Rehearsal for an altarpiece
2023
11 collages
mounted
on paper
(one work)
each mounted on
45 x 55 cm
Luuk Wilmering
The lower center panel of The Ghent Altarpiece, by the van Eyck brothers, shows the tower of the Utrecht Cathedral. The Dom Tower stands just left of center, diagonally above the head of the divine Lamb and diagonally below the Holy Spirit (in the classic shape of a white dove), on the horizon.
A few years ago I found the portfolio: Der Genter Altaar der Brüder van Eyck, with large loose black and white reproductions of the Ghent Altarpiece. The publication is by Max J. Friedländer and the publisher Kurt Wolff Verlag Munich in 1920… 14 years before the theft of The Just Judges!
And not much later I came across another portfolio: The Dom of Utrecht published by C.H.E. Breijer (A. Oosthoek) in Utrecht in 1906, including large loose black-and-white photo reproductions of the interior and exterior of the Dom Church.
These two editions had to come together. Because I could immediately imagine how the models of Hubert and Jan Van Eyck did their rehearsals, between 1424 (the year of Joost Vijd's commission) and 1432 (the year of completion), inside the Dom Church in Utrecht. trained for the poses they had to adopt and in which they have now been immortalized on this famous altar.
