• Title: Jan Van Eyck: Renaissance Realist
• Author: Till-Holger Borchert
• Paperback: 96 pages
• Publisher: Taschen; Ill edition (June 1, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 3822856878
• ISBN-13: 978-3822856871

I found this book at the Taschen store at the Los Angeles Farmer’s Market; one of the few non-dog-friendly places we’ve found in LA so far. We both love Taschen books, and when I saw this I had to have it; we’ve seen a lot of his work in our travels in Europe. Jan van Eyck is one of the early Netherlandish artists. His style is very realistic. He brought back painting in oils from obscurity, and apparently improved on the old Medieval techniques quite a bit. In many ways van Eyck led to the art of Renaissance Italy.

This book is sumptuously illustrated. The essays, of which there are five, are all excellent and each deals with an important aspect of van Eyck’s work and life.

Above is a reproduction of one of van Eyck’s works – you can see my photo of the same work from the Koninklijk Museum voor Schone Kunsten at this page in my travelogue.