"Why is it, probably, that Pictures exist in the world, and
to what end was the divine art of Painting bestowed, by the
earnest gods, upon poor mankind? I could advise once, for a
little! To make this poor authentic earth a little memorable
for us. Flaying of St. Bartholomew, Rape of Europa, Rape of the
Sabines, Piping and Amours of goat-footed Pan, Romulus suckled
by the Wolf: all this and much else of fabulous, distant,
unimportant, not to say impossible, ugly and unworthy shall
pass. But I say, Herewithal is something not phantasmal; of
indisputable certainty, home-grown" (CARLYLE: _Friedrich_, bk.
iv. ch. vi., slightly altered).
The Early Flemish and German schools are by no means so completely
represented as the nearly contemporary schools of Italy; but there
are enough pictures to bring out the characteristics of the northern
art. Nothing can be more instructive, and convincing of the value of
art as a means of national autobiography, than to compare the early
pictures in these rooms _en bloc_ with those in any of the Italian
rooms (_e.g._ the Umbrian). No one can fail to be struck at once by
the contrast between what Mr. Ruskin has called "the angular and bony
sanctities of the North," and "the drooping graces and pensive pieties
of the South." This is the first distinguishing character of the early
northern art: there is little feeling, or care, for beauty as such.
Look round the rooms, and see whether there is a single face which
will haunt you for its beauty. Look at the pictures which interest
you most, choose out the brightest and the most exquisitely finished:
and see if it is not an almost defiant absence of beautiful feature
that characterises them. Coupled with their absence of feeling for the
beautiful there is in the work of these artists a strange fondness for
death--for agonies, crucifixions, depositions, exhumations. "It is not
that the person needs excitement or has any such strong perceptions as
would cause excitement, but he is dead to the horror, and a strange
evil influence guides his feebleness of mind rather to fearful images
than to beautiful ones,--as our disturbed dreams are sometimes filled
with ghastlinesses which seem not to arise out of any conceivable
association of our waking ideas, but to be a vapour out of the very
chambers of the tomb, to which the mind, in its palsy, has approached"
(_Modern Painters_, vol. iv. pt. v. ch. xix. § 16). Thus, in painting
scenes from the Passion or stories from the book of martyrs, the
Italians of the earlier time endured the painfulness, the northern
artists rejoiced in it.
What, then, is it that gives these pictures their worth and has
caused their painters to be included amongst the great masters of
the world? Look at some of the best, and the more you look the more
you will see that their goodness consists in an absolute fidelity to
nature--in dress, in ornaments, and especially in portraiture. Here
are unmistakably the men and women of the time, set down precisely
in their habit as they lived. In this grim, unrelenting truthfulness
these pictures correspond exactly to the ideal which Carlyle--himself
a typical northerner--lays down, in the passage above quoted, for the
art of painting.
Look at these pictures and at the Italian again, and another obvious
difference is apparent. The Flemish pictures are on the whole much
smaller. This is a fact full of significance. In the sunny South the
artists spent their best energies in covering large spaces of wall with
frescoes; in the damp climate of the North they were obliged to paint
chiefly upon panels. The conditions of their climate were no doubt what
led to the discovery of the Van Eyck method (described under 186),
the point of which was a way of drying pictures rapidly without the
necessity of exposure to the sun. It was a method only applicable to
work on a small scale, but it permitted such work to be brought to the
highest finish. This precisely suited the painstaking, patient men of
the Low Countries. Hence the minuteness and finish which characterise
their work. Moreover, "every charm that can be bestowed upon so small
a surface is requisite to intensify its attractive power; and hence
Flemish painters developed a jewel-like quality of colouring which
remained peculiar to themselves." ... Further, the Van Eyck method,
requiring absolute forethought and forbidding any alterations, tended
to a set of stock subjects treated more or less in the same way. "Thus
the chief qualities of the Flemish School may be called Veracity
of Imitation, Jewel-like richness of Colour, perfection of Finish,
emphasis of Character, and Conservatism in design. These indeed are
virtues enough to make a school of art great in the annals of time,
even though they may never be able to win for it the clatter of popular
applause. The paintings of Flanders were not, and were not intended to
be, popular. Flemish artists did not, like the Italians, paint for the
folk, but for the delight of a small cultured clique."[29]
Such are the general characteristics of the Early Flemish School.
Passing now to its historical development and to its relations with the
schools of Germany, we may distinguish three successive periods. (1)
The birthplace of painting as a separate art in the North was on the
Lower Rhine, at Maastricht and Cologne. Of this school of the Lower
Rhine a characteristic specimen is No. 687. It is properly grouped with
the Early Flemish School, because in the fourteenth century most of the
Flemish artists were Germans from the valley of the Rhine. (2) Later
on, however, the great development in the prosperity and wealth of the
Low Countries--the land of the Woolsack and the Golden Fleece, led to
the growth of a native art. This was closely connected with the schools
of illuminators patronised by the Courts of France and Burgundy,
and many works of the _Primitifs_ cannot be distinguished, with any
complete certainty, as French or Flemish. Just as at Venice the people,
busy with their trade, preferred for a long time to buy rather than
produce their works of art, but afterwards settled down and made works
for themselves, so in Flanders the German art came to be superseded by
a native Flemish art. The Early Flemish School, covering roughly the
period 1400-1500, was the result, the most important masters being Van
Eyck, Van der Weyden, Bouts, David, and Memlinc. (3.) It was now the
turn of this school to influence that of Germany. The Flemish masters
were great travellers, and the German masters were no doubt attracted
to Flanders by the great technical skill there in vogue. Hence we
now come to a second period in German painting--marked by Flemish
influence. There is less of the mysticism and more realism; but with
the realism there is an element of brutality and ugliness. Nos. 707 and
1049 are typical German pictures of this period.
Finally, it will be noticed, as the visitor goes round the rooms, that
many of the pictures are either altogether "unknown" or are attributed
to artists whose names are not given, and who are merely described as
the "master" of such and such other pictures. This is an interesting
and characteristic point. Of individual painters of the Early German
School, and for the most part of those of the Early Flemish, very
little is known. They seldom signed their names,[30] and the works
of the fifteenth century were in the next two centuries treated with
neglect. Hence both the attribution of these pictures, and the lives of
the painters to whom they are attributed, are still very uncertain. A
second reason for this uncertainty is to be found in the Guild system,
which was very strict amongst the northern artists. Painting, to the
mediæval mind, was a craft like any other, and was subject to the same
rules. The Guild educated the artist and bought his materials, and
even when he emerged into mastership, stood in many ways between him
and his patron. Hence pictures were often regarded as the work not
of this or that individual, but of this or that Guild. Hence too the
quiet industry and the uncompetitive patience of these Early Flemish
painters. "It was not merely the result of chance that the brothers
Van Eyck invented their peculiar method of painting by which they were
enabled to produce pictures of almost unlimited durability and of
unsurpassable finish, provided sufficient care were bestowed upon the
work. The spirit of the day and the method of the day were reflections
one of another.... Take any picture of this old Flemish School, and
regard it carefully, you will find that only so do its beauties strike
you at all.... The old Flemish artists did always the thing that was
within their powers, striving indeed by daily industry to increase the
strength of those powers, but never hoping either by luck or momentary
insanity to attain anything unattainable by patient thought and
long-continued labour. 'Patient continuance in well-doing' was the open
secret of their success" (_Conway_, ch. ii.)
Of the later German School, specially distinguished in portraiture,
the Gallery has now some fine examples, and here again there is
similarity between the German and the early Flemish painters. "If,"
says Ruskin, "the reader were to make the circuit of this collection
for the purpose of determining which picture united in its modes of
execution the highest reach of achievement with the strongest assurance
of durability, we believe that he would finally pause before a small
picture or panel, representing two quaintly dressed figures in a dimly
lighted room." Turn from the portraits by Jan van Eyck to the portraits
by Cranach and Albert Dürer, and much of the same minute fidelity and
careful workmanship will be found. For Holbein's portraits, the reader
is referred to the notes (pp. 613-4).
[Illustration]