THE VAN EYCKS
Before passing to Hubert van Eyck, the painter of the original of our
next picture, please compare carefully the picture of Richard II. and
this of the Three Maries, looking first at one and then at the other.
The subject of the visit of the Maries to the Sepulchre is, of course,
well known to you, but let us read the beautiful passage from St.
Matthew telling of it, that we may see how faithfully in every detail
it was followed by Hubert van Eyck.
In the end of the Sabbath, as it began to dawn toward the first day
of the week, came Mary Magdalene, and the other Mary, to see the
Sepulchre. And, behold, there was a great earthquake: for the Angel
of the Lord descended from Heaven, and came and rolled back the stone
from the door, and sat upon it. His countenance was like lightning,
and his raiment white as snow: And for fear of him the keepers did
shake, and became as dead men.
Surely this would be thought a beautiful picture had it been painted
at any time, but when you compare it with the Richard II. diptych does
it not seem to you as though a long era divided the two? Yet one was
painted less than fifty years after the other. It is the attitude of
mind of the painter that makes the difference.
In the diptych, although the portrait of Richard himself was a likeness,
the setting was imaginary and symbolic. The artist wished to tell in
his picture how all the Kings who succeed one another upon the throne
of England alike depend upon the protection of Heaven, and how Richard
in his turn acknowledged that dependence, and pledged his loyalty to
the Blessed Virgin and her Holy Child. That picture was intended to
take the mind of the spectator away from the everyday world and suggest
grave thought, and such was likewise in the main the purpose of all
paintings in the Middle Ages. But we are now leaving the Middle Ages
behind and approaching a new world nearer to our own.
Hubert van Eyck, in attempting to depict the event at the Sepulchre
as it might actually have occurred outside the walls of the City of
Jerusalem, was doing something quite novel in his day. His picture
might almost be called a Bible illustration. It is at least painted
in the same practical spirit as that of a man painting an illustration
for any other book. It is not a picture meant to help one to pray,
or meditate. It does not express any religious idea. It was intended
to be the veracious representation of an actual event, shown as, and
when, and how it happened, true to the facts so far as Hubert knew
them.
[Illustration: THE THREE MARIES
From the picture by Hubert van Eyck, in Sir Frederick Cook's Collection,
Richmond]
He has dressed the Maries in robes with wrought borders of Hebrew
characters, imitated from embroidered stuffs, such as at that time
were imported into Europe from the East. The dresses are not accurate
copies of eastern dresses; Hubert would scarcely have known what those
were like, but was doing his best to paint costumes that should look
oriental. Mary Magdalen wears a turban, and the keeper on the right
has a strange peaked cap with Hebrew letters on it. Hebrew scholars
have done their best to read the inscriptions on these clothes, but
we must infer that Hubert only copied the letters without knowing what
they meant, since it has not been possible to make any sense of them.
In the foreground are masses of flowers most carefully painted, and
so accurately drawn that botanists have been able to identify them
all; several do not grow in the north of Europe. The town at the back
is something like Jerusalem as it looked in Hubert van Eyck's own day.
A few of the buildings can be identified still, and a general view
of Jerusalem taken in 1486, sixty years after the death of Hubert,
bears some resemblance to the town in this picture. The city is painted
in miniature, much as it would look if you saw it from near at hand.
Every tower, house, and window is there. You can even count the
battlements. The great building with the dome in the middle of the
picture, is the Mosque of Omar, which occupies the supposed site of
Solomon's Temple.
Some people have thought that perhaps Hubert van Eyck, and his brother
John, actually went to the East. Many men made pilgrimages in those
days, and almost every year parties of Christian pilgrims went to
Jerusalem. It was a rough and even a dangerous journey, but not at
all impossible for a patient traveller. Dr. Hulin, who has made
wonderful discoveries about the early Flemish painters, found a
mention, in an old sixteenth-century list, of a 'Portrait of a Moorish
King or Prince' by Van Eyck, painted in 1414 or perhaps 1418. If he
painted a portrait of an oriental prince, he may have visited one
oriental country at least, or at any rate the south of Spain. Probably
enough during that journey he made studies of the cypress, stone-pine,
date-palm, olive, orange, and palmetto, which occur in his pictures.
