The Omega Factor(34)

“For your sake, and ours, Claire, I hope you do.”





Chapter 21

Ghent, Belgium

10:00 a.m.



Nick sat in Kelsey’s apartment as her fingers skipped across the keyboard and she called up the images she’d methodically scanned onto its hard drive. He’d walked over, with her computer, from his hotel immediately after talking with his boss.

The Just Judges appeared on the screen.

The oak panel was about sixty inches tall by twenty inches wide. A gradually withdrawing landscape showed a group of people on horseback making their way toward the New Jerusalem, depicted in all its glory on the main center panel, where they all would worship the Lamb of God. Expert consensus was that the ten people depicted in the Just Judges were administrators and politicians from Jan van Eyck’s time. But with the original gone there’d been no way of confirming that until now.

“The Ghent Altarpiece is twenty-four pieces that fit together front and back, akin to a double-sided jigsaw puzzle,” Kelsey said. “It’s a fairly simple construction. What’s difficult is piecing together the iconography in each panel. How they go together. What they mean in relation to the others. Nothing here was painted haphazardly. There’s a purpose to every single thing depicted. Experts have wrestled with what those purposes and meanings are for six centuries.”

“I’ve read a few articles,” he noted. “There’s a lot of speculation and debate about the whole thing.”

“To say the least. The Just Judges is probably the most complex, message-wise, of the twelve. Each of the ten riders most likely expressed a particular story. We know van Eyck worked from a plan. What that was, though, has been impossible to determine. It’s truly in-the-eye-of-the-beholder. What we do know is that the altarpiece is loaded with hidden detail and symbolism. In its entirety, when opened, it’s a mystical poem of the Eucharist and the sacrifices of the Lamb, all occurring with Christians, the church, and the world adoring. Eleven of the panels have been totally mapped and minutely studied. Let me show you an example.”

She tapped the screen and called up the image of a seated bearded man holding a scepter in one hand, his right fingers outstretched and pointed skyward. He occupied the top spot above the center panel in a clear place of prominence.

“Many think this is God the Father, overseeing the story of salvation,” she said. “But he wears a papal tiara, there are no wounds in his hands, and he’s wearing shoes, which usually doesn’t connote Christ.”

He saw the contradictions. “More of that mysticism?”

“Probably. It’s a magnificent image. But let me show you the genius of van Eyck.”

She tapped the keyboard and zeroed in on the cylindrical glass scepter that the figure held in his left hand. The detail on the enlarged image was amazing. Nick could see creases in the skin, cracks in the fingernails, the crisp folds in the cloth. Like a magnified photograph instead of paint with brushes.

“If all that is only revealed at high resolution,” he said, “how did van Eyck paint it in the fifteenth century?”

“He was a trained miniaturist, skilled in the technique. Look at the scepter.”

He focused on the translucent image.

With paint, van Eyck had created a reflective surface where light entered the transparent medium, then a portion bounced back through a long white line on the right side of the staff, creating a reflection in the pigment. Even the skin from the fingers was visible on its back side, looking through the staff. Incredible. He had to keep telling himself that this was not a photo.

“Jan van Eyck elevated the use of oil paint to a whole new level,” she said. “The entire altarpiece is filled with this type of minute detail. Only now, after a thorough cleaning, and with the use of digital technology have we been able to reveal it all.”

“And you’re sure what you found was the original Just Judges?”

“There’s no question. I had the original.”

“So why would someone burn it?”

“I’ve been thinking about that all night. There’s no definitive answer. But there are legends.”

Now he was intrigued.

“The Ghent Altarpiece, like the Mona Lisa and some of the other great works of art, has always been surrounded by riddles. Outwardly, and in its simplest form, it’s an ecclesiastical polyptych, a retable, an architectural feature set up at the back of an altar. Religious art. But, like I said, the notion of an abstract or a timeless painting was regarded as absurd in the fifteenth century. Art in that time period included messages, however subtle they might be. And many people have read a lot into this particular polyptych.”

He listened as she explained how some found unmistakable references to the crusades, the Knights Templar, Teutonic Knights, even supposed incantations attributed to a variety of pagan origins.

“But it’s all nonsense,” she said. “Look at this.”

And she clicked on the Knights panel depicted on the website, the one directly adjacent to the Just Judges. Nine horsemen in battle gear, three wearing crowns, were riding toward the center panel and the adoration. She zeroed in on the lead horseman, wearing silver armor and sporting a shield with a cross of blood. At the current resolution the cross on the shield appeared solid red. But as she magnified the image, letters began to form in the red paint.