THE TIMES OF THE BROTHERS VAN EYCK

THE unusual activity which during the latter half of the fourteenth and the first half of the fifteenth centuries throbbed throughout the whole of the Netherlands forms one of the most interesting and surprising studies of national progress that history has furnished.

Geographically and politically, in her arts and in her industries, the country was affected by changes both radical and lasting. Some years before the period which embraces the life of the subjects of this biographical sketch, the German Ocean had invaded the northern territory of the Netherlands, and had disorganised a Parliament and divided a people. At the beginning of the thirteenth century over the whole of that low-lying and marshy tract between Kampen on the east and Amsterdam to westward, and southward to within sight of Nieukerk, the North Sea swept in upon the inland lake of Flevo, swallowing thousands of hamlets, villages, and towns suddenly and completely. Until this time there had been but one Friesland, including Holland, divided only by the Vlie, a small stream hardly to be counted a river. Now East Friesland and West Friesland were divided by this vast stretch of water, the stormy and dangerous Zuyderzee, and it became impossible for Holland to send her representatives to the general assemblies at Aurich. West Friesland was absorbed by Holland, and East Friesland became a self-governing State, and remained such until the power of Charles V was established. Thus politically as well as geographically was the country disrupted by the forces of Nature.

To trace the rise of the Netherlands as a European Power from a more remote period than the beginning of the fourteenth century would be beyond the range of this sketch; but for the purpose of showing the general advance of the country's interests a brief summary of the events culminating in the wellnigh despotic power of the House of Burgundy may refresh the reader's mind, as they affect the constitution of the nation, and may serve to point cause and effect in the increasing prosperity of the country and in the resulting advance of art; for just as the political influence of the Burgundian Princes spread from their hereditary provinces first over Flanders and Brabant— over that part of the Netherlands which is now known as Belgium—and finally over the Dutch provinces, so the current of art swept from Burgundy to Flanders and thence to Holland.

At the beginning of the fourteenth century Holland was ruled by the House of Avennes, Counts of Hainault. Holland having previous to the accession of the Avennes annexed Zeeland, the three provinces may almost be regarded as the nucleus of the Dutch power. William IV, last of the Hainault line, died childless in 1355. His death was the signal for the outbreak of a long and spasmodic series of civil disturbances between the nobles and the cities and municipalities. These parties, known by the titles of the Hooks and the Kabblejaus (codfish), continued their intermittent strife throughout the succeeding 150 years. In the meantime William IV was succeeded by William of Bavaria. Then followed his brother Albert, who was in turn succeeded by his son William VI. At the death of the latter the reins of government were left in the uncertain hands of his young daughter, Jacqueline, a girl of seventeen. Jacqueline, it appears, led anything but a happy life. Her cousin, Philip the Good, Duke of Burgundy, for thirteen years plundered and robbed her, and at her death in 1437 he had already dispossessed her of her lands and reduced her from the position of Sovereign to that of Lady Forester in her own provinces, whilst for himself he had laid the foundation of that Greater Netherlands which by conquest and annexation he proceeded to extend.

Having acquired the principal Netherlands and inherited the two Burgundies and the counties of Flanders and Artois, he had purchased the county of Namur, usurped the duchy of Brabant, and annexed the barony of Mechlin. A few years later he acquired also the duchy of Luxembourg.

Philip was now the ruler of what may be termed a kingdom of several peoples, who, though in a measure distinct, were of similar temperament and character, and who may be counted now as one. Never has conqueror been in a happier position when faced with the problem of welding together his conquests.

For Philip ruled those whose interests were similar, and whose characteristics were almost identical—a people born of the sea, strong and fearless, who had lived by strife with their fellows and by strife with Nature; a people born to toil and to hardship, whose battle for life had been with Nature herself—a race which for centuries had fought with swamp and water year in, year out, conquering a mile of morass or patch of barren furze, striving for the soil to live upon, working not for gold, but for life. This nation had now become a power of natural strength and of dominating physique, virile and live and expansive, whose sons, with brooms at their mastheads, should later sweep the seas from whose destructive embrace she had succeeded in wresting herself.

Under the rule of the Burgundian the prosperity of the Netherlands rapidly increased. In Holland and in Flanders, in Brabant and in the other leading provinces, industry and wealth, agriculture, commerce, and manufactures, were ever augmenting. While Philip, in the zenith of his power, flushed with the passion and success of territorial acquisition, busied himself with the glorification of his sovereignty by founding at Bruges, amid a scene of indescribable splendour, the Order of the Golden Fleece, "to the honour of God, of the Blessed Virgin, and of the holy Andrew," a principle more potent than even territorial power was evolving. For in Haarlem an undistinguished sexton wrestled with the intricacies of the printing-press. Lorenz Coster was printing his book of the Dutch language. The question as to the time and place of the invention of printing will probably never be settled to the satisfaction of Holland and Germany; but the men of Haarlem still claim upon very sound and substantial evidence that between 1423 and 1440 their citizen was the first to employ movable type, which is generally considered the invention of printing proper, as distinguished from the more ancient block-printing.

Whatever objection may be legitimately raised to the application of the title "The Good" to a ruler of Philip's character, this Burgundian had many of the qualities that go to the making of a successful monarch. His military talents were considerable; his political methods, though despotic, were practicable. Though he taxed the wealth of his country, he protected and encouraged the commerce and manufactures of Holland and Flanders, their arts and crafts, science and literature. He founded at Bruges the famous Burgundian Library. He remodelled, and to some extent endowed, the University of Louvain. His munificence and princely generosity attracted to his Court at Bruges men of letters like Oliver de la Marche and Philippe de Commines, and famous painters like Jan van Eyck, and perhaps, though we lack documentary evidence, his elder brother Hubert, who gave, perhaps, more to the art of painting than even did Coster to the art of printing, or Philip himself to the sciences of statesmanship and war.

The most salient points in the life and work of these two brothers, who close the period of stiff Gothic medievalism and stand on the threshold of modern art, and whose improvements in the technical methods of their art opened up to their successors unthought-of possibilities, are shrouded in deep mystery, and the most recent research to which a number of thoroughly competent scientific experts have devoted themselves, whilst producing many ingenious theories and deductions, has, in a certain sense, added to the confusion by throwing doubt upon the authenticity of documents and inscriptions which had formerly passed undisputed, and formed the basis of the unstable edifice that had been erected around the vague fame of the brothers Van Eyck. This uncertainty begins with the parentage and the place and date of birth of the two masters, and extends to the two supreme achievements to which they owe their fame—the reputed invention of oil-painting, which was variously ascribed to Hubert and Jan, then denied to both of them, and, finally, given back to Hubert in the form of an improvement on the methods of oil-painting practised during the period; and the much-quoted inscription on the famous Ghent altar-piece, The Adoration of the Lamb, which has been, and must remain, the starting-point for all research in this matter, even though the late Henri Bouchot, Keeper of the Print Cabinet of the Bibliothfcque Nationale, suggests that this inscription may have been added when the picture was restored in the middle of the sixteenth century. At every turn we are faced by similar doubts and contradictions, especially in the case of Hubert, about whose life and doings we have so little documentary evidence that we have to fall back entirely upon conjecture and deduction.

The Man with the Pinks (Berlin Museum)By Jan van Eyck.

HUBERT VAN EYCK

 

IF Joes van Eyck and Margaret van den Huntfanghe, who are entered in the register of the Ghent Guild of Painters for 1391, are the parents of the two masters who have made the name of Van Eyck immortal, we should have proof of their descent from artistic stock, which may be taken for granted in view of the fact that not only Hubert and Jan, but also a third brother, Lambert, and a sister, Margaret, devoted themselves to the art of painting, though Lambert—if he really be responsible for the pictures which stand to his credit—was a man of but mediocre talent; whilst we have no evidence of the activity of Margaret, who was most probably a miniaturist or illuminator.

It is believed that Hubert (or Huybrecht) van Eyck was born at Maaseyck, or perhaps at the village of Eyck near that town, between 1366 and 1370, and that he received his artistic training either at Cologne or at Maastricht; but the first definite mention we have of him is in Ghent, where he eventually settled, and where, in 1424, the archives record that he was paid certain sums for drawings. Though Mr. Weale and other authorities hold the view that, before settling in Ghent, Hubert must have travelled to the South of Europe, there is absolutely no evidence to this effect. The paintings of the two brothers certainly contain details which reveal intimate acquaintance with Southern vegetation and mountain formation; but, as will be seen later, Mr. Alfred Marks has fairly well established the fact that the younger brother, Jan, must be held responsible for such paintings or portions of paintings as prove the knowledge of Nature in the South of Europe.

The name of Hubert van Eyck occurs in two other documents, quoted by Edmond de Busscher in his "Recherches sur les Peintres Gantois", but the authenticity of both these entries has lately been questioned. The first of them, which is proved to be a forgery, records the admission of Hubert and of his sister, Margaret, into the Confraternity of Our Lady of the Rays at Ghent in 1419; the other the affiliation of Hubert and Jan, in 1421, to the Corporation of Painters and Sculptors of Ghent.

According to the wording of the latter entry, it may be gathered that the election of the two masters was so enthusiastic and unanimous that the Corporation dispensed with the conditions and formalities usual on the admission of free masters to the guild. This unusual affiliation, of which the Livve du Metier Gantois does not reveal another example, is there quoted as a homage rendered to the memory of Michelle de France, Countess of Flanders, and first wife of Philip the Good, who appears to have held the two brothers in special favour. The Corporation, in thus granting to them the professional franchise of Ghent, at the same time expressed their esteem for their talent, and the pious remembrance in which they held the memory of their Queen Consort.

Of Hubert's early work we have absolutely no record, and no picture is known which bears his signature. Indeed, the only paintings which can with absolute certainty be assigned to him are the great Ghent altar-piece, painted for Jodoc Vydt, on which he was engaged at the time of his death, and which was finished six years later by his brother Jan; and the shutter of a triptych at the Royal Gallery at Copenhagen, which represents Robert Poortier, of Ghent, protected by St. Anthony, with the Angel Gabriel on the reverse. Robert Poor- tier's will, made in 1426, a few months before Hubert's death, mentions this triptych as being in the master's workshop. On the internal evidence of these two authentic works attempts have been made to trace Hubert's hand in several other pictures, though their number is so far restricted to only seven. It has been suggested that Hubert may in the earlier years of his career have devoted himself to miniature painting; and the wonderful Turin miniatures published by M. Paul Durrieu in the Gazette des Beaux-Arts (January and February, 1903), which date from the same period, show such marked kinship with Hubert's conception and style that they may well be the work of his own hand. The scarcity of his paintings would thus be accounted for if, anterior to the experiments which led to the invention of the new method of oil-painting about 1410, Hubert had exercised his rare gifts in a different field.

From the wording of his epitaph, which has been handed down to us, it is made clear that Hubert died on September 18, 1426. As translated by Sir Charles Eastlake, in his ''Materials for a History of Oil-Painting", this epitaph runs as follows: "Take warning from me, ye who walk over me. I was as you are, but am now buried dead beneath you. Thus it appears that neither art nor medicine availed me. Art, honour, wisdom, power, affluence, are not spared when death comes. I was called Hubert van Eyck; I am now food for worms. Formerly known and highly honoured in painting, this was all shortly after turned to nothing. It was in the year of the Lord one thousand four hundred and twenty-six, on the eighteenth day of September, that I rendered up my soul to God, in sufferings. Pray God for me, ye who love art, that I may attain to His sight. Flee sin, turn to the best, for you must follow me at last." Hubert was buried in the crypt of the Cathedral of St. Bavo at Ghent. When, owing to some structural alterations to the church, this crypt was destroyed, the tombs, including Hubert's, were removed and the bones dispersed. Only Hubert's right arm was placed in an iron case and exhibited as a relic.

 

The Adoration of the Lamb (Cathedral of St. Bavo, Ghent) By Hubert and Jan van Eyck. Count William passed away on the 31st of May 1417, leaving an only child, Jacqueline, aged seventeen, by his wife, Margaret of Burgundy, who had predeceased him. Her uncle, John of Bavaria, Prince-Bishop of Liege, an unscrupulous ruffian who clearly paid small deference to women's rights, at once set himself to rob the unfortunate princess of her possessions. In September 1418 he marched out on Dordrecht, where he established his headquarters; Gorcum and other strongholds speedily succumbed to his arms, and after an interval, during which he married Elizabeth of Gorlitz, Duchess of Luxemburg and widow of Anthony of Burgundy, Duke of Brabant and Limburg, he finally removed to Holland and installed himself at The Hague, free now to pursue his nefarious projects. For thirteen years the country resounded with the clash of arms and laboured in the rough and tumble of civil warfare: hence an atmosphere the least congenial to the cultivation and patronage of high art. The cities of Flanders and Brabant were the gainers by the exodus of craftsmen that presently set in. Of their number, sooner or later, was Hubert, who, prior to 1425 at any rate, had already settled at Ghent and acquired the freedom of that city. News of the unfinished polyptych remaining on his hands soon came to the ears of Jodoc Vyt, a wealthy burgher, who eagerly embraced the opportunity of striking the bargain by which he acquired all rights in the picture and so linked his name and personality for all time with this ineffable monument of the painter's art. In the centre-piece, "The Adoration of the Lamb", we discover the keynote to the scheme of the work, in the Apocalyptic Vision of St. John the source of its inspiration. The Lamb without spot, the blood from its breast pouring into a chalice, is stood on an altar, the white cloth over which bears on its superfrontal the text from the Vulgate, "Behold the Lamb of God, who taketh away the sins of the world," and on its stole-ends the legend, "Jesus, the Way, the Truth, and the Life." Worshipping angels gather around, some bearing instruments of the Passion, others swinging censers, their smoke laden with the prayers of the saints. In the foreground the Fountain of Life, flowing down through the ages along the gentle slope of flower-bejewelled sward, or dis­pensing its waters in vivifying jets from the gurgoyles beneath the feet and from the vases in the hands of the winged angel above its standard. To the four quarters groups of the elect: on the near right those of the Old Law and among the Gentiles who had lived in expectation of the Redeemer, the balancing group on the left typical of the New Law—prophets, doctors, philosophers, and princes in the former, the Apostles, popes, bishops, abbots, deacons, monks, and clerics among the latter. The corresponding groups back of the altar represent the army of martyrs whose blood is the seed of the Church, and the multitude of virgins. Over all, from the Holy Dove poised high over the altar, dart rays of light, emblematic of the Wisdom which had inspired their lives and of the fire of Love that had heartened their sacrifice. A carpet of flowers fills in all the open space fore of the altar, flowering shrubs and trees that of the mid-distance, while the entire back­ground is an exquisite example of the realistic landscape-work that is an abiding charm of the Netherlandish school. The wonderful harmony of colour appeals at once to the senses; but more arresting, on nearer acquaintance, for its quality and felicity, is the wide range of portraiture that distinguishes the piece. From the two lateral panels in the dexter shutter the Knights of Christ and the Just Judges are pressing forward to the scene of the Vision, from the corresponding ones in the sinister shutter the Holy Hermits and the Holy Pilgrims: the former on spirited horses—an animal for which the painter evinces a special affection—the latter on foot. These panels are even more remarkable perhaps than the centre-piece for the diversity and multiplicity of the types portrayed, and for the wealth of landscape relieved by bird life lavished in their embellishment.

