Saint Barbara by Jan van Eyck (1437): An Unsolved Enigma

Saint Barbara, created by the Flemish painter Jan van Eyck in 1437, is one of the artist's most curious works. It is a small painting, of only 18cm x 31cm approximately, made of oil on oak panel. Nowadays, it can be found at the Royal Museum of Fine Arts Antwerp (Koninklijk Museum voor Schone Kunsten Antwerpen). It would be obvious to think that it is an unfinished painting, and that Van Eyck quit working on this project because of some reason. However, the Flemish artist did sign and date the painting, which makes some art historians wonder whether he could have considered it to be finished. On the frame of the painting we find the following inscription: ‘IOH[ANN]ES DE EYCK ME FECIT. 1437’, which translates as Jan van Eyck made me. 1437. Taking into account the mystery surrounding the life and work of the siblings Van Eyck (based on our lack of primary sources), it is perhaps not so striking that we lack evidence as to whether the painting is finished or not but, even so, it awakens many questions: is it a finished drawing? Or was it actually meant to be a dead colouring for a painting, therefore lying still unfinished? In fact, was it an autonomous project at all, or could it have been designed as a grisaille for an altarpiece? Was the colouring added by Van Eyck himself? If so, what reason did he have to leave it unfinished?

To begin with, it is important to pay attention to the theme and symbolism of the painting. Saint Barbara, the female figure depicted in its centre, is a Christian saint. As is often the case with saints, her legend has a few different versions and it is also said to lack historical evidence. Because of this, she was removed from the General Roman Calendar in 1969, although she remained among the list of Catholic Saints. In any case, a common version of her legend says that she was a young girl who was locked up in a tower by her father, a nobleman, in order to protect her from men. Eventually, though, her father found a man that he thought suitable for her daughter and wanted them to get married. Barbara did not like the idea and, in an attempt to change her mind, her father started letting her out of the tower during short periods of time. It was during these periods that she was baptised as a Christian. When her father found out about this, he was so enraged that he had her tortured and, afterwards, beheaded her himself. 

Van Eyck portrays Saint Barbara gazing at a prayer book. She is holding a palm branch, which symbolises immortality: through her martyrdom, she chose the eternal life. Behind her, a Gothic tower is being built. Some art historians see this as a representation of the place in which she had been confined but, because of the ongoing stage of the construction, many believe that, in fact, it represents a Gothic church and, consequently, the rise of Christianity.

The legend of Saint Barbara was a rather popular source of inspiration for fifteenth-century artists. Many other paintings of the time can be traced back to this topic, notably The Werl Altarpiece (1438) by Robert Campin and Scenes from the Life of Saint Barbara (circa 1470-1500) by the Master of the Saint Barbara Legend. However, Van Eyck gives it a rather unique focus because of the techniques and materials used and the surroundings of the image of Saint Barbara. The artist creates a building scene behind Saint Barbara which is an interpretation of his own, and the careful and detailed drawings of the labourers, according to art historian Simone Ferrari, ‘seem[s] to foreshadow the paintings of Pieter Bruegel the Elder.’ (Ferrari, 2013)

As we can see, this painting leaves nearly more questions unanswered than solved. One could argue that it is a drawing of its own, an underpainting or a grisaille. The evidence we have is unclear: there are a few reasons to support each of the three options given above. Anyhow, there are a few relevant reasons against the perhaps more obvious belief that this work is but an underpainting. Firstly, the amount of detail in it is not a common trait among dead colourings. If Van Eyck meant it as a guide for an actual painting, why was he so meticulous towards it? It is evident that Van Eyck took his work seriously. Secondly, as mentioned at the beginning of this article, the artist signed and dated the painting, which could signify that he considered his work to be completed. Both reasons are visibly true, but the conclusions we can arrive at are still impossible to validate with the information we have nowadays. Lastly, there is another fact that could be a clue to this enigma.  As stated by Till-Holger Borchert, art historian and chief curator of the Groeningemuseum in Bruges, this work was regarded as a great achievement in aesthetics during Van Eyck’s time (Borchert, 2011), which leads us to think: why would they admire an unfinished painting so much?

When it comes to modern theories on the painting, some art critics, prominently Oxford PhD Blake Gopnik, suggest that perhaps the answer lies in the conjecture that Van Eyck always meant it to be this way as a metaphor of ‘incompleteness’, since the Gothic cathedral behind Saint Barbara is also still in the process of being finished.

An art-historian friend who studied the piece with me at the Met[ropolitan Museum of Art] pointed out one detail that I think may lead us to a solution to the problem. As my friend noticed, the tower behind the saint is itself depicted in the process of being completed, since van Eyck has included workmen carving its stones on the ground and a block-and-tackle lifting them to its top.

