sandi_travelnut

Today's clue comes from a picture I took in Venice. The image is of an oppulent window, and in it is a small painting of a man with a vivid red "turban" on his head. Your mission is to name the artist and the name of the painting... Good Luck!

http://www.ofoto.com/I.jsp?c=v3wm5ex...&y=-1nt8n8

Scarlett

Man in a Red Turban-Jan van Eyke?

sandi_travelnut

Yes, you're correct. Thanks. That was too obvious but since I was not familiar with van Eyke, I had no idea.

Thanks!

cigalechanta

"Man wearing a red turban"

cigalechanta

Her's a great copy of it for our posters:

http://www.tiscali.co.uk/reference/e.../m0039892.html

Patrick

That's a man in a turban? Geez, I always liked that painting, but I thought it was Gertrude Stein getting out of the shower!

cigalechanta

now, now Patrick, Gertrude looked more exotic like a sumi wrestler!

http://www.metmuseum.org/Works_Of_Ar...mp;item=47.106

Patrick

Take a good look at that face again.

cigalechanta

I did many times. Look at the bone structure.
Sumi wrestler

nonnafelice

Actually, the spelling is "van Eyck". His most famous painting is "The Arnolfini Marriage" in the National Gallery in London, and the man in the red turban is the husband in that picture -- Giovanni Arnolfini.

If you want to read more about him, a really good site for information on European art history up to the 19th century is the Web Gallery of Art:
http://www.wga.hu

Scarlett

Yes, nonnafelice, van Eyk
I love the Arnolfini Marriage painting! Their long pale faces and the rich colors in the fabrics.

karens

I went to a lecture on the Arnolfini Wedding portrait at the Philadlephia Museum of Art. A woman was teaching an art class of 8th graders and passed around details of the painting. A student of hers noticed that the mirror in the back of the painting reflected the scene - but did NOT include the dog! She said it led to an interesting discussion of why he would have left out the dog, when the rest of the painting was so incredibly detailed. Some surmised that possibly, the painting was a forgery and the forger forgot the dog.

Check out a reproduction - the dog is not there!

Rebecka

nonnafelice,

I don't believe that the man in the red turban is believed to be Giovanni Arnolfini. If you look closely at the pictures, you'll notice that the men don't look at all alike. Many, many years ago when I studied Northern Renaissance art I recall that the man in the turban may well be Van Eyck himself although that is by no means certain. But he looks nothing like Arnolfini!

The Arnolfini wedding portrait is so full of symbolism that you could easily write a thesis just about that one painting.

Anyway, that's in my "not completely uneducated" opinion!

Patrick

karens, isn't the missing dog supposed to represent the doubting of the existence of GOD, which is dog spelled backwards?

KT

Actually, Patrick, the missing dog represents doubting the existnece of Dame Edna, since "hunde" is Flemish for dog, and spelled backwards its Ednuh.

Speaking of Van Eyck in Flanders, his Gent altarpiece is not exactly un-famous, either.

nonnafelice

Rebecka:
You are right -- I had the man in the red turban confused with another portrait of Giovanni Arnolfini who was wearing a similar red headpiece, although not exactly a turban. That painting is in Berlin, and you can see a reproduction at:
http://www.oldmasterpiece.com/painting-en_799.html

The red turban one is supposedly a self portrait, and it is in the National Gallery (London) along with the marriage portrait.

kismetchimera

In the "Arnolfini Wedding," the dog symbolize fidelity.

LVSue

Which, upon reflection, is absent from the marriage.

karens

Yes, some of the students in the lecturer's class thought that the absence of the dog meant that the couple was not, or was not going to be, faithful to each other. And then they thought the woman was pregnant - possibly with someone else's baby! (Yikes, these were 9th graders!)

But I have also heard that the woman/wife in the picture is not pregnant, but that is just how the style of dress was in that day.

Patrick

I vote for KT's interpretation. Much more reasonable.