A fascinating and dense monograph dedicated to the forefather of Flemish painting, which brilliantly introduces the personality of this innovative and complex genius. In Van Eyck's art, different and simultaneous stylistic expressions and two fundamental languages coexist: maximum realistic concreteness and delicate and lyrical animation. Liana Castelfranchi analyzes the figure of the famous and problematic painter with great effectiveness, as only seventeen works are attributable to him with certainty and they all belong to his last period (from 1432 to 1439). In the path traced by the author, the greatness of Jan van Eyck emerges from the complexity. A connoisseur of fabrics like a weaver, of architecture like a master builder, he was an artist who worked under the impulse of brilliant experimental solutions. Painting itself opened up with him to new explorations: from the landscape to the still life, from the new painting of devotion to the portrait. He was also a discoverer in the search for means, perfecting the oil painting technique, inaugurating the architectural perspective and trompe-l'oeil. The interior and landscape compositions, the human figure felt as part of the landscape, are all sensational novelties up to the great landscape and interior painting of the Dutch seventeenth century.