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The Sparkling Stones in the Ghent Altarpiece and the Fountain of Life of Jan Van Eyck, Reflecting Cusanus and Jan Van Ruusbroec

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The Sparkling Stones in the Ghent Altarpiece and the Fountain of Life of Jan Van Eyck, Reflecting Cusanus and Jan Van Ruusbroec Studies in Spirituality 24, 155-177. doi: 10.2143/SIS.24.0.3053495 © 2014 by Studies in Spirituality. All rights reserved. WOLFGANG CHRISTIAN SCHNEIDER THE SPARKLING STONES IN THE GHENT ALTARPIECE AND THE FOUNTAIN OF LIFE OF JAN VAN EYCK, REFLECTING CUSANUS AND JAN VAN RUUSBROEC For Lothar Graf zu Dohna, on the occasion of his ninetieth birthday, May 4th, 2014 SUMMARY – The rich use of precious stones in the panels of the Ghent Altarpiece is due to the presence of stones in the Rivers of Para- dise (Gn 2:10-14: onyx and bedolah, i.e. sardonyx or carnelian and jet) and in the goshen of the High Priest in Exodus (28.15 to 21), which inspired the description of the heavenly Jerusalem in the Apocalypse (21.9 to 21). Whereas within the Fountain of Life in the Prado, which since new investigations is to be ascribed to Jan van Eyck, on the side of the Synagogue all stones are concentrated in the Goshen, on the side of the Ecclesia the precious stones are spread over the spiritual and secular leaders. This later moment is maintained in the Ghent Altarpiece, in which Jan van Eyck in addition to the biblical sources picks up state- ments of Jan van Ruusbroec. Citing the Apocalypse the Flemish mystic spoke of a sparkling stone, which is given to the one, who transcends all things, and in it he gains light and truth and life. Exactly that was painted by Jan van Eyck. Mysticism is widely seen as a matter of the word: the figurative seems to be at best an illustration of what is said about the mystical appearances. In fact, how- ever, in the visualization of spiritual perception and artistic forming, there is a communication and exchange between the pictorial and the linguistic. To illustrate their thoughts mystics draw on the figurative world of objects, while texts enter in the visual design and the forming of thinking and meditating painters. Of special importance in this regard is the interrelationship between the pictorial works of the painter Jan van Eyck and the texts of the Bible and the theological writings of Jan van Ruusbroec and Nicholas of Cusa: All of them deal with precious sparkling stones in a spiritual way. 97549.indb 155 19/12/14 08:50 156 WOLFGANG CHRISTIAN SCHNEIDER THE JEWELS AND PEARLS OF JAN VAN EYCK The brilliance in the representation of the jewels and pearls in the Ghent Altar- piece by Jan van Eyck1 has often been maintained, but the semantic aspects of these precious stones have remained largely undiscussed. Likewise, the inequal- ity in the distribution of the stones on the panels and their location have not been specifically addressed. This is surprising, because none of the painters of the 15th century depicts stones and jewels to such an extent as Jan van Eyck.2 The abundant presentation of precious stones in the robes of highranking senior church officials could first be understood as an indication of the wealth and the jewelry cult of the Burgundian court, which is reflected even in a reli- gious context. But that may not be enough, because it cannot explain the many gems in the fountain basin of the Adoration of the Lamb in the Ghent Altar- piece. With particular intensity Jan van Eyck paints precious jewelry in the upper register of the interior view of the Altarpiece; only in the panels of Adam and Eve are they missing. In addition to that, precious stones and pearls are often to be found in the middle panel of the lower register: especially in the trappings of worshippers of the Lamb. Finally, isolated precious stones can be seen on the two side panels on both sides of the lower register, which form one contiguous scene.3 1 For the discussion of perception and comprehension of the picture order in the Ghent Altar- piece, the vexed question of the authorship ‘Jan or Hubert van Eyck’ and their shares of the existing work is irrelevant; for simplicity, in the following Jan is referred to as the painter. For details see: Elisabeth Dhanens, Hubert and Jan van Eyck, Antwerp 1980; Volker Her- zner, Jan van Eyck und der Genter Altar, Worms 1995. Both offer more literature. See also Till Holger Borchert, Le siècle de Van Eyck: Le monde méditerranéen et les primitifs flamands 1430-1530, Bruges 2002; Harold van de Perre, Van Eyck: L’agneau mystique, s.l. [Paris] 1996; Dana Goodgal, The iconography of the Ghent Altarpiece, Philadelphia (PA) 1981. – The present text is based upon studies done while the author was a research fellow at the Royal Flemish Academy of Belgium for Sciences and Arts in Brussels. I would like to thank Marc de Mey (Royal Academy), Inigo Bocken (Nijmegen) and Francis Jarman (Hildesheim) for their kind support. 