Perspectives on the Painting Technique of Jan van Eyck

Noelle Streeton challenges the assumption that the Ghent Altarpiece can serve as a universal model for Jan van Eyck’s techniques. She examines other works attributed to van Eyck, his contemporaries, and predecessors, drawing on physical evidence and conservation records to highlight key material and technical differences. Her study offers a more nuanced view of van Eyck’s workshop practices over time and situates his methods within the broader context of late medieval painting in Bruges.

Conservators and art historians have relied heavily on scientific evidence from the Ghent Altarpiece to support theories about the working methods and materials of Jan van Eyck. However, should these theories be directly applied to van Eyck’s other paintings? Noelle Streeton has examined surviving paintings attributed to van Eyck, his contemporaries and earlier artists, alongside the conservation dossiers for these works. By focusing on demonstrable physical differences between the Ghent panels and other paintings, especially those in the van Eyck corpus, she has woven a narrative for van Eyck that brings greater clarity to ideas that surround this painter’s workshop practices and choices of materials over time. This might be considered an end in itself, but for some these results on their own fail to offer satisfying insight into the much-debated nature of van Eyck’s technique. For this reason, she also proposes a broader context for painting in late medieval Bruges.

Key to abbreviations

Biography of Jan van Eyck

Foreword and acknowledgements

Illustration credits

Introduction

Chapter 1 Van Eyck and technical scholarship

Van Eyck the innovator

Early technical scholarship

Technical Studies in the Field of Fine Arts

The Ghent Altarpiece

Materials research and the art historian

Chapter 2 Van Eyck and the tradition of oil painting

The materials of northern European painters: research since the 1950s

Pigments and paint systems

Describing painted surfaces

Past and present: rethinking the literary tradition of oil painting

Chapter 3 The Ghent Altarpiece: rethinking the paradigm

Making the masterpiece

Early reception

Claiming van Eyck

Post-war initiatives

Benchmark?

From the specific to the general: the roots of misconception

L’Agneau mystique au laboratoire

‘La technique picturale eyckienne’

Setting the standard

Three Marys at the Tomb

Chapter 4 Van Eyck and colour

Observing differences: Crucifixion and Last Judgement

Van Eyck’s uses of blue

Copper green and the landscape tradition

The Virgin in red

The importance of lead white

Chapter 5 Where from here? Building a context for van Eyck’s workshop

Bruges and the North Sea economy

Scholarship on late medieval Bruges

The Hanseatic League and Baltic oak

From the Mediterranean by sea

Merchant fleets

Staple monopolies and Bruges

Merchant bankers and credit

Economic contraction and bullion famines

Depression and artistic production

Shortages of gold and silver

Chapter 6 Impediments to merchants. Impediments to craftsmen?

Merchants and the Anglo-Burgundian alliance

The Peace of Arras and its consequences

Massacre, embargo, siege and revolt

Flux?

Consequences for van Eyck?

Resolution

Chapter 7 Problems and strategies for a technical history for the paintings of van Eyck

Technical art history

Collaboration

Framework

Strategies

Conclusions

Summary of technical findings

A context for painting in Bruges

Appendix I Paintings under investigation

Appendix II Technical examination and access

Appendix III Cross-sections and reconstructions

Appendix IV Glossary of analytical techniques

Bibliography

Primary sources: paintings and dossiers

Manuscripts

Printed original sources

Secondary sources

Index

• By (author) Noëlle L.W. Streeton

"This gorgeously illustrated volume is at once interesting and informative, giving a neat overview of the artist and his most famous work that highlights the importance of the technical data but also reflects on the wider context surrounding it. [...] A highly recommended read, not just for van Eyck enthusiasts but also for anyone with an interest in technical art scholarship relating to fifteenth century art." The Picture Restorer - No. 44, Spring 2014
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This gorgeously illustrated volume is at once interesting and informative, giving a neat overview of the artist and his most famous work that highlights the importance of the technical data but also reflects on the wider context surrounding it. [...] A highly recommended read, not just for van Eyck enthusiasts but also for anyone with an interest in technical art scholarship relating to fifteenth century art.

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