Dr. Zucker: We're in the National Gallery

and we're looking at Jan Van Eyck's portrait of ...

well, I learned this painting as the Arnolfini wedding portrait.

Dr. Harris: So did I.

Dr. Zucker: But there's been a lot of scholarship subsequently

and there's a lot of disagreement

over what this painting actually represents.

Dr. Harris: But the National Gallery,

which probably represents the most authoritative view right now,

or the most widely accepted says that,

in fact, this is not an actual wedding taking place

or being witnessed as you and I were taught,

but that it's simply a double portrait

of a couple who are already married.

Dr. Zucker: Some scholars suggested that perhaps

it's a memorial portrait and the woman on the right

actually had passed away the previous year,

but that's only one of a variety of theories.

Dr. Harris: No.

Dr. Zucker: What we do know is,

is that whoever is represented here was an Italian

merchant who worked in Bruges.

Dr. Harris: Bruges was a thriving economic town in the early 15th Century.

Dr. Zucker: His wealth is quite apparently throughout this portrait.

Dr. Harris: In a way, this portrait is about his wealth.

Everything from both their clothing to the furnishings of the house.

Dr. Zucker: Some have suggested that perhaps

this is a kind of witnessing of the male

actually giving a kind of authority to the women in legal affairs.

Dr. Harris: I don't think we'll ever know

exactly what this represents.

The thing is, that it's [unintelligible]

to me that it can't simply be just a double portrait

because it really looks like something important is happening.

They're joining their hands, their shoes are off,

Dr. Zucker: Now those all have symbolic value.

This is a period when there's tremendous importance

put on symbolism, so the shoes being off,

for instance, as you mentioned is often a reference

to a sacred event taking place.

Dr. Harris: We have a single candle in the chandelier,

which I was taught is a symbol of the presence of God,

but again, we're just not really sure.

But the way that they're joined together,

the way his hand is up,

perhaps he's just greeting the visitors who we see in the mirror.

Dr. Zucker: There are two people who are in the doorway, actually,

wonderfully situated where we would be looking at this painting.

Dr. Harris: It does seem to me like something significant is going on.

Dr. Zucker: That there is a kind of witnessing taking place.

Dr. Harris: Yeah, I think that that's reinforced

by the signature that we see above the mirror

and below the chandelier that says,

"Johannes van eyck fuit hic"

or translated, Johannes van eyck was here.

So there is that sense of the artists presences,

the artist witnessing, the artist being here in this room with these figures.

Dr. Zucker: Let's go about this painting

and really look at the different elements

because there are many things that

we do agree about as our historians.

The mirror in the center is really one of

the most compelling elements you have,

not only in a sense, the greater visual reality

of this room depicted because we can actually see

as if we're standing in the back of the room looking forward,

Dr. Harris: Scenes from the passion of Christ.

Dr. Zucker: ... painted on the back pieces

of glass panels that are set into that wooden frame.

Dr. Harris: I have to say that it's hard

to get a sense of this when you're watching a video

or looking at illustrations in a book,

but those little roundels around the mirror,

how big would you say those are?

Dr. Zucker: They are, I would say, about half the size ...

Dr. Zucker: ... half the size of my fingernail.

Dr. Harris: Yeah, they're tiny.

And yet we can make out what scenes

from the Passion of Christ are represented there,

there's that attention to detail

and detail painted in enormous clarity

that we associate with the Northern Renaissance.

Dr. Zucker: Some of this painting seems to

have been painted with a single [hair brush].

Dr. Harris: If you look at the hair of the dog, for example.

Dr. Zucker: The dog is an interesting element

because you wouldn't expect to see a dog in a formal portrait.

How many wedding photographs have you seen with a dog in it?

Dr. Harris: Actually, dogs are common symbols in paintings of couples

because the dog is a symbol of fidelity or loyalty.

Dr. Zucker: Of course, there's tremendous attention

that's been paid to the dress of both figures

and there's a kind of curious element

because they're wearing fur-lined clothing

and yet there is fruit on the tree outside.

So, it's a war moment and yet they're wearing their finest winter wear,

that's an issue that has, I think, perplexed our historians.

Dr. Harris: And that fruit on the window sill

may also be a symbol, or a sign I should say,

of their wealth since oranges were very expensive in Flanders.

Dr. Zucker: Someone suggested that that was

one of the items that the Arnolfini's actually imported

a reference to the source of their wealth.

Dr. Harris: This is a good example of one of the ways

that it's easy to misinterpret,

it looks as though the scene is taking place

in what we would think of as the bedroom,

in a kind of private space,

but in fact, bedrooms were not that in the 15th Century.

They were rooms where you received visitors.

Dr. Zucker: And a symbol of wealth.

There are all kinds of symbols of wealth here,

beyond the oranges if you look at the carpet down on the floor,

that would have been an example of both taste and wealth.

Dr. Harris: Look at the way that the ...

you see those teeny little cuts in the green robe that she wears, those heavy ...

Dr. Zucker: That's been frayed out that was ...

Dr. Zucker: ... that was a very fashionable.

Dr. Harris: And the crispness of the lace

that she wears around her head.

Dr. Zucker: Now, there's a mistake that is often made,

which is people often look at the sort of bulge of her belly

and suggest that she's pregnant,

Dr. Harris: Right.

Dr. Zucker: This was very much an expression of the fashion of the day.

Dr. Harris: Right and another way that it's easy

to misinterpret based on what we know in the 21st Century.

Dr. Zucker: Van Ecyk is, I think, critically important

not only because of the brilliance of his painting,

but because he was using oil paint

in a way that had never really been used.

He was able to create a luminous quality,

a richness of color that tempera simply couldn't achieve.

Dr. Harris: Yeah, and he's doing this

because he's applying thin, multiple layers,

or glazes of thinned out oil painting

so that each layer is translucent

and layer after layer applied creates these

incredibly deep rich colors.

Dr. Zucker: Which allows him to then

produce this rich, luminous, incredibly subtle light.

Dr. Harris: I know.

Dr. Zucker: ... and moves across the faces of the figures,

their hands, across the furniture.

Dr. Harris: On the chandelier, the little shadow

cast by that bottom bar of the window.

There's a real love of light here

that also is very typical of the Northern Renaissance.

Dr. Zucker: And the way they can sort of brilliantly pick up a color,

like on the oranges, for instance,

or to find an object such as Arnolfini's shoes.

Dr. Harris: The figures are kind elongated.

The base of the room seems very cramped,

it's filled with all of these material objects.

Dr. Zucker: It's certainly not [perspectogoly] correct.

Dr. Harris: Right and both of those things,

that lack of interest in human anatomy

and the rational prospectively correct space

really tells that we're not in the Italian Renaissance

we're in the Northern Renaissance,

that love of texture, the use of oil paint,

the attention to detail.

Van Eyck is a master, or 'the' master of the Northern Renaissance.

(piano playing)