And every creature which is in heaven, and on the earth, and under the earth, and such as are in the sea, and all that are in them, heard I saying, Blessing, and honour, and glory, and power, be unto him that sitteth upon the throne, and unto the Lamb for ever and ever.
Hubert has figured this verse by assembling, as in one time and place, representatives of Christendom. They who worship are the prophets, apostles, popes, martyrs, and virgins. On each side of the central panel the just judges, the soldiers of Christ, the hermits, and the pilgrims, advance to join the throng around the Lamb. Most beautiful of all is the crowd of virgin martyrs bearing palms, moving over the green grass carpeted with flowers, to adore the Lamb of God, the Redeemer of the World. Above, God the Father, the Virgin Mother, and St. John the Baptist, with crowns of wonderful workmanship, are throned amid choirs of singing and playing angels on either hand.
The picture does not illustrate the description of the Adoration of the Lamb in the fifth chapter of Revelations so faithfully as the picture of the 'Three Maries' illustrated St. Matthew. The Lamb has not seven horns and seven eyes, and the four beasts and twenty-four elders are not falling down before it and adoring. The Lamb is an ordinary sheep, and the picture is a symbolic expression of the Catholic faith, founded upon a biblical text, but not what could be described as 'a Bible illustration.' People in the Middle Ages liked to embody their faith in a visible form, and we are told that theologians frequently drew up schemes of doctrine which painters did their best to translate into pictures, and sculptors into sculpture. Such works of art were for instruction rather than beauty, though some also served well the purpose of decoration.
Josse Vyt, who ordered the picture, and whose portrait, with that of his wife, is painted on the shutters, no doubt explained exactly what he wanted, and Hubert sought to please him.[1] But although the design of the central panel was old-fashioned and symbolic, Hubert was able to do what he liked with the landscape, and with the individual figures. They are real men and women with varieties of expression such as had not been painted before, and the landscape is even more beautiful than the one at the back of the 'Three Maries.' Snow mountains rise in the distance, and beautiful cypresses and palms of all kinds clothe the green slopes behind the Lamb. There are flowers in the grass and jewels for pebbles in the brook. Behind, you can see the Cathedrals of Utrecht and Cologne, St. John's of Maestricht, and more churches and houses besides, and the walls of a town, and wide stretches of green country.
[Footnote 1: There are reasons for thinking that the picture may have been ordered by some prince who died before it was finished, and that Vyt only acquired it later, in time to have his own and his wife's portraits added on the shutters.]
Hubert van Eyck died in 1426, and the picture was finished by his younger brother John, of whose life, though more is known than of Hubert's, we need not here repeat details. Many of his pictures still exist, and the most delightful of them for us are his portraits. He was not the first man to paint good portraits, but few artists have ever painted better likenesses. It seems evident that the people in his pictures are 'as like as they can stare,' with no wrinkle or scratch left out. Portraits in earlier days than these were seldom painted for their own sake alone. A pious man who wanted to present an altar-piece or a stained-glass window to a church would modestly have his own image introduced in a corner. By degrees such portraits grew in size and scale, and the neighbouring saints diminished, till at last the saints were left out and the portrait stood alone. Then it came about that such a picture was hung in its owner's house rather than in a church. One of the best portraits John van Eyck ever painted is at Bruges—the likeness of his wife. The panel was discovered about fifty years ago in the market-place of Bruges, where an old woman was using the back of it to skin eels on; but so soundly had the picture been painted that even this ill-usage did not ruin it. The lady was a very plain Flemish woman with no beauty of feature or expression, but John has revealed her character so vividly that to look at her likeness is to know her. It is indeed a long leap from the Richard II. of fifty years before, with its representation of the outline of a youth, to this ample realization of a mature woman's character.
John lived till 1441, and had some pupils and many imitators. One of these, Roger van der Weyden by name, spread his influence far and wide throughout the whole of the Netherlands, France, and Germany. How important this influence was in the history of art we shall see later. Many of the imitators of John learnt his accuracy and thoroughness of workmanship, but none of them attained his deep insight into character.
During the next fifty years many and beautiful were the pictures produced throughout Flanders. All of them have a jewel-like brilliance of colour, approaching in brightness the hues of the Richard II. diptych. The landscape backgrounds are charming miniatures of towns by the side of rivers with spanning bridges. The painting of textures is exquisite. But the Flemish face, placid, plump, and fair-haired, prevails throughout. In the pictures of Paradise, where the saints and angels play with the Infant Christ, we still feel chained to the earth, because the figures and faces are the unidealized images of those one might have met in the streets of Bruges and Ghent. This is not a criticism on the artists. The merit of their work is unchallenged; and how could they paint physical beauty by them scarce ever seen? Yet when all has been said in praise of the Flemish School, the brothers Van Eyck, the founders of it, remain its greatest representatives, and their work is still regarded with that high and almost universal veneration which is the tribute of the greatest achievement.