"The author presents a novel discussion of van Eyck’s patrons and his self-positioning in the cosmopolitan city of Bruges, and he includes recent archival research that fleshes out an otherwise fragmentary understanding of the artist’s life. Acres reviews the documented history of van Eyck’s life and working practice in order to shake out the sense of mystery and disguised symbolism that has permeated historical interpretations of his work. . . . By showing his works as a series of encounters, Acres demonstrates how van Eyck crafted his paintings to actively engage with the audience, a novel concept in European art, where physical and psychological boundaries were beginning to dissolve via a pervasive realism that could only be fully accomplished by the most skilled artists."

Choice

"It is a tall order indeed to consider and condense the massive literature on the work of the premier painter of the Burgundian Netherlands into a concise text of 193 pages, but Acres does this with aplomb in seven beautifully written chapters. . . Acres’s thoroughly enjoyable and readable account of Jan van Eyck and his art is the perfect introduction to this artist for students and aficionados alike."

Historians of Netherlandish Art Review

“Throughout the pages of this beautifully written book . . . Acres invites us to see what this supremely inventive artist was seeking to do with his arresting depictions, and aims to give meaning to the many astounding and delightful details of Van Eyck’s work. This is a study not only of Van Eyck as an individual, but of Van Eyck’s interests, talents, inventiveness, and commitment to communication and signification, by looking not just at, but within the art of Van Eyck.”

Beth Williamson, professor of medieval culture and chair in the history of art, University of Bristol

"By way of clever observations and pictorial analysis, this eloquently written monograph is highly commendable. It offers a concise introduction to the work of one of the most influential Renaissance artists of his time and addresses in eight chapters the career and clusters of Van Eyck's paintings. Alfred Acres presents impressively erudite perspectives and refreshingly balanced views on even some of the most persistent problems in art history like the authorship of the Ghent Altarpiece. It will be welcomed by the general reader and will inspire specialists to think anew."

Till-Holger Borchert, Director of Suermondt-Ludwig-Museum, Aachen