Arnolfini Wedding Portrait
harles...@bvc.edu
For an Art History class, I have been researching Jan van Eyck's "The
Arnolfini Wedding Portrait," my paper is now done, but this painting still
intruges me. I discovered that there is more symbolism in this work than I
imagined. When I began I was under the assumption that all of the symbolism
in his work was religiously based, until I read the book "Jan van Eyck: the
Play of Realism" by Craig Harbison. Harbison maintains that almost all of the
objects and gestures in this painting are sexually based. He contends that
the marriage candle represents burning lust and that the way Giovanna
Arnolfini holds up her dress is to show of her desire to become pregnant.
What I really wanted to know was if anyone had any other
information on "The Arnolfini Wedding Portrait" and its symbolism therein.
If any one does have information to support either Harbison's claims of
sexual symbolism or the idea of religious symbolism, could you please let
me know.
Thank you
Joshua Heuman
: When I began I was under the assumption that all of the symbolism
: Play of Realism" by Craig Harbison. Harbison maintains that almost
: all of the objects and gestures in this painting are sexually based.
: He contends that the marriage candle represents burning lust and
: that the way Giovanna Arnolfini holds up her dress is to show of her
: desire to become pregnant.
I can not possibly accept Harbison's hypothesis of the "burning love."
Firstly, to modern. Secondly, does not fit into Dutch 15th century
thought at all...sex was taboo until the mid-20th century. Maybe you
could stretch this fascination back to genre painting in 17th century
Holland with paintings showing procuresses and prostitutes and
"love-sick" girls.
The "holding up the dress" thing was the style of dresses back then.
Most new brides wore dresses which accentuated their stomachs and
wombs in the attempt to appear more fertile. Of course, some scholars
will claim she was a vamp, or that she was pregnant at the time the
picture was painted (Oh my, pre-marital sex!).
I buy into the traditional Christian symbolism explanation. As a
Jewish Art History student, I find this path the more difficult of the
two, but the most logical.
--
Joshua Heuman
yu10...@yorku.ca
Art History Undergraduate
Michael Gerard Maranda
>harles...@bvc.edu wrote:
<snipped desc of portrait ...>
>I can not possibly accept Harbison's hypothesis of the "burning love."
>Firstly, to modern. Secondly, does not fit into Dutch 15th century
>thought at all...sex was taboo until the mid-20th century. Maybe you
>could stretch this fascination back to genre painting in 17th century
>Holland with paintings showing procuresses and prostitutes and
>"love-sick" girls.
Well, I owuld suggest a glance at Foucault's _History of Sexuality_ before
claiming that sex was taboo until the mid 20th century ... the flip side
being sex wasn't taboo until the mid 19th century ... mind you, this doesn't
invalidate your clim, only shifts it somewhat. At the time, I would claim,
sex wasn't yet existent (as we think of "sex") and thus the likelyhood of a
single painting being solely about the fleshly pleasures would be highly
unlikely et cetera et cetera ...
All this, of course, is whether we are looking at the painting today as
contemporary viewers (in which case any reading one can make a case for, as
the description appeared to do) can go (not complete relativism, any reading
you can make a case for ... that means there has to be an argument backing
it up). As for what the painting "really" means (that I am sure at least one
person reading this is thinking at this moment) well, isn't that a quandry.
Our painter, if it really is the one it is attributed too, was working under
the codes of a time we can not experience so what s/he intended to do is
lost to us. Perhaps s/he was just following a group of conventions, working
like a wedding photographer would today ... would you want your state of
mind to be decoded by a photograph of a happy couple with their holding
hands superimposed into the sky? Could you read such an image as we attempt
to do to the Arnolfini Portrait?
et cetera et cetera
<rest of post deleted>
--
......................................................................
......................Michael.Maranda..................................
.......................................mm017g@uhura.cc.rochester.edu....
.......................................................................
WYNNK
Arnolfini Betrothal" University of California Press, 1994, for yet another
interpretation.
wynn k
va...@cwu.edu
Or for still another point of view, read Chapters 2 and 3 in _The Roots of
Postmodernism_ (Prentice Hall, 1995) by W. V. Dunning
He gives a synthesis of both the linguistic and the formalist elements in
that painting and how they affect each other.
vance