HUBERT AND JAN VAN EYCK
In 1383, on the death of Louis de Maele, his son-in-law Philip the Hardy, Duke of Burgundy, assumed the government of Flanders. In the same year Philip founded the Carthusian Convent at Dijon and employed a Flemish painter named Melchin Broederlam to embellish two great shrines within it. To the strong-handed policy of Philip and his successors during the ensuing century may be attributed the rise of Netherlandish art which, though existing before their time, required their vigorous repression of intestine feuds to give it an opportunity of developing. Under Louis and his predecessors Flanders and its cities had risen to great commercial importance, but its rulers had neither the strength nor the prestige to keep the turbulent spirit of their subjects in due bounds. The school of painting which now arose so rapidly to perfection under the Dukes of Burgundy thus owed a portion of its progress to the wealth and independence of the commercial classes. The taste, power, and cultivation of a Court gave it an additional spur; and the clergy throwing in their weight, added their support in aid of art.
Two wings of one of the Dijon shrines are still preserved in the museum there, and in these Messrs Crowe and Cavalcaselle observe the characteristics of much that was to follow:—"Although Melchior's style was founded on the study of the painters of the Rhine, his composition was similar to the later productions of the Flemish school. A tendency to realism already marks this early Fleming, and is the distinctive feature of a manner in which the painter strives to imitate nature in its most material forms. Idealism and noble forms are lacking, but Broederlam is a fair imitator of the truth. Distinctive combination and choice of colours in draperies, and vigorous tone, characterise him as they do the early works at Bruges and other cities of the Netherlands which may be judged by his standard." And again, "the painter evidently struggled between the desire to give a material imitation, and the inspirations of graceful teachers like those of Cologne.... Penetrated with similar ideas the early Flemings might under similar circumstances have risen to a sweet and dignified conception of nature; and if we fail to discover that they attained this aim we must attribute the failure to causes peculiar to Flanders. Amongst these we may class the social status of the Flemish painters, whose positions in the household of princes subjected them perhaps to caprices unfavourable to the development of high aspirations, or the contemplation and free communion with self which are the soul of art."
It is interesting to compare these observations, so far as they refer to the realism which characterises Netherlandish painting, with those of Dr Waagen, who it will be seen explains it on the broader grounds of national temperament. "Early Netherlandish painting," he contends, "in its freedom from all foreign influence, exhibits the contrast between the natural feeling of the Greek and the German races respectively in the department of art—these two races being the chief representatives of the cultivation of the ancient and the modern world. In this circumstance consists the high significance of this school when considered in reference to the general history of art. While it is characteristic of the Greek feeling—from which was derived the Italian—to idealise,—and to idealise, be it observed, not only the conceptions of the ideal world but even such material objects as portraits,—by the simplification of forms and the prominence given to the more important parts of a work of art, the early Netherlanders, on the other hand, conferred a portrait-like character upon the most ideal personifications of the Virgin, the Apostles, Prophets, and Martyrs, and in actual portraiture aimed at rendering even the most accidental peculiarities of nature, like warts and wrinkles, with excruciating fidelity.
"While the Greeks expressed the various features of outward nature—such as rivers, fountains, hills, trees, etc.—under abstract human forms, the Netherlanders endeavoured to express them as they had seen them in nature, and with a truth which extended to the smallest details.
"In opposition to the ideal, and what may be called the personifying tendency of the Greeks, the Netherlanders developed a purely realistic and landscape school.
"In this respect the other Teutonic nations are found to approach them most nearly, the Germans first, and then the English."
But whatever may have been the causes which produced the distinguishing features of Netherlandish painting, we have still to enquire the origin from which the practice of painting in northern Europe proceeded. For in taking Melchior Broederlam as a starting-point we are only going as far back—with the exception of certain rude wall paintings—as the earliest examples take us; and having seen how in Italy the whole history of the art is traceable to Cimabue, Duccio, and Giotto, through the Byzantines, at least a century before Broederlam comes under our notice, we might naturally conclude that it was from Italy that it spread to Cologne, and from Cologne to the Netherlands. So far as is known, however, this was not the case, and we must look elsewhere than to Italy for the influences which formed this school. Nevertheless it was a collateral branch of the same stock—Byzantine art—and the family resemblance comes out none the less strongly from the two branches having developed under different circumstances. In Italy, as we have seen, the Byzantine seed, sown in such fertile soil, attained suddenly a great luxuriance. In the north, transplanted by Charlemagne to Aix-la-Chapelle in the ninth century, it grew slowly and more timidly, but none the less surely, under the cover of Monasticism, in the manuscripts illuminated with miniatures; and thus when it did burst forth into fuller blossom, the boldness of the Italian masters, who worked at large in fresco, was wanting, and a detailed and almost meticulous realism was its chief characteristic. Another point worth noticing is that though primarily introduced for religious purposes, as in Italy, namely the decoration of the cathedral erected by Charlemagne at Aix-la-Chapelle, the paintings in his palace showed forth events in his own life, such as his campaigns in Spain, seiges of towns and feats of arms by Frankish warriors. At Upper Ingelheim, likewise, his chapel was adorned with scenes from the Old and New Testaments, while the banqueting hall exhibited on one wall the deeds of great Pagan rulers, such as Cyrus, Hannibal, and Alexander, and on the other those of Constantine and Theodosius, the seizure of Acquitaine by Pepin, and Charlemagne's own conquest over the Saxons and finally himself enthroned as conqueror. Although no trace remains of these paintings, contemporary manuscripts executed by his order are still in existence in the libraries of Paris, TrÈves, and elsewhere from which we can form some idea of the style in which they were rendered and of the source from which they were derived.
Of these we need only mention the Vulgate decorated by John of Bruges, painter to King Charles V. of France, in 1371, which contains a portrait of the king in profile with a figure kneeling before him, and a few small historical subjects. From these it is evident that the art of painting, at any rate in little, had made considerable progress in the Netherlands at that date, and the express designation of pictor applied to John of Bruges, while the ordinary miniaturist was called illuminator, shows the probability of his having painted pictures on a larger scale. The high development of realistic feeling as it first appears to us in the pictures of Hubert and Jan van Eyck is thus partly accounted for, especially when we also consider the wholesale destruction of larger works of art that took place in the disturbed condition of the Netherlands in the sixteenth century. The main points, however, to be borne in mind is that whereas Cimabue and Duccio started painting on walls under the influence of Byzantine teachers, Hubert van Eyck, a century later, began painting on wooden panels under that of illuminators and painters in books.
To these, nevertheless, there must be added another scarcely less important, namely, that the early Italians were ignorant of the use of what we now call oil paints, and worked entirely in tempera—that is to say, there was no admixture of oil or varnish with their pigments. To Hubert van Eyck is attributed the invention of the modern practice, as Vasari relates with more colour than historic truth in his life of Antonello da Messina, who is supposed to have carried it into Italy. Be that as it may, the works of the van Eycks and their successors are all in oils, and there is no doubt that the employment of this medium from the first considerably influenced the style, colour, and execution of all the works of this school.
Hubert van Eyck who according to the common acceptation was born in the year 1366 at Maaseyck, a small town not far from Maestricht, must have been settled before the year 1412 in Bruges, when we hear of him as a member of the Brotherhood of the Virgin with Rays.
