Stealing the Mystic Lamb (5 page)

The centerpiece of
The Adoration of the Mystic Lamb
is found in the lower central panel of the open altar and is the most important element to understanding the work as a whole. This panel alone measures 134.3 by 237.5 centimeters (4.4 by 7.8 feet) and spans the width of three other panels. Its subject is taken from the Revelation of Saint John the Evangelist, the last book of the New Testament.

The scene is set in a vast, idyllic flowery meadow embowered by trees and hedges. Here van Eyck’s inordinate patience and attention to detail are on full display. Most of the plants, bushes, and trees are depicted with enough accuracy as to be identifiable to botanists. This cannot be any real field, as the combination of plant life, running the gamut from roses to lilies to cypresses to oaks to palm trees, could not coexist in one natural habitat. There is no sunlight, but rather the Holy Spirit, as a white dove, emanates light and bathes the scene in a midday glow. As is written in the Revelation of Saint John, “I saw the Spirit descending from Heaven like a dove.”

The scene is viewed from on high, looking down at the sweep of meadow filled with hundreds of figures. Basic perspectival lines draw our eyes to the sacrificial altar at the center, on which stands the Lamb of God,
Agnus Dei
, to which the attention of everyone in the meadow, save one individual, is directed.

On the central panel’s two penduli—swaths of red velvet draping down the side of the altar—is written
Ihesus Via
and
Veritas Vita
, “Jesus is the Way, the Truth, and the Life,” also a quote from the Gospel of John. Scroll down the center of the panel, and we come to a fountain, the
Fons Vitae
or Fountain of the Water of Life, symbolic of the celebration of Mass, out of which flows endless grace for the faithful. The painted water streams out of the fountain through a gargoyle-mouthed drain that suggests that the water might even flow out of the painting itself and spill onto the stone altar beneath it, transcending the boundary between the painted reality and the chapel in which the viewers of the painting stand. Around the stone edge of the octagonal fountain (the base of which should recall the painted plinths on which stand the two Saint John statues on the other side of this very panel) is carved
Hic Est Fons Aque Vite Procedens De Sede Dei + Agni
: “This is the Fountain of the Water of Life proceeding out of the throne of God and the Lamb,” a quotation from the Book of Revelation.

The central panel of
The Ghent Altarpiece
, referred to as the Adoration of the Mystic Lamb

Angels with jewel-colored wings kneel in prayer around the Lamb on the altar, carrying the instruments of Christ’s passion: the cross, the Crown of Thorns, and the column at which he was flogged. Their white robes resemble those worn by altar boys, who would participate in the Mass held
in the chapel beneath the painting. Even the multicolored wings of the angels have a symbolic origin. Two stories relate the colorful wings of birds to Catholic iconography: The origin of one is based on the misconception that a peacock’s flesh does not decompose after death. The peacock was, therefore, associated with the body of Christ, resurrected before it had a chance to decompose. The other reference is to a different colorful bird—the parrot. Another odd rationale for Mary’s having been a pregnant virgin ran: If a parrot can be taught to say “
Ave Maria
,” then why can’t Mary be a pregnant virgin? This sort of pregnant logic pretty well silenced the questioning masses back in the Middle Ages and, as porous as the argument may sound today, resulted in the depiction of parrots in religious painting throughout the Middle Ages and the Renaissance.

The angels in the garb of altar boys swing censers, spreading powdered incense over the Lamb. The censers are caught in midair. The central scene is a snapshot, a frozen moment of action. In the Renaissance, particularly in Italy, painters preferred to depict their figures in stable, geometric poses that suggested calm, sculptural, eternal permanence. In the Baroque period, two centuries after van Eyck painted, particularly those artists who emulated Caravaggio favored dynamic, unstable tableaux, portraying figures at the moment of highest drama and movement—a cup falling off a table, a head peeling off of a severed neck. Van Eyck provides the High Renaissance stability in every element of his central painting, save for those swinging censers, which forecast Baroque dynamism, there to remind us that it is a moment we see, not an unmoving eternity.

The field is filled with figures. As is written in Revelation 7:9-10, the “great multitude, which no man could number, of all nations and kindred, and people, and tongues” surround the Lamb of God in the fields of paradise. In the case of this painting, the great multitude can be numbered. To be precise, there are 46 prophets and patriarchs (if you count heads and hats), 46 apostles and clergy (if you count portions of tonsured heads), 32 confessors (the sum total of tonsures and mitres), and 46 female saints (counting faces and variously colored head gear)—170 total individuals, plus 16 angels.

Each figure, particularly those from the foreground groups (the prophets and patriarchs in the left foreground and the apostles and clergy to the right) are painted with identifiable portrait faces. In most contemporary Italian paintings, portraits of individual patrons aside, figures such as saints were portrayed in a generic manner, with few if any distinguishing features beneath their beards. But van Eyck has provided knit brows and baggy eyes, faces full of character. One of the best tests for the vividness of a painted face is to ask oneself, Would I recognize this painted individual if I saw the person walking down the street? Unlike most Italian painted faces of the period, van Eyck’s faces could be picked out of a crowd.

