Is it possible to turn the interpretation of the painting into almost a detective novel? Jean-Philippe Postel did this in his little book The Arnolfini Affair. Exploring the painting of Van Eyck, this 2023 was published by the publishing house Acantilado in its Cuadernos collection. Of course, this is not just any picture, and even less by any painter. Jan van Eyck is one of the greatest artists of the Flemish school of painting, which developed in Northern Europe between the 15th and 16th centuries, the forerunner of the crystalline and precise style of painters like Vermeer. Inheritors of the Gothic style, the Flemings engaged in immersion in the techniques of perspective and light, in a meticulous and detailed desire, with extremely immobile, almost nervously paralyzed scenes. But underneath it all, he trembles. This is shown by Postel, compiling a summary of the adventure that has survived this painting that is more than five hundred years old. The painting has the painter’s signature, which is the first enigma because it says: “Jan van Eyck was here.” 1434″ Did he paint there or was he on the spot or is he a character called Arnolfini? The painting went to the collection of Diego de Guevara, who presented it to Margaret of Austria, then it ended up in the collection of Philip II, in Spain, where it remained until it was exhibited in 1843 in the National Gallery, London. In the records and inventories, Postel draws attention to the fact that Margarita of Austria indicated that the protective shutters of the painting were kept with a lock so that the painting could not be seen. It is true that for four hundred years the painting was not available to the general public. The question, now that it is public, would be to know if viewers really see what the painting continues to hide from everyone’s view.

It took me a long time to appreciate Flemish painting. Accustomed to movement, image disturbances and chromatic disturbance, to the declared intentions of the characters and artists, increasingly emphatic, and even to the provocative mutilations of expressionist and abstract painting, detailed and silent painting of flames is not offered easily. You have to stop there, not just to understand the picture – as followers of Rothko’s paintings tend to experience in almost mystical raptures – but to discover a profound perspective path. I will explain myself with an example. Another famous painting by Van Eyck is Chancellor Rolin’s virgin, from 1435, painted a year after Arnolfini’s painting. There appears, next to the Virgin, an official from the Burgundian court, the one after whom the painting takes its name. It is a scene of worship of the Virgin holding the baby Jesus in her arms. The religious reason did not capture my attention. Both characters are in a room that overlooks a vantage point over which the river bed recedes. Not a very big picture (dimensions are 66 x 63 cm) and it is exhibited in the Louvre. If you are patient, you have to look at what is hidden behind the two obvious characters: it is as if the horizon of travel opens up. Two people, dressed in red and blue, lean from the wall and think about something below, while the landscape reveals the whole city, buildings, houses, a bridge over the river, ships, an island in the river, dozens of figures who are just tiny dots in the deep chasm that it continues to expand through fields of crops towards the horizon where more and more hills blur as everything shrinks in size, until we have to stop because on that journey we almost put our noses on the board and the guards call us out for getting too close. The objects in the picture have not moved. We are the ones who started it.

The Arnolfini couple attracts attention with the end of the portrait, their clothes and the small room they are in, as well as the disturbing looks of the man and the woman. There is something unsettling above all in his gaze, which does not look at her, just as she does not look at him but at the hand he raised. The only one looking directly at the viewer is a small dog, the Brussels griffon vulture, located at the foot of the Arnolfini. As with Chancellor Rolin’s virgin, here you have to look behind the characters, towards the vanishing point to which the perspective travels. Here Postel begins to unravel the mystery: on the back wall is a mirror in which Arnolfini’s back is reflected. There are also two other characters, in red and blue, who cannot be outlined due to the tinyness of the reflection. But what is interesting is what does not appear: the griffon vulture is not seen from behind, nor are the hands of the couple touching so centrally. Postel goes on to detail what is on the margin, filled with a series of symbolism: shoes and Swedish women on the margin, oranges by the window, figures on the wall, a lit candle on a man and an unlit one on a woman. Details and more details in a picture that does not ask for scandal, but which are placed there, added to the intense, if motionless expression of the characters, so that the viewer can realize his role in the coming centuries. An active role, in which the view is sharpened and time stops. That care and detail, added to the exploration of the work’s journey, is what gives meaning to the artistic enigma. Postel suggests that the woman is an apparition, a ghost, but I prefer to let him explain this in his wonderful book. (OR)