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Jan van Eyck and Robert Campin created the Flemish School of painting. Together they were responsible for a new type of art which would replace the decorative mode influenced by French and Italian painting which predominated in European art around 1400. While in Campin's work we already see these new components developed and defined, Jan van Eyck would play a key role in the dissemination of these new ideas and ways of interpreting reality and nature. In addition, he would incorporate a conceptual element into his paintings which is sometimes difficult to interpret and has been called symbolic realism.
This Annunciation, which comes from a private French collection, was acquired for the Thyssen Bornemisza Collection in 1933. Art historians became interested in the painting after Max Friedländer first catalogued it as a work by Van Eyck in 1934. This attribution has never been questioned since that date. However, the date of execution of the painting, which has been compared with other works by Van Eyck such as the Dresden Triptych and the Saint Barbara in the Antwerp Museum, both of 1437, and the Virgin of the Fountain of 1439, also in Antwerp, has been the subject of controversy.
The painting, conceived as a diptych, forms part of a group of works of small format intended for private devotion. The subject, drawn from the Gospel of Saint Luke, is made clear through the inscriptions at the upper edge of the frame taken from the first and last sentences of the Gospel dialogue. Thus, above the Archangel Gabriel is the greeting to Mary: "Hail, thou that art highly favoured, the Lord is with you" (I-28), and above Mary: "Behold the handmaiden of the Lord; be it unto me according to thy word" (I-38). Van Eyck frequently used inscriptions in the frames of his paintings. These frames were painted by the artist, as in the present case, using trompe l'oeil effects and playing with the mouldings which decorate the panel. Van Eyck imitated various materials in the settings of these paintings, as in the present Annunciation, where he reproduces the texture of stone into which the inscriptions are set as if sculpted.
Jan van Eyck designed the present work as if it were a sculptural group. The figures, isolated in architectural niches, are painted in grisaille. The figures, enveloped in ample cloaks which fall in rigid folds, are placed on hexagonal plinths. The background is formed from a smooth and enamelled black surface which reproduces the outlines of the figures and also, in the case of the Virgin, reflects her back as if in a mirror. The use of this background, in which the figures are reflected and in which, in the case of Mary, reflects more than her outline, can be related with a mirror, a holy object which symbolises purity: speculum sine macula. The figures are arranged so that the actual frame of the picture is denied, as can be seen in the plinths which lean out onto the red marble frame, painted by Van Eyck, and in the wing of the Archangel which bends out, its volume accentuated by the shadow which it casts. The picture demonstrates the complexity and richness of the optical devices used by Van Eyck in his paintings. This Annunciation has been compared with the Dresden Triptych in which the artist painted the same theme with two isolated figures in grisaille on the exterior wings.
Mar Borobia
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