Devotional Paintings

Devotional Objects

Context

Jan van Eyck was a painter from the Northern Renaissance working during a crucial time of transition in the Catholic Church. In the Middle Ages, many “questions arose about the use and abuse of religious imagery” as the church became concerned that art would lead to the worship of “images rather than the ideas for which they stood." However, by the time that New York Diptych was completed in the 15th century, this concern was pushed to the side.

Rather, throughout Northern Europe, Christians “relied not on church sacrament and ceremonial for their path of spiritual enlightenment, but on more personal resources." Practitioners desired “a personal relationship with the divine” and they looked to art for help in this matter. Van Eyck happily completed many devotional objects to aid in people's prayer. These paintings brought van Eyck both financial success and spiritual salvation as it was thought that this act of creation helped bring the artist closer to God as well.

How To Use A Devotional Painting

Let's walk through van Eyck's diptych as an example of how a religious practitioner would use a devotional painting in prayer. Here we have two key scenes in the life of Christ. The viewer's eye may float around the page and occasionally engage with a specific moment, object, or person that is recognizable to them. As the viewer examines the specificities of each scene, they are invited to imagine and empathize with each unique figure’s emotional state. This could be the grieving Mary, Jesus on the Cross, or the many humans suffering in hell. The depiction of these characters walks the line between a mythological figure and a recognizable human one in the attempt to make the divine more personal.

By placing typical objects of symbolic importance in his paintings, it also called on the viewer to notice “symbols of the divine in the everyday world” such as the grace of a ray of light. The simultaneous action of the panels and packed compositions call for careful consideration of each scene. Furthermore, throughout both images and on the frames are inscriptions of biblical verses in Latin, which do even more to bring the viewer in and ask them to pay close attention to the work. These elements create a sort of “cumulative looking” wherein “only through the careful scrutiny of each detail is the narrative moment and its devotional significance fully revealed." These panels reward patient and care filled viewing.

Harbison, Craig. Jan Van Eyck: Play of Realism. Reaktion, 1995.

Smith, Jeffrey Chipps. The Northern Renaissance. Phaidon Press Limited, 2011.