_Van Dyck_ (Flemish: 1599-1641). _See 49._
This famous picture was one of many equestrian portraits of Charles
I. which Van Dyck painted at his court. It is, however, unique among
them. In all the others,--the Windsor picture, the replica at Hampton
Court, and the pictures in the Earl of Warwick's and the Marquis of
Lothian's Collections, the king faces the spectator, and rides, as it
were, straight out of the picture, the horse being white. The size,
proportions, and composition of this picture are different. The horse
is dun-coloured, and the king is seen in profile. A small picture at
Buckingham Palace was probably the original design or sketch of it. It
was sold after Charles's death for £150 by the Parliament, and in 1885
was bought by another Parliament--from the Duke of Marlborough--for the
great price of £17,500 (_see_ under 1171).
It is a courtier's portrait of the idol of the cavaliers--a portrait of
the good side of a bad king. Notice first the prominence given to the
noble horse (_cf._ under 156), almost to the point of clumsiness. Then
in Charles himself, note the stately bearing, the personal dignity, the
almost feminine refinement. It is a portrait of personal courage--with
no suspicion of any fatal want of presence of mind; of dignity--with
the obstinacy, which was its reverse side, left out. In such a portrait
"of a Cavalier by a Cavalier" Van Dyck's work is invested with an
enduring pathos for all Englishmen. One remembers only, in looking upon
this picture of him, Charles's graces, not his faults. One thinks of
him as the man who "nothing common did, nor mean, upon that memorable
scene." And so considered, how eloquent becomes the isolation in which
the painter has here left him. With him, indeed, is Sir Thomas Morton,
his equerry, but the king does not see him. Bareheaded he sits, gazing
into futurity.