There can be little doubt that Hubert van Eyck was acquainted with the work of this John of Bruges, and that it had a considerable influence on him. But while on the one hand he carried the realistic tendencies of such works to an extraordinary pitch of excellence, it is evident that in many essential respects he was actuated by a more ideal feeling and imparted to the realism of his contemporaries, by means of his far richer powers of representation, greater distinctness, truth to nature, and variety of expression. Throughout his works is seen an elevated and highly energetic conception of the stern import of his labours in the service of the Church.
The prevailing arrangement of his subjects is symmetrical, holding fast to the earliest rules of ecclesiastical art. His heads appear to aim at an ideal beauty and dignity only combined with actual truth to nature. His draperies exhibit the purest taste and softness of folds, the realistic principle being apparent in that greater attention to detail which a delicate indication of the material of the drapery necessitates. Nude figures are studied from nature with the utmost fidelity; undraped portions of figures are also given with much truth, especially the hands. But what is the principal distinguishing characteristic of his art is the hitherto unprecedented power, depth, transparency and harmony of his colouring. Whatever want of exact truth there may be in the story as related by Vasari's story of the discovery of oil painting, there is no doubt that Hubert Van Eyck succeeded in preparing so transparent a varnish that he could apply it without disadvantage to all colours.
The chief work by Hubert Van Eyck is the large altar-piece painted for the cathedral of S. Bavon at Ghent;—parts of this have been removed and are now in the Berlin Gallery, and supplemented with excellent copies of the rest, the whole of the wonderful composition may there be well studied; a large photograph of the whole altar piece may also be seen in the library at the Victoria and Albert Museum, which shows how the work was originally designed. It was painted for Jodocus Vyts, Burgomaster of Ghent, and his wife Elizabeth, for their mortuary chapel in the cathedral.
The subject of the three central panels of the upper portion is the Deity seated between the Virgin and S. John the Baptist. Underneath these, of the same width, is the famous Adoration of the Lamb. These together formed the back of the altar-piece, and were covered by wings which opened out on hinges on either side.
The three large figures of the upper part are designed with all the dignity and statuesque repose belonging to an earlier style, and they are painted on a ground of gold and tapestry, as was constantly the practice in earlier times: but united with the traditional type we already find a successful representation of life and nature in all their truth. They stand as it were on the frontier of two different styles, and from the excellence of both form a wonderful and most impressive whole. The Heavenly Father sits directly fronting the spectator, in all the solemnity of ancient dignity, His right hand raised to give the benediction to the Lamb and to all the multitude of figures below; in His left hand is a crystal sceptre; on His head the triple crown, the emblem of the Trinity. The features are such as are ascribed to Christ by the traditions of the Church, but noble and well proportioned; the expression is forcible, though passionless.
The tunic and the mantle of this figure are of a deep red, the latter being fastened over the breast by a clasp, and falling down in ample folds over the feet. Behind, as high as the head, is a hanging of green tapestry which is ornamented with a golden pelican—a symbol of the Redeemer. Behind the head the ground is gold, and on it in a semicircle are three inscriptions describing the Trinity as almighty, all-good, and all-bountiful. The figures of S. John and of the Virgin display equal majesty; both are reading holy books, as they turn towards the centre figure. The countenance of S. John expresses ascetic seriousness, but in that of the Virgin we find a serene grace and a purity of form which approach very nearly to the happier effects of Italian art.
The arrangement of the lower central picture, the worship of the Lamb, is strictly symmetrical, as the mystic nature of the allegorical subject might seem to
have demanded; but there is such beauty in the landscape, in the pure atmosphere, in the bright green of the grass, in the masses of trees and flowers—even in single figures which stand out from the four principal groups—that we no longer perceive either hardness or severity in this symmetry.
The landscape of this composition and that part of it containing the patriarchs and prophets are generally supposed to have been completed by Jan Van Eyck (c. 1385-1441), whose name till within a comparatively recent period had almost obscured that of Hubert. For although there is little doubt that the elder brother was the first to develop the new method of painting, yet the fame of it did not extend beyond Belgium and across the Alps until after the death of Hubert, when the celebrity it so speedily acquired throughout Europe was transferred to Jan Van Eyck. Within fifteen years after his death, 1455, Jan was commemorated in Italy as the greatest painter of the century, while the name of Hubert was not even mentioned. It was Jan van Eyck to whom Antonello da Messina is said by Vasari to have resorted in Bruges in order to learn the new style of painting; he alone also is mentioned in Vasari's first edition of 1550, Hubert not until the second edition in 1568, and then only incidentally.
Fortunately there are in existence various authentic pictures by Jan Van Eyck in which his original powers are more easily recognised than in the part he took in the execution of the great altar-piece at Ghent, in which he doubtless accommodated himself with proper fraternal piety both to the composition and to the style of his elder brother—who was also his master. In these we can see that he possessed neither the enthusiasm for the rich imagery and symbolism of the ecclesiastical art of the Middle Ages, nor that feeling for beauty in human forms or in drapery which belonged to his elder brother. His feeling, on the other hand, led him to the closest and truest conception of individual nature. Where he had to paint portraits only—a task which was most congenial to the tendency of his mind—he attained a life-like truth of form and colouring in every part, extending even to the minutest details, such as no other artist of his time could rival, and which art in general has seldom produced. In his actual brush work he shows greater facility than was ever attained by Hubert, by which he was enabled to render the material of every substance with marvellous fidelity.
What little we know of the personal history of Jan Van Eyck is of exceptional interest, inasmuch as we find him employed on diplomatic errands to foreign countries, like his great successor Rubens; and as it happens he landed in England, though not intentionally, in the course of one of these voyages, being driven into Shoreham and Falmouth by adverse weather. It was in 1425 that he was taken into the service of Philip III., Duke of Burgundy, as painter and "varlet de chambre," shortly after which he went to Lille. In the following year he was sent on a pilgrimage as the Duke's proxy, and again on two secret missions. In 1428 he went with the Duke's Embassy to the King of Portugal which was to sue for the hand of Isabella, the Portuguese princess. It was on this occasion that he was driven on to our shores. Arriving at Lisbon he painted two portraits of Isabella, one of which was sent home by sea and the other overland. After a happy and successful career he died in 1441 at Bruges, where he had married and settled down on his return from Portugal.
The most beautiful example of Jan Van Eyck's work in England is the portrait of Jean Arnolfini and Jeanne de Chenany his wife, now in the National Gallery (No. 186). This is dated with the charming inscription, "Johannes de Eyck fuit hic 1434"—that is to say, instead of simply signing the picture, he writes, "Jan Van Eyck was here, 1434." No other picture shows so high a development of the master's extraordinary power and charm. Besides every other quality peculiar to him, we observe here a perfection of tone and of chiaroscuro which no other specimen of this whole period affords. It is recorded that Princess Mary, sister of Charles V. and Governess of the Netherlands, purchased this picture from a barber to whom it belonged at the price of a post worth a hundred gulden a year. Among its subsequent possessors were Don Diego de Guevara, majordomo of Joan, Queen of Castile, by whom it was presented to Margaret of Austria. In 1530 it was acquired by Mary of Hungary, and later it returned to Spain. In 1789 it was in the palace at Madrid, and soon after it was taken by one of the French Generals, in whose quarters Major-General Hay found it after the battle of Waterloo.
Two other portraits in the National Gallery bear the signature of Jan Van Eyck. No. 222, An elderly man, head and shoulders, on the frame of which is the painter's motto, "als ich can," and his signature, "Johannes de Eyck me fecit anno 1433, 21 Octobris." The other, No. 290, is a younger man, half length, standing inside an open window, on the sill of which is inscribed "????e??," and "LÉal Souvenir," and below the date and signature, "Actum anno domini 1432, 10 die Octobris a Iohanne de Eyck."
