The Ghent Altarpiece: The Oil Painting Revolution

By Dr. Sofia Marchetti

A Collaborative Masterpiece

The Ghent Altarpiece (completed 1432), also known as the Adoration of the Mystic Lamb, is the most important surviving work by the van Eyck brothers. It was commissioned by Joos Vijd, a wealthy Ghent merchant, for his family chapel in Saint Bavo\'s Church. The inscription on the original frame (now lost) states that Hubert van Eyck began the work and that his brother Jan completed it after Hubert\'s death in 1426.

The Oil Technique

Jan van Eyck\'s technical innovation was not the invention of oil painting \u2014 oil medium had been used for centuries \u2014 but its perfection to a degree that allowed unprecedented realism. He applied multiple translucent glazes of pigment suspended in refined linseed oil, building up color and luminosity through successive transparent layers. The result is a surface that seems to emit light from within, with colors of extraordinary saturation and detail that approaches the microscopic.

The central panel \u2014 the Adoration of the Mystic Lamb \u2014 depicts a heavenly landscape populated by hundreds of figures from every social class and historical period, all converging on the altar where the Lamb of Christ stands bleeding into a golden chalice. The landscape is rendered with an observational precision that was unprecedented: individual plant species are identifiable, the reflections in the water are optically accurate, and the atmospheric perspective creates a convincing sense of depth extending to the horizon.

Turbulent History

The altarpiece has had one of the most eventful histories of any artwork. It was dismantled during the Reformation (the Just Judges panel was stolen in 1934 and never recovered), confiscated by Napoleon and taken to Paris, returned to Ghent after Waterloo, sold to the Prussian government in the 19th century, returned to Belgium after WWI under the Treaty of Versailles, and seized by Hitler during WWII. The panels were recovered from an Austrian salt mine by the Monuments Men in 1945 and returned to Saint Bavo\'s Cathedral. A major conservation and technical examination completed in 2020 revealed Jan van Eyck\'s underdrawings and confirmed his extraordinary working method.