The brothers Van Eyck — Inside the Classic

Landscape as Fingerprint

Konody treats landscape backgrounds as a kind of signature. In Jan's known works, he identifies a consistent set of details: exotic plants, snow-covered mountains, and flocks of wild geese. These recur in the Ghent Altarpiece's five central panels—the Adoration of the Lamb, the Just Judges, the Warriors of Christ, the Holy Hermits, and the Holy Pilgrims. But Konody notes a telling omission: the palmetto, a plant Jan encountered during his 1428–29 mission to Portugal, does not appear. Since the altarpiece was completed in 1432, two years after Jan's return, the absence suggests the landscapes were designed and largely painted before Jan could have included the palmetto. This points to Hubert's hand in the design, or at least to a pre-Portugal phase of Jan's work.

The Collaboration Debate

The question of how much Jan contributed before Hubert's death is central. The inscription on the altarpiece states it was begun by Hubert and finished by Jan, but Konody argues that finishing could mean anything from minor retouching to substantial completion. He cites early historians Guicciardini and van Mander as reliable witnesses to collaboration, but also acknowledges modern critics who assign unsigned works solely to Hubert. Konody's own evidence is pictorial: he identifies Jan's hand in the exotic plants and snow-mountains, but notes that their formation in the Ghent panels is less natural than in Jan's later works. This unevenness, he suggests, may reflect Hubert's original design overpainted or modified by Jan.

Birds, Plants, and Mountains as Evidence

Konody builds a chain of auxiliary evidence. The wild geese that appear in Jan's other paintings also appear in the Ghent panels, but he cautions that birds alone are not decisive. The exotic plants are stronger proof, yet even they are qualified: the absence of the palmetto is the key. The snow-mountains are described as whitish but less naturalistic than in Jan's Three Marys at the Sepulchre. Konody does not claim certainty; he presents these details as converging clues. The method is cumulative, not absolute. He invites readers to weigh the recurrence of motifs against the one telling absence, and to consider what that absence implies about the sequence of work.

Portraits and Attribution

Konody also examines the appearance of the brothers' portraits in certain panels. They are said to appear in the Just Judges, in a copy of the lost Fountain of Life, and possibly in a Crucifixion at St. Petersburg. These portraits have been used to argue for collaboration, but Konody treats them as secondary evidence. His primary focus remains on the handling of landscape and the distribution of motifs. The portraits, he implies, are suggestive but not conclusive. The real proof lies in the paint itself—in the way Jan renders a palmetto or a snow peak, and in the way those details do or do not appear in the Ghent panels.

Konody's study is best read as a detective work in art history, where the clues are botanical and meteorological. Readers should attend to the specific comparisons he draws between panels, and note where he hedges his claims. The excerpts leave the collaboration question unresolved, but they model a method of looking that is more instructive than any verdict. For those interested in attribution, the value lies not in Konody's conclusions but in his evidence.

That rainy afternoon, Konody’s careful tracing of Jan’s hand in Hubert’s unfinished snow-mountains felt almost like eavesdropping on a quiet family argument. Later, I found myself thinking about another collaborative ghost, and picked up Peter Vischer — A Closer Reading with the same magnifying glass still warm in my hand.