In response to your questions on the Jan van Eyck painting post:

His name is Tim Jones. He’s a friend and fellow teacher (history) at the charter school we’re at north of Boston (ibktim@gmail.com):

Come on, take a stab at it. You can, no doubt, answer question number #1!

1.) She’s way preggos!

2.) He’s meant to be seen as a more serious type. Look at the expression on his face as well as all of the dark colors he is dressed in, especially in juxtaposition with his wife in the bright green. They are also clearly well off given the richness of the fabrics they are both wearing and the and the amount of jewelry they each have on.

3.) Given that I cannot read Latin, I have no idea what this means and can’t guess why it’s there . . .

4.) The painting might say something about the artist’s role in portraying the world while keeping mostly out of view; since we can actually see the artist (vaguely) in the mirror in the background between them. He appears in front of them and as a sort of blue mass in the middle of the mirror.

That’s my guess as a completely untrained viewer of art . . .

October 16, 2009 2:36 PM