Reflections in Armor in the Canon Van De Paele Madonna

1. Professor Howard Davis of Columbia University and Professor John McAndrew of Wellesley College have preceded me in the primary observation dealt with in this paper, however, all three of us had the pleasure of making the observation in question independently. Professors Davis and McAndrew have kindly given their consent to the publication of this item by the present writer. My own opportunity to observe the Jan van Eyck image was made possible through the Brussels Art Seminar in 1952 sponsored by the Belgian American Educational Foundation, Inc. I wish to acknowledge the use of photographs of the Archives Centrales Iconographiques d'Art National, Laboratoire Central des Musées de Belgique (Figs. 1, 3, 4), the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (Fig. 5), and the Ältere Pinakothek, Munich (Fig. 2).

Abstract

That painters of fifteenth and sixteenth century Flanders were aware of the aesthetic possibilities of the polished surfaces to be found in armor one sees in the delight taken in the portrayal of reflections, reflections which underlined the dual nature, the microcosm and macrocosm of the world in fifteenth century Flemish eyes. Recall for a moment the salade of an archer with the skyline of a town reflected on its bowl appearing in the Judgment of Cambyses by Gerard David in the Municipal Museum of Fine Art in Bruges or the breastplate of an infidel reflecting martyred and martyrers alike in Hans Memling's Martyrdom of St. Ursula on the reliquary chasse of that saint in the Hospital of St. John in Bruges.

View correction statement:

Erratum