The Spell of Flanders / An Outline of the History, Legends and Art of Belgium's Famous Northern Provinces

by Edward Neville Vose

During the remainder of his reign of fifty years Philip never again had occasion to make war on his Flemish subjects, and while he seriously curtailed the power and importance of the communes, his rule was, on the whole, a period of great prosperity for Flanders. Both merchants and artisans were waxing rich, while the chief cities were being beautified on every hand. It was under Philip the Good that the cathedral at Antwerp was begun, and the town halls of Mons, Louvain and Brussels erected. It was also during his reign that William Caxton learned the art of printing at the house of Colard Manson at Bruges, but the prejudice of the burghers led to his banishment as a foreigner—thus depriving Bruges of the lustre of his achievements. The greatest event of Philip’s reign, however, was one of which the glory is shared by both Bruges and Ghent—the establishment in Flanders of the school of painters in oils whose masterpieces loom so large in the history of art.

Like most men whose commanding personality dominates the age in which they live, Philip the Good was many sided. The Professor admires him because he was, in his judgment, one of the greatest constructive statesmen of the Middle Ages—aiming steadily throughout his long reign to weld together, by fair means or foul, a compact Burgundian nation. On the other hand, I look upon him as a foe rather than a friend of true progress, because he crushed the self-governing communes and guilds, the bulwarks of personal liberty in feudal Europe. Mrs. Professor cares nothing for either of these aspects of his career, but looks upon him as great for all time because he was an ardent friend and patron of the fine arts.

In this she is undoubtedly right, for no greater glory belongs to any of the long line of princes who ruled over Flanders than that which is associated with his reign—the birth at Bruges of the art of painting with oils and of the wonderful school of painting represented by the early Flemish masters. In his History of Flemish Painting Prof. A. J. Wauters recounts the names and some faint traces of the work of a few Flemish painters who lived prior to the period of Philip the Good. At Ghent there are two interesting frescoes dating from about the end of the thirteenth century. At that city in 1337 the first guild of sculptors was organised, under the patronage of St. Luke, and similar corporations were instituted at Tournai in 1341, in Bruges in 1351, at Louvain by 1360 and Antwerp by 1382. To this guild from the very earliest period the painters belonged, sometimes the goldsmiths and goldbeaters being also associated with them. In the same way the illuminators of Bruges and Ghent, and the tapestry workers of Arras, Tournai, Valenciennes and Brussels were organised into guilds, and these associations of men whose work was in a high degree artistic soon resulted in the transformation of the artisan into the artist.

Philip the Good was not the first of his line to give encouragement to art and artists. One Jehan de Hasselt was court painter to Count Louis of Maele, while at the same period the better known Jehan de Bruges was peintre et varlet de chambre for the King of France. By the end of the fourteenth century not only the great Dukes of Burgundy and the Kings of France but many minor princes had their chosen painters, imagers, illuminators and tapestry workers. Philip the Bold, the first of the Dukes of Burgundy to rule over Flanders, retained his father-in-law’s painter, Jehan de Hasselt, on his pay-roll for some time, and later employed a resident of Ypres, Melchior Broederlam, whose masterpiece was an altar-piece for the Carthusian monastery at Dijon founded by his patron. Part of this has been preserved and is now in the museum of Dijon. It is of interest as the first great painting of the early Flemish school and represents the Annunciation and Visitation, the Presentation in the Temple, and the Flight into Egypt. John the Fearless, the next Duke of Burgundy, likewise had his official painter, but it was not until the reign of Philip the Good that any of these Ducal artists, with the exception of Broederlam, achieved more than mediocre results.

The reason for this may have been the medium with which all painters in those days were accustomed to work. This was called tempera, the colours being mixed with water, the white of an egg or some other glutinous substance, then dried in the sun and varnished over. The colours, however, soon became dull and pale—often fading away altogether, especially in course of restoration—and the process of drying was slow and unsatisfactory. To Flanders belongs the honour of the great discovery of the art of painting with oils that revolutionised this branch of the fine arts and made the master-works of the artists of the brush imperishable for all time.

