Reading Art: Understanding Iconography

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Reading Art: Understanding Iconographic

I chose a painting from Jan Van Eyck, a Portrait of Giovanni Arnolfini and his Wife. This portrait hold a lot of symbolic meaning, and a lot of hidden symbols. The four roles that the artist Jan Van Eyck uses in the portrait ``The Arnolfini Marriage`` is faithfulness, purity, Loyalty, and love. In order to incorporate deeper meaning to his portrait Jan Van Eyck uses oil to paint this beautiful painting. The main message in this picture I believe is marriage, which represents vow, fidelity, purity, love. The first thing that caught my eye in this picture wa Giovanni and his wife, the way the are richly dressed represents wealth. I move to the background of the picture where I notice a window behind Giovanni with bright day light which maybe is a symbol of a new day or a new life. It is interesting to see that Giovanni stands next to the window while his wife stands next to the bed, maybe this is a symbol of him in the outer world and her obligation of a wife at home. I also notice Giovanni looks straight into the portrait while his wife looks down, this symbol of sexism. The colors used in the painting are very classic and traditional such as marriage. The artist used a dog to represent the symbol of love and fidelity next to them while they both hold hands which also represents loyalty and vow. A candle is also used to represent witness of their marriage. I believe Jan Van Eyck used more then four roles but this portrait hold true meaning while giving the viewer many things to think about while representing the importance of what this portrait means. Jan van Eyck was definitely very creative on how he showed his message to his viewers. In the picture there is also a mirror that reflects their imagines maybe this represents maybe this represents time as it passes through the mirror. This painting holds a lot of hidden symbols. But the main message in this portrait is