Essay Database

Jan Van Eyck's "Man in a Red Turban" is a completely secular portrait without the layer of religious interpretation common to Flemish painting at that time. In this work the image of a living individual apparently required no religious purpose for being, only a personal one. As human beings confronted themselves in painted portraits, they objectified themselves as people. In this confrontation, the man van Eyck portrayed looks directly at the viewer, or perhaps, at …

…enough to afford a portrait for the great Jan Van Eyck would allow him to paint weathered skin, bloodshot eyes, and stubble on his chin. This would have been seen as ugly or not desirable. I believe that Jan van Eyck would have bloodshot eyes and wouldn't have time to shave because he really didn't care about his physical appearance; he really cared about painting the most realistic depiction of the human form ever seen.