This little Prince had in his veins the blood of William the Silent, and became the father of our William III. Poor human nature is too easily envious, and some deny the reality, in fact, of the distinction, the grace, of Van Dyck's portrayed men and women. Nevertheless, Van Dyck's vision, guiding his brush, was as rare an endowment as envy is a common one, and has higher authority to show us what to look for, to see, and to enjoy.
Van Dyck was the first painter who taught people how they ought to look, to befit an admirer's view of their aristocratic rank. His portraits thus express the social position of the sitter as well as the individual character. Although this has been an aim of portrait-painters in modern times, when they have been painting people of rank, it was less usual in the seventeenth century.
There was hardly scope enough in Antwerp for two great painters such as Rubens and Van Dyck, so in 1632 Van Dyck left Flanders and settled permanently in England, as Court painter to Charles I. All his life Charles had been an enthusiastic collector of works of art. Born with a fine natural taste, he had improved it by study, until Rubens could say of him: 'The Prince of Wales is the best amateur of painting of all the princes in the world. He has demanded my portrait with such insistence that he has overcome my modesty, although it does not seem to me fitting to send it to a Prince of his importance.'
Two of our pictures, the Richard II. diptych and the Edward VI. of Holbein, were in his collection, besides many we have mentioned, such as Holbein's 'Erasmus,' Raphael's cartoons, and Mantegna's 'Triumph of Cæsar.' Before Charles came to the throne he had gone to Spain to woo the daughter of Philip III. The magnificent Titians in the palace at Madrid extorted such admiration from the Prince that Philip felt it incumbent upon him as a host and a Spaniard to offer some of them to Charles. Charles sent his own painter to copy the rest. He kept agents all over Europe to buy for him, and spent thousands of pounds in salaries and presents to the artists at his Court. As in the time of Henry VIII., there were still no first-rate English painters. James I. had employed a Fleming, and an inferior Dutchman, whom Charles retained in his service for a time. Then he experimented with a second-rate Italian artist, who painted some ceilings which still exist at Hampton Court. Rubens was too much in demand at other Courts for Charles to have his exclusive service, but the courtly Van Dyck was a painter after his own heart. For the first time he had found an artist who satisfied his taste, and Van Dyck a Court in which he could paint distinction to his heart's content. Charles would have squandered money on him if he had then had it to squander. As it was, he paid him far less than he had paid his inferior predecessors, but Van Dyck continued to paint for him to the end, and by Heaven's mercy died himself before the crash came, which overthrew Charles and scattered his collection.
Between the years 1632 and 1642, Van Dyck painted a great number of portraits of the King. It is from these that we obtain our vivid idea of the first Charles's gentleness and refinement. He has a sad look, as though the world were too much for him and he had fallen upon evil days. We can see him year by year looking sadder, but Van Dyck makes the sadness only emphasize the distinction.
Queen Henrietta Maria was painted even more often than the King. She is always dressed in some bright shimmering satin; sometimes in yellow, like the sleeve of William II.'s dress, sometimes in the purest white. She looks very lovely in the pictures, but lovelier still are the groups of her children. Even James II. was once a bewitching little creature in frocks with a skull-cap on his head. His sister Mary, aged six, in a lace dress, with her hands folded in front of her, looks very good and grown-up. When she became older, though not even then really grown-up, she married the William of Orange of our picture. He came from Holland and stayed at the English Court, as a boy of twelve, and it was then that Van Dyck painted this portrait of him.
Later on, when they were married, Van Dyck painted them together, but William was older and looked a little less beautiful, and Mary had lost the charm of her babyhood. With all her royal dignity and solemnity, she is a perfect child in these pictures. Refined people, loving art, have grown so fond of the Van Dyck children, that often when they wish their own to look particularly bewitching at some festivity, they dress them in the costumes of the little Mary and Elizabeth Stuart, and revive the skull-caps and the lace dresses for a fresh enjoyment.
Van Dyck's patrons in England, other than the King, were mostly noblemen and courtiers. They lived in the great houses, which had been built in many parts of the country during the reigns of Elizabeth and her successors. The rooms were spacious, with high walls that could well hold the large canvases of Van Dyck. Sometimes a special gallery was built to contain the family portraits, and Van Dyck received a commission to paint them all. Often, several copies of the same picture were ordered at one time to be sent as presents to friends and relations. Usually the artist painted but one himself; the rest were copies by his assistants.
Van Dyck's portraits were designed to suit great houses. In a small room, which a portrait by Holbein would have decorated nobly, a canvas by Van Dyck would have been overpowering. In spite of the fact that the expressions on the faces are often intimate and appealing, domesticity is not the mark of his art. In Van Dyck's picture of our 'heir of fame,' the white linen, the yellow satin, and the armour please us as befitting the lovely face. There is a glimmer of light on the armour, but you see how different is Van Dyck's treatment of it from Rembrandt's. Van Dyck painted it as an article of dress in due subordination to the face, not as an opportunity for reflecting light and becoming the most important thing in the picture.