They grow in the south of Spain and other Mediterranean regions, but
not in the cold north where Hubert spent most of his days.
It is difficult at first to realize what an innovation it was for Hubert
van Eyck to paint such a landscape. In the Richard II. diptych there
is just a suggestion of brown earth for the saints to stand upon, but
the rest of the background is of gold, as was the common practice at
the time. The great innovator, Giotto, in some of his pictures had
attempted to paint landscape backgrounds. In his fresco of St. Francis
preaching to the birds there is a tree for them to perch on, but it
seems more like a garden vegetable than a tree. Even his buildings
look as though they might fall together any moment like a pack of cards.
Hubert not only gives landscape a larger place than it ever had in
any great picture before, but he paints it with such skill and apparent
confidence that we should never dream he was doing it almost for the
first time.
St. Matthew says: 'As it began to _dawn_ towards the first day of the
week, came Mary Magdalene, and the other Mary, to see the Sepulchre.'
Even in this point Hubert wished to be accurate. The rising sun is
hidden behind the rocks on the left side of the picture, for it was
not until years later that any painter ventured to paint the sun in
the heavens. But the rays from the hidden orb strike the castles on
the hills with shafts of light. The town remains in shadow, while the
sky is lit up with floods of glory. An effect such as this must have
been very carefully studied from nature. Hubert was evidently one who
looked at the world with observant eyes and found it beautiful. When
he had flowers to paint, he painted the whole plant accurately, not
the blossoms individually, like the painter of Richard II. He liked
fine stuffs, embroideries, jewels, and glittering armour. He was no
visionary trying to free himself from the earth and live in
contemplation of the angels and saints in Paradise, like so many of
the thirteenth and fourteenth century artists.
In this new delightful interest in the world as it is, he reflected
the tendency of his day. The fifty years that had elapsed between the
painting of Richard II.'s portrait and the work of the Van Eycks, had
seen a great development of trade and industry in Flanders. Hubert
was born, perhaps about 1365, at Maas Eyck, from which he takes his
name. Maas Eyck was a little town on the banks of the river Maas, near
the frontier of the present Holland and Belgium. He may have spent
most of his life in Ghent, the town officials of which city paid him
a visit in 1425 to see his work, and gave six groats to his apprentices
in memory of their visit. Where he learnt his art, where he worked
before he came to Ghent, we do not know for certain, but there is reason
to think that he was employed for a while in Holland by the Count.
John, his brother, concerning whom more facts have been gathered, is
said to have been twenty years younger than Hubert. He was a painter
too, and worked in the employ of Philip the Good, Duke of Burgundy
and Count of Flanders, the grandson of Philip the Bold, who was one
of those four sons of King John of France mentioned in our last chapter.
Philip the Good continued the traditions of his family and was in his
time a great art-patron. His grandfather had fostered an important
school of sculpture in Flanders and Burgundy, which culminated in the
superb statues still existing at Dijon. Like his brother the Duke of
Berry, he had given work to a number of miniature painters. The Count
of Holland also employed some wonderful miniature painters to beautify
a manuscript for him. This manuscript and one made for the Duke of
Berry were among the finest ever painted so far as the pictures in
them are concerned. The Count of Holland's book used to be in the
library at Turin, where it was burnt a few years ago, so we can see
it no more. But the fortunate ones who did see it thought that the
pictures in it were actually painted by the Van Eycks when they were
young. The Duke of Berry's finest book is at Chantilly and is well
known. Both this and the Turin book contained the loveliest early
landscapes, a little earlier in date than this landscape in the 'Three
Maries' picture. So you see why it is said that the illuminators first
invented beautiful landscape painting, and that landscapes were
painted in books before they were painted as pictures to hang on walls.
The practical spirit in which Hubert van Eyck worked exactly matched
the sensible, matter-of-fact Flemish character. The Flemings, even
in pictures of the Madonna, wanted the Virgin to wear a gown made of
the richest stuff that could be woven, truthfully painted, with jewels
of the finest Flemish workmanship, and they liked to see a landscape
behind her studied from their own native surroundings.
