Oil, Light and the Birth of a New Art: Jan van Eyck

Jan van Eyck stands at the threshold of a new era. Working in Bruges and in service to the fabulously wealthy Burgundian court, he achieved a luminosity, depth and microscopic precision that left contemporaries — and every generation since — barely able to believe what they were seeing. From the “Arnolfini Portrait” to the towering “Ghent Altarpiece”, this opening talk establishes what makes the Northern Renaissance so distinctive: a radical commitment to the visible, physical world.