Where else do you get to see other people so intent on what they are looking at, and with great light spilling on the subjects and plain unobstructed backgrounds?
And then of course there is the art itself.
The information panel to Portrait of a Man by Jan van Eyck, 1433 says that at the top of the frame is the phrase ‘As I can’ and that it might be a self portrait.
For me, the lesson in the portrait, self-portrait or not, is that the person is a complete person gazing right at us. The person who painted it knew what he knew with all the capability of consciousness that people have today. And that’s quite a thing. We are not far away from that man. 1433 to 2025 is a hairsbreadth.
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