The Van Eyck Lover's Great Flemish Pilgrimage

Ghent is the birthplace of the Northern Renaissance revolution. You aren’t here for a quick look; you are here for an audience with the Adoration of the Mystic Lamb. After its meticulous restoration, the colours are so vivid they feel dangerous. Walk through the cathedral’s hushed nave and enter the climate-controlled chamber where the polyptych resides. When the panels are open, the sheer scale of the vision — the lush botanical accuracy of the landscape and the choral intensity of the angels — is overwhelming.

Don’t rush the experience. Spend your time tracing the reflections in the knights’ armour and the individual hairs of the lamb. After the cathedral, head to the MSK (Museum of Fine Arts) to see how the city continues to celebrate the man who turned oil paint into a miracle. Ghent is a city that understands the value of a slow burn; it doesn’t reveal its secrets all at once.

Antwerp is a city of grand scale, but your focus here is on the minute. At the Royal Museum of Fine Arts (KMSKA), seek out Saint Barbara. It is an enigma: a detailed underdrawing on a wooden panel, partially coloured, that offers a rare behind-the-scenes look at Van Eyck’s process. The precision of the gothic tower being built behind her is mind-boggling, showing that Jan was as much an architect of the canvas as he was a painter.

In the same room, the Madonna at the Fountain provides a stark contrast. It is small, jewel-like, and intensely private. The deep blues and the lush garden background demonstrate how he could pack an entire universe into a panel no larger than a sheet of paper.

Dresden’s Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister is home to the Dresden Triptych, a portable altarpiece designed for private prayer. It is so small that you have to lean in close — almost uncomfortably so — to see the microscopic details of the oriental rug beneath the Virgin’s feet and the tiny carvings on her throne. It feels like a secret meant only for you.

Standing in the rebuilt splendour of Dresden, this triptych feels like a survivor. It represents the height of International Gothic transitioning into the Renaissance, where every frame and hinge was part of the theological narrative.

Turin offers a shift in medium. At the Palazzo Madama, you can view pages from the Turin-Milan Hours. These illuminated manuscript pages are among the earliest works attributed to Van Eyck. Even in miniature, his hand is unmistakable — the way light ripples across water in the Baptism of Christ miniature changed the course of landscape painting forever.

After the manuscript, visit the Galleria Sabauda for the St. Francis Receiving the Stigmata. It is a rugged, rocky vision that feels entirely different from his domestic interiors, showing the artist’s range in depicting the wildness of nature.

The National Gallery houses the celebrity of the Van Eyck world: The Arnolfini Portrait. You’ve seen it in a thousand textbooks, but nothing prepares you for the convex mirror on the back wall, which reflects the entire room — including the artist himself. The depth of the green in the bride’s dress is so saturated it seems to glow from within.

While you’re here, look for the Léal Souvenir and the Portrait of a Man in a Turban, often thought to be a self-portrait. The man’s weary, intelligent eyes seem to follow you — a silent greeting from 1433.

This is the deep cut for the true fanatic. Sibiu is a gorgeous, medieval Saxon city in Transylvania with houses that have eyes — unique roof vents that peer out across the cobbled squares. The Brukenthal National Museum holds the Portrait of a Man with a Blue Chaperon. It is the only Van Eyck in Romania, and because it’s off the main tourist trail, you will likely have the painting entirely to yourself.

The man holds a ring, suggesting he was a jeweller or a groom. In the quiet of this provincial museum, the painting feels like a personal discovery — a reward for travelling to the edge of the map.