Among the Netherlandish scholars and followers of the Van Eycks of whom any record has been preserved some appear to have been gifted with considerable powers, though none attained the excellence of their great precursors. Although a number of works representing this school still exist in the various countries of Europe, yet compared with the actual abundance of them at one time they constitute but a scanty remnant.
Though not actually a pupil of Jan Van Eyck, Roger Van der Weyden acquired after him the greatest celebrity. As early as 1436 he filled the honourable post of official painter to the city of Brussels. The chief work executed by him in this capacity was an altar-piece for the Chamber of Justice in HÔtel de Ville. According to the custom of the time, it set forth in the most realistic fashion examples of stern observance of the law for the admonition of those placed in authority. The principal picture showed how Herkenbald, a judge in the eleventh century, executed his own nephew (convicted of a grave crime, but who would otherwise have escaped the penalty of the law) with his own hands; and how the sacramental wafer which, on the plea of murder, was denied to him by the priest, reached the lips of the upright judge by means of a miracle. The wings contained an example of the justice of the Emperor Trajan. These pictures are unfortunately no longer in existence, having probably been burned when Brussels was besieged in 1695.
In the Museum of the Hospital at Beaune is one of the most important of his works still in existence, The Last Judgment, though in this it is generally supposed he was assisted by Dirk Bouts and Hans Memling. It contains several portraits, notably those of the Pope, Eugenius IV., who stands behind the Apostles in the right wing, and next to him Philip the Good. The crowned female in the opposite wing is probably Philip's
second wife, Isabella of Portugal, whose portrait Jan Van Eyck went to Lisbon to paint before her marriage. On the outer sides are excellently painted portraits of the founder of the Hospital, Nicolas Rolin, and his wife. This work has been classed with the Van Eycks' Adoration of the Lamb, and the Adoration of the Shepherds by Hugo Van der Goes, as crystallizing the finest expression of early northern painting.
In 1450 he visited Italy, where he painted the beautiful little altar-piece which is now in the StÄdel Institute at Frankfort, for Piero and Giovanni de'Medici.
Another very fine example of his work is the triptych, now in the Berlin Museum, executed for Pierre Bladelin. In the centre is the Nativity, with a portrait of Bladelin kneeling, and angels. On the one side is the annunciation of the Redeemer to the ruler of the West—the Emperor Augustus—by the agency of the Tiburtine Sibyl; on the other to those of the East—the Three Kings—who are keeping watch on a mountain, where the child appears to them in a star.
One of the largest as well as of the finest of the master's works is a triptych in the Munich Gallery—the Adoration of the Kings, with the Annunciation and the Presentation in the Temple in the wings. The figure of the Virgin in the Presentation is particularly pleasing for its simple and unaffected realism. S. Luke painting the Virgin, also in the Munich Gallery, is ascribed to Roger.
No painter of this school, the Van Eycks even not excepted, exercised so great and widely extended an influence as Roger Van der Weyden. Not only were Hans Memling—the greatest master of the next generation in Belgium—and his own son, also named Roger, his pupils, but innumerable works other than pictures were produced, such as miniatures, block-books, and engravings, in which his form of art is recognisable. It was under his auspices that the realistic tendency of the Van Eycks pervaded all Germany; for it was only after the death of Jan Van Eyck, in 1441, that the widespread fame of Roger Van der Weyden induced Germans to visit his studio at Brussels. Martin Schongauer, one of the greatest German masters of the sixteenth century, is known to have been his pupil, and it is certain that there must have been many others.
It is in Hans Memling (c. 1435-1494), whom Vasari states to have been the pupil of Roger, that the early Netherlandish School attains the highest delicacy of artistic development. His poetical and profoundly human qualities had a special attraction for the "Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood" inaugurated by Rossetti and Holman Hunt in the middle of the nineteenth century. This unusual tenderness of feeling is probably also the origin of the legend that Memling was taken into the Hospital of S. John at Bruges—where he painted most of his masterpieces—as a sick soldier after the battle of Nancy. In feeling for beauty and grace he was more gifted than any painter except Hubert Van Eyck, and this quality, conspicuous amid the somewhat ugly realism of most of his contemporaries, has ensured him perhaps a little more popularity than is rightly his share. Compared with the works of his master, Roger Van der Weyden, his figures are certainly of better proportions and less meagreness of form; his hands and feet truer to nature; the heads of his women are sweeter, and those of his men less severe. His outlines are softer, and in the modelling of his flesh parts more delicacy of half tones is observable. His colours are still more luminous and transparent. On the other hand he is inferior to Van der Weyden in the carrying out of detail, such as the materials of his draperies or the rendering of the full brilliancy of gold.
In 1467 Memling was a master painter at Bruges, and painted the portrait of the medallist, Nicolas Spinelli, which is now in the Royal Museum at Antwerp, and a small altar-piece now at Chatsworth. His most famous works, those in the Hospital at Bruges, belong to a somewhat later date, the Shrine of S. Ursula not being completed till 1489. The Adoration of the Kings and the altar-piece were some ten years earlier. The famous shrine of S. Ursula is about four feet in length, and the whole of the outside is adorned with painting. On each side of the cover are three medallions, a large one in the centre and two smaller at the sides. The latter contain angels playing on musical instruments; in the centre on one side is a Coronation of the Virgin, on the other the Glorification of S. Ursula and her companions, with two figures of Bishops. On the gable-ends are the Virgin and Child with two sisters of the hospital kneeling before them, and S. Ursula with the arrow, the instrument of her martyrdom, and virgins seeking protection under her mantle. On the longer sides of the reliquary itself, in six rather larger compartments, is painted the history of S. Ursula.
Of about the same period, possibly a little earlier, is the Marriage of S. Catherine, which is also in S. John's Hospital at Bruges. The central figure is that of the Virgin, seated under a porch, with tapestry hanging down behind it; two angels hold a crown over her head: beside her is S. Catherine kneeling, whose head is one of the finest ever painted by Memling. Behind her is an angel playing on the organ, and further back S. John the Baptist. On the other side kneels S. Barbara, reading: behind her another angel holds a book to the Virgin, and still further back is S. John the Evangelist, a figure of great beauty, and of a singularly mild and thoughtful character. Through the arcades of the porch we look out, on either side of the throne, on a rich landscape, in which are represented scenes from the lives of the two S. Johns. The panel on the right contains the beheading of the Baptist, on the left the Evangelist in the Isle of Patmos, where the vision of the Apocalypse appears to him—the Almighty on a throne in a glory of dazzling light, encompassed with a rainbow.
The whole forms a work strikingly poetical and most impressive in character; it is highly finished, both in drawing and composition.
Ian Gossaert (c. 1472-1535), called Jan van Mabuse from his native town of Maubeuge, was the son of a bookbinder who worked for the Abbey of Sainte-Aldegonde. It is possible therefore that he might have formed an early acquaintance with illuminated manuscripts before studying the art of painting in the studio of a master. Memling, Gerard, David, and Quentin Massys have been suggested as his instructors, but it is not known for certain that he was actually a pupil of any of them. In 1508 he went to Italy, where he appears to have been greatly influenced both by the work of the Renaissance painters and by the antique. The Adoration of the Kings, which was lately purchased from Castle Howard for the National Gallery for £40,000, was painted before he went to Italy.
