These facts, if they be facts, represent all, or very nearly all, that is known of the story of Hubert van Eyck. Perhaps we have his portrait. Amongst the crowd of figures displayed on his marvellous triptych at Ghent, note in the foreground of the outer left wing a citizen riding on a white horse. Tradition tells us that this man is no other than Hubert himself, and that the rider behind him on the brown horse is his younger brother John.
But if we know little or next to nothing of the home life and surroundings of Hubert van Eyck, his merits, says Lübke, as the founder of an entirely new mode of painting are established beyond doubt. ‘Not only by reason of the improvement which he effected in the process of mingling colour with oil, and his successful adaptation of the new method to the painting of pictures, does he justly deserve the title of Father of Northern art.’ He was the first to bring back the cultus of beauty, and the first to bend before Nature’s shrine. He was set in the midst of a plain full of dry bones, and by the might of his genius he made them live, and whilst he gave largeness and depth and reality to the conventional art of the Middle Ages he lost not one whit of its old ideal grandeur. Utterly discarding the golden backgrounds of former days, he bathed his creations in the glow of Nature’s aureole as he saw it in the green fields and fair woodlands of his native land, and whilst he set on them the impress of his own epoch and his own race, he at the same time invested his sacred figures with sublime grandeur and dignity and a certain ineffable sweetness which is altogether peculiar to himself. In this respect his painting has been rarely equalled and never yet surpassed.
No vestige of Hubert’s work remains in the city on the Roya, but hard by in the old Cathedral of St. Bavon at Ghent is his masterpiece, ‘The Adoration of the Lamb’—a picture, indeed, not painted at Bruges, but for all that instinct with the ethos of Bruges, which still preserves the memory of her magnificence, still keeps alive one quivering ray of her aureole, and is perhaps the most perfect reflection we have of the beauty which enshrined her at the epoch when she was fairest. Nay, it is something grander and nobler and holier than this. It is a sublime transcription in gold and colour of the poetry of the Mass, an inspiration incomparable and altogether unique. ‘Like Dante’s Divine Comedy and Bach’s Passion Music it stands, in its sphere, alone.’ Make a journey to Ghent and gaze upon this marvellous picture, and perchance its splendour shall enlighten thy soul, and then go down into the crypt and kneel before the tomb of the man who created it.
John van Eyck
We know something more of the life of John van Eyck than of the life of his master and elder brother Hubert. His junior by twenty years, like him he was born at Maeseyck, and though his pictures have little in common with the primitives of Maestricht or Cologne he seems to have made his first studies in his own neighbourhood, and later on to have accompanied Hubert to Bruges. A man of many parts and many achievements, painter of pictures, stainer of glass, illuminator of parchments, illuminator of stone—no uncommon circumstance at a time when every artist was an artisan, and every craftsman an artist—he added yet to his varied talents no little skill in diplomacy, was entrusted by his sovereign with sundry private and delicate missions, and travelled for him frequently and far, sometimes in order to paint pictures, sometimes on matters of state.
Whilst still a young man John van Eyck parted company for a time with his brother. In the autumn of 1422 he was appointed peintre et varlet de chambre to Duke John of Bavaria, the famous Jean sans Pitié, Prince-Bishop of Liège. When that militant prelate was gathered to his fathers some two years afterwards, Philippe l’Asseuré received his heritage, and upon the recommendation of ‘plusieurs de ses gens’ he confirmed Van Eyck in his office and in all the customary honours and profits appertaining thereto,’ granting to him, over and above, an annual stipend of a hundred livres, a sum equal in current coin to about one hundred and sixty pounds.
After a short sojourn at Bruges the young painter journeyed to Lille, probably to execute some work there for his new master, for during his entire stay in that city, nearly three years, Philippe paid his house rent. In the summer of 1428 he set out on certains lointains voyages secrez which the Duke had commanded him to make, en certains lieux dont il ne voulut autre déclaration être faite. Probably Spain was the place of his destination, and the object of his journey to find Philippe a wife. If so, his sojourn there must have been of short duration, for before the end of the year we find him in Portugal busy painting ‘a most life-like portrait of the Infanta’ Isabella, who shortly afterwards became Philippe’s affianced bride. By 1433 he was again at Bruges, and in the course of the year he purchased a house in the rue de la Main d’Or, which he henceforth made his headquarters. Often from home, sometimes at Hesdin, sometimes at Lille to visit his friend and patron and to obtain from him instructions as to work which he wished him to execute, once at least, in 1435, en certains voyages lointains et étranges marches, no doubt anent matters of state, here it was that he seems to have painted most of his pictures which have come down to us, and there are a whole series of signed and dated panels for each year from 1432 to 1440, save only 1435, the year of his secret journey. He must have been residing in this house when he illuminated the statues, six of them, of the Hôtel de Ville, and received for his labour, as the town archives bear witness, 33 livres 12 escalins de gros, a sum representing in purchasing value to-day from fifty to sixty pounds.
Here he entertained the burgomaster and aldermen of Bruges, who, on July 17, 1432, repaired in a body to his studio to inspect a picture which he had just completed, and which no doubt they had commissioned, perhaps a Madonna and Child at present at Ince Bloundel Hall, near Liverpool, for this picture, one of the few that are dated, bears the following inscription: Complendum anno Domini 1432, als ich kan.
It will be interesting to note that upon this occasion John’s two apprentices made merry, for the city fathers presented them with five escalins by way of gratification. Here was born his only child, or at all events the only child of whom there is any record; we know that Duke Philippe was the godfather, and it may well be that he was present at the christening feast.
Here too he painted for the Guild of St. Luke that portrait of his pale, sad-faced, patient wife, which at present hangs in the Academy at Bruges. Though she looks considerably older, the quaintly-worded legend on the frame informs us that at this time she was only thirty-three years of age—Conjunx meus Johannes me complevit anno 1439º 17º Junii, etas mea triginta annorum, als ich kan; and lastly, here, not much more than twelve months afterwards, on July 9, 1440, the great painter died. They laid him to rest in the cloister of St. Donatian’s, and it would seem that his obsequies were celebrated with some circumstance, for the city archives inform us that three bells were tolled:—Donatian, Leonard and Bernard.