Jan van Eyck

Van Eyck was court painter to Philip the Good, Duke of Burgundy, and lived mainly in Bruges. He did not invent oil paint, but he exploited its transparency as no one had before, and is regarded as the father of Early Netherlandish painting.

His work is almost unbelievably detailed. He often signed his frames with the motto “As I can”, an unusual assertion of artistic identity for his time.