1172. CHARLES THE FIRST.
Van Dyck (Flemish: 1599-1641). See 49.
This famous picture was one of many equestrian portraits of Charles I. which Van Dyck painted at his court. It is, however, unique among them. In all the others,—the Windsor picture, the replica at Hampton Court, and the pictures in the Earl of Warwick's and the Marquis of Lothian's Collections, the king faces the spectator, and rides, as it were, straight out of the picture, the horse being white. The size, proportions, and composition of this picture are different. The horse is dun-coloured, and the king is seen in profile. A small picture at Buckingham Palace was probably the original design or sketch of it. It was sold after Charles's death for £150 by the Parliament, and in 1885 was bought by another Parliament—from the Duke of Marlborough—for the great price of £17,500 (see under 1171).
It is a courtier's portrait of the idol of the cavaliers—a portrait of the good side of a bad king. Notice first the prominence given to the noble horse (cf. under 156), almost to the point of clumsiness. Then in Charles himself, note the stately bearing, the personal dignity, the almost feminine refinement. It is a portrait of personal courage—with no suspicion of any fatal want of presence of mind; of dignity—with the obstinacy, which was its reverse side, left out. In such a portrait "of a Cavalier by a Cavalier" Van Dyck's work is invested with an enduring pathos for all Englishmen. One remembers only, in looking upon this picture of him, Charles's graces, not his faults. One thinks of him as the man who "nothing common did, nor mean, upon that memorable scene." And so considered, how eloquent becomes the isolation in which the painter has here left him. With him, indeed, is Sir Thomas Morton, his equerry, but the king does not see him. Bareheaded he sits, gazing into futurity.