Light, symbols and Flemish illusion · Around 1432 -1436

In a bright church or on the shutters of the Ghent altarpiece, Van Eyck transforms the Annunciation into an architecture of symbols where every material detail carries a spiritual meaning.

Jan van Eyck, documented at the court of Burgundy and died in 1441, gives the Annunciation exceptional material density. In the panel now kept at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, painted around 1434 -1436, Gabriel and Mary stand in a church whose architecture combines several eras. Rays of light, historic pavement, inscriptions, lilies and stained glass windows construct a network of symbols linking Old and New Testaments. The words seem to come from the mouths of the figures; those of Mary are oriented towards God, as if writing itself participated in the miracle. On the closed shutters of the Ghent altarpiece, completed in 1432, the Annunciation unfolds in a domestic interior crossed by light, while prophets and sibyls appear above. In the gray, the pictorial illusion gives the figures the appearance of living sculptures. Van Eyck thus unites careful observation and complex theology. The selection "Annunciations of Jan van Eyck" notably compares The Annunciation, altarpiece of Ghent - Jan van Eyck and The Annunciation - Jan van Eyck. His reading favors composition.

At Van Eyck, no detail is only decorative: light, inscription, tiling and architecture become the silent actors of the Annunciation.