 

The Great Polyptych had not yet reached completion when, on the 18th of September 1426 Hubert van Eyck passed away after a painful illness. How much of the work remained to be accomplished none can tell with any hope of approach to certainty. A whole volume would not suffice for a critical examination of the mass of contending theories that for the best part of a century has been squandered in the endeavour to allocate to the two brothers their respective shares in the execution of the picture. Remember that it had already been some ten years in the making, and that, although it did not receive its final touches from the brush of John van Eyck until 1432, nearly six years after his brother's death, this period of John's life, as we shall presently discover, was too fully occupied in the service of Duke Philip of Burgundy to have allowed of his spending any considerable proportion of it in the task of completion. Remembering also that John's art had been closely modelled on that of his brother, that none better comprehended his ideals or was more intimately acquainted with the working out of his conceptions, mindful, moreover, of the deep veneration in which he held his master's genius, we must suppose that he realised the obligation of conscientiously adhering to the art and technique of the picture as he found it, any obtruding originality in violation of which would have amounted almost to sacrilege: all this further enhances the difficulty of differenti­ating between the work of the two painters. Indeed, if so minded, the reader is probably as well equipped as the writer to solve the puzzle.

Hubert van Eyck was laid to rest in the crypt of the chapel for which he had painted his masterpiece, but in 1533, when chapel and crypt had to make way for a new aisle, his remains were transferred to the churchyard, all except the bone of the right fore-arm, which was suspended in an iron casket in the porch of the Cathedral. The brass plate bearing the well-known epitaph was at the same time placed in the transept, only to become the spoil of the Calvinist Iconoclasts in 1578, when already the casket had somehow or other long since disappeared. But what of the painter's fame, to whose workshop laymen of the highest distinction had felt it a privilege to be admitted, about whose easel journeymen painters had flocked, and whom the leading contemporary artists of the Netherlands had been proud to call master? During his lifetime, and for a considerable period after his death, his was a dominating influence in the Art of the North, and Van Mander has it on record that whenever the polyptych was freely exposed to the public gaze crowds flocked to it from morning till night "like flies and bees in summer round a basket of figs and grapes". But in the stress and turmoil of succeeding generations his memory gradually faded away; his work, uncared for, lost hold on the imagination; even his great masterwork narrowly escaped destruction. Even so it did not escape dismemberment, or profanation at the hands of the "restorer". Saved from the fury of the Iconoclasts in 1566, and subsequently rescued from the Calvinist leaders who contemplated its offer to Queen Elizabeth in acknowledgment of her subsidies, it eventually became the spoil of the French Republicans; but after the battle of Waterloo restitution was effected, and the main portion of the altar-piece, all that remains of it in Ghent, was reinstated in its present position. The Adam and Eve panels, which in 1781 had offended the unsuspected modesty of Joseph II, and in consequence been deferentially removed, were ultimately ceded to the Belgian Government, and now rest in the Royal Gallery at Brussels; while the other six shutter panels, which had been safeguarded through the French occupation, were shamelessly sold to a dealer in 1816 by the Vicar-General and churchwardens—in the absence, it is right to say, of the Bishop—for a paltry 3000 florins, subsequently changing hands for 100,000 francs, and eventually becoming the property of the Prussian Government for four times that amount.

 

JAN VAN EYCK

 

THE date of Jan van Eyck's birth is as uncertain as that of his brother's. Tradition has it that the two brothers are portrayed on the panel of the great Ghent altar-piece, which represents The Just Judges. These portraits suggest a difference of about twenty years between the two, so that the birth of Jan would have to be placed somewhere between 1386 and 1390. Hubert being thus about twenty years his senior, it is natural to suppose that Jan received from him his early education in matters of art. Guicciardini, van Mander, and other early writers, affirm that the two brothers worked in collaboration, and there is no reason to doubt that Jan in his early years assisted his brother in many or most of his paintings— perhaps even in the Ghent altar-piece, which he finished after the elder brother's death. It is certainly a curious fact that, with a single exception—the completely over -painted Enthronement of St. Thomas of Canterbury at Chatsworth—all the signed pictures by Jan bear dates posterior to the death of Hubert. And it is equally significant that the first of this series of ten signed pictures is dated 1432, the year of the completion of the Ghent altar-piece, which was the last work in which both brothers had a share.

The chief events in the life of Jan van Eyck can be gathered fairly accurately from con- temporarary records and documents. In 1422 Jan entered the service of John of Bavaria, at that time Duke of Luxembourg, whose house­hold accounts show the payment of a weekly wage to the artist, from October 25, 1422, till September, 1424, for the decoration of the palace at the Hague. M. Bouchot mentioned an earlier record of Jan's doings, when he believed he discovered him at Cambrai decorating a Paschal candle. But the eminent French critic probably confused Jan van Eyck with one Jan de Yeke, whose name occurs in the accounts of the Cathedral of Cambrai as that of a man employed in 1422 and many following years in painting crosses, clocks, and candles on the outer wall of the cathedral to deter the passers-by from committing nuisances!

In the spring of 1425 Jan van Eyck was appointed valet de chambre to Philip the Good, and though this princely patron availed himself of the master's services as a painter, it would appear from a letter signed by Philip, and bearing the date March 12, 1434, that the appointment of Jan to the position of Court painter to the Burgundian Prince only took place in that year (1434). Still, as valet de chambre Jan van Eyck must have enjoyed a position of considerable trust and emolument at the hands of his august master, for on more than one occasion we find him entrusted with important missions, some of which took him to the Portuguese Court. The first of these excursions took place when he had resided for three months at Bruges. On his return he went at Philip's order to live at Lille, where he remained until 1428. His missions were generally of a secret nature, but on one of these occasions, in the year 1428, we find Jan again absent in Portugal, returning to the Court of Philip in the suite of Isabella of Portugal, who was destined to become the royal consort. Gachard, in the Collection de Documents Inédits concernant l'Histoire de Belgique, gives a detailed account of the artist's movements from his departure from Écluse on October 19, 1428,to his return in January, 1430. According to these dates, which are gathered from contemporary documents, the ambassadors with the Infanta set out from Lisbon on October 8, 1429. The apparent discrepancy between these dates and that of January 10, 1429, which, at the Golden Fleece Exhibition at Bruges in 1907, was given as the date of the foundation of this Order, and consequently of the nuptials of Philip and Isabella and of Jan's return to Bruges, is easily accounted for if we remember that the beginning of the year was then reckoned from March 1, so that January, 1430, of our own reckoning would tally with January, 1429, of the contemporary calendar.

