Girl in a Green Gown: The History and Mystery of the Arnolfini Portrait: The History and Mystery of
Carola Hicks
Girl in a Green Gown: The History and Mystery of the Arnolfini Portrait: The History and Mystery of
The Arnolfini portrait, painted by Jan van Eyck in 1434, is one of the world's most famous paintings. It intrigues all who see it. Scholars and the public alike have puzzled over the meaning of this haunting gem of medieval art, a subtle and beautiful double portrait of a wealthy Bruges merchant and his wife. The enigmatic couple seem to be conveying a message to us across the centuries, but what? Is the painting the celebration of marriage or pregnancy, a memorial to a wife who died in childbirth, a fashion statement or a status symbol? Using her acclaimed forensic skills as an art historian, Carola Hicks set out to decode the mystery, uncovering a few surprises along the way.
3.1 out of 5 based on 6 reviews
|
Omniscore:
|
| Classification |
Non-fiction |
| Genre |
Art, Architecture & Photography |
| Format |
Hardback |
| Pages |
272 |
| RRP |
£16.99 |
| Date of Publication |
September 2011 |
| ISBN |
978-0701183370 |
| Publisher |
Chatto & Windus |
| |
The Arnolfini portrait, painted by Jan van Eyck in 1434, is one of the world's most famous paintings. It intrigues all who see it. Scholars and the public alike have puzzled over the meaning of this haunting gem of medieval art, a subtle and beautiful double portrait of a wealthy Bruges merchant and his wife. The enigmatic couple seem to be conveying a message to us across the centuries, but what? Is the painting the celebration of marriage or pregnancy, a memorial to a wife who died in childbirth, a fashion statement or a status symbol? Using her acclaimed forensic skills as an art historian, Carola Hicks set out to decode the mystery, uncovering a few surprises along the way.
Reviews
The Literary Review
Gillian Tindall
"Engaging … Carola Hicks died just as she was finishing this book. Had she lived longer, she might have corrected one or two tiny details (it is not the case, for instance, that bourse, the French for stock market, comes from a Bruges family called Beurse: it is from the Latin and French for purse), but the effort and involvement she put into the book when she must have already been quite ill is exemplary. So too is the care with which her husband has revised and completed her text"
01/10/2011
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The Spectator
Judith Flanders
"Hicks has alternated chapters of historical background — who owned it, what the political situation was that transferred the painting from one place to another — with chapters that meticulously examine the painting, analysing its layers of meaning. I found the historical chapters at once too detailed (too much on Habsburg dynastic marriages) and too thin (little or no material survives as to how the owners viewed their possession). But in the art-historical chapters, no one can write, and explain, like Hicks. Here her mastery is complete."
24/09/2011
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The Times
Rachel Campbell-Johnston
"Her discoveries will often be revelatory. The woman is not necessarily pregnant, Hicks explains, comparing her emphatic stomach with that of the (definitely not gravid) Cumaean Sibyl in Van Eyck’s Ghent Altarpiece ... The man in the portrait to modern eyes bears “an uncanny resemblance to Vladimir Putin” ... a beguiling book"
08/10/2011
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The Sunday Telegraph
Martin Gayford
"On the whole, she is better on the history than the mystery … This picture, and van Eyck’s work altogether, represents an astonishing departure for visual realism ... Hicks is casually dismissive of the suggestion he might have known and been affected by a lens-based instrument such as a camera obscura. I am not so sure."
09/10/2011
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The Observer
Peter Conrad
"Hicks reveals, a little depressingly, that the Arnolfinis might be honorary residents of Essex ... Sadly, Hicks died before completing her manuscript, which, even after being prepared for publication by her husband, seems not quite fully cooked. There's too much about the painting's subsequent history, too little about its internal mysteries."
16/10/2011
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The Sunday Times
Michael Prodger
"It is an ingenious way to look at a picture because it allows the author to include all manner of extra information, from the breed of the dog — a Brussels griffon (a late addition to the picture since it doesn’t appear reflected in the mirror) — to the early history of the National Gallery, but it is also an unsatisfying one. Because the real story of the painting, the who and why, is never likely to be discovered, the book is instead a compendium of facts. Some are interesting, some banal, and while they add to the painting’s fascination they don’t come close to explaining it."
11/09/2011
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