In this lecture Alison Smith looks at the ideas behind the exhibition Reflections: van Eyck and the Pre-Raphaelites which she co-curated with Susan Foister and is currently showing at the National Gallery in London. The exhibition focuses on Jan van Eyck’s Arnolfini Portrait which entered the National Gallery in 1842 where it exerted a powerful influence on the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood who launched their radical style of painting in 1848. The painting informed the Pre-Raphaelites belief in first-hand observation, their innovative approach to colour and technique and the ways in which ordinary objects could carry symbolic meaning. Above all, as the talk will demonstrate, the convex mirror placed at the heart of the Arnolfini Portrait introduced them to new ways of representing real and illusory space. Starting with the fascinating history of van Eyck’s portrait and how it came to be acquired by the National Gallery, Alison Smith will look at some of the paintings that feature in Reflections to show how this early Netherlandish painting inspired some of the most compelling works associated with the Pre-Raphaelite movement.

In English without simultaneous translation.