Defragmenting Jan van Eyck

Abstract

Jan van Eyck (+1441) was active in Brügge in the early 15th century. He was one of the most imporant innovators in European painting and a very significant figure of the Northern Renaissance as well as the Renaissance in general. Eyck is a figure every bit as important as some of the Italian giants of the Italian Renaissance such as Michelangelo, Raphael, and Leonardo da Vinci and his contribution is all the more important due to the fact that he was active long before any of these Italian artist. Eyck was a pioneer of realism and became famous for his meticulous portraiture and panoramic landscapes which predate the naturalistic landscapes of Leonardo da Vinci by over 50 years. Eyck was also a pioneer of another staple of modern art, the self portrait.

Jan van Eyck self portrait

The self portrait by van Eyck that resides in the National Galleries in London is very famous and needs no introduction. The work is often known as 'Portrait of a Man in a Turban' which is misnomer. In this portrait Van Eyck wears a red chaperon which was essentially a type of hood with a trailing point. Hoods like these ('gugel' in German) had been worn by lower class commoners for centuries but by the 15th century they had become fashionable with the nobility and wealthy commoner classes as well. The gugel acquired a long tail and it became fashionable to wear it such that the opening where the face normally protruded was worn over the skull, the remainder of the gugel was wrapped around the head and the tail was used to tie the whole thing together. While this looked like a turban at first sight the chaperon was a totally unrelated garment. Apart from a chaperon Eyck wears a pleated fur lined gown made of black or near black fabric. 

The portrait as it is today seems to be in a quite pitiful condition. Not only is the paint surface severely cracked ... well, cracked is an understatement, the cracks in this painting are more like small canyons, but the painting is also covered by a grey haze in wide areas. I'm not sure whether this is caused by centuries of chemical changes in the pigments used, whether it is due to the deterioration of protective varnish applied to the painting long ago or just unflattering specular light when the painting was photographed. What I do know is that I have always found van Eyck's portrait fascinating. Thus I decided one night when I had nothing better to do, that I wanted to know what the portrait would have looked like before it was so cruelly abused so I set about fixing it up digitally in Affinity Photo.

A close up of the state of paint surface fragmentation.

I first clone stamped the cracks on van Eyck's face away. Then I fixed the grey haze that had formed on many of the black areas of the painting, particularly on the shaded areas of the chaperon. Finally, in the photo I had available to me, the details of the pleats in van Ecyks gown have faded to the point that they are hardly visible so I introduced an overlay to bring them back and make them more visible. All in all I'm happy with the result which is going on my wall although I'm sure connoisseurs of renaissance art will turn their nose up at several art-historically important stains of 19th century museum curators chewing tobacco juice stains having been removed along the way. But whatever, judge for yourselves.

The current state of the portrait.

My crappy attempt at a digital cleanup.

The original photo I used can be found here: