Rolin The Virgin Church Analysis

The Virgin with Chancellor Rolin, Paris Muse du Louvre
Oil painting by the Flemish master Van Eyck, dating 1435 commissioned by Chancellor Nicolas Rolin himself shows the chancellor knelling at a prie-dieu clothed in a luxurious elaborate robe of gold lined with fur trimmings, before him the Virgin Mary and baby Christ. Between the two central figures is several arched openings revelling the detailed background showing the city of Ghent and all of the surrounding country. The detailing of the background is so finely painted every detail, human figures, animals, mountains and all daily activity from the city behind the foreground is not absent.
Standing at four feet wide and two and a half feet high, it depicts opposite the chancellor the right
Christ holds a crystal globe decorated with precious stones, a gold cross which is a symbolism for his royalty. Christ is shown blessing the Chancellor with a dignified gesture of his right hand. The donor shares this panting with no patron saint, a mystical moment in a room where there seems to be an invisible source of light that creates a twilight atmosphere. Unlike the Arnofilini weedding the ceiling is not present, scale perspective is somewhat emphasized by in which the walls and upper windows are cut off by the edge of the panel. Dimension wise the two main figures are quite large in comparison to the dimension of the painting and space depicted. Although realistic in criteria they two figures are too large, they do not create a balance with the composition of the subject matter as a whole. Their head are almost two thirds of the panel upwards. The many coloured floor tiles pattern passes through the triple arcade into the garden, revealing flowers in bloom, follow the steps up the parapet