The world of painting always carries many secrets. The paintings tell several stories at once and shed light on dark times. The study of the Ghent Altarpiece, namely the fragment with the "Lamb of God", showed that in 1432 it looked completely different, and this is not the strangest thing.
This painting was painted by the brothers Hubert and Jan van Eyck. The last restoration of the lamb made it more "human", many connoisseurs were indignant then, as the animal began to look completely different. However, an analysis by scientists from the University of Antwerp proved that the restorers were right to "remake" the lamb.
In the 1950s, the lamb got four ears, in 2019 it has changed a lot.
X-rays and infrared light showed that the van Eyck brothers originally painted the lamb more like the modern version than the one before. Moreover, they discovered that the canvas had been restored three times!
Researchers noticed evidence that parts of the head and body were painted over as early as the 1950s, but at the time, technology couldn't determine how significant the changes were.
Now scientists have been able to turn to modern methods in order to track the evolution of this work. So they used X-rays to detect mercury, which is present in cinnabar paint. This revealed the original location of some parts of the lamb.
“In the past, scholars could not learn the story of the Lamb of God, as it was written primarily in white lead ink. By combining the two techniques of spectroscopy, we learned in great detail how the appearance of the central figure of the Ghent Altarpiece changed,”the researchers said.
As a result, scientists have identified three versions of the lamb: the original version by the Van Eyck brothers, the second version with larger, square hind limbs (either modified by the original artists or one of their contemporaries), and the third version from the 16th century.
Promotional video:
Four versions of the painting.
The latest update was the most significant, the researchers say, and resulted in changes to the shape of the head and face. For example, the original lamb had smaller nostrils, and they were also higher. In the original, the eyes were looking forward and below, and the infrared light also showed dark lines below, which indicate "pursed" lips. According to researchers, van Eyck's lips were more noticeable and human-like than those that were written in the 16th century. The ears have also changed, initially they were higher, and in the 16th century they were painted over the gilded rays of the halo.
