Flanders, new futuristic house of Van Eyck's Mystic Lamb opens in Ghent

It opened its doors yesterday, March 25, 2021, at the new Visitor Centre of St. Bavon Cathedral in Ghent, home of the Polyptych of the Mystical Lamb, a 1432 masterpiece by Jan van Eyck (an in-depth look at the work here, a four-part feature on its recent restoration here). After the restoration, the altarpiece finds a new location in the Chapel of the Sacrament: there has long been debate in the past about the location of Jan van Eyck’s polyptych, and there has been a return to it following the intervention. Indeed, the need was to find a space that could ensure the preservation of the painting and enhance the public experience. Therefore, a custom-made glass case was made that offers the necessary guarantees (and moreover allows the work to be viewed on both sides), and a location was found for the polyptych that not only allows the best conservation conditions, but also allows the public the best visiting opportunities and ensures the right balance between the religious function of the cathedral and its nature as a monument that attracts many tourists each year.

Visitors will access the Chapel of the Sacrament (also considered a suitable place by virtue of its size: in fact, it is the largest chapel in the building, and, at six meters high, it is spacious enough to accommodate the new shrine and allow for a quiet visit) from the Crypt, which underwent a recent renovation (with expansion), in which the new Visitor Centre has been set up. From here, a new tour will start that will allow the public to retrace the entire history of the Polyptych through technology that makes use of augmented reality. The new location will also allow thePolyptych to be opened and closed twice a day: they will attend the opening in the morning, and the closing in the late afternoon.

Jan van Eyck and Hubert van Eyck, Polyptych of the Mystical Lamb (dated 1432; oil on panel, 350 x 470 cm open, 350 x 223 cm closed; Ghent, Cathedral of St. Bavon). Ph. Credit KIK-IRPA

The new location of the polyptych

The new location of the polyptych

The new Visitor Centre

Prior to the Covid, Ben De Vriendt, Project Leader of St. Bavon Cathedral, let it be known that the church was visited annually by one million people, one hundred thousand of whom were arriving just to see the Polyptych of the Mystic Lamb, and yet they were concentrated in a confined space, the Villa chapel, where the work was previously located: visitors were given an audio guide and were all stationed together in the same space, creating overcrowded conditions. The visitors’ experience, as a result, limited the full appreciation of the painting. These considerations also gave rise to the idea of creating a special route to prepare visitors before their encounter with the Polyptych of the Mystical Lamb, so that they would then be free to focus exclusively on Jan van Eyck’s masterpiece.

The tour begins, as anticipated, in the crypt, where visitors are provided with a personal digital virtual assistant, available in nine languages, which guides them through the chapels acquainting them with the history of the cathedral and the polyptych. The visit takes place through augmented reality viewers (the Microsoft Ololens device was chosen as it was considered the most suitable for the type of itinerary), thanks to which visitors will see their surroundings but with 3D images superimposed on reality: they can therefore continue to interact normally with other people, but thanks to the viewers they will be able to see “layers” of additional images, which will evoke the history of the cathedral and the Polyptych. There are 150 viewers that St. Bavon Cathedral has on hand, and for those who are unwilling or unable to use the viewers, the cathedral will also provide tablets set up for the augmented reality experience.

The tour will last forty minutes: during the tour, visitors will learn about the various stages of the cathedral’s construction, delve into the figure of Jan van Eyck, be introduced to van Eyck’s workshop, and learn everything there is to know about the iconography of the polyptych. The Visitor Center will be open daily from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., and they will be able to enter with a ticket costing 12 euros.

The crypt of St. Bavon Cathedral.

Visit with augmented reality viewers

Visit with augmented reality viewers

Visit with augmented reality viewers

The statements

“The idea for the Visitor Centre,” explain Ludo Collin and Ben De Vriendt, Rector and Project Leader, respectively, of St. Bavon Cathedral, “was born at the beginning of the restoration of the Mystic Lamb Polyptych in 2012. We then wondered whether it would be right for a work of this importance to be shown to the general public, as it had been since 1986, in a very small space at the back of the cathedral. So we decided to create a new project that would be the culmination of the initiative on the Flemish masters. We wanted to make a visitor’s center suitable for a dynamic cathedral. The crypt seemed to us the ideal place to give information about the Mystic Lamb to visitors. Because of architectural limitations, we opted for a new technology, augmented reality, which applies an additional layer to reality in the form of 3D holograms. You see other people, you talk but numerous objects appear around you. There is a special tour for families with children, more lighthearted than the Master of Details tour, which focuses instead on details and anecdotes. Museums often offer virtual reality, but in this case augmented reality is at the heart of the experience. It is a revolutionary and innovative proposition. One picks up an augmented reality viewer, follows the path receiving various information, and exits the crypt to arrive at the focal point of the visit, the Chapel of the Blessed Sacrament, which houses the Mystic Lamb in altarpiece form, as it once was. Access used to be problematic for people with walking problems, the disabled, and families with strollers. Now the various floors of the cathedral are accessible to all thanks to the construction of a stairway that connects the four levels without barriers. Restoration work began in 2005 and started with the restoration of the choir, which took about 4 years. The restoration of the tower also took about 3-4 years, then moved on to the apsidioles and the crypt. The crypt is already ready, while the apsidioles will be after the summer vacations.”

“The project on the Flemish Masters has reached its culmination with the opening of the Visitor Centre in St. Bavon Cathedral,” says Peter De Wilde, CEO of Visit Flanders, the Flanders Tourist Board, “and the presentation of the Polyptych of the Mystic Lamb is in my opinion the extraordinary result of many years of work. At the beginning of our program, we had Rubens, of course, one of our major ambassadors, followed in 2019 by Bruegel, and now, clearly, Van Eyck. The whole point of our talk is to say that you can find Flemish Masters in international museums, they have always found a place there, but if you really want to get to know them, then you have to come to Flanders, you have to walk through the streets that Rubens also walked, you have to see the landscapes painted by Bruegel, and now you also have to come to Ghent to see why Jan van Eyck and his brother Hubert were so inspired to create one of the most famous masterpieces in the world. Visit Flanders has done everything in its power to help the cathedral make the presentation of the work as accessible as possible, and we hope that in the years to come art lovers from all over the world will be able to experience the Mystic Lamb polyptych in its original location in the cathedral.”

Flanders, new futuristic house of Van Eyck's Mystic Lamb opens in Ghent

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