Die heilige Barbara

When van Eyck signed and dated this little oak panel in 1437, the great cathedral in Cologne had been a building site for nearly two centuries, its choir finished and its tower left as a half-built stump. He seems to have had exactly that in mind. Behind Saint Barbara he drew a tower still going up, and if you look at its base you find the actual work of raising it: cranes, foremen, and small figures hauling and dressing stone. Barbara herself was locked in a tower by her father, so the building is her attribute and her prison at once. The strange thing is the state of the panel. The sky is washed in a thin blue, but almost everything else stays as fine drawn line, so that we can't be sure whether van Eyck meant to paint over it or leave it exactly like this.