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Further Notes on ALS ICH CAN

Further Notes on ALS ICH CAN 4 DIRK DE VOS Further Notes on ALS ICH CAN While Jan van Eyck's motto has never been the subject of real controversy (Note 1), it has never been entirely satisfactorily explained either, recent interpretations notwith- standing (Note 2). Its strange spellirzg and brevity (Note 3) raise the question of whether it might not have a second, hidden meaning. Scheller has remarked that in its use o_f alternate Greek and Latin letters it is related to the practice of Medieval copyists of con- cealing their names at the ends of texts in a 'scholarly manner, so that it seems logical to infer, in the context of-other inscriptions by Van Eyck which were also deliberately conceived in the line of the l documentari tradition, that the same holds good for this motto too. lnj'act it is not so di fficult to see the motto via its Greek transliteration as an anagrarn of the name Jan van Eyck ( 1'`vate All the letters are present except tlve k' and the but these can easily be explained as an inversion of the Greek labda. The motto proves to contain no other letters than precisely those required to constitute an anagram of Van Eyck's signature as it appears irn Flemish on the Portrait of Jan de Leeuw in Vienna. Moreover, the strange addition-of the H in ICH can at present be accounted for quite easily since the H is seen as the Greek eta, standing for the letter E from Eyck. The whole device is most ingenious) for the motto has a completely Greek guise, while it can nonetheless be read - with a bit cfgoodwill- in Flemish. The compilation of a motto as an anagram of one's own name seems, indeed, not to have been uncommon in rhetorician circles in 15th-century Bruges. As Scheller has already pointed out, the IXH could also refer to the monogram of Christ (Note 5), while Dhanens thinks the design of the motto may have been determined by inscriptions on Greek-Byzantine icons(Note 6). A_further point is that the text on the cross in the main scene of the Ghent Altarpiece is very like the tripartite form oJJan)s motto. This makes it seem very likely that the motto also lzas an, as yet undeciphered, religious content (Note 7). http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png Oud Holland - Quarterly for Dutch Art History Brill

Further Notes on ALS ICH CAN

Oud Holland - Quarterly for Dutch Art History , Volume 97 (1): 4 – Jan 1, 1983

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Publisher
Brill
Copyright
© 1983 Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, The Netherlands
ISSN
0030-672x
eISSN
1875-0176
DOI
10.1163/187501783X00073
Publisher site
See Article on Publisher Site

Abstract

4 DIRK DE VOS Further Notes on ALS ICH CAN While Jan van Eyck's motto has never been the subject of real controversy (Note 1), it has never been entirely satisfactorily explained either, recent interpretations notwith- standing (Note 2). Its strange spellirzg and brevity (Note 3) raise the question of whether it might not have a second, hidden meaning. Scheller has remarked that in its use o_f alternate Greek and Latin letters it is related to the practice of Medieval copyists of con- cealing their names at the ends of texts in a 'scholarly manner, so that it seems logical to infer, in the context of-other inscriptions by Van Eyck which were also deliberately conceived in the line of the l documentari tradition, that the same holds good for this motto too. lnj'act it is not so di fficult to see the motto via its Greek transliteration as an anagrarn of the name Jan van Eyck ( 1'`vate All the letters are present except tlve k' and the but these can easily be explained as an inversion of the Greek labda. The motto proves to contain no other letters than precisely those required to constitute an anagram of Van Eyck's signature as it appears irn Flemish on the Portrait of Jan de Leeuw in Vienna. Moreover, the strange addition-of the H in ICH can at present be accounted for quite easily since the H is seen as the Greek eta, standing for the letter E from Eyck. The whole device is most ingenious) for the motto has a completely Greek guise, while it can nonetheless be read - with a bit cfgoodwill- in Flemish. The compilation of a motto as an anagram of one's own name seems, indeed, not to have been uncommon in rhetorician circles in 15th-century Bruges. As Scheller has already pointed out, the IXH could also refer to the monogram of Christ (Note 5), while Dhanens thinks the design of the motto may have been determined by inscriptions on Greek-Byzantine icons(Note 6). A_further point is that the text on the cross in the main scene of the Ghent Altarpiece is very like the tripartite form oJJan)s motto. This makes it seem very likely that the motto also lzas an, as yet undeciphered, religious content (Note 7).

Journal

Oud Holland - Quarterly for Dutch Art HistoryBrill

Published: Jan 1, 1983

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