This epoch-making discovery, which is justly looked upon as the birth of modern painting, was made by the two brothers Van Eyck about the year 1410. The early accounts attribute the invention wholly to Jean, the younger of the two brothers, relating that on a certain occasion he had placed a painting on wood, which had cost him much time and labour, in the sun to dry when the heat of the sun caused it to crack. Seeing his work thus ruined at a blow Jean sought to find some substance that would obviate the necessity of drying his paintings in the sun and, after many experiments, discovered that linseed oil and nut oil were by far the most rapid in drying. He further found that the colours mixed better in oil than with the white of an egg or glue. They also had more body, a far richer lustre, were impermeable to water and—what was best of all—dried just as well in the shade as in the sun. Later scholarship is not inclined to give the entire credit for this discovery to Jean alone, however, and his elder brother Hubert is looked upon by some as the one to whom the glory is due. Probably it was the joint result of innumerable experiments made by both, each profiting by the mistakes and successes of the other—just as was the case with the Wright brothers in perfecting the greatest invention of our own times. There were, of course, other pioneers who contributed to the great discovery.

The brothers were born at Maeseyck (Eyck-sur-Meuse) near Maestricht, and took the name of the village as their own in a way that was then very common. Literally they called themselves Hubert and Jean of Eyck. They first obtained service under the prince-bishop of Liége, and were illuminators of manuscripts and statues as well as painters. The increasing wealth and luxury of Flanders under the Dukes of Burgundy drew the two brothers to that country and they appear to have been in the employ of the Count of Charolais, afterwards the Duke Philip the Good, at about the date assigned by the early historians as that when the art of painting with oils was discovered. The Count was residing at that time in the Château des Comtes at Ghent with his young wife Michelle, sister of the Duke of Orleans. In 1419, when the news of the murder of John the Fearless, Duke of Burgundy, by the Duke of Orleans on the bridge of Montereau arrived at Ghent, Philip rushed into his wife’s room crying, “Michelle, Michelle! Your brother has killed my father!” The shock of this terrible intelligence, and the subsequent suspicion of her husband that she knew of the plot, caused the poor little French princess to pine away and die two years later. As a tribute to her memory the guild of St. Luke was asked by the Duke to grant the freedom of the guild to her favourite painters, the two Van Eycks, which was done.

Jean, however, did not remain at Ghent, but took service for a time under John of Bavaria, whose capital was at The Hague. In 1425 he became painter and varlet de chambre of Philip the Good, a position he retained until his death. For a time he seems to have travelled about with his ducal master, but he eventually settled at Bruges, where most of his best work was done. Hubert, meanwhile, remained at Ghent, painting for the rich burghers of that prosperous city. Here he presently received an order from Jodocus Vydts for an altar-piece for a chapel he had founded in the Cathedral of St. Bavon in his native city of Ghent. Hubert began work immediately, planned the great work and lived to partially complete it when overtaken by death in 1426. Hubert was recognised as a great painter in his day, the magistrates of Ghent on one occasion going in state to his studio to inspect a picture he was painting—which was no doubt the altar-piece for St. Bavon. He was, however, wholly forgotten by early historians of art in Flanders, and it is only recently that he has been given his proper place as one of the first of the great masters of the Flemish school.

The subject chosen by Hubert for the proposed altar-piece was the Adoration of the Lamb, and the artist, while true to the conventions of the age in which he lived, achieved a work that is still full of interest and charm. Like Shakespeare’s plays this, the first great masterpiece of the Flemish school, belongs not to an age but to all time. In its entirety the work consists of twenty panels and comprises more than three hundred separate figures. How far it had been completed at Hubert’s death there is no way to tell, although it is customary to attribute to him the architectural frame, the central panel showing the lamb, and the large upper panels. Other critics believe that Jean practically painted the whole picture when he was commissioned by the donor to complete it. The books on Flemish art devote many pages to an analytical description of this picture,[1] which was finally completed by Jean in 1432. The Duke Philip, his patron, and the magistrates of Bruges visited his studio in state to inspect the finished picture, which was afterwards publicly exhibited at Ghent. When it is considered that this is the very first painting in oil that has come down to us it is in every respect a most marvellous performance. The three large central panels in the upper portion are especially noble and impressive, that of “God the Father,” in the centre, being finely expressive of majesty and repose. In the panel to the left of the Virgin Mary is a group of youthful angels singing, who are so skilfully painted that “one can readily tell from looking at them which is singing the dominant, which the counter-tenor, and which the tenor and the bass,” according to an early critic. We were told by a Belgian curé with whom we talked about this wonderful picture shortly before our visit to Ghent that the work is so fine in its details that in the case of the figures in the foreground who are holding open in their hands copies of the Scriptures the very passage at which each book is opened can be distinguished! We verified this remarkable assertion by the aid of a glass loaned us by an attendant.

[1] See “The Early Flemish Painters,” by J. A. Crowe and G. B. Cavalcaselle, pp. 49-63; and “Belgium, Its Cities,” by Grant Allen, pp. 164-175.