Launch of Prof. Ron Spronk's "Closer to Van Eyck"

Since 2012, the website Closer to Van Eyck—coordinated by Queen’s Professor Ron Spronk—has made it possible for anyone to zoom in on the intricate, breathtaking details of one of the most celebrated works of art in the world: the Ghent Altarpiece. An 800% increase in visitors since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic indicates that Closer to Van Eyck is being regarded as a welcome alternative for traditional museum visits, reaching more than 256,000 people in 2020 so far. The Getty and the Royal Institute for Cultural Heritage (KIK-IRPA, Brussels, Belgium), in collaboration with the Gieskes Strijbis Fund in Amsterdam, launched today a new version of the site that includes images of recently-restored sections of the paintings as well as new videos and education materials that offer even more ways to explore this monumental work of art from afar. Thanks to its innovative interface, developed by Universum Digitalis (Brussels), the site allows specialist scholars and the general public to study and compare images in any combination and in incredible detail.

A piece of art that features a bunch of people gathered outside