Isabella of Portugal and Philip the Good Duke Philip's matrimonial ventures hitherto had not been crowned with success. Neither his first wife, Michelle of France, nor Bonne of Artois, whom he wedded and lost within the ten months (she died in September 1425), had provided him with an heir. Anxious to secure the succession in the direct line, towards the middle of 1427 he despatched ambassadors to the court of Alphonsus V, King of Aragon, to obtain for him the hand of Isabella, eldest daughter of James II, Count of Urgel, and John van Eyck was attached to the mission. Arriving at Barcelona in July, only to find that the earthquakes in Catalonia had driven the Court to escape by sea to Valencia, the embassy followed in the royal track and reached this city early in August, in time for the floral games and bull-fight with which the Jurats honoured the King. The mission led to nothing, not even to a portrait of the princess, who in September 1428 was married to Peter, Duke of Coimbra, third son of John I, King of Portugal; but it is interesting to find Alphonsus V in later years acquiring paintings by Van Eyck for his collection. The return journey included a short halt at Tourna, where the magistrates very appropriately paid Van Eyck the compliment of a wine of honour on the 18th of October, St. Luke's Day, the local guild, moreover—Robert Campin, Roger de la Pasture, and James Daret doubtless distinguished among its members—being favoured with his company in the celebration of the feast of its patron saint. A like wine of honour was presented to the ambassadors on the 20th. An illuminating dispute between the Duke, the Receiver of Flanders, and John van Eyck helped to relieve the tedium of life in the intervals of employment on foreign missions at this stage of the painter's career. Philip's munificence was largely tempered by prudent frugality in the ordering of his household, and in the process of curtailing his domestic expenses in 1426 he published an edict bearing date December 14 regulating its constitution and the wages of its members. By some inadvertence John's name was omitted from the new roll, and the Receiver of Flanders summarily stopped payment of his salary. An ineffectual protest was lodged, complaints followed re-inforced by threats, to such good purpose that eventually, though not until after many months' persistent badgering, the aggrieved party emerged with flying colours from the triangular duel, securing letters patent under date March 3, 1428, confirming his appointment and commanding the payment of all arrears. Of the many paintings executed by John van Eyck to which no precise date can be attached not one can with certainty be ascribed to this period, and yet it is difficult to believe that his duties in the three years he had already spent in the ducal service were exclusively of a non-professional character: surely the lost portrait of Bonne of Artois as Duchess of Burgundy, a copy of which is preserved in the store-room of the Royal Gallery at Berlin, was his work. The years immediately following, however, yielded a rich harvest of brilliant pictures, first among which, chronologically, two portraits of the Infanta Isabella of Portugal. Philip, on matrimonial projects still intent, was now turning his attention from the Courts of Spain to the neighbouring one of Portugal, and in the autumn of 1428 he decided on an embassy to John I. The mission was a princely one : at its head Sir John de Lannoy, councillor and first chamberlain; associated with whom were Sir Baldwin de Lannoy, governor of Lille—at some later date, too, a subject for our painter's brush—high dignitaries of the court and some of the leading gentry, a secretary, cupbearer, steward, clerk of accounts, and two pursuivants, and last, but not least, John van Eyck, whose relative standing may be gathered from the fact that in the distribution of gratuities at the ceremony of leave-taking only that of the chief ambassador exceeded his, the respective sums being 200/. and 160/. The mission, distributed between two Venetian galleys, sailed out of Sluus harbour on the 19th of October and arrived the next day at Sandwich, where three or four weeks were spent awaiting a further escort of two galleys from London. Forced by contrary winds to seek shelter, first at Shoreham and then at Plymouth and Falmouth, it was not till the 2nd of December that the convoy sailed out into the ocean. Nine days later they were at Bayona, a small seaport of Galicia, where they delayed three days, their long sea journey at length terminating on the 16th at Cascaes, whence they travelled overland to Lisbon. In the absence of the Court a letter explaining the object of the mission was entrusted to the herald Flanders, who pursued the King from Estremoz to Arrayollos and Aviz, in the province of Alemtejo, where the embassy at last had audience of his Majesty on the 13th of January and presented to him the Duke's letters soliciting the hand of his daughter Isabella. The while the ambassadors were discussing their master's proposals with the King's Council John van Eyck was at his easel painting the Infanta's portrait, two copies of which were executed and despatched to the Court of Burgundy, one by sea and the other by land, the better to ensure safe delivery, with duplicate accounts of the mission's doings to date. The Duke's reply did not arrive until the 4th of June. A pilgrimage to Saint James of Compostella, and visits to John II, King of Castile, to the Duke of Arjona, a prince of the same royal blood, and to Mohammed, King of the City of Grenada, agreeably filled in the interval of waiting, Van Eyck naturally missing no opportunity of acquaintance with the leading painters of the day, enlarging the scope of his own observation, and no doubt leaving behind him the impress of his mastery. That the name of Van Eyck was already one to conjure with in these distant realms appears from the traditional ascription to him of a mass of painting certainly in his manner, but vastly too great to have ever been conceived by him within the limits of his stay in Portugal. Take that finest of all pictures there, the "Fons Vitae" in the board-room of the Misericordia at Oporto, and the series of twelve paintings in the Episcopal Palace at Evoca, locally claimed for Van Eyck; likewise the pictures in the church of S. Francisco at Evoca, in the round church of the Templars at Thomar, and elsewhere, which are at any rate thought there to be not unworthy of his technique, and scarcely inferior to his best masterpieces for brilliancy of colouring and beauty of portraiture. The one regrettable circumstance in relation to this visit to Portugal is that both portraits of the Infanta are to be numbered among the lost certain treasures of his art. On their return to Lisbon in the closing days of May the embassy rejoined the Court at Cintra on the ensuing 4th by special request of the king, and the Duke of Burgundy's reply came to hand the same evening: the princess's portrait had been to the Duke's liking. All the preliminaries being now in order events sped on apace, to the signing of the marriage contract at Lisbon on the 29th of July and the solemnisation of the espousals a day later; and after a period of brilliant festivities the bridal party, to the number of some two thousand, set sail for the land of Flanders. A fortnight later four weather-beaten ships, the Infanta's of the number, lumbered into Vivero harbour in Galicia, followed later by a fifth: the remainder of the original fleet of fourteen, after battling with contrary winds, had been effectually dispersed in the subsequent storm. Again a start was made on the 6th of November, but the state of prostration to which Sir John de Lannoy had been reduced by sea-sickness compelled a further delay of over a fortnight at Ribadeu. Here the convoy was reinforced by two Florentine galleys, also bound for Flanders, and on the 25th they eventually made good their leave of Portuguese waters. The afflicted ambassador, with members of his suite, had meanwhile transferred to the Florentine galleys, a step that nearly cost them their lives, as these vessels narrowly escaped shipwreck in the vicinity of the Land's End. The other five ships put into Plymouth harbour on the 29th, but the Florentines pushed on to Sluus, where they cast anchor on the 6th of December, Sir John de Lannoy making all speed to the Duke with the glad tidings of the Infanta's safe arrival in English waters. The preparations for her reception were quickly followed by the coming of the bride, who safely accomplished her long journey's end on Christmas Day. In the midst of a carnival of popular rejoicing the union was solemnised at Bruges on the 7th of January 1430.

In the early days of December 1431 Cardinal Albergati, special ambassador from Pope Martin V to the Courts of France, Burgundy, and England with a view to bringing about a general peace, spent three days at the Charter­house in Bruges as the honoured guest of the Duke, from whom Van Eyck received urgent instructions to paint the portrait that is now the property of the Imperial Gallery at Vienna. The time being all too short for the purpose, John had to be content with the exquisite drawing in silver-point on a white ground which is still preserved in the Royal Cabinet of Prints at Dresden, and which is particularly interesting because of the marginal memoranda in pencil embodying the most minute observations in the artist's own handwriting for his guidance in the execution of the painting. A remarkable portrait of a most remarkable man: for this prince of the Church, a humble son of the austere Order of the Carthusians, though raised to the Cardinalate and time after time called upon to serve the Holy See on important embassies requiring consummate prudence in regard to matters of temporal policy, discarding his family arms for a simple cross, persevered to the end in such austerities of the cloister as the wearing of a hair shirt, total abstinence from flesh-meat, and the use of bare straw for his rude pallet: a type that must have appealed to Van Eyck, for the picture is avaluable index of the painter's genius for portraiture.

Cardinal Albergati

 

 

Somewhere about this time John's thoughts, somewhat later in life than was the custom of the age, must have been turning on matrimony on his own account, for we find him purchasing a house in the parish of Saint Giles, a quarter much affected by painters, and shortly after­wards engaged on a portrait of the man appointed to be his father-in-law; and we can picture the Duke, with whom he was ever a special favourite, being made the confidant of his intentions on the occasion of his visit to Van Eyck's workshop on the 19th of February 1433, and pleasantly encouraging him with a promise to stand sponsor for his first-born. At any rate the wedding took place, and in due course Sir Peter de Beaufremont, Lord of Chargny, held the infant at the baptismal font as proxy for Philip, whose present took the form of six silver cups weighing 12 marks, the order for payment of the account, amounting to 96/. 12s., to a local goldsmith, John Peutin, bearing date June 30, 1434; and this is the nearest approach we can get at to the date of either event. Indeed, we have no information as to the sex of the child, nor are we even acquainted with the maiden name of Van Eyck's wife, though it has been suggested, with some show of reason, that she was a sister of Joan Cenani, the wife of John Arnolfini, already referred to; and it is only within quite recent days that the painting in the National Gallery commonly spoken of as "the man with the turban" has been identified, on purely scientific lines, as the portrait of her father. If the reader will compare this likeness with that of Margaret van Eyck he must immediately be struck by the close resemblance that irresistibly suggests the relationship: the marvel is that the absolute identity of features in the two portraits escaped notice so long. The fanciful style of head-dress, except it was intended to symbolise occupation or profession, remains a puzzle; for it is difficult to conceive a man of his earnest and dignified disposition masquerading in strange attire for the mere sake of effect. The best authorities speak of him as a well-to-do merchant—specialising perhaps in Eastern wares, such as crowded the marts of the Flemish capital in the heyday of its prosperity—apparently about sixty-five years of age, the face being delicately painted in reddish-brown tones, and showing every detail with uttermost faithfulness, even to the pleats of the eyelids and at the root of the nose, and to every vein and wrinkle of the forehead. It is one of the finest exemplifications of John's rare gift of portraiture, the pleasing modesty of the artist—as revealed in the inscription "Als ich kan" (to the best of my ability)— adding, indeed, to the charm of the picture, which bears date October 21, 1433, and passed into the keeping of the National Gallery in 1851.

 

Portrait of a PORTRAIT OF THE PAINTER'S FATHER-IN-LAW with a Chapeyon or Turban By Jan van Eyck.

 

Mr. Weale, while arranging the archives of St. Donatian at Bruges, discovered in the account of the fabric of the church for the year beginning June 25, 1440, and ending June 24, 1441, entries of sums received for the grave of Jan van Eyck and for the ringing of the funeral bell, and in the obituary of the church his anniversary set down as celebrated on July 9. In an article in the Burlington Magazine (1904) Mr. Weale makes the following comment: "Hence it appears certain that he died on July 9, 1440. This date, now generally accepted, is, however, incorrect. Two entries in the account of Walter Poulain, Receiver- General of Flanders for the year ending December 31, 1441, prove that John's death took place in 1441, but leave the exact day uncertain". Three entries show that Jan died about the end of June, and that on July 22 a grant of 360 livres — the equivalent of her husband's salary for half a year—was made to Jan's widow by the Duke Philip in recognition of the services rendered by her deceased husband. It also shows that Jan's wife was named Margaret, and that he left at least two children—one, the Duke's godchild, Philip or Philippina, born in June, 1434; the other, Lyennie, who became a nun at Maaseyck in 1449, which lends colour to the theory that Maaseyck was her father's birthplace.

His epitaph, as translated by Sir Charles Eastlake, runs : "Here lies Joannes, who was celebrated for his surpassing skill, and whose felicity in painting excited wonder. He painted breathing forms, and the earth's surface, covered with flowery vegetation, completing each work to the life. Hence Phidias and Apelles must give place to him, and Polycletus be considered his inferior in art. Call, therefore, the Fates most cruel, who have snatched from us such a man. Yet cease to weep, for destiny is immutable; pray only now to God that he may live in heaven."

St. Barbara (Antwerp Museum)  By Jan van Eyck.

 

THE INVENTION OF OIL-PAINTING

 

TRADITION has for centuries connected the name of Van Eyck with the invention of oil-painting, and has fixed upon the year 1410 as the date of this invention. This, at least, is the year given by such early writers as Guicciardini, Vasari, Opmeer, and Karel van Mander. Vasari, indeed, gives a most detailed and circumstantial account of this epoch-making event, which, according to the Aretine biographer, was brought about by the single-handed efforts of Jan. And it is easy to understand that the fame of the elder brother had in the sixteenth century become obscured and merged in that of the brilliantly successful Jan, the valet de chambre and official Court painter. This "Giovanni of Bruggia", Vasari tells us, "after having given extreme labour to the completion of a certain picture, and with great diligence brought it to a successful issue, he gave it the varnish and set it to dry in the sun, as is the custom. But whether because the heat was too violent, or that the wood was badly joined or insufficiently seasoned, the picture gave way at the joinings, opening in a very deplorable manner. Thereupon Giovanni, perceiving the mischief done to his work by the heat of the sun, determined to proceed in such a manner that the same thing should never again injure his work in like manner. And as he was no less embarrassed by his varnishes than by the process of tempera-painting, he turned his thoughts to the discovery of some sort of varnish that would dry in the shadow, to the end that he need not expose his pictures to the sun. Accordingly, after having made many experiments on substances, pure and mixed, he finally discovered that linseed oil and oil of nuts dried more readily than any others of all that he had tried. Having boiled these oils, therefore, with other mixtures, he thus obtained the varnish which he—or, rather, all the painters of the world— had so long desired. He made experiments with many other substances, but finally decided that mixing the colours with these oils gave a degree of firmness to the work which not only secured it against all injury from water when once dried, but also imparted so much life to the colours that they exhibited a sufficient lustre in themselves without the aid of varnish; and what appeared to him more extraordinary than all besides was that the colours thus treated were much more easily united and blent than when in tempera."

Vasari then proceeds to tell us of Jan's great success, of the "blameless envy" of all other artists in Flanders and abroad, from whom he would jealously guard his secret, until, in his old age, he imparted it to "his disciple Ruggieri da Bruggia", a name which surely can hide no other personality than Rogier van der Weyden's. Of Hubert never a mention, save a short reference in the last volume, in the chapter on "Divers Flemish Artists". As in most of Vasari's anecdotes, there is probably a foundation of truth to the elaborate network of fiction. The incident explained by him at great length may have occurred, but its hero can only have been Hubert, and not Jan, who was then a mere youth working in his brother's bottega, and may have assisted Hubert in his experiments. Though it has since been doubted that Hubert or Jan van Eyck actually invented oil-painting, no evidence has yet been discovered to prove they were not the first to employ oil as a medium in putting colour on the prepared panel. It is true that oil as a protective varnish was frequently used during the fourteenth century, and it is probable that some kind of oil-colour was employed in the colouring of statuary and in the painting of banners at an early period. For this reason the statement that Hubert and Jan van Eyck "discovered painting in oils" has been disputed, and generally accepted as inaccurate, but the question is one rather of terminology than of the technical point.

As the term "oil-painting" is generally accepted today, it is fairer to credit these brothers with the invention, than to speak of their achievement as an improvement in oil- painting, for hitherto the medium in common use had been a preparation of gum and white of eggs. And as there is neither definite proof nor any good evidence that oil had ever been used as a medium to mix the colours for panel-painting before Hubert and Jan made their experiments, we surely have an easy distinction to draw. The brothers Van Eyck were the first successfully to mix the oil with the colours for painting, and this process is what we now understand as "painting in oils". The use of oils as a protective or varnish does not enter into the painting, since such had only been used on the completion of the work.

For the rest, the brothers either acted more generously than Vasari would have it, or they did not altogether succeed in guarding their precious secret, for their method appears to have been fairly generally practised at Ghent about 1420. We find, for instance, that in 1419 the "free painters," Willem van Appoele and Johannes Maertens, received a commission to paint some pictures for the town hall of Ghent in "good oil-colours." It is also certain that Rogier van der Weyden— Vasari's Ruggieri da Bruggia—never was a pupil of either Jan or Hubert van Eyck.

 

A Presentation Portrait, probably from the Painter (Jan) to his friend "Timothy", a Greek humanist whose Christian name only is known. The inscription at the foot reads: "Actum anno Domini 1432, 10 die Octobris, a Iohanne de Eyck."

THE ART OF THE VAN EYCKS

 

THE position occupied by Hubert and Jan van Eyck in the history of art is one of unparalleled importance. A deep gulf divides them from all their immediate precursors, who seem to belong altogether to a different epoch —nay, a different world. Just as their improvement in the technical methods of their craft opened up a vista of till then un- thought-of possibilities, so their conception of life and of pictorial form marks the beginning of a new era, the passing of the vague mediaeval idealism into an art that is based upon the close study and loving appreciation of Nature. Perhaps too much stress has been laid upon the so-called "realism" of the brothers van Eyck, and more especially of Jan. Again and again critics have insisted upon Jan's uncompromising love of literal truth, upon his insistence on details that are in themselves at times repulsively ugly. This realism was tempered with deep sentiment and a sense of style which kept such details well subordinated to the general scheme, and it is in this respect that Jan van Eyck stands immeasurably above Melchior Broederlam, who occupied the position of vavlet de chambve and Court painter to Philip the Bold, the grandfather of Jan's patron. Broederlam, indeed, as may be seen in his famous altar-piece at Dijon, seems to be a far more pronounced realist than Jan van Eyck, simply because he lacks that sense of style and harmony and subordination—in short, that concentration—which makes us forget the realistic detail in the beauty of the complete thing.

The real precursors of the van Eycks were the sculptors who carved the tombs, monuments, and reliefs in the churches of Tournai. In these we first find the faithful adherence to the facts of Nature and the understanding of the subtleties of form which in painting appear first in the works of the brothers van Eyck, who may have also owed much of their knowledge to the flourishing school of Flemish miniature-painters, if, indeed, Hubert in his early days did not actually practise this art. Yet, even though the new era in painting is, as it were, heralded by the new tendencies in plastic art—just as in Italy Giotto was preceded by the sculptor Niccolo Pisani—there is something wonderful, something almost difficult to realise, in the sudden appearance of complete and perfect works of art, like the paintings of the van Eycks, that with masterly sureness express the whole essence of the Gothic style, whilst at the same time they reveal a new understanding of the inexhaustible beauty of Nature, a keen perception of structural growth and of individual characteristics, and, above all, an almost modern understanding of the play of light upon figures and objects in and out of doors.

The picturesque, brilliant, varied life of such cities as Bruges and Ghent at the beginning of the fifteenth century cannot have failed to stimulate the artists' power of observation, to sharpen their perception of the differences of race, gesture, and costume; for the streets and squares of the rich commercial centres of Flanders were filled from morning to night with ever-moving crowds of courtiers and merchants from all parts of the world—Spaniards and Italians, Germans, and Slavonians, and even Moors and Turks, all in their different costumes and following their different customs. At the same time the painters' eyes were constantly met by the wonders of the creations of architects, armourers, and other craftsmen who flourished under the protection of the Burgundian rulers; and one may well understand the love and enthusiasm with which a receptive artist like Jan van Eyck applied himself to the faithful delineation of the splendours and of the seething life by which he was surrounded.

Although the two brothers were in the habit of working together upon the same pictures, which has given rise to many disputes as to the authorship of unsigned works, and although Jan, the realist, at times approached, though never equalled, the spirituality and decorative sumptuousness of Hubert, whilst Hubert, the stylist and greater mind of the two, sometimes vied with Jan in the minute and exquisite elaboration of details, the signed works of Jan and those parts of the Ghent altar-piece which are unquestionably Hubert's own have made it possible to characterise the distinguishing qualities of the two masters. Hubert far exceeds his brother in monumental impressiveness, in grandeur of style, in idealistic significance, in sumptuousness, and even in sense of beauty. Even the folds of his draperies have a fulness and a noble swing which form a striking contrast to the more laboured irregularity of Jan's, as may be seen in comparing the garments of God the Father, the Virgin Mary, and St. John, of the Ghent altar-piece, with the curiously broken folds of Barbara's dress in Jan's picture at Antwerp.

The conception of such ideas as are embodied in the Adoration of the Lamb, or in the Triumph of the Church over the Synagogue, at the Madrid Museum, would also have been quite beyond the pale of the more prosaic Jan's imagination. Jan, on the other hand, excelled in stating the reality of the visible world. Generalisations of human types or of landscape features are unknown to him. He was the first to fix upon his panels all the carefully studied and exquisitely wrought details of the actual world—sky and mountain and river, forest and fields, flowers and trees, and the churches and castles, houses and bridges, placed in Nature by human hands. It is scarcely too much to say that he was the first landscape-painter, just as he was the first portrait painter in the modern sense of the word—the first who could paint a scene so that it could be identified after the lapse of centuries, the first who could paint a portrait so that the model stands before us living and breathing, in all his beauty or ugliness. To appreciate the keenness of his vision one has only to examine the marvellous Arnolfini group at the National Gallery, with its almost scientific treatment of softly diffused indoor light. A comparison of this picture, from the point of view of lighting, with anything that was painted before the days of the van Eycks will reveal perhaps the greatest step forward that is on record in the whole history of painting.

Christ's Warriors (Berlin Museum) By Hubert and Jan van Eyck.

 

COLLABORATION OF THE BROTHERS

WHEN piecing together the lives of the brothers van Eyck, it is necessary to delve into a confusing mass of conflicting statements—evidence which is only in part to be relied upon, and the theories of those who have devoted a vast amount of time and labour to the unearthing, sorting, and arranging of such evidence as they have been able to lay their hands upon. Incomplete as the records are, we must, until further evidence has been discovered, accept the obvious conclusions from the indisputable data left to us.

We have ten unquestionably genuine signed pictures by Jan, and a small group of others which may, from internal evidence, be safely ascribed to the same source. We know that the great Adoration of the Lamb, though designed in its entirety by Hubert, is the combined work of the two masters. We know also that the Copenhagen panel of Robert Poortier was in Hubert's studio at the time of his death —perhaps unfinished. The remaining pictures generally accepted as genuine van Eycks have been variously ascribed to Hubert, or to Jan, or to their united efforts. In view of the fact that not a single really authenticated work by Hubert alone is known, special significance must be attached to a statement, several times repeated by early writers, that Hubert and Jan "continually painted on the same works."

In trying to solve the difficult question which part of the extant oeuvre is Hubert's and which is Jan's, our knowledge of Jan's journeys to the South assumes considerable importance. For Hubert's travels we lack proof—they are mere conjecture: But there is documentary evidence of Jan's journey to Portugal in 1428, in addition to which Mr. Weale has, I understand, recently unearthed some further documents which establish another and earlier journey of Jan to Spain. On these travels Jan must have become well acquainted with certain plants peculiar to the South, and especially the dwarf palm or palmetto, which is confined almost exclusively to Spain and Portugal. It is therefore not unreasonable to assign to him those portions of the disputed pictures in which this palmetto appears. Some authorities hold that Jan did not have any independent artistic career before Hubert's death, and that in the division of labour Hubert's share was, as a rule, the general design and the painting of the figures, whilst Jan filled in the landscape and architectural backgrounds.

The collaboration theory has been advanced by Mr. A. Marks, whose knowledge of Flemish art is profound, and whose deductions are as conscientious as they are convincing. To him we are indebted for an interesting paper upon the subject, which is at once exhaustive and reasonable. To retail all that Mr. Marks advances in support of his theory would be to reprint his treatise in toto; but though it is impossible here to follow all his arguments, it'is equally impossible to avoid reference to the valuable correspondence between him and Mr. James Weale in the Athenaeum between November, 1902, and April, 1903. This correspondence arose from an article by Mr. A. Marks in the Athenaeum in May, 1900, in which attention is drawn to the presence of the palmetto in the picture of St. Francis receiving the Stigmata (now in possession of Mr. J. G. Johnson, Pennsylvania; a copy in Turin), which picture had been formerly variously ascribed to Henri met de Bles, Joachim Patinier, and Mostaert. Mr. Marks has since supplemented and explained his views in the essay mentioned; whilst Miss Frances Weale has published an excellent study on the "van Eycks", which, in a concise and interesting form, presents her father's views on the subject.

St. Francis receiving the Stigmata. Jan van Eyck.

It is, of course, likely that nothing is proved as to the authorship of certain paintings by the presence or absence of the exotic plants or other details ascribed to one or other of the brothers. Supposing the assumed visit of Hubert to Southern Europe to be a fact, Jan may have made use of his brother's studies to embellish his landscapes; or Hubert may have utilized Jan's studies. But either supposition is extremely unlikely. We have certain proof that Jan did several times visit the South, while Hubert's sojourn in these parts is pure surmise; and not only is it likely that, rather than make use of second-hand material, Hubert left portions of the pictures to be painted by Jan, but the examination of the various pictures reveals the same hand in the painting of the recurring details. We must, then, take the facts and the most likely deductions in preference to deductions drawn from data which are merely conjectural.

Documentary evidence proves that Jan, immediately after his reception by the King of Portugal on January 12, 1429, began the work of painting the portrait of the Infanta, which, by the way, was executed in tempera, and not in oil. This painting is, unfortunately, lost, and though there are several portraits of Isabella now extant, of which one at least may be a copy of Jan's picture, there is nothing in any of them that can be traced to this master. He took a month over its completion, and while the Court and Embassy were awaiting the decision of Philip, to whom the picture had been sent, Jan and his colleagues had time to visit several places of interest and people of distinction. They travelled to the north to see the shrine of St. Iago of Compostella; then to the south, where they were received in turn by the Duke of Arjona and the King of Castile; and then to Granada, in the extreme south, where they visited the King of that city. It is stated that they also visited many other places ; and, as from Granada they returned to Lisbon, they must have passed through the country lying between Cordova and Seville.

Now, through the whole of the south-eastern portion of the peninsula the palmetto, or dwarf-palm, flourishes abundantly, and Jan could not fail during his tour to become well acquainted with it. In a letter which Mr. Marks quotes in his paper read at the Royal Society of Literature, June 24, 1903, Mr. Luffmann, Director of the School of Horticulture in Melbourne, says that the triangle formed by Seville, Cordova, and Osuna, is "a piece of country which is literally overrun by the plant", and that the root of the palmetto is commonly used in those parts as fuel. In Italy it is but of rare occurrence, though it grows in some of the islands of the Mediterranean; whilst in the parts of Spain and Portugal visited by Jan it is almost impossible for the visitor to avoid seeing it.

Failing, then, even the probability that Hubert ever saw the palmetto growing, we must credit Jan with the painting of this plant, which, like all the other exotics, must have been carefully studied from nature, for they are represented in most minute, careful, and conscientious manner, and are absolutely true to life. The palmetto occurs in the picture of St. Francis receiving the Stigmata (above referred to), in the St. Anthony with the Donor at Copenhagen; and in The Three Marys at the Sepulchre in the collection of Sir Frederick Cook at Richmond. The portions of these paintings by Hubert van Eyck, where the palmetto occurs, may therefore be safely ascribed to the hand of Jan.

Other exotic plants, which are not restricted to Spain and Portugal, occur in these pictures; but they are painted by the same hand, and betray the same loving adherence to truth, and a similar familiarity with the plants as they grow. It is therefore patent that they, too, must be ascribed to Jan, for it is impossible to suppose that the younger brother's work on these pictures was simply that of adding the by no means necessary dwarf-palm to Hubert's completed landscapes. Jan was probably responsible for the design and execution of these landscapes. These other exotics also occur in the Ghent altar-piece, in the Calvary of the Berlin Museum, and in the copy, at the same museum, of a lost Virgin and Child. Mr. Marks produces further evidence to prove that Jan must have painted not only the foliage, but the whole of the landscapes where the little palm appears, including in most cases the architecture. He draws attention to the architectural features in the Chancellov Rolin with Saints in the Louvre, and the signed and dated altar-piece by Jan in the museum at Bruges : "The architecture in these pictures is not a real architecture—that is, it has not been copied from any actual examples ... Agreement is general that it is an architecture invented, not merely copied". These pictures furnish evidence of the painter having visited Italy, for marble is represented in a most lavish manner. This marble is not characteristic of Northern architecture; its use is distinctly Italian. The painting of it displays the usual care and conscientiousness common to all Jan's works. Further points cited by Mr. Marks as evidence of Jan's work in various pictures are the representations of snow-mountains in various works, and the presence of a flying flock of geese.

The former is of greater importance, as this again points to acquaintance with the South, where alone the painter could have seen snow-mountains. Now, as very similar architecture to that in the altar-piece at Bruges, which is signed by Jan van Eyck, is found in the Chancellor Rolin (Louvre), the Virgin and Child (Dresden), and the Carthusian Monk with Saints (Gustave de Rothschild, Paris), the suggestion is clear that in all these pictures the architecture is the work of Jan, and several notable critics hold this view. In three of these four paintings we find the snow-mountains — namely, in the Dresden triptych, the Chancellor Rolin, and the Carthusian Monk. And having established Jan as the author of these snow-mountains, we must credit him with the landscapes where this feature occurs in other pictures—i.e., the Ghent altar-piece, the Crucifixion of the Hermitage in St. Petersburg, the Calvary of the Berlin Museum, and the Three Marys of Sir Frederick Cook. The theory that Jan is responsible for the snow-mountains is amply supported by the very reasonable deduction that he must at some time have visited Italy. This is gathered from the Italian character of the architecture, together with the snow seen in the Rothschild picture, the Chancellor Rolin, the Carthusian Monk, and the Dresden picture. The theory is further supported by the presence of the palmetto together with snow-mountains in the Three Marys of Sir Frederick Cook. Here the palmetto proves the authorship of the landscape, and as the view contains snow-mountains it very materially strengthens the supposition that it was Jan, and not Hubert, who painted them, and who consequently must have been to the South of Europe—probably Italy—to have seen them.

