_Van Dyck_ (Flemish: 1599-1641).
Sir Anthony Van Dyck, the prince of court portrait-painters
and the most famous of Rubens's pupils, is one of the many
great artists whose gifts showed themselves almost from birth.
He was born at Antwerp, the seventh child of a tradesman in
good circumstances. His mother was a woman of taste, who
attained considerable skill in art-needlework, and from her
he doubtless derived many of the qualities for which his
works are conspicuous. At the age of ten the boy had already
begun to paint. His admission at the age of thirteen to the
crowded studio of Rubens is a proof of his precocious talent.
Documents recently discovered show that Van Dyck when seventeen
had already pupils of his own, and that his independent work
was sought after by artists and amateurs. At nineteen he was
admitted to the painters' Guild of St. Luke. For five years
(1620-25) he was for the most part travelling and painting
in Italy, with introductions from Rubens. Many of his best
works are still to be seen in Genoa and Turin. He also visited
Venice, where the spell of Titian's genius enchanted him.
Several sketches in the British Museum testify to his devout
study of the great Venetian. On his return to Antwerp at the
end of 1625, Van Dyck soon became the great court-painter of
his time. Queens visited him in his studio, and the nobility
of three nations considered it an honour to be painted by him.
Religious pictures were also produced by him at this time
with amazing rapidity. In 1632 he came to England. He had
already paid a short visit in 1620-21, when he had painted
James I., and was in receipt of a grant from the Exchequer
"for special service performed for His Majesty." This first
visit to England seems to have been due to the initiative
of the celebrated connoisseur, the Earl of Arundel. At the
court of Charles I. Van Dyck came at once into the highest
favour. Sir Kenelm Digby, a gentleman of the bedchamber, was
his bosom friend, and on his first presentation to Charles I.
he obtained permission to paint the king and queen. He was
appointed painter to the court, was knighted, and received a
pension of £200. A town-house was given him at Blackfriars,
and a country-house at Eltham. He "always went magnificently
dressed, had a numerous and gallant equipage, and kept so good
a table in his apartment that few princes were more visited
or better served." In England alone there are said to be
twenty-four portraits of the king by Van Dyck, and twenty-five
of Queen Henrietta Maria. Every one of distinction desired to
have his or her features immortalised by the court-painter,
and for seven years he worked at the portraits of the English
aristocracy with indefatigable industry. Some 300 of these
portraits exist in this country. The painter's health gradually
began to fail, from the constant drain upon his strength
caused by the incessant labour necessary to procure the means
of gratifying his luxurious tastes, and also by his irregular
mode of life. Van Dyck, says Mr. Law in his Catalogue of the
Hampton Court Gallery, "loved beauty in every form, and found
the seduction of female charms altogether irresistible." In
1639 he married Mary Ruthven, grand-daughter of the unfortunate
Lord Ruthven, Earl of Gowrie--a marriage promoted by the king,
who hoped thereby to effect a change in the painter's habits
of life. Margaret Lemon, the celebrated beauty, who lived with
Van Dyck for some time at Blackfriars, resented the marriage
most bitterly, and tried to maim the painter's right hand. In
1640-41 he travelled abroad with his wife, but returned to
this country a dying man. The king offered a special reward to
any doctor who could save the painter's life; but he expired
in his house at Blackfriars on December 9, 1641, at the early
age of forty-two. Two days afterwards he was buried in the old
cathedral of St. Paul's, and the king erected a monument to
record the death of one "who in life had conferred immortality
on many." A magnificent collection of his works was shown at
the Royal Academy in the winter exhibition of 1900.
The characteristics of Van Dyck's art may in large measure be
gathered from the circumstances of his life. He is essentially
the painter of princes. His sacred and other subject pictures
are often remarkable for force and vigour of handling.
"Van Dyck," says Ruskin, "often gives a graceful dramatic
rendering of received Scriptural legends." But it is not in
these subjects that Van Dyck is seen in his most interesting
and most characteristic manner. "Rubens is only to be seen in
the Battle of the Amazons, and Van Dyck only at court." No
more in him than in the other later Flemish artists is there
anything spiritual. The difference between him and Teniers, for
instance, is accidental rather than essential. "They lived,"
says Ruskin, "the gentle at court, the simple in the pot-house;
and could indeed paint, according to their habitation, a
nobleman or a boor, but were not only incapable of conceiving,
but wholly unwishful to conceive, anything, natural or
supernatural, beyond the precincts of the Presence and the
tavern." What distinguishes Van Dyck is the indelible mark of
courtly grace and refinement which he gives to all his sitters.
Nowhere clearer than in his portraits does one see the better
side of the "Cavalier" ideal. In this connection we may note
Van Dyck's feeling for the nobility of the horse (_see_ note
on No. 156). One thing "that gives nobleness to the Van Dyck,"
says Ruskin in describing one of his "cavalier" portraits, "is
its feminineness; the rich, light silken scarf, the flowing
hair, the delicate, sharp, though sunburnt features, and the
lace collar, do not in the least diminish the manliness,
but add feminineness. One sees that the knight is indeed a
soldier, but not a soldier only; that he is accomplished in all
ways, and tender in all thoughts." The reader who remembers
any large collection of Van Dycks will feel that the spirit
of Ruskin's description is true to a very large number of
them. One may forget the individual sitter; the impression
left by the Van Dyck type is indelible. Charles I. and his
Queen, though painted by several other painters, are known to
posterity exclusively through Van Dyck--not (says M. Hymans)
from a greater closeness of resemblance to the original, but
from a particular power of expression and bearing, which, once
seen, it is impossible to forget. The same may be said of Van
Dyck's portraits generally. He endowed all his sitters alike
with the same distinction of feature and elegance in bearing.
He excelled in giving delicacy to the hands, and is said to
have kept special models for this part of his work. He is not
what is called an "intimate" portrait painter. He does not
startle us with penetration in seizing points of individual
character; he charms us with the refinement of his type.
"In Titian," says Ruskin, "it is always the Man whom we see
first; in Van Dyck the Prince or the Sir." With regard to Van
Dyck's technique, his earlier productions (says Sir F. Burton)
"are scarcely to be distinguished from those of Rubens, and
there are cases in which dogmatism as to authorship would be
hazardous.[81] Differentiation is first visible in a greater
precision, a slenderer, it might be said, a more wiry touch,
and a cooler colouring, on the part of the pupil." At its
worst, Van Dyck's touch is distinguished by what Ruskin calls
a certain "flightiness and flimsiness"; at its best, by great
refinement: "there is not a touch of Van Dyck's pencil but he
seems to have revelled in--not grossly, but delicately--tasting
the colour in every touch as an epicure would wine." His
output was prodigious; in spite of his early death more than
1000 works are attributed to him. A considerable portion of
many of these was done by assistants, and his later works
are often hasty and careless. The references to Van Dyck in
Ruskin's books are numerous. (The most interesting are _Modern
Painters_, vol. v. pt. ix. ch. vi. §§ 5, 10, 22; ch. vii. § 23;
_Elements of Drawing_, appendix ii.; _On the Old Road_, i. §
154; _Art of England_, 1884, pp. 43, 83, 138, 212.)
A portrait of special interest as having been much prized by Sir Joshua
Reynolds, to whom it formerly belonged. When Mr. Angerstein bought
it, the great Burke is said to have congratulated him on possessing
Sir Joshua's "favourite picture." It is commonly called "The Portrait
of Rubens," but the principal figure does not greatly resemble the
well-known face of Rubens; it is more probably a portrait of Luke
Vostermann, a celebrated engraver of the time. He is discoursing, it
would seem, on some point of art, suggested by the little statue which
a man behind is holding.