Wikipedia:Today's featured article/September 8, 2015
Madonna in the Church is a small oil panel painting by Jan van Eyck, an Early Netherlandish artist. Probably created c. 1438–40, it shows the Virgin Mary in a Gothic cathedral holding the Child Jesus. She is presented as Queen of Heaven, wearing a jewel-studded crown and cradling a playful child who grips a hem of her dress. Light pours through the windows, illuminating the interior and culminating in two pools near her feet. Tracery at the rear of the church nave contains wooden carvings depicting episodes from her life. The work evidences the new approach and techniques applied to 15th-century oil painting but is still influenced by medieval, monumental Byzantine depictions of the Madonna; she is unrealistically large compared to her surroundings. Most art historians believe the panel began as the left wing of a since-dismantled diptych; its opposite wing was most likely a votive portrait. (Full article...)