2 See e.g. Marc de Mey, ‘Mastering ambiguity’, in: M. Turner (Ed.), The artful mind: Cognitive science and the riddle of human creativity, New York 2006, 271-304; Idem, ‘The lines and the lusters of light’, in: M. de Mey, M.P.J. Martens & C. Stroo (Eds.), Vision & material: Interac- tion between art and science in Jan van Eyck’s time, Brussels 2012, 29-63; Wolfgang Christian Schneider, ‘Reflections as an object of vision in the Ghent Altarpiece’, in: De Mey et al., Vision & material, 171-181. 3 This unity is evident from the foremost horse Milites Christi, whose hindquarters are visible on the board of iudices. Similarly, the tree in the middle ground joins the panels of the Ere- miti and Peregrini. 97549.indb 156 19/12/14 08:50 THE SPARKLING STONES 157 THE APOCALYPSE AND ITS STONES A first access to the content of the precious stones is given by the theme of the altarpiece, which is indicated in the central panel of the lower register: The Adoration of the Lamb, a scene from the Apocalypse. In fact, the text of the Apocalypse contains a longer passage that refers to gems (Ap 21:9-21): One of the angels, who has previously poured the cup of bitterness upon the earth, appears to the writer of the book, removes him and shows him the bride of the Lamb: the holy city of Jerusalem, ‘Her light was like a most precious stone, like a jasper, clear as crystal’ (21:11). And its wall was made of jasper, and the city was pure gold, like clear glass. The foundations of the wall of the city were garnished with all manner of precious stones. The first foundation was jasper, the second sapphire, the third chalced- ony, the fourth emerald, the fifth onyx, the sixth carnelian, the seventh chrysolite, the eighth beryl, the ninth topaz, the tenth chrysoprase, the eleventh jacinth, the twelfth amethyst. And the twelve gates were twelve pearls, each gate was of one pearl, and the market square of the city was pure gold, like transparent glass. (21:18-21) This description undoubtedly outlines the outer frame of the meaningful whole envisaged by Jan van Eyck. But the painter does not intend to set a city before our eyes: only in the distant background of the worship of the Lamb are municipal buildings visible, which may be interpreted as Jerusalem. Regarding the fullness of the semantic implications with which Jan van Eyck has enriched the paintings of the upper register4 it seems to be necessary to take into account the depth of the narrative in the Book of Revelation, which as such forms part of a far-reaching network of statements all over the Bible. It should be possible to explain the content of the precious stones and their reflections in the Ghent altarpiece in terms of their references to late medieval mysticism. PRECIOUS STONES IN GENESIS The first context in which a precious stone appears in the Bible is in Genesis. The description of Paradise mentions the four rivers that irrigate the garden of Eden and says that the first of them, Pishon, flows around the land of Havilah 4 See for that the studies in the volume Wolfgang Christian Schneider et al. (Eds.), ‘Videre et videri coincidunt’: Theorien des Sehens in der ersten Hälfte des 15. Jahrhunderts, Münster 2010, especially Schneider, ‘Betrachtung, Aufstieg und Ordnung’, 209-236; as well as Schneider, ‘Die Deesis des Genter Altars’, 205-223. 97549.indb 157 19/12/14 08:50 158 WOLFGANG CHRISTIAN SCHNEIDER where precious gold is to be found, but also bedolah and the schoham (Gn 2: 10-14). The interpretation of these words is difficult and must have become insecure already in early times. In the current English translations for bedolah the Vulgate version of the word is usually chosen: Bedellium; most German Bibles interpret it as ‘Bedellium-Harz’, whereas in the Dutch Bible of 1637 and the later ones ‘bedolah’ remained untranslated. In Hebrew ‘bedolah’ is usually understood as ‘gum resin’. But this interpretation is highly questionable; on the one hand because bedolah in the Hebrew text is combined with a word mean- ing ‘stone’ and because it is then paralleled to a second word explicitly marked as a stone, which is generally understood as ‘onyx’. On the other hand, it must be seen that the Jewish translators of the Scriptures in Alexandria translate bedolah with anthrax. Anthrax occurs in the LXX only in two other places, and both of them apply the same fact (Ex 28:18 and Ex 36:18 [Vulgate 39.11]), the description of the stones of the Goschen of the High Priest. Here Anthrax can- not mean ‘gum resin’, because there it explicitly refers to jewels – and indeed all other words name precious stones, and all of them bear names cut into them.
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