235
25.2 Notwithstanding “Donderdag Veggiedag”
In Ghent proper, since 2009, the city has adopted Thursdays as their Veggie Day
(“Donderdag Veggiedag”), in which the aldermen urge all residents to go vegetarian.
8
Indeed, Thursdays in Ghent witness “over 90 restaurants, 20 hotels and 50% of
the city’s population observing vegetarianism for the day.” Moreover, “Ghent hosts
the most vegetarian restaurants per capita of any city in the world,”
9
with the exception of Pushkar, in Rajasthan—a vegetarian city.
Such reforms are not lost in the maelstrom of quanta, but are certainly unavailing
within the overall European Union context, thus far. But then the van Eycks’ “Mystic
Lamb” is at the heart of both false consciousness and suspect statistics. The winged
polyptych of 20 panels (one of which was stolen and never recovered, in keeping
with the artwork’s fame for having witnessed “13 crimes and seven thefts”)
10
has
also endured re-interpretations in oil, including massive overpainting in the sixteenth century by two commissioned artists, Lancelot Blondeel and Jan van Scorel.
Koenraad Jonckheere, a professor of Baroque art at Ghent University, has clarified
how their “careful overpainting campaign subtly adapted the shapes to the taste of
the time and to some extent neutralised the Van Eycks’ intense and humanized identification of the Lamb into an expressionless animal….”
11
The restoration was begun
in 2012 and members of the team have reported that the sixteenth-century reworking had turned the sacrificial animal into “an impassive and rather neutral figure”
whereas the van Eycks’ original lamb had been painted with “an intense gaze…
large, frontal eyes, drawing onlookers into the ultimate sacrifice scene”
12
(Fig. 25.2).
8 See Ghent International, “Thursday Veggie Day,” https://stad.gent/ghent-international/city-policy/food-strategy-ghent/thursday-veggie-day, Accessed May 3, 2019.
9 See “How the meat-loving city of Ghent became the veggie capital of Europe,” by Tom Burson,
MIC, October 31, 2017, https://www.mic.com/articles/185650/how-the-meat-loving-city-ofghent-became-the-veggie-capital-of-europe, Accessed May 3, 2019; the Lilly Library at the
University of Indiana-Bloomington had an exhibition on vegetarian books from July 21-September
10, 2016, a collection largely donated by antiquarian William Dailey, and including the first seventeenth-century Renaissance edition of Porphyry’s On Abstinence from Animal Food Περὶ ἀποχῆς
ἐμψύχων, De Abstinentia ab Esu Animalium; see also “The Ethics of Diet – A Catena,” by Howard
Williams, 1883, https://ivu.org/history/williams/porphyry.html. See also The Heretic’s Feast—A
History of Vegetarianism, by Colin Spencer, Fourth Estate, London 1993, pp. 104–107; Thomas
Taylor’s translation of the Select Works of Porphyry, Thomas Rodd, London, 1823; and An Essay
on Abstinence from Animal Food as a Moral Duty, by Joseph Ritson, Richard Phillips, London,
1802.
10 See “Jan Van Eyck and the Ghent Altarpiece,” by Rune Pettersson, Draft, p. 13, https://www.
researchgate.net/profile/Rune_Pettersson/publication/325253172_Jan_van_Eyck/
links/5b07ceaca6fdcc8c252ce456/Jan-van-Eyck.pdf?origin=publication_detail, Accessed May
11, 2019; see also “Is This The World’s Most Coveted Painting?” NPR Staff, December 23, 2019,
https://www.npr.org/2010/12/25/132283848/is-this-the-worlds-most-coveted-painting, Accessed
May 11, 2019.
11 See “Van Eycks’ original lamb uncovered on Ghent Altarpiece,” by Lisa Bradshaw, Flanders
Today, June 19, 2018, http://www.flanderstoday.eu/van-eycks-original-lamb-uncovered-ghentaltarpiece, Accessed May 11, 2019.
12 ibid.