While most of the figures in the meadow have not been identified as particular historical individuals, a good number of them have. This recognition does not come from a portrait likeness, as no record exists of what these people really looked like. Iconographic attributes, such as the hagiographic icons of saints, act as badges or name tags that help us recognize key figures. Among the female saints, all of whom carry palm fronds, the symbol of having been martyred, we can locate: Saint Agnes, who carries a lamb as her hagiographic icon; Saint Barbara, who holds a tower (in which she was locked for refusing to marry a pagan); Saint Dorothy carrying a basket of flowers; and Saint Ursula with her arrow (the instrument of her execution at the hand of the Huns). Two members of the ensemble are abbesses, recognizable because they carry crosiers. White lilies bloom near this cluster of saintly women, symbolizing their virginity.

Among the apostles and clergy are three popes wearing the papal tiara: Martin V, Alexander V, and Gregory XII. Saints Peter, Paul, and John are present, as are Saint Stephen and Saint Livinius. Among the prophets and patriarchs to the left, one may find the prophet Isaiah, dressed in blue and carrying a flowering twig, referring to his prophecy: “There shall come forth a rod out of the stem of the tree of Jesse,” Jesse being the forefather of the Old Testament King David, who in turn was considered, in apocryphal sources, to have been an ancestor of Christ. Perhaps surprisingly Virgil is also present, the only recognizable pagan in the field of paradise.
He wears a crown of laurel leaves, the symbol of poetic excellence (from which the term
laureate
is derived).

Despite the elevated vantage through which we are shown the scene, and despite the vast number of figures, van Eyck’s level of detail is staggering. Intricacies are hidden in the mass of bodies that may only be seen upon close examination—even with a magnifying glass in hand they are difficult to pick out.

Take, for example, the three Hebrew letters painted in gold into the band around the red hat of the gentleman standing to the rear of the prophets. This was first noted by Canon Gabriel van den Gheyn, a brave clergyman of Saint Bavo Cathedral whose heroism would preserve
The Lamb
from theft and possible destruction during the First World War. Van den Gheyn published an article in 1924 noting the Hebrew letters
yod feh aleph
, which he thought were an abbreviation for the word
sabaoth
, which means “hosts” or “armies,” as in the “Lord of Hosts.” Van den Gheyn’s rationale that these letters represented this word was not accepted by later historians, but the Hebrew letters were duly noted.

Yod feh aleph
does not spell out a word in Hebrew, though, as we will see, it may be a transliteration rather than a literal word. The nearest word that would make sense is
yod feh aleph ramish
, meaning “He will beautify,” a line from Psalms 4:149, which contains one more letter. A line from Psalms appears in the panel of the angelic musicians in the upper register, so this reference corresponds theologically to the rest of the altarpiece. If that one extra letter were present, the phrase “He will beautify” would make sense—and yet the Hebrew letters are so small as to make it nearly impossible to tell.

Van Eyck was at once coy and proud. He sometimes hid his signature, yet did so in plain sight, as in his work
The Arnolfini Wedding Portrait
, which he signed right in the center of the painting as a witness to the marriage ceremony, thought to involve Giovanni Arnolfini and Giovanna Cenami. He incorporated a trompe l’oeil painted phrase, his personal motto, into the frame of his
(Self) Portrait in a Red Turban
:
Ais Ich Kan
(“As well as I can”), knowing full well that what he had created was perfection itself. This was also a means of self-aggrandizement because,
traditionally, only nobles had mottos. So while the phrase “He will beautify” is a legitimate inclusion in this religious work, it could also be a statement about van Eyck’s painting ability—he will beautify all that he touches with his brush.

Van Eyck loved ambiguity, lacing his works with discussion points for even the most educated of his viewers. If the gold letters on the hat band are indeed
yod feh aleph
, this may be a subtle means of signing the work. One scholar has suggested that
yod feh aleph
could be transliterated into Jan van Eyck’s initials.
Yod
is the “y” sound of Jan,
feh
is the Flemish pronunciation of “van” (which sounds more like “fahn”), and
aleph
is the start of Eyck.

A stretch? Perhaps, but it would not be uncharacteristic of van Eyck to insert this play on letters that would prompt active discussions among the most scholarly of his peers, those who could read Hebrew but would be clever enough to catch his inside joke.

Van Eyck’s depiction of garments is another artistic innovation. The bodies beneath the clothes have a strength of form that was lacking in past works, where drapery clung amorphously beneath the painted heads of those who “wore” them. Van Eyck’s garments again recall the novel way in which Donatello sculpted drapery at Orsanmichele. Donatello used a technique in which he would create a miniature clay mockup of his sculpture as a nude. Then he would soak cloth in clay and water, and drape it as clothing over the nude figure. In this way, he would see how the clothing fit around the body, with the body as a solid physical presence beneath it. Van Eyck’s painted figures produce the same effect. They wear their clothes, rather than the clothes wearing the figures.

A cityscape appears in the distant horizon behind the altar and the Lamb. This represents the New Jerusalem, which will be founded, according to Revelation and the writings of Saint Augustine, upon the return of Christ to judge humankind. Only two buildings are architecturally identifiable. One is the tower of Utrecht Cathedral, at the center, considered an architectural wonder and tourist attraction in its
day. The other is just to the right of the Utrecht tower, the spires of Saint Nicholas Church, in Ghent. The inclusion of the Utrecht tower, the icon of a rival city, is unusual and has led scholars to believe that it may have been added in 1550, during the first cleaning of the altarpiece, by the “conservator” who ruined the predella that he attempted to restore, Jan van Scorel, who was a Utrecht native.