Ghent Altarpiece

The Ghent Altarpiece

Click on the Image to See a Massive Detailed View

Today we went to Ghent/Gent/Gand depending on your language preference.  As any Dutchman will tell you, Belgium is weird (To be honest, they say the same thing about the Dutch.).  Let me clarify a bit. Perhaps you are going to Liege.  You see signs for Liège.  No problem, you got this.  You make a wrong turn and see signs for Luik or if you really lost, Lüttich.  This city is called three different things in the three official languages.  Maybe you are driving to Antwerp and see a sign for Antwerpen and turn links. What the hell is Anvers?  Time to turn droit and head back to Antwerpen to see Antwerp. Some other great examples are De Haan – Le Coq, Zoutleeuw – Léau, or Soignies – Zinnik.

Ghent is the second largest city in Flanders.  Driving into the city, it looked like a regular city. Dull. Boring. Modern.  We parked in a garage and walked towards the center. TA DAH!  There was a old town and square.  Actually, it was an entire old village complete with a castle, canals, old houses, and churches.  To be honest, we went to Ghent for one thing: St.-Baafskathedral!  I can understand why you may not notice the name.  The church in English is called The Cathedral of Sint Baaf (or St. Bavo- it is Belgium, right?) Still blinking your eyes?  This church contains the polyptych, The Adoration of the Lamb of God completed in 1431.  It is a multi-panel scene painted by Jan and Hubert Van Eyck.  We walked around the church and discovered it was...being restored.  I checked the Google and every site said it was in the church.  I noticed the church was musty and we walked around taking verboden pictures of the amazing cathedral.  Builders of gothic cathedrals pride themselves on high ceilings.  This cathedral reached the heavens.  I was more impressed with the scale of the building than the artwork. I have been in a few gothic cathedrals where they have lighting akin to catacombs.  This church had a nice mix of light, incredible stained glass, and vertical lines.  Most of the paintings had old varnish and were quite dark.  The pulpit consisted of over-expressed rococo design.  By definition, rococo is waaay over the top.  It was a sight onto itself (I’m being kind. Jesus lives here.).  I started to notice the mustiness. On our way out, we decided to pay to see the stand-in faux masterpiece.  The guy at the ticket booth said the real painting was being restored behind him for about 5$!   Over the years, the painting has had a colorful past.  One of the panel of the painting has been stolen and never recovered. Many were sold to different owners and thus dispersed. During the iconoclasm, the period of time when Protestants were destroying graven images, the painting was under threat. Once, part of it caught on fire. On the eve of World War II, the painting was sent to the Vatican for safe keeping.  And then the Italians joined the Axis so Hitler got the panels anyway.  The reunion of the panels alone is a miracle in itself.

Why am I going on and on about this painting?  It is such an incredible masterpiece.   What is not obvious to most is that art often springs from technology.  Watchmaker-quality lenses appeared in Northern Europe.  The brushstrokes on the painting are finer than you can see with your nose seemingly touching the painting.  There is a Van Eyck in DC. To view closely, I lock my arms behind me and touch my eyelashes to the canvas. I still can’t see the brushstrokes. (Guards get uncomfortable when you get too close to a painting.)  Lapis lazuli had also arrived in Northern Europe.  It is an incredibly expensive blue rock from Afghanistan. The patrons through trade had the money to acquire it and the artists had the technology to apply it. 

The Adoration of the Lamb of God is securely kept behind glass with dim lighting.  It is displayed so you can see the back as well as the front of the panels.  At four feet, you can’t put your eyeballs on the canvas.  It was frustrating.  The painting is so valuable I can understand the security. I wish I had brought binoculars to study the panels.  If you choose to see the panels, consider them.  Remember I mentioned the musty smell?  A couple months ago, I was tested for a mold allergy.   I get very sick when I am around old stuff.  I cannot go into records shops for more than a couple minutes or spend anytime around documents, or the worst, touch cloth.  You know those Pentecostal scenes where people collapse when they touch the good book?  That was me when I ran across my dad’s yearbook. The mold tests came back negative. My doctor however described me as the canary in the coal mine.  No one should be around those things. You just notice it sooner.  Back to the painting.  I could not finish the audio tour.  I was just too sick.  I get cold sweats and my knees buckle.  It was time to go.  We walked around a few hours and I partially got my constitution back.  Would I do it again?  Hell yeah...but with a long sleeve shirt and one of those masks that you seen asians wearing in public.  As I am writing this hours later, I still feel run down.

After the church we walked around the old center of the town.  It has a mix of buildings spanning the ages. Some of the building hide their age by mimicking older designs while others have cake-iced tops worn down over the centuries. On the way back to the car, we stopped for coffee and cake.  I had a piece of hazelnut and dark chocolate cake.  Every bite tasted like eating a selection from a fancy box.  It was incredibly rich, dark, and smooth and made of Belgian chocolate.  If you do not know about Belgians and their chocolate, I’ll assume you are Swiss...