Towards the end of the fifteenth century, in consequence of the transfer of commerce from Bruges to Antwerp, this latter city first became and long continued the centre of art, and especially of Netherlandish painting. Here it is that we find Quentin Massys, the greatest Belgian painter of this later time. He was born
probably in 1466. His father is said to have been a blacksmith and clockmaker, and there is a tradition that Quentin only forsook the hammer for the brush at instigation of a tender passion for a beautiful lady. Be that as it may, he is an important figure in the history of Belgian art. He distinguishes, broadly speaking, the close of the last period and the beginning of the next. A number of pictures representing sacred subjects exhibit, with little feeling for real beauty of form, such delicacy of features, beauty and earnestness of feeling, tenderness and clearness of colouring and skill in finish, as worthily recall the religious painting of the Middle Ages, though at the very end of them. In his draperies, especially, we observe a charm which is peculiar to Massys. At the same time, in the subordinate figures introduced into sacred subjects, such as the executioners, etc., he seems to take pleasure in coarse and tasteless caricatures.
In subjects taken from common life, such as money changers, loving couples, or ugly old women, he uses his brush with evident zest, and with great success. The pictures of his later period are also distinguished from those of other painters by the large size of the figures, which for the first time in his country are of three-quarters or even actual life size.
Among his most original and attractive pictures are the half-length figures of Christ and the Virgin. These must have been very popular in his own time, for he has left several repetitions of them. Two heads of this class are at Antwerp, and two others of equal beauty are in the National Gallery in one frame (No. 295).
The most celebrated of his subject pictures is that known by the name of The Misers, or The Money Changers, at Windsor Castle—of which there are numerous copies, and this is not supposed to be the original. The Money Changer and His Wife at the Louvre is undoubtedly his.
Lucas van Leyden, as he was called (his real name being Luc Jacobez), was born in 1494, and died in 1533. He was a pupil of a little known artist, Cornelis Engelbrechstein, who was a follower if not a pupil of Memling. Lucas was an artist of multifarious powers and very early development. He painted admirably—though his authenticated works are very scarce—drew, and engraved. He pursued the path of realism in the treatment of sacred subjects, but with less beauty or elevation of mind. His heads are generally of a very ugly character. At the same time his form of expression found sympathy in the feeling of the period, and by the skill with which it was expressed, especially in his engravings, attracted a number of followers. In scenes from common life he is full of truth and delicate observation of nature, though showing now and then a somewhat coarse sense of humour. One of his most important works is a large composition of The Last Judgment, which is at Leyden.
Very early in the sixteenth century—beginning in fact, as we have seen, with Jan Mabuse in 1508—the Netherlandish and German artists made it the fashion to repair to Italy, attracted by the reputation of the great masters; so that from this time onwards their work ceases to exhibit the purely northern characteristics of their predecessors. For it appears that precisely those qualities most opposed to their own native feeling for art made the deepest impression on their minds; more especially such general qualities as grandeur, beauty, simplicity of forms, drawing of the nude, unrestrained freedom, boldness, and grace of movement—in short, all that is comprised in art under the term "ideal."
But the attempt to appropriate all these qualities could lead to no successful result. Being based on no inherent want on the part of their own original feeling for art, it became only the outward imitation of something foreign to themselves, and they never therefore succeeded in mastering the complete understanding of form, or in adopting the true feeling for beauty of line or grace of movement; and in aiming at them they only degenerated into artificiality, exaggeration in drawing, and violence in attitude. The pictures of this class, even of religious subjects, have accordingly but little to attract the eye, and when they selected scenes from ancient mythology, and allegories decked out with an ostentation of learning, the result is positively disagreeable.
The most satisfactory productions of this period will be found in the department of portrait painting, which, by its nature, threw the artist upon the exercise of his own original feeling for art. As in every other respect this epoch is far more important as a link in the chain of history than from any pleasure arising from its own works, it will be sufficient to mention only the more important painters and a few of their principal pictures.
The first painter who deserted his native style of art was, as before mentioned, Jan Mabuse. After the large Adoration of the Kings in the National Gallery the most important picture of his pre-Italian period is the Christ in the Garden of Gethsemane at Berlin. Nearly all his works subsequent to 1512, by which time he had settled in Brussels, are characterised by all the faults above mentioned. Their redeeming quality is their masterly treatment. Among those of religious subjects the smallest are as a rule the best. The Ecce Homo at Antwerp, so frequently copied by contemporary painters, is a specimen of masterly modelling and vigorous colour. He is less successful with his life-size Adam and Eve, of which there are repetitions at Brussels, Hatfield, Hampton Court and Berlin. But his most unpleasing efforts are the mythological subjects such as the DanaË at Munich, and the Neptune and Amphitrite at Berlin. On the other hand, his portraits are attractive both from being more original, and less influenced by his acquired mannerisms of style Four of these are in the National Gallery, and the Girl weighing Gold Pieces, in the Berlin gallery, is also worthy of mention.
Bernard van Orley, born at Brussels in 1471, is characterised in the catalogue of the National Gallery as "taking his place after Massys and Mabuse on the downward slope of Netherlandish painting." He has been immortalised by the fine portrait head of him by Albert DÜrer which is now in the Dresden Gallery. He was Court painter to Margaret of Austria, Governess of the Low Countries, and retained the same post under her successor, Mary of Hungary. He is said to have visited Rome in 1509, and there made the acquaintance of Raphael, whose influence is certainly apparent, though hardly his inspiration, in the Holy Family in the Louvre. A more Netherlandish work, both in feeling and in treatment, is the PietÀ in the Gallery at Brussels.
Ian Scorel, born in 1495, was a pupil of Mabuse, and appears to have been the first to introduce the Italian style into his native country—Holland. When on a pilgrimage to Palestine he happened to pass through Rome at the time his countryman was raised to the papal dignity as Adrian VI., and after painting his portrait he was appointed overseer of the art treasures of the Vatican. Returning to Utrecht, where he died, he painted the picture of the Virgin and Child, with donors, which is now in the Town Hall.
A fine portrait by Scorel of Cornelius Aerntz van der Dussen is in the Berlin Gallery.
The decided and strongly realistic style in which Quentin Massys had painted scenes from common life, as for instance the Misere or Money Changers, became the model for various painters in their treatment of similar subjects. First among these was his son, Jan Massys, born about 1500, who followed closely but rather clumsily in his father's footsteps, and need only be mentioned for carrying on the tradition. More interesting were the Breughels, namely, Pieter Breughel the elder, born about 1520, called Peasant Breughel, and his two sons Pieter and Jan. Old Breughel is best studied at Vienna, where there are good examples of his various subjects, notably a Crucifixion and The Tower of Babel—both dated 1563—and secular scenes like A Peasant Wedding and a Fight between Carnival and Lent, which are full of clever and droll invention.
His elder son, Pieter, was called Hell Breughel, from his choice of subject. He is far inferior to his father or to his younger brother Jan, called Velvet Breughel, born in 1568. Though more especially a landscape painter, Jan also takes an important place in the development of subject pictures, which, though seldom rising above a somewhat coarse reality, are of a lively character, and worthy forerunners of the more accomplished productions of Teniers, Ostade, and Brouwer.