The picture, that is, seems to be meant as a finished work that is all about – is almost an allegory for – the incomplete. And what better way for the brilliant van Eyck to convey that content than by giving his finished work itself some carefully considered aspects of unfinished-ness. Put another way, van Eyck’s panel is the best, most carefully considered, most final depiction of the essence of incompletion. (Gopnik, 2016)

Certainly Van Eyck was a groundbreaking artist and could have given his painting a symbolic meaning, but this is, for now, only an interpretation. There is no evidence that proves that Van Eyck designed this painting as homage to the ‘unfinished’ whatsoever.

Nevertheless, it is clear that this work by Jan van Eyck is innovative in Flemish painting for many reasons. First of all, his treatment of Saint Barbara and her surroundings differs from most of the other depictions of the saint during Van Eyck’s time. She was frequently accompanied by the same attributes that she holds in this painting: a prayer book and a palm branch, but the overall concept of the painting is a whole different story. Van Eyck’s detail, symbolism and possible abstract meaning prove, once more, that Jan van Eyck was indisputably one of the geniuses of his time. Even if, for the present time, we can but wonder at the ‘unfinished-ness’ of this painting, perhaps art historians will stumble upon new clues in the near future.

For a more detailed view of the painting, visit: Lukas - Art in Flanders. http://www.lukasweb.be/en/photo/saint-barbara-0 

References:

- Borchert, Till-Holger. Van Eyck to Dürer: The Influence of Early Netherlandish Painting on European Art, 1430-1530. London: Thames & Hudson, 2011.

- Borchert, Till-Holger. "Collecting Early Netherlandish Paintings in Europe and the United States." Academia.edu. https://www.academia.edu/20229890/Collecting_Early_Netherlandish_Paintings_in_Europe_and_the_United_States (Accessed 24th January 2017)

- Borchert, Till-Holger. "Color Lapidum: A survey of Late Medieval Grisaille." Academia.edu. https://www.academia.edu/14953055/Color_Lapidum_A_survey_of_Late_Medieval_Grisaille (Accessed 24th January 2017) 

- Borchert, Till-Holger. "Some Eyckian drawings and miniatures in the context of the (Rotterdam) Drawing." Academia.edu. https://www.academia.edu/21051485/Some_Eyckian_drawings_and_miniatures_in_the_context_of_the_Rotterdam_Drawing (Accessed 24th January 2017)

- Borchert, Till-Holger. "Van Eyck and the Invention of Oil Painting. Artistic Merits in their literary mirror." Academia.edu. https://www.academia.edu/20229798/Van_Eyck_and_the_Invention_of_Oil_Painting._Artistic_Merits_in_their_literary_mirror (Accessed 24th January 2017)

- Borchert, Till-Holger. "Jan van Eyck." Vlaamseprimitieven.vlaamsekunstcollectie.be.  http://vlaamseprimitieven.vlaamsekunstcollectie.be/en/biography/jan-van-eyck  (Accessed 23rd January 2017)

- Ferrari, Simone. Van Eyck. Munich: Prestel, 2013.

- Gopnik, Blake. "Jan van Eyck's Monument to the Unfinished." Artnet News. https://news.artnet.com/exhibitions/jan-van-eyck-metropolitan-museum-unfinished-503306 (Accessed 23rd January 2017) 

- Janson, Jonathan. " 'Dead coloring' or Underpainting." Essentialvermeer.com. http://www.essentialvermeer.com/technique/technique_underpainting.html#.WIYe-fldUao (Accessed 23rd January 2017)

- Marechal, Dominique. “Museum of the Basilica of the Holy Blood.” Vlaamseprimitieven.vlaamsekunstcollectie.be.

http://vlaamseprimitieven.vlaamsekunstcollectie.be/en/research/webpublications/museum-of-the-basilica-of-the-holy-blood (Accessed 23rd January 2017)

- “Saint Barbara.” KMSKA.be. (Koninklijk Museum voor Schone Kunsten Antwerpen.) http://www.kmska.be/en/collectie/highlights/Heilige_Barbara.html?_language=en (Accessed 23^rd January 2017) 

- “Saint Barbara.” Lukasweb.be. (Lukas – Art in Flanders.) http://www.lukasweb.be/en/photo/saint-barbara-0 (Accessed 23rd January 2017) 

- “Saint Barbara.” Vlaamseprimitieven.vlaamsekunstcollectie.be.

http://vlaamseprimitieven.vlaamsekunstcollectie.be/en/collection/saint-barbara (Accessed 23rd January 2017)

 

Copyright: Original article by Sophie-Marie Galliard. All rights reserved. Note that I, the author, do not own any of the pictures; I took them from the sources cited above, especially Lukasweb.be and Oceansbridge.com.