Van Eyck

by J. Cyril M. Weale

John's apprenticeship ended, and he in turn started on his travels, Hubert would appear to have removed to Holland, where painters and miniaturists of the early years of the fifteenth century repeatedly exhibit marked traces of his influence; where also miniatures in a Book of Hours, of date 1412 to 1417, to the order of Count William for the use of his only daughter, the fair and ill-starred Jacqueline, are judged to have been executed by him on the strength of the many points of resemblance they bear to the Great Polyptych. The commission of the latter work itself is now confidently attributed to the same prince. Observe the prominence given to the tower of Saint Martin's at Utrecht and the adjacent view of Cöln in the centre-piece, "The Adoration of the Lamb," and to St. Martin himself, the patron saint of Utrecht, in the panel of "The Knights of Christ," the banner in his grasp, moreover, charged with the arms of that town: the Count's territory was in the diocese of Utrecht and the ecclesiastical province of Cöln. So much depends on the origin of this commission in apportioning the respective share each of the brothers had in its execution that the further fact must not be overlooked that Ghent, for which the great work was completed, had no sort of connection with either Utrecht or Cöln, being in the diocese of Tournay and the ecclesiastical province of Rheims, while the only saint in the altar-piece specially connected with Ghent who is characterised by an emblem—St. Livin, to wit—was also widely venerated in Zeeland. Finally, not to labour this aspect of the question unduly, the inscription on the frame attributes, not the picture's inception, but its completion, to Jodoc Vyt, the eventual donor—a form of words so singular as to admit of no other interpretation than the plain meaning the expression conveys.

Count William passed away on the 31st of May 1417, leaving an only child, Jacqueline, aged seventeen, by his wife, Margaret of Burgundy, who had predeceased him. Her uncle, John of Bavaria, Prince-Bishop of Liège, an unscrupulous ruffian who clearly paid small deference to women's rights, at once set himself to rob the unfortunate princess of her possessions. In September 1418 he marched out on Dordrecht, where he established his headquarters; Gorcum and other strongholds speedily succumbed to his arms, and after an interval, during which he married Elizabeth of Görlitz, Duchess of Luxemburg and widow of Anthony of Burgundy, Duke of Brabant and Limburg, he finally removed to Holland and installed himself at The Hague, free now to pursue his nefarious projects. For thirteen years the country resounded with the clash of arms and laboured in the rough and tumble of civil warfare: hence an atmosphere the least congenial to the cultivation and patronage of high art. The cities of Flanders and Brabant were the gainers by the exodus of craftsmen that presently set in. Of their number, sooner or later, was Hubert, who, prior to 1425 at any rate, had already settled at Ghent and acquired the freedom of that city. News of the unfinished polyptych remaining on his hands soon came to the ears of Jodoc Vyt, a wealthy burgher, who eagerly embraced the opportunity of striking the bargain by which he acquired all rights in the picture and so linked his name and personality for all time with this ineffable monument of the painter's art.

In the centre-piece, "The Adoration of the Lamb" ([frontispiece]), we discover the keynote to the scheme of the work, in the Apocalyptic Vision of St. John the source of its inspiration. The Lamb without spot, the blood from its breast pouring into a chalice, is stood on an altar, the white cloth over which bears on its superfrontal the text from the Vulgate, "Behold the Lamb of God, who taketh away the sins of the world," and on its stole-ends the legend, "Jesus, the Way, the Truth, and the Life." Worshipping angels gather around, some bearing instruments of the Passion, others swinging censers, their smoke laden with the prayers of the saints. In the foreground the Fountain of Life, flowing down through the ages along the gentle slope of flower-bejewelled sward, or dispensing its waters in vivifying jets from the gurgoyles beneath the feet and from the vases in the hands of the winged angel above its standard. To the four quarters groups of the elect: on the near right those of the Old Law and among the Gentiles who had lived in expectation of the Redeemer, the balancing group on the left typical of the New Law—prophets, doctors, philosophers, and princes in the former, the Apostles, popes, bishops, abbots, deacons, monks, and clerics among the latter. The corresponding groups back of the altar represent the army of martyrs whose blood is the seed of the Church, and the multitude of virgins. Over all, from the Holy Dove poised high over the altar, dart rays of light, emblematic of the Wisdom which had inspired their lives and of the fire of Love that had heartened their sacrifice. A carpet of flowers fills in all the open space fore of the altar, flowering shrubs and trees that of the mid-distance, while the entire background is an exquisite example of the realistic landscape-work that is an abiding charm of the Netherlandish school. The wonderful harmony of colour appeals at once to the senses; but more arresting, on nearer acquaintance, for its quality and felicity, is the wide range of portraiture that distinguishes the piece. From the two lateral panels in the dexter shutter the Knights of Christ and the Just Judges are pressing forward to the scene of the Vision, from the corresponding ones in the sinister shutter the Holy Hermits and the Holy Pilgrims: the former on spirited horses—an animal for which the painter evinces a special affection—the latter on foot. These panels are even more remarkable perhaps than the centre-piece for the diversity and multiplicity of the types portrayed, and for the wealth of landscape relieved by bird life lavished in their embellishment.

The "Adoration of the Lamb" is dominated in the upper zone by a triple panel, the centre framing the Almighty enthroned in majesty, whose is the kingdom, the power, and the glory—a supreme conception of the Eternal Father, unequalled for majestic stillness of face, intellectual power of brow, and depth and placidity of vision; on His right is the Mother of Christ, testifying to the full the lowliness of the handmaiden of the Lord, on His left St. John the Baptist, an earnest type, long of hair and rugged of beard, barefooted, and in a raiment of brown camel's hair girdled about the loins, intensifying the austerity of life ordained for him who was to prepare the way of the Lord and make straight His paths. In the "Choir of Angels" ([Plate II.]), which is the subject of the first lateral panel in the dexter shutter, we have one of the choicest gems of the polyptych, and it affords us a measure of the distance the realistic tendencies of the painter had carried him from the traditions of the mystic school. Justified by the warrant of Scripture, