“Part 3 Which was more influential upon the finished appearance of a work of art, the locality of its maker or the locality for which it was made? Discuss, examining a range of artistic commissions for more than one region of Europe.”

The key argument of this essay is that the locality of the artist and the locality of the work of art work together in giving meaning and value to the object of art. I will illustrate this argument by analysing three works of art and the context of their production.

We can use Van Eycks Arnolfini Portrait to illustrate the impact of the artists locality on the technique used in the execution of the painting. The work depicts the Lucca financier (who had established himself in Bruges as an agent of the Medici family) and his wife, in a Flemish bedchamber that is simultaneously mundane and charged with the spiritual. Even though it was commissioned by a member of the Italian community in Bruges, the painting is executed in Netherlandish technique of oil painting; the figures are represented in accordance to the northern norms of beauty unlike the idealized proportions of the Itali…(short extract)