25.2 Notwithstanding “Donderdag Veggiedag”
25.2 Notwithstanding “Donderdag Veggiedag”
In Ghent proper, since 2009, the city has adopted Thursdays as their Veggie Day
(“Donderdag Veggiedag”), in which the aldermen urge all residents to go vegetarian.
8
Indeed, Thursdays in Ghent witness “over 90 restaurants, 20 hotels and 50% of
the city’s population observing vegetarianism for the day.” Moreover, “Ghent hosts
the most vegetarian restaurants per capita of any city in the world,”
9
with the exception of Pushkar, in Rajasthan—a vegetarian city.
Such reforms are not lost in the maelstrom of quanta, but are certainly unavailing
within the overall European Union context, thus far. But then the van Eycks’ “Mystic
Lamb” is at the heart of both false consciousness and suspect statistics. The winged
polyptych of 20 panels (one of which was stolen and never recovered, in keeping
with the artwork’s fame for having witnessed “13 crimes and seven thefts”)
10
has
also endured re-interpretations in oil, including massive overpainting in the sixteenth century by two commissioned artists, Lancelot Blondeel and Jan van Scorel.
Koenraad Jonckheere, a professor of Baroque art at Ghent University, has clarified
how their “careful overpainting campaign subtly adapted the shapes to the taste of
the time and to some extent neutralised the Van Eycks’ intense and humanized identification of the Lamb into an expressionless animal….”
11
The restoration was begun
in 2012 and members of the team have reported that the sixteenth-century reworking had turned the sacrificial animal into “an impassive and rather neutral figure”
whereas the van Eycks’ original lamb had been painted with “an intense gaze…
large, frontal eyes, drawing onlookers into the ultimate sacrifice scene”
12
(Fig. 25.2).
8 See Ghent International, “Thursday Veggie Day,” https://stad.gent/ghent-international/city-policy/food-strategy-ghent/thursday-veggie-day, Accessed May 3, 2019.
9 See “How the meat-loving city of Ghent became the veggie capital of Europe,” by Tom Burson,
MIC, October 31, 2017, https://www.mic.com/articles/185650/how-the-meat-loving-city-ofghent-became-the-veggie-capital-of-europe, Accessed May 3, 2019; the Lilly Library at the
University of Indiana-Bloomington had an exhibition on vegetarian books from July 21-September
10, 2016, a collection largely donated by antiquarian William Dailey, and including the first seventeenth-century Renaissance edition of Porphyry’s On Abstinence from Animal Food Περὶ ἀποχῆς
ἐμψύχων, De Abstinentia ab Esu Animalium; see also “The Ethics of Diet – A Catena,” by Howard
Williams, 1883, https://ivu.org/history/williams/porphyry.html. See also The Heretic’s Feast—A
History of Vegetarianism, by Colin Spencer, Fourth Estate, London 1993, pp. 104–107; Thomas
Taylor’s translation of the Select Works of Porphyry, Thomas Rodd, London, 1823; and An Essay
on Abstinence from Animal Food as a Moral Duty, by Joseph Ritson, Richard Phillips, London,
1802.
10 See “Jan Van Eyck and the Ghent Altarpiece,” by Rune Pettersson, Draft, p. 13, https://www.
researchgate.net/profile/Rune_Pettersson/publication/325253172_Jan_van_Eyck/
links/5b07ceaca6fdcc8c252ce456/Jan-van-Eyck.pdf?origin=publication_detail, Accessed May
11, 2019; see also “Is This The World’s Most Coveted Painting?” NPR Staff, December 23, 2019,
https://www.npr.org/2010/12/25/132283848/is-this-the-worlds-most-coveted-painting, Accessed
May 11, 2019.
11 See “Van Eycks’ original lamb uncovered on Ghent Altarpiece,” by Lisa Bradshaw, Flanders
Today, June 19, 2018, http://www.flanderstoday.eu/van-eycks-original-lamb-uncovered-ghentaltarpiece, Accessed May 11, 2019.
12 ibid.
25.2 Notwithstanding “Donderdag Veggiedag”