No man could try to paint things as they looked, in the way Hubert
did, without making great progress in drawing. If you compare the
drawing of the angel appearing to the Maries with any of the angels
wearing the badge of Richard II., you will see how much more life-like
is the angel of Hubert. The painter of Richard II. was not happy with
his figures unless they were standing up or kneeling in profile, but
Hubert van Eyck can draw them with tolerable success lying down, or
sitting huddled. He can also combine a group in a natural manner. The
absence of formal arrangement in the picture of the Maries is quite
new in medieval art.
The painter of Richard II. had known very little about perspective.
The science of drawing things as they look from one point of view has
no doubt been taught to all of you. You know certain rules about
vanishing points and can apply them in your drawing. But you would
have found it very hard to invent perspective without being taught.
I can remember drawing a matchbox by the light of nature, and very
queer it contrived to become. Medieval artists were in exactly that
same case. The artists of the ancient world had discovered some of
the laws of perspective, but the secret was lost, and artists in the
Middle Ages had to discover them all over again. Hubert van Eyck made
a great stride toward the attainment of this knowledge. When you look
at the picture the perspective does not strike you as glaringly wrong,
though there was still much that remained to be discovered by later
men, as we shall see in our next chapter.
The brothers Van Eyck were, first and foremost, good workmen. Few other
painters in the whole of the world's history have aimed at anything
like the same finish of detail. In the original of this picture the
oriental pot which the green Mary holds in her hand is a perfect marvel
of workmanship. There is no detail so small but that when you look
into it you discover some fresh wonder. A story is told of how Hubert
van Eyck painted a picture upon which he had lavished his usual
painstaking care. But when he put it in the sun to dry, the panel cracked
down the middle. After this disappointment Hubert went to work and
invented a new substance with which colours are made liquid, a 'medium'
as it is called, which when mixed with colour dried hard and quickly.
It was possible to paint with the new medium in finer detail than before,
and the Flemish artists universally adopted it. While very little was
remembered about the facts of Hubert van Eyck's life, his name was
always associated with the discovery of a new method of painting, and
on that account held in great honour.
The 'Three Maries' is in many respects the most attractive of the
pictures ascribed to Hubert, but his most famous work was a larger
picture, or assemblage of pictures framed together, the 'Adoration
of the Lamb,' in St. Bavon's Church at Ghent. It is an altar-piece--a
painting set up over an altar in a church or chapel to aid the devotions
of those worshipping there. Many of the panels of the Ghent altar-piece
are now in the Museums of Berlin and Brussels. They belonged to the
wings or shutters which were made to close over the central parts,
and which used also to be painted outside and inside with devotional
or related subjects. The four great central panels on which these
shutters used to close are still at Ghent. The subject of the 'Adoration
of the Lamb' was taken from Revelations, where before the Lamb has
opened the seals of the book, St. John says:
And every creature which is in heaven, and on the earth, and under
the earth, and such as are in the sea, and all that are in them, heard
I saying, Blessing, and honour, and glory, and power, be unto him that
sitteth upon the throne, and unto the Lamb for ever and ever.
Hubert has figured this verse by assembling, as in one time and place,
representatives of Christendom. They who worship are the prophets,
apostles, popes, martyrs, and virgins. On each side of the central
panel the just judges, the soldiers of Christ, the hermits, and the
pilgrims, advance to join the throng around the Lamb. Most beautiful
of all is the crowd of virgin martyrs bearing palms, moving over the
green grass carpeted with flowers, to adore the Lamb of God, the
Redeemer of the World. Above, God the Father, the Virgin Mother, and
St. John the Baptist, with crowns of wonderful workmanship, are throned
amid choirs of singing and playing angels on either hand.
The picture does not illustrate the description of the Adoration of
the Lamb in the fifth chapter of Revelations so faithfully as the
picture of the 'Three Maries' illustrated St. Matthew. The Lamb has
not seven horns and seven eyes, and the four beasts and twenty-four
elders are not falling down before it and adoring. The Lamb is an
ordinary sheep, and the picture is a symbolic expression of the
Catholic faith, founded upon a biblical text, but not what could be
described as 'a Bible illustration.' People in the Middle Ages liked
to embody their faith in a visible form, and we are told that
theologians frequently drew up schemes of doctrine which painters did
their best to translate into pictures, and sculptors into sculpture.
Such works of art were for instruction rather than beauty, though some
also served well the purpose of decoration.
Josse Vyt, who ordered the picture, and whose portrait, with that of
his wife, is painted on the shutters, no doubt explained exactly what
he wanted, and Hubert sought to please him.[1] But although the design
of the central panel was old-fashioned and symbolic, Hubert was able
to do what he liked with the landscape, and with the individual figures.
They are real men and women with varieties of expression such as had
not been painted before, and the landscape is even more beautiful than
the one at the back of the 'Three Maries.' Snow mountains rise in the
distance, and beautiful cypresses and palms of all kinds clothe the
green slopes behind the Lamb. There are flowers in the grass and jewels
for pebbles in the brook. Behind, you can see the Cathedrals of Utrecht
and Cologne, St. John's of Maestricht, and more churches and houses
besides, and the walls of a town, and wide stretches of green country.
[Footnote 1: There are reasons for thinking that the picture may have
been ordered by some prince who died before it was finished, and that
Vyt only acquired it later, in time to have his own and his wife's
portraits added on the shutters.]
Hubert van Eyck died in 1426, and the picture was finished by his
younger brother John, of whose life, though more is known than of
Hubert's, we need not here repeat details. Many of his pictures still
exist, and the most delightful of them for us are his portraits. He
was not the first man to paint good portraits, but few artists have
ever painted better likenesses. It seems evident that the people in
his pictures are 'as like as they can stare,' with no wrinkle or scratch
left out. Portraits in earlier days than these were seldom painted
for their own sake alone. A pious man who wanted to present an
altar-piece or a stained-glass window to a church would modestly have
his own image introduced in a corner. By degrees such portraits grew
in size and scale, and the neighbouring saints diminished, till at
last the saints were left out and the portrait stood alone. Then it
came about that such a picture was hung in its owner's house rather
than in a church. One of the best portraits John van Eyck ever painted
is at Bruges--the likeness of his wife. The panel was discovered about
fifty years ago in the market-place of Bruges, where an old woman was
using the back of it to skin eels on; but so soundly had the picture
been painted that even this ill-usage did not ruin it. The lady was
a very plain Flemish woman with no beauty of feature or expression,
but John has revealed her character so vividly that to look at her
likeness is to know her. It is indeed a long leap from the Richard
II. of fifty years before, with its representation of the outline of
a youth, to this ample realization of a mature woman's character.
John lived till 1441, and had some pupils and many imitators. One of
these, Roger van der Weyden by name, spread his influence far and wide
throughout the whole of the Netherlands, France, and Germany. How
important this influence was in the history of art we shall see later.
Many of the imitators of John learnt his accuracy and thoroughness
of workmanship, but none of them attained his deep insight into
character.
During the next fifty years many and beautiful were the pictures
produced throughout Flanders. All of them have a jewel-like brilliance
of colour, approaching in brightness the hues of the Richard II.
diptych. The landscape backgrounds are charming miniatures of towns
by the side of rivers with spanning bridges. The painting of textures
is exquisite. But the Flemish face, placid, plump, and fair-haired,
prevails throughout. In the pictures of Paradise, where the saints
and angels play with the Infant Christ, we still feel chained to the
earth, because the figures and faces are the unidealized images of
those one might have met in the streets of Bruges and Ghent. This is
not a criticism on the artists. The merit of their work is unchallenged;
and how could they paint physical beauty by them scarce ever seen?
Yet when all has been said in praise of the Flemish School, the brothers
Van Eyck, the founders of it, remain its greatest representatives,
and their work is still regarded with that high and almost universal
veneration which is the tribute of the greatest achievement.