American And French Revolutions

Jan van Eyck was a Flemish style painter and is considered to be a founder of the Early Renaissance style during the Northern Renaissance period. The exact date and place of his birth are unknown by historians, but it is believed that he was born in the early 1390s in the eastern province of the Netherlands Limburg. During his life van Eyck served at the court of Duke Johann of Bavaria in Hague, painting and restoring pictures. Later he would serve at the court of Philip the Good of Burgundy. Where he was greatly valued not only as an artist, but he also as a diplomat entrusted by Duke with various diplomatic missions throughout Europe. The last years of his life van Eyck lived and worked in Bruges as painter to the court and city until his death in 1441.
“Jan Van Eyck was here,” is what historians have been saying for over 500 years. His style and use of innovations of the time, oil paints to bring out brilliant color combinations that seemed to bring his works to life, gives insight to the brilliant career of this Flemish Painter. Layering the colors to achieve what he called “atmospheric perspective” (Encyclopedia Britannica 1994)   gives one the illusion that the air is never quite transparent; the sense of dust in the air is a sign of the scientific insight so prevalent at this time period. His use of symbolism in his painting especially the “Wedding Portrait”, gives us a perspective to his keen awareness of the Myth and Ritual that symbolized the Catholic Church of this period.   The social and political intrigue of the changing way people viewed institutions due to the scientific advancements “Aristotle’s Scientific Method” of the times were brought to attention with van Eyck’s revolutionary use of oil paints with a finish of varnish stable enough to dry at a consistent rate.  
One of the achievements of Van Eyck was to use oil paints to achieve what seemed to be an illumination emitting from his painting. This technique of illumination, one that Van Eyck...