Jan van Eyck, one of the greatest
I continue my way through the museum when I bump into the room of the Flemish primitive painters. Under this epigraph, we have one of the most important chapters of European art, starting with Jan van Eyck, one of the greatest painters that ever existed and one of the first ones to use the oil technique. Probably born in Maastricht around 1390, he was the court painter of John of Bavaria, count of Holland and of Philip the Good, duque of Bourgogne. Great traveler, like me, he arrived to the Iberian Peninsula leaving traces in Valencia and Lisbon.
Through one of the shutters of the room I observe, hidden by the blinds, the hectic movement of cars and pedestrians, behind the fountain of Neptune; lovely sculpture surrounded by water. I turn around and look at the paintings of the room. Among them, another beautiful sculpture, but this one in two dimensions: the "Diptych of the Annunciation" of the author mentioned above, painted between 1435 and 1441. Small dimensions, of white tones and some ocher color and the background in black, it represents two figures, the Virgin and the Angel. Narrow lines of intense white for the folds of their clothing. It really is an exceptional painting.