The flock of geese, which appears in no fewer than six pictures in addition to Jan's signed St. Barbara at Antwerp, is of very much less importance than the snow-mountains and the palmetto, for here the only use that can be made of it as evidence is its frequent repetition. It is found in the landscapes of the Ghent altar-piece, in the Chancellor Rolin, the Carthusian Monk, another version of the same subject in the Berlin Museum, St. Francis receiving the Stigmata, and in the Three Marys. But the flock of wild-geese is not a feature made use of by the van Eyck brothers only. It seems to have been of common occurrence in several other Flemish painters both before and after the days of the van Eycks. Nevertheless, its presence in the pictures enumerated has been brought forward as supplementary evidence to prove the collaboration of Hubert and Jan.

So far, then, evidence has been shown to prove Jan's share in the following pictures : the Chancellor Rolin, the Virgin and Child (at Dresden), the Carthusian Monk in the Rothschild Collection, St. Francis receiving the Stigmata, St. Anthony and the Donor (at Copenhagen), The Three Marys at the Sepulchre, the Crucifixion (at St. Petersburg), the Calvary (at Berlin), and the great altar-piece at St. Bavo, Ghent. Still another point which has been generally urged to prove collaboration of the two brothers is the appearance of their portraits in certain pictures. They are seen in the panel of the Ghent altar-piece representing the Just Judges, in the copy of the lost Fountain of Life or The Triumph of the Church over the Synagogue in the Madrid Museum, and also, it is said, in the Crucifixion of St. Petersburg.

The Triumph of the Church over the Synagogue, also known as The Fountain of Life.by Hubert and Jan van Eyck,

Though the theory of collaboration is an old one, doubts have arisen amongst modern critics, who have shown a growing tendency to ascribe the majority of the unsigned works solely to the elder brother, which attribution is refuted not only by the arguments here set forth, but by many early writers, including Guicciardini and van Mander, both notable and reliable historians.

Before leaving the question of collaboration, a few words must be said concerning the controversy that has arisen over the Ghent altar-piece. This painting is indisputably the masterpiece of the van Eycks, and is of stupendous proportions. The panel of the Adoration of the Lamb, from which the whole alter-piece takes its name, and the shutters depicting the Just Judges, the Wavviovs of Christ, the Holy Hermits, and the Holy Pilgrims, have by many critics been attributed to Hubert's unaided efforts. It is therefore interesting to examine the landscape backgrounds of these five panels, and to consider them in the light of the evidence deduced from the backgrounds of the other "collaboration" pictures. Evidence is needed to prove that Jan's work was not merely confined to finishing the picture after his brother's death (the inscription states that it was begun by Hubert and finished by Jan), which in itself, of course, does not prove collaboration of the brothers.

In the first place, Jan's handiwork must be identified. In the pictures already discussed it has been proved fairly conclusively that Jan is responsible for the painting of the exotic plants, the snow-mountains, the flock of wild geese, and the architectural setting. The land- scapes in the Ghent altar-piece contain exotic plants, wild geese, and snow-mountains. Of the latter it is difficult to speak; they are whitish in colour, but their formation is neither so natural nor so well designed as in the Three Marys. The exotic plants alone prove Jan's work here. The birds may, or may not, be very important. They serve, however, by their repeated appearance in Jan's other pictures, as auxiliary evidence. The question for proof, however, is not the presence of Jan's work on this picture, but the presence of his work before the death of his brother. And from this point of view it is significant that, though other exotics are present in profusion, the palmetto—a sure result of Jan's visit to Portugal—does not appear. The whole work is stated in the inscription to have been finished on May 6, 1432, two years after Jan's return from Portugal. Now, the absence of the palmetto from this picture points to one of two conclusions—either the work left for Jan to do in the completion was comparatively trifling, or that the greater part of the picture, including the design of the landscapes, was already finished before Jan met with the palmetto.

That the work of the younger brother was not insignificant is distinctly stated in the text of the inscription : "The painter, Hubert van Eyck, greater than whom none is to be found, began [the work]; the bulk was completed by his brother Jan, second to him in art, relying on the request of Jodoc Vydt. This verse invites you to contemplate that which was completed on May 6, 1432". This translation from the Latin is chosen from three versions. The other renderings seem to be given by those who would translate the word pondus as work, and thus give the younger brother credit for no more than finishing an incomplete picture. The text has, however, been translated by several learned scholars, who are entirely free from the taint of partisanship, and it is now generally agreed that the translation given here is the correct one.

There is yet another possibility which the absence of the palmetto points to—namely, that the picture was practically finished before Jan's visit to Portugal, save some very minor details, which were completed in 1432. The presence of the other exotics points to this view being correct, for it would obviously be unlikely that Jan should omit the palmetto from all these five landscapes after his careful studies of his favourite plant. The other exotics, not being a result of the journey, may very well have been painted before 1429. Collaboration in this work is further proved by the portraits of the two brothers.

The Van der Paele Altar-piece (Bruges Museum) Jan van Eyck.

  About this time Van Eyck was once more in trouble with the Receiver of Flanders and his officials. Philip, adding one more to the many marks of favour reserved for his predilect painter, had bestowed on him a life-pension of 4320. in lieu of the salary of 1000. parisis awarded him at the time of his engagement. In the absence of any explanation of this enormous increase, the mystified accountants at Lille declined registration of the letters patent; but they were speedily brought to their senses by John's threat, without further waste of words, to throw up his appointment there and then: so they referred the matter back to the Duke, who by letters of March 12, 1435, commanded immediate registration of the patent and payment of the pension under penalty of his extreme displeasure, protesting that, being about to employ Van Eyck on works of the highest importance, he "could not find another painter equally to his taste or of such excellence in his art and science." Matters being thus satisfactorily composed, John was free to attend to his patron's behests; in addition to which he had the gilding and polychroming in 1435 of six of the eight statues of counts and countesses of Flanders executed by local sculptors for the front of the new Town­house, probably from his own designs. Yet another present of six silver cups, perhaps as a salve for his wounded feelings, and employment on a further secret mission to distant parts in 1436 testify to the Duke's abiding trust and approbation. These undertakings, however, did not exhaust the painter's marvellous capacity for work, for this year also witnessed the completion of one of the largest of his pictures, the altar-piece to the order of Canon Van der Paele, for the collegiate church of Saint Donatian at Bruges, which since its recovery from the French in 1815 has graced the collection of the local Town Gallery. John's love of the Romanesque probably accounts for his neglect of the architecture of that church in designing the apse of the transept in which the Virgin and Child sit enthroned, but the scenic effect produced by his treatment of the series of round arches on cylindrical columns and of the pillared ambulatory goes far to compensate for the omission; the beauty of the picture being further enhanced by the ornate carving of the capitals and throne, the gorgeous display of cloth-of-gold and tapestry, and the rich variety of dress and costume, culminating in all the splendour of the archiepiscopal vestments, yet not so overpowering as to dwarf interest in the noble countenance of the wearer. Howbeit, the artist was singularly unfortunate in the subjects appointed to pose for the Virgin and St George, while the Divine Child is probably the least pleasing of his Infant Christs. St. Donatian, however, and the homely yet dignified ecclesiastic typified as the Donor, largely redeem the figure-work from the charge of insignificance. It would appear that the life-size bust of Canon Van der Paele at Hampton Court Palace was a study for the full-length portrait, for at the time the altar-piece was being executed the worthy Canon was already so feeble that since September 1434 he had been dispensed by the Chapter from attendance in choir on the score of infirmity and advanced age.