[Frontispiece: JAN ARNOLFINI AND JEANNE DE CHENANY. BY JAN VAN EYCK.]
Bell's Miniature Series of Painters
THE BROTHERS
VAN EYCK
BY
P. G. KONODY
LONDON
GEORGE BELL & SONS
1907
TABLE OF CONTENTS
THE TIMES OF THE BROTHERS VAN EYCK
HUBERT VAN EYCK
JAN VAN EYCK
THE INVENTION OF OIL-PAINTING
THE ART OF THE VAN EYCKS
COLLABORATION OF THE BROTHERS
OUR ILLUSTRATIONS
LIST OF WORKS, CATALOGUED ACCORDING TO LOCALITY
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
JAN ARNOLFINI AND JEANNE DE CHENANY
(_National Gallery_) - - - _Frontispiece_
By Jan van Eyck.
THE ADORATION OF THE LAMB (_Cathedral of St. Bavo, Ghent_)
By Hubert and Jan van Eyck.
THE ENTHRONEMENT OF THOMAS À BECKET (_Chatsworth_)
By Jan van Eyck.
THE MAN WITH THE PINKS (_Berlin Museum_)
By Jan van Eyck.
ST. BARBARA (_Antwerp Museum_)
By Jan van Eyck.
THE JUST JUDGES, AND CHRIST'S WARRIORS (_Berlin Museum_)
By Hubert and Jan van Eyck.
PORTRAIT OF TIMOTHY (_National Gallery_)
By Jan van Eyck.
THE VAN DER PAELE ALTAR-PIECE (_Bruges Museum_)
By Jan van Eyck.
{1}
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 {2} 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 {3} 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 {4}
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. {5} 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 {6} 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 {7} 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 {8} 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 Bibliothèque
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.
[Illustration: THE ADORATION OF THE LAMB. BY HUBERT AND JAN VAN
EYCK.]
{9}
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 {10} 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. {11} 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
_Livre du Métier 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
{12} Copenhagen, which represents Robert Poortier, of Ghent,
protected by St. Anthony, with the Angel Gabriel on the reverse.
Robert Poortier'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 {13} 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.
{14}
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 {15} 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.
[Illustration: THE ENTHRONEMENT OF THOMAS À BECKET, BY JAN VAN EYCK.]
The chief events in the life of Jan van Eyck can be gathered fairly
accurately from contemporary 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 {16} appointed _varlet 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
_varlet 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
concevnant l'Histoire de Belgique_, gives a detailed account of the
artist's movements from his departure from Écluse on October 19,
1428, to his {17} 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.
Jan's first duty on arrival at the Portuguese Court was to paint the
portrait of the Princess. It appears that he was at work upon this
picture for a month. Several portraits of Isabella are still extant
painted in the manner of the van Eycks, and pointing to the same
origin, but none has so far been discovered to possess qualities or
details which would justify its identification as Jan's original
panel. Evidently Jan's portrait was pleasing to the eye of the
Lowland monarch, for upon Philip expressing his satisfaction with the
personal appearance {18} of Isabella, the ambassadors and the bride
immediately embarked on the homeward journey. Soon after his
return--namely, in 1431--Jan bought a house in Bruges, where he
married and continued to work, after the completion of the Ghent
altar-piece in the following year, until his death, which took place
about the end of June, 1441. He was buried in the churchyard of St.
Donatian at Bruges, but his body was subsequently removed to a vault
near the font of that church.
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 {19} 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."
{20}
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 _varlet 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 {21} 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
{22} 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 {23} 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 to-day, 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 {24} 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.
{25}
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 unthought of possibilities, so their conception of life and of
pictorial form marks the beginning of a new era, the passing of the
vague mediæval 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 {26} 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 _varlet de chambre_
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 {27} 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 {28} 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 {29}
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.
[Illustration: THE MAN WITH THE PINKS. BY JAN VAN EYCK.]
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 {30} 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.
{31}
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 {32} 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
{33} 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 _Athenæum_, between November, 1902, and April,
1903. This correspondence arose from an article by Mr. A. Marks in
the _Athenæum_ 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 {34} 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.
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 {35} 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, {36} 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 {37} 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 {38} whole of the landscapes where the
little palm appears, including in most cases the architecture. He
draws attention to the architectural features in the _Chancellor
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 {39} 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 {40} 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.
[Illustration: ST. BARBARA. BY JAN VAN EYCK.]
So far, then, evidence has been shown to prove Jan's share in the
following pictures: the {41} _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.
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.