Your Thoughts On Art

[Belacqua]

The beauty of this thing is humbling.

Completely agree with you that van Eyck is among the best artists who ever lived. His works are stunning -- superhuman. And of course impossible to reproduce. There's something about the richness of that oil paint which is lost in photos -- even more than other works. 

In fact it strikes me as an odd accident of history that when most people want to say something about great art, they tend to reach for Leonardo. Not that Leonardo isn't great, I hasten to add. He is of course wonderful. But he has also had way better publicity -- with Vasari, Pater, Berenson, etc., writing him up. 

Maybe it's worth pondering why van Eyck isn't nearly as famous, despite having finished more works, done more to revolutionize painting, and being Leonardo's equal in beauty. 

I wonder if in some way the thematic richness of van Eyck's works holds them back from a lot of people. The Arnolfini wedding portrait is maybe his clearest, most accessible work. (And it was one of my very favorites growing up.) But something like the Mystic Lamb in Ghent, or that incredible little triptych in Dresden, demand of us religious as well as aesthetic reaction. Their extreme beauty is a part of their Christian meaning. 

Not that the Mona Lisa doesn't have thematic appeal. As Thoureavian pointed out, there is a lot we can say about it beyond "it's a lady." But for the crowds in that room at the Louvre, there is nothing to bother or puzzle them. While van Eyck has little pokes in the eye for us, and puzzles. 

(Not that I'm complaining; if all the noisy tourists are drawn like ants to the Mona Lisa, I have the Mantegnas in the next room to myself.)

Likewise I guess Giovanni Bellini, who is far underrated in terms of fame and popularity, I think. Again, this is partly because those paintings lose about 90% in reproduction. His symbolic landscape in the Uffizi has color of an indefinable subtlety. His St. Francis painting in the Frick certainly outshines Leonardo's Last Supper, at least in its current condition. 

This is why I think great art will repel a lot of people. Though Bellini's color is tremendous and instantly appealing, there is also a delicious and challenging difficulty there, and it demands of us something more than we are accustomed to giving.