You can pack a lot into a painting, we reflected last week while looking at the iconography in the Arnolfini Portrait by Jan Van Eyck.
It’s a peculiar picture! The strange clothes and the slippers on the floor which do not really resemble slippers… there were so many details to look at and puzzle over. In the unimaginable days prior to the internet or even the printing press, a painting had to convey an awful lot. As an artist painting a portrait of a king or a queen, the portrait had to say everything; how powerful they were, how fair, how wise etc. We talked about ourselves and what we’d like to convey, and how we could condense it all into a single portrait… we started with some sketches:
We were so pleased with them we worked on our own paintings:
Which turned out so beautifully and expressed so much we are hoping to find somewhere to hang them so more people can admire them… watch this space!