Sacred Mysteries: John the Baptist as guide to the Ghent Altarpiece
This was in the workshop at the Ghent Museum of Fine Arts where, since 2012, the Ghent Altarpiece, that stupendous work by Hubert and Jan van Eyck, has been undergoing restoration. From Tuesday to Friday until next March, you can watch the restorers at work. I saw damaged flecks exposed on the two panels of angel musicians.
The whole polyptych, when its two wings are open, is 15ft wide and 11ft 6in high. It is now housed in the easternmost chapel, behind the high altar, of St Bavo's Cathedral in the old city of Ghent. I found visitors quietly contemplating it or taking photographs with their mobiles. I suspect that many were unaware that only four of the 12 panels on display with the wings open are the originals.
The panels are arranged in two storeys and the upper storey (Adam, Angel Choir, the Virgin Mary, God, St John the Baptist, Angel Musicians, Eve) has been replaced with good colour photographs while the panels are away being restored. Someone at the Museum of Fine Arts regretted that the former practice of replacing absent panels with black and white photographs was not still being followed.
One other panel is not original: a lower storey scene of Just Judges was stolen in 1934 and never recovered. It was replaced in 1945 by an indirect copy.
Does it matter that visitors think they are seeing the full original? I'm not sure. I certainly didn't like the introductory presentation in the crypt where visitors are invited to wear virtual reality headsets. The visuals didn't give a convincing view but a 21st-century simulacrum, like something from a Lord of the Rings film. The audio was unconvincing too, speaking of the 'adoration'of saints in the Middle Ages, which is far from fair.
One object in the crypt linked up with the Van Eycks' project in painting the altarpiece. It was a silver reliquary in the form of a head, enclosing a small relic from the skull of St John the Baptist. The cathedral was dedicated to this saint before it acquired the dedication to St Bavo, or Baaf in Flemish.
John the Baptist is shown on two prominent panels: on the back in imitation of statuary, and on the front next to the central figure of God. To be sure, the widest panel shows the mystic scene of the Lamb of God, standing upon an altar, with blood flowing from its side. But John is the guide, as it were, who introduces the viewer to the heavenly tableau. The altarpiece was inaugurated on May 6 1432, when the son of Philip the Good, Duke of Burgundy, was baptised in the church.
John is depicted not only as the baptiser but also as a citizen of heaven, flanking God, with the Virgin Mary in the place of honour on the other side. So John retains his ascetic garment of camel hair, but over it he wears a cloak of rich green hemmed with jewels. He points to God, but with his left hand holds a book open at a prophetic text that we can see includes the illuminated word Consolamini – 'Comfort ye, comfort ye my people, saith your God,' the words of Isaiah familiar from Handel's Messiah. Isaiah continues with words that fit John the Baptist as 'The voice of him that crieth in the wilderness, Prepare ye the way of the Lord.'
Part of the genius of the Van Eycks was to include the smallest detail without it swamping the overall images. Standing before the altarpiece behind its glass screen, it is impossible to discern every detail, which can be seen online. But I am glad I went to look at the altarpiece not virtually but in reality.
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