DOMESTIC PORTRAIT CHALLENGE:
A photographic interpretation of the painting Arnolfini Portrait by Jan Van Eyck
Arnolfini Portrait by Jan van Eyck
Backstory:
This is one of the most classical painting of all time done by Jan Van Eyck and I have chosen this particular painting because of its classical genre. Being constantly surrounded by modern designs with either tints minimalism or structuralism, I wanted to experiment and explore a different genre altogether.
Deciding that I wanted to capture my rawest reactions to the painting, I didn’t carry out any sort of research behind the artist or the painting. With only the information provided from the brief, I closely observed the details and the artists play with the aspect of ‘attention to detail’. Even-though, at the first look the painting conveys simple and clear ideas of Romanticism, Renaissance and “Courtship”, but when looked closely, the way the painting has been depicted with the amount of detail it adds a whole new dynamic to the painting. The play with perspectives and angles makes the viewer question the reality of the scenario, the reality of the reflected image from the mirror.
"Reflection":
I was heavily mesmerised with how the painter has accurately depicted the reflection, it looked too real. It seemed to me that the more curious the viewer was, the more it revealed, gradually telling a story. Thus the question of reality and the reflection came to my mind and like the artist I wanted to create my own spin of the painting and play around with this idea of “Reality vs Reflection”.
Breakdown:
Alike the painting, my photos are just normal pictures of my room, but the more you look closely the more you’ll see how things have changed between the “Reality” and the “Reflection” overtime. I have also experimented with ‘time’ to add a more personal touch to hit the objective of it being a ‘domestic self portrait’. The objects are transitioned to be in the ‘reflection’ and in the ‘reality’ through out the day to show my transition of thoughts and worry though out the day. The objects are used as a symbolism to represent me, how my human thoughts seem too realistic at day and wishful at night as the objects are present in the reflection and not in the ‘reality’. As the objects appear on different places it resembles an abstract portrait.