It is in portrait painting, however, that the Netherlandish School chiefly distinguished itself during its decline in the seventeenth century, and had all its sons remained in the country to enhance its glory, it is probable that the effect on the general practice of painting would have been more than beneficial. But portrait painters have not always been content to sit at home and wait for sitters to come to them, especially when the state of society in which they happen to find themselves makes waiting rather a long and tedious process. From the Reformation onwards, for over two centuries, there was a steady demand for portrait painters in England, and after the foundation of a really English school of painting by Reynolds in the middle of the eighteenth century, the stream of foreign, especially Netherlandish, talent never entirely ceased to flow. But confining ourselves for the present to the sixteenth century, we find that all the considerable Netherlandish portrait painters were employed for the most part outside their own country.
Typical of these is Joos van Cleef, of Antwerp, who died in 1540. According to Vasari he visited Spain and painted portraits for the Court of France. At all events it is certain that he worked for a time in England, where the great success of Sir Antonio Mor is said to have disordered his brain. The few pictures that can be assigned to him with any certainty thoroughly justify the high reputation he enjoyed in his time—the two male portraits for example at Berlin and Munich, the portraits of himself and his wife at Windsor, and his own at Althorp. His style may be classed as between that of Holbein and Antonio Mor. His well-drawn forms are decided without being hard, and his warm and transparent colouring recalls the great masters of the Venetian School.
II
PETER PAUL RUBENS
Dr Waagen thus summarises the history of painting in the Netherlands during the interval of about a century and a half that elapsed between the death of Jan van Eyck in 1440 and the birth of Peter Paul Rubens in 1577.
"The great school of the brothers van Eyck," he writes, "which united with a profound and genuine enthusiasm for religious subjects a pure and healthy feeling for nature, and a talent for portraying her minutest details with truth and fidelity, had continued till the end of the fifteenth century, and in some instances even later, to produce the most admirable works, combining the utmost technical perfection in touch and finish with most vivid and beautiful colouring. To this original school, however, had succeeded a perverted rage for imitating the Italian masters, which had been introduced into the Netherlands by a few painters of talent, particularly by Jean Mabuse and Bernard van Orley. To display their science by throwing their figures into forced and difficult positions and strongly marking the muscles, by which they thought to emulate the grandeur of Michel Angelo, and to exhibit their learning by the choice of mythological and allegorical subjects, became the aim of succeeding painters, and before these false and artificial views of art, the spirit of religious enthusiasm and the pure, naÏve perception of the truth and beauty of nature gradually disappeared.
"In proportion as the Flemish painters lost the proper conception of form, and the feeling for delicacy and beauty of outline, it followed of course that they became more and more removed from nature in their desire to rival each other in the forced attitudes of their figures, and in the exhibition of nudity, until at last such disgusting caricatures were produced as we find in the works of Martin Heemskirk or Franz Floris, artists who were even deficient in good colouring, the old inheritance of the school.
"Some few painters, however, whose feeling for truth and nature repelled them instinctively from a path so far removed from both, took to portraying scenes of real life with considerable humour and vivacity; or they delineated nature in her commonest aspects with great minuteness of detail; and thus tableaux de genre and landscape originated. Although a few isolated efforts to introduce a better state of things were visible towards the end of the sixteenth century, it was reserved for a mind of no common power to bring about a complete revolution."
That Rubens was possessed of a "mind of no common power" will be readily admitted. He was an extraordinary person, in whom were combined such a variety of excellent qualities that there seems to have been no room left in him for any of the inferior ones which are usually necessary, as one must almost admit, for an alloy that will harden the finer metal for the practical purposes of success. With all his feeling for religion, he was seldom prudish; his amazing vitality never led him into excess or intemperance. His intense patriotism was all for peace; classical learning never made him dry or bumptious, nor the favour of kings servile. As fine a gentleman as Buckingham, he had no enemies.
Something more than temperament and natural ability, however, was necessary to make Rubens exactly what he turned out to be, and that was environment. Had he remained in Flanders all his life we should have been deprived of much that is most characteristic in his art. He was too big, that is to say, for the flower pot. He needed to be bedded out, so that his exuberant natural genius might have the proper opportunities for expanding under suitable conditions. It was in Venice and Mantua, in Florence and Rome that he found himself, and took his measure from the giants.
Rubens was born in 1577 at Cologne, where his father, a jurist of considerable attainments, had taken refuge from the disturbances at Antwerp in 1566. He was christened Peter Paul in honour of the saints on whose festival his birthday fell—29th June. At the age of sixteen he was placed as a page in the household of the widowed Countess of Lalaing, but as he showed a remarkable love for drawing he was apprenticed first to Tobias Verhaegt, a landscape painter, and then to Adam Van Oort. The latter was so unsuitable a master, however, that Rubens was soon committed to the care of Otto Vennius, at that time Court painter to the Infanta Isabella and the Archduke Albert, her husband; he prospered so well that in 1600 Vennius advised him to go to Italy to finish his education as a painter.
Rubens was now in his twenty-third year, and besides being proficient in painting he was so well grounded in the classics and in general education and manners that he was recommended by the Archduke to Vincenzio, Duke of Gonzaga, whose palace at Mantua was famous for containing an immense collection of art treasures, a great part of which within the next quarter of a century were purchased by King Charles, the Duke of Buckingham, and the Earl of Arundel. The influence exerted on the young painter by surroundings like these is exemplified in a note by Waagen:—
"Rubens during his residence at Mantua was so pleased with the Triumph of Julius CÆsar by Mantegna (the large cartoons now at Hampton Court Palace), that he made a free copy of one of them. His love for the fantastic and pompous led him to choose that with the elephants carrying the candelabra; but his ardent imagination, ever directed to the dramatic, could not be contented with this. Instead of a harmless sheep, which, in Mantegna, is walking by the side of the foremost elephant, Rubens has introduced a lion and a lioness, which growl angrily at the elephant. The latter is looking furiously round, and is on the point of striking the lion a blow with his trunk."
That Rubens should have been so specially attracted by Mantegna may seem a little surprising, until we remember that both were lovers and students of classical antiquities—a fact that is often forgotten in recalling only the principal achievements of either. But it is important to know what sort of foundations underlie the most splendid erections if we wish to understand how they came into existence and what their place is in the history of the arts. A glance through LempriÈre's Dictionary may furnish a modern Academician with a subject for a popular picture,—but that is stucco rather than foundation. The roots of tall trees go deep. Rubens when he was in Rome studied the antiquities of the place with the utmost diligence and zeal, as is evidenced by a book published by his brother Philip in 1608.
It was in the autumn of this year that he received the news, when at Genoa, of his mother's illness, which induced him to return to Antwerp forthwith. On his arrival he found she had died before the messenger had reached Genoa.
After four months of mourning he was ready to return to Flanders; his sojourn of eight years in Italy had so far influenced him that he might have remained there indefinitely had it not been for the Archduke and the Infanta pressing him to remain at Brussels and attach himself to their Court. Another circumstance may possibly have weighed with him; for within a year we find him married to Elizabeth Brant, the daughter of a magistrate of Antwerp, and it was not at Brussels, but at Antwerp, that he took up his quarters. Here he proceeded to build a wonderful house—said to have cost him 60,000 florins—after designs of his own in the Italian style, which he filled with the treasures he had collected in Italy.
Rubens's first pictures were nearly all of them religious subjects. Before he went to Italy he had painted an Adoration of the Kings, a Holy Trinity, and the Dead Christ in the Arms of God the Father, which was engraved by Bolswert. When Vincenzio sent him to Rome to copy pictures there for him, he found time to execute a commission which he received from the Archduke Albert to paint three pictures for the Church of Santa Croce di Gerusalamme, namely, the Crowning with Thorns, the Crucifixion, and the Finding of the Cross. A year later—after returning from a journey to Madrid—he painted the altar-piece for the Church of Santa Maria in Vallicella, in which the influence of Paul Veronese is conspicuous. At Genoa, he painted the Circumcision and S. Ignatius for the church of the Jesuits.
One of the first pictures which he painted on his return to Antwerp was an altar-piece for the private chapel of the Archduke Albert, of the Holy Family. This picture was so much admired that the members of the fraternity of S. Ildefonso, at the head of which was the Archduke Albert, commissioned him to paint an altar-piece for the Chapel of the Order of S. James near Brussels. This picture, which is now at Vienna, represents the Virgin enthroned, surrounded by four female saints, putting the Cloak of the Order on the shoulders of S. Ildefonso. On the wings are the portraits of the Archduke and Isabella, with their patron saints.
Thus we find that, like the earliest painters in his own country as well as in Italy, the beginning of Rubens's art was under the influence of the Church. Further, we find that the most celebrated work of his earlier period, the Descent from the Cross, in the cathedral at Antwerp, was undertaken in circumstances which abundantly show how thoroughly he was imbued with the principles of the religion he professed. The story is that when preparing the foundations of his new house he had unwittingly trespassed upon a piece of ground belonging to the Company of Arquebusiers at Antwerp. A lawsuit was threatened, and Rubens, with all the vivacity of his nature, prepared measures of resistance. But when his friend Rockox, a lawyer, had proved him that he was in the wrong, he immediately drew back, and offered to paint a picture by way of compensation. The offer was accepted, and the Arquebusiers asked for a representation of their patron, S. Christopher, to be placed in his chapel in the cathedral. In the magnificent spirit which always distinguished the man, he presented to his adversaries not merely the figure of the great Saint, but an elaborate and significant illustration of his name (Christ-bearer). Thus, in the centre, the disciples are lifting the Saviour from the Cross; in the wings the Visitation—S. Simeon with Christ in his arms, S. Christopher with Christ on his shoulders, and an old hermit bearing a light.
Among the earlier examples of secular pictures one of the most famous is the portrait of himself and his bride, which is now in the Munich Gallery. This was painted in 1609, when Rubens was over thirty years old.
In 1627 Rubens went to Madrid on a diplomatic errand, but still as a painter, as we shall see when discussing his relations with Velasquez.
Towards the end of the year 1629 he was sent on another diplomatic mission, this time to England. The choice of an ambassador could not have fallen on anyone better calculated to suit the personal character of Charles I., who was a passionate lover of art and easily captivated by men of cultivated intellect and refined manners. Rubens therefore, in whom the most admirable and attractive qualities were united to the rarest genius as an artist, soon succeeded in winning the attention and regard of the king. At Paris, too, Rubens had made friends with Buckingham, who had purchased his whole collection of statues, paintings, and other works of art for about ten thousand pounds.
It was during his stay in London that he painted the picture now in the National Gallery, called Peace and War (No. 46). This was intended as an allegory representing the blessings of peace and the horrors of war, which he presented to the king as a tangible recommendation of the pacific measures which he had come to propose. After the dispersion of the Royal Collection during the Commonwealth this picture was acquired by the Doria family at Genoa, where it was called, oddly enough, Rubens's Family. As a matter of fact the children are those of Balthazar Gerbier. He also painted the S. George and the Dragon, which is now at Windsor Castle, and made the sketches for the nine pictures on the ceiling of the Banqueting Hall—now the United Service Institution Museum—in Whitehall. It was on this occasion, too, that he received the honour of knighthood from Charles I., who is said to have presented him with his own sword.
In the following year, 1630, Rubens married his second wife, Helena Fourment, who was only sixteen years old—he was now fifty-two or fifty-three. She belonged to one of the richest and most respectable families in Antwerp, and was by no means unworthy of the compliment of being painted in the character of the Virgin receiving instruction from S. Anne, in the picture which is still at Antwerp.
In 1633 his painting was again interrupted by a diplomatic mission, this time to Holland; and his remaining years were subject to more distressing interruptions, from the gout, to which he finally succumbed in 1640.
When we come to consider the English School of painting we shall see how much of its revival in the middle of the eighteenth century was due to the personality as well as to the genius of Sir Joshua Reynolds. In the Netherlands, likewise, it was not merely a great painter that was required to raise the art to life, but a great personality as well; and to the influence of Rubens may be attributed much if not all of the extraordinary fertility of the Flemish and Dutch Schools of the seventeenth century. Making every allowance for the difference in the times in which the Van Eycks and Rubens were working, there is no doubt that the former lived in too rarefied an atmosphere ever to influence their fellows, and with the exception of Hans Memling they left no
one worthy to carry on their tradition. Rubens showed his contemporaries that art was a mistress who could be served in many ways that were yet unthought of, and that she did not by any means disdain the tribute of other than religious votaries. Beginning, as we have pointed out, with sacred subjects, Rubens soon turned to the study of the classics, and found in them not so much the classical severity that Mantegna had sought for as the pagan spirit of fulness and freedom. "I am convinced that to reach the highest perfection as a painter," he himself writes "it is necessary, not only to be acquainted with the ancient statues, but we must be inwardly imbued with the thorough comprehension of them. An insight into the laws which pertain to them is necessary before they can be turned to any real account in painting. This will prevent the artist from transferring to the canvas that which in sculpture is dependent on the material employed—marble, for instance. Many inexperienced and indeed experienced painters do not distinguish the material from the form which it expresses—the stone from the figure which is carved in it; that which the artist forces from the dead marble, from the universal laws of art which are independent of it.
"One leading rule may be laid down, that inasmuch as the best statues of antiquity are of great value for the painter, the inferior ones are not only worthless but mischievous: for while beginners fancy they can perform wonders if they can borrow from these statues, and transfer something hard, heavy, with sharp outlines and an exaggerated anatomy to their canvas, this can only be done by outraging the truth of nature, since instead of representing flesh with colours, they do but give colour to marble.
"In studying even the best of the antique statues, the painter must consider and avoid many things which are not connected with the art of the sculptor, but solely with the material in which he worked. I may mention particularly the difference in the shading. In nature, owing to the transparency of the flesh, the skin, and the cartilages, the shading of many parts is moderated, which in sculpture appear hard and abrupt, for the shadows become doubled, as it were, owing to the natural and unavoidable thickness of the stone. To this must be added that certain less important parts which lie on the surface of the human body, as the veins, folds of the skin, etc., which change their appearance with every movement, and which owing to the pliancy of the skin become easily extended or contracted, are not expressed at all in the works of sculptors in general—though it is true that sculptors of high talent have marked them in some degree. The painter, however, must never omit to introduce them—with proper discretion.
"In the manner in which lights fall, too, statues are totally different from nature; for the natural brilliancy of marble, and its own light, throws out the surface far more strongly than in nature, and even dazzles the eye."
I have quoted rather more of this passage (from Mrs Jameson's translation) than I at first intended, because it discloses one of the most important secrets of the successful painting of figures, by other artists besides Rubens himself—George Romney for example. The advantages of a "classical education" at our English public schools and universities are questioned, and there can be no doubt that for the bulk of the pupils they are questionable. But Rubens shows that the case is exactly the same for painters studying classical art as for scholars acquainting themselves with classical literature. A superficial study of the antique, just because it is antique, is of no use at all, but rather a hindrance. But if the study is properly undertaken, there is no surer foundation, in art or literature, on which to build. It makes no difference what is built; the foundation is there, beneath the surface, and whatever is placed upon it will stand for all time.
The remarkable freedom and originality of Rubens's treatment of classical subjects is thus accounted for. Under the surface is his familiarity with the antique, but instead of carrying this above ground, he builds on it a palace in accordance with the times and circumstances in which he lived. The principles of classical art underlie the modern structure. Among his numerous works of classical mythology the picture at Munich of Castor and Pollux carrying off the daughters of Leucippus is worthy of being first mentioned. The Dioscuri mounted on spirited steeds, one of which is wildly rearing, are in the act of capturing the two damsels. The calm expression of strength in the male, and the violent but fruitless resistance of the female figures, form a striking contrast. Although the former are merely represented as two coarse and powerful men, and the women have only common and rather redundant forms and Flemish faces, yet the picture produces as a whole such a striking effect, owing to the admirable manner in which the subject is conceived, the power of imagination which it displays, and the exquisite colouring and tone, that it would never occur to any unprejudiced spectator to regret the absence of antique forms and character.
Two other pictures of this class are singled out for description by Waagen as masterpieces. One is the Rape of Proserpine, at Blenheim,—Pluto in his car, drawn by fiery brown steeds, is carrying off the goddess, who is struggling in his arms. The other is the Battle of the Amazons, in the Munich Gallery, which was painted by Rubens for Van der Geest. With great judgment he has chosen the moment when the Amazons are driven back by the Greeks over the river Thermodon: the battle takes place upon a bridge, and thus the horror of the scene is carried to the highest pitch.
Both in Flanders and in Italy Rubens had been brought into close contact with all the magnificence and splendour which belonged to those gorgeous times, and he delighted in representing the pomp of worldly state and everything connected with it. Of all sacred subjects none afforded such a rich field for display as the Adoration of the Kings; he has painted this subject no less than twelve times, and his fancy appears quite inexhaustible in the invention of the rich offerings of the eastern sages. Among the subjects of a secular character the history of Marie de'Medici, the triumph of the Emperor Charles V., and the Sultan at the head of his Army, gave him abundant opportunities of portraying Oriental and European pageantry, with rich arms and regalia, and all the pomp and circumstance of war. Profusion—pouring forth of abundance, that was one of Rubens's most salient characteristics. Exuberance, plenty, fatness.
As a painter of animals, again, Rubens opened out a new field for the energy of his fellow-countrymen, which was tilled so industriously by Frans Snyders and Jan Fyt, and in a lesser degree by the Dutchmen Jan Weenix, father and son, and Hondecoeter. That the naÏve instincts, agility, and vivacity of animals must have had a great attraction for Rubens is easily understood. Those which are remarkable for their courage, strength, intelligence, swiftness—as lions, tigers, wild boars, wolves, horses, dogs—particularly interested him. He paid special attention to animals, seized every opportunity of studying them from nature, and attained the most wonderful skill and facility in painting them. It is related that he had a remarkably fine and powerful lion brought to his house in order to study him in every variety of attitude, and that on one occasion observing him yawn, he was so pleased with the action that he wished to paint it. He therefore desired the keeper to tickle the animal under the chin to make him repeatedly open his jaws: at length the lion became savage at this treatment, and cast such furious glances at his keeper, that Rubens attended to his warning and had the beast removed. The keeper is said to have been torn to pieces by the lion shortly afterwards: apparently the animal had never forgotten the affront put upon him.
By such means—though it is to be hoped not always with such lamentable results—Rubens succeeded in seizing and portraying the peculiar character and instinct of animals—their quick movements and manifestations of strength—with such perfect truth and energy that not one among the modern painters has approached him in this respect—certainly not Landseer, as Mrs Jameson would ask us to believe.
The celebrated Wolf Hunt, in the collection of Lord Ashburton, was one of the earliest, painted in 1612 for the Spanish General Legranes only three years after Rubens's return from Italy. In this picture, his bold creative fancy and dramatic turn of mind are remarkably conspicuous—even at this early stage in his career. Catherine Brant, his first wife, on a brown horse, with a falcon in her hand, is near her husband; a second huntsman on horseback, three on foot, another old wolf and three young ones, with several dogs, complete the composition, which is most carefully painted in a clear and powerful tone throughout.
Of scenes of peasant life, one of his earliest, and yet the most famous, is the Kermesse, which is now in the Louvre. A boisterous, merry party of about seventy persons are assembled in front of a country ale-house; several are wildly dancing in a circle, others are drinking and shouting; others, again, are making love.
The Garden of Love, equally famous, was one of Rubens's latest pictures. Of this there are several versions in existence, of which those at Dresden and Madrid may be considered as originals. Several loving couples in familiar conversation are lingering before the entrance of a grotto, the front of which is ornamented with a rustic portico. Amongst them we recognise the portraits of Rubens and his second wife, his pupil Van Dyck, and Simon de Vos.
As Rubens united to such great and various knowledge the disposition to communicate it to others in the most friendly and candid manner, it was natural that young painters of talent who were admitted into his atelier should soon attain a high degree of skill and cultivation.
At "the House in the Wood," not far from the Hague, there is a salon decorated entirely by the pupils of Rubens. The principal picture, which is one of the largest oil paintings in the world, is by Jacob Jordaens, and represents the triumph of Prince Frederick Henry—the object of the whole scheme being the glorification of the House of Orange, in 1649. Most of the other pictures are of Theodore van Thulden, who in these works has emulated his illustrious master in the force and brilliance of his colouring.
But it is not in any particular salon or palace that we must look for the effects of Rubens' influence; it was far wider than to be able to be contained within four walls. In portraiture he gave us Van Dyck; in historical subjects, Jacob Jordaens; in animal painting and still life, Frans Snyders, Jan Fyt, and the brothers Weenix. In pictures of everyday life he gave us Adrian Brouwer and David Teniers; in landscape, Everdingen, Ruisdael and Waterloo. "Thus was the art of painting in the Netherlands remodelled in every department," says Waagen in the concluding sentence of his memoir, "by the energies of a single great and gifted mind. Thus was Rubens the originator of its second great epoch, to which we are indebted for such numerous and masterly performances in every branch of the art."
III
THE PUPILS OF RUBENS
David Teniers the elder, who was born at Antwerp in 1582, received the first rudiments of his art from Rubens, who soon perceived in him the happy advances towards excelling in his profession that raised him to the head of his school. The prejudice in favour of his son, David Teniers the younger, is so great that the father is generally esteemed but a middling painter; and his pictures not worth the inquiry of a collector. His hand is so little distinguished, however, that the paintings of the father are often taken for those of the son. The father was certainly the inventor of the manner, which the son, who was his pupil, only improved with what little was wanting to perfection.
Rubens was astonished at his early success, and though he followed the manner of Adrian Brouwer, looked on him as his most deserving pupil by the brightness of genius that he showed. He soon saved enough money to undertake the journey to Italy, and when at Rome he established himself with Adam Elsheimer, who was then in great vogue. In Elsheimer's manner he soon became a perfect master, without neglecting at the same time the study of other and greater masters, endeavouring to penetrate into the deepest mysteries of their practice. An abode of ten years in Italy, and the influence of Elsheimer combined with that of Rubens, formed him into what he became.
When he returned to his own country he employed himself entirely in painting small pictures filled with figures of people drinking and merry-making, and numbers of peasants and country women. He displayed so much taste in these that the demand for them was universal. Even Rubens thought them an ornament to his collection.
Teniers drew his own character in his pictures, and in the subjects he usually expressed everything tends to joy and pleasure. Always employed in copying after nature whatsoever presented itself, he taught his two sons, David and Abraham, to follow his example, and accustomed them to paint nothing but from that infallible model, by which means they both became excellent painters. These were his only disciples, and he died at Antwerp in 1649.
The only distinction between his works and those of his son, David Teniers the younger, is that in the latter you discover a finer touch, a fresher brush, a greater choice of attitudes, and a better disposition of the figures. The father, too, retained something of the tone of Italy in his colouring, which was stronger than his son's; but his pictures have less harmony and union—though to tell the truth, when the father took pains to finish his picture, he very nearly resembled his son.
The latter, David Teniers the younger, was born in 1610. He was nicknamed the Ape of painting, from his powers of imitation. The Archduke Leopold William made him a gentleman of his bedchamber, and he made copies of all his pictures. He came to England to buy several Italian pictures for Count Fuensaldegna, who on his return heaped favours upon him. Don John of Austria and the King of Spain set so great a value upon his pictures that they built a gallery set apart to preserve them—there are no less than fifty-two in the Prado Gallery to-day.
His principal talent was landscape adorned with small figures. He painted men drinking and smoking, alchemists, corps de garde, temptations of S. Anthony, and country fairs and merry-makings. His small pictures are superior to his large ones. His execution displays the greatest ease; the leafing of his trees is light, his skies are admirable: his small figures have an exquisite expression and a most lively touch, and the characters are marked out with the greatest truth. From the thinness of the colours his works seem to have been finished at once; they are generally clear in all their parts, and Teniers had the art, without dark shades, to relieve his lights by other lights, so well managed as to produce the effect he wanted, an art which few besides himself have attained. He died at Antwerp in 1694.
Frans Snyders was born at Antwerp in the year 1587, ten years later, that is to say, than Rubens. He received his first instruction in the art of painting from Henry van Balen. His genius at first displayed itself only in painting fruit. He afterwards attempted animals, in which kind of study he succeeded so well that he surpassed all that had ever excelled before him. He stayed for some time in Italy, and the works he met with there by Castiglione proved a spur to his genius to attempt outdoing him in painting animals. When he returned to Flanders he fixed his ordinary abode at Brussels, where he was made painter to the Archduke and Duchess, and became attached to the house of Spain. Twenty-two of his pictures are in the Prado Gallery.
When Snyders required large figures in his compositions both Rubens and Jordaens took pleasure in assisting him, and Rubens in turn borrowed the assistance of Snyders to paint the ground of his pictures; thus they mutually assisted each other in their labours, while Snyders' manly and vigorous manner was quite able to hold its own even when joined with that of the great master.
Anthony van Dyck was born at Antwerp in 1599, less than three months before Velasquez at Seville. Both became so famous in their capacity of Court painters that the rest of their achievement is popularly regarded as little more than a bye-product.
In the case of Van Dyck there is the more excuse for the English public, inasmuch as, like Holbein before him, he was exclusively employed while in this country in the production of portraits; and as "his works are so frequent in England," as Horace Walpole observes in the opening sentence of his memoir in the "Anecdotes of Painting," "that the generality of our people can scarce avoid thinking him their countryman," it is easy enough to forget that he only spent the last nine years of his life here.
Again, the insatiable craze of the English and American public for portraits has helped to obscure the extent of Van Dyck's capabilities in other directions, and while the National Gallery contains not a single subject-piece from his hand, more and more thousands are continually spent in the acquisition of more and more portraits. The bewitching Cupid and Psyche in Queen Mary's closet at Hampton Court, painted a year before his death, is scarcely known to exist!
At the same time it would be useless to deny that Van Dyck's principal claim to his place among the greatest masters rests chiefly upon portraiture. The point I wish to make is that portrait painting never yet made a great master, but that none but a great master ever became a great portrait painter; and so long as we are only permitted to see the particular achievement of the artist in our public galleries, so long is it likely that we shall continue to be flooded with mediocre likenesses of fashionable people by painters whose highest or whose only achievement they constitute. Anyone can write a "short story" for the cheaper sort of modern journal; only writers like Hardy, Stevenson, or Kipling can give us a masterpiece in little.
It was said that Rubens advised Van Dyck to devote himself to portraiture out of jealousy: but that is hardly in accordance with what we know of his generous nature. If the advice was given at all we may be sure that it was given in a friendly spirit. But there was something in the temperament of Van Dyck which peculiarly fitted him for the Court, apart from any question as to his excellence in any particular branch of his art, and it is evident that the personality of Rubens, and his connection with the rich and mighty of the earth, influenced him almost as much as did his art. How much he owed to Rubens, and how much Rubens owed to him in painting is a matter that is arguable. He had been several years with Van Balen before he entered the studio of Rubens, when eighteen years old, not as a pupil but as an assistant. Here he not only had the practical task of painting Rubens's compositions for him, in company with numerous others, but had also the advantage of studying the works of Titian and other of the great Italian masters in Rubens's famous collection. If the hand of Van Dyck is traceable in some of the pictures of Rubens at this period, so the spirit of Rubens is very obvious in those of Van Dyck. The chief thing to be remembered is that in these early days he was not painting portraits. His earliest works, in which the influence of Titian is perceptible as well as that of Rubens, are the Christ bearing the Cross, in S. Paul's at Antwerp, painted in 1618; the S. Sebastian at Munich, and the Christ Mocked, at Berlin. The familiar portrait of Cornelius van der Geest in the National Gallery, is one of his very earliest, probably before 1620. Again, on his first visit to Genoa, in 1621, on the advice of Rubens, his ambition was not to paint portraits, as on his second visit some years later, but to rival Rubens in the composition of great historical pieces. It was not until 1627, when he left behind him in Genoa the superb series of Balbi, Brignole-Sala, Cattaneo, and Lomellini portraits, and returned to Antwerp to undertake those such as the Le Roys at Hertford House, or the Beatrice de Cusance at Windsor, that he had really become a portrait painter. Even then, he was still determined not to yield to Rubens at Antwerp, and painted, amongst other subjects, the Rinaldo and Armida for Charles I. It was only at the solicitation of George Geldorp, a schemer as well as a painter, that he consented at length, in 1632, to come to England; and it was only the welcome afforded to him by Charles that induced him to settle here.
Two considerations of personal vanity may be suggested as actuating Charles to be specially indulgent to Van Dyck—an indulgence of which the results posterity should not omit to credit to the sad account of the martyr—first, that his father had failed to retain the painter in his service, and second, that Velasquez, who had made a sketch of him on his mad visit to Madrid in 1623, was then immortalising Philip. Velasquez being out of the question, why not Van Dyck! An excellent idea! Especially when instead of dwarfs, buffoons, and idiots, the English Court contained some exceedingly fine material besides the royal family for the artist to exercise his talent upon.
After this, Flanders knew Van Dyck no more, save for a year or two's sojourn from 1633-1635 when he painted one or two magnificent portraits, and then returned to England, where he died in 1641. With the death of Rubens the year before, Flemish painting had suffered another eclipse; and though Snyders lived till 1657, and Jordaens and the younger Teniers continued till late in the century, no fresh seedlings appeared, and the soil again became barren. Rubens and Van Dyck were both too big for the little garden—their growth overspread Europe.
