Portrait of Giovanni Arnolfini and His Wife is Jan Van Eyck’s masterpiece in portrait work. He has been completely gotten rid of the restrained tradition in the Middle Ages, and reproduced the character’s appearance and personality traits faithfully.

Arnolfini is a real life person who was knighted by Duke Philip in 1420. Jan Van Eyck portrayed the image of a typical bourgeois, Arnolfinis’ appearance and personality. Besides, he also described the interior decoration which showed his talents in painting. In the painting, not only the gesture of Arnolfini and his wife but the space environment and props have significant meanings. Their gesture means loyalty, the husband would support his wife and the wife would be true to her husband forever. In the painting, chandelier hang on the ceiling lighted a candle, which means the way to heaven, the white headscarves means chastity and virginity. The colors also carry meanings, green stands for fertility and the red color in the bed stands for harmony. All of these symbols have religious faith in Christianity and the idea of secular, which Jan Van Eyck painted them particularity in the picture. In the middle of the figure, a mirror hangs on the wall, whose frame is circle by 10 prominent flower-shaped squares, and the square with a small circle that painted a religious story about Jesus in it. More surprising, the middle of this mirror can reflected the entire room.

Portrait of Giovanni Arnolfini and His Wife is a subtle and delicate painting which is a peculiar wonder in the world, and we can only see this kind of painting in Netherlands’s miniature. As we described, using a mirror reflection to expand the screen space is another distinctive feature of this masterpiece, all of which has a great influence and inspiration on the Dutch genre.