. Each sibyl holds a scroll which prophesizes Christ coming. Flanking the sibyls in semi-circular niches are the prophets Zechariah, on the left, and Micah, on the right, both feature scrolls foretelling the biblical events depicted beneath them.

In the next level of the painting, the central portion, the angel Gabriel in white, and holding a lily, both symbols of purity, addresses Mary. To the right, the Holy Spirit, in the form of a dove, alights on Mary's head. She responds to the angel "I am the servant of the lord". Her words, however, are written upside down to indicate that she is addressing God. By situating the events of the biblical narrative in a contemporary Flemish room, the artist makes the events contemporary to the patrons and their milieu. Christians of the period were encouraged to imagine themselves as witnesses and participants in the sacred events.