In his latest blog post, Dr. Craig Wright takes an abstract look at Bitcoin through parallels that can be found via the artwork of Jan van Eyck. Van Eyck’s approach to art has striking similarities to Satoshi’s approach to Bitcoin. For instance, “When signing, he deployed a pun derived from the Greek rendition of his name, which, in the aspirated Greek, could be read: “as best I can,” which reminds me of a public key in Bitcoin.”
Even the foundation that Van Eyck’s work laid for the renaissance period to follow has its similarities to the blockchain ecosystems that would not exist without Bitcoin.
“When people discuss Renaissance art, they generally look to Florence and the northern Italian peninsula,” said Dr. Wright. “In doing so, they bypass the source of the revolution. As one of the pinnacles of late medieval artistry and the creator of a scientifically inspired revolution, Jan van Eyck began an artistic revolution that founded the early Northern Renaissance.”
That passage from Dr. Wright’s latest blog post reminds me of the entire blockchain and digital currency ecosystem. Although many people have their eyes on the DeFi sector right now, they make the mistake of bypassing where it all began and why DeFi even exists today—Bitcoin.
Bitcoin was the first mover, catalyst, and foundation that created the greater blockchain ecosystem; similar to how Van Eyck was the catalyst/foundation of the renaissance period, and how those he taught and the places he traveled to eventually resulted in the creation of spin-offs thanks to his influence, which led to an overall shift in the artistic era (blockchain networks).
“A later disciple of van Eyck, Petrus Christus, would take such first experiments in perspective and develop a system that would allow later Renaissance painters to create the linear perspective techniques we recognise today,” said Dr. Wright. “The growth of commerce and economic exchange led to an interchange of ideas, and techniques likely interacted, creating the Cambrian explosion that we recognise as the art scene of the Late Renaissance.”
Although in blockchain, we can only say Bitcoin mastered the art form since it is the only change that is business-friendly no matter what scale you operate it, we cannot ignore that the mixture of ideas that were inspired by the foundation that is Bitcoin and the Bitcoin whitepaper has changed the world forever, and have done their part in putting blockchain and digital currency on the map and catalyzing its adoption.
Similar to how: “The mixture of realism developed in the iconic, spiritual, and secular art and paintings of the north, along with the reactionist view of stoic skepticism, individualism, and classicism, worked to change the course of European culture forever.”
Dr. Wright’s latest blog post is an abstract philosophical writing that will get your brain working and questioning the similarities between Jan Van Eyck and Satoshi Nakamoto as well as what could happen next given what happened in history.
Find out more in Dr. Craig S. Wright’s latest blog post, “Jan Van Eyck — A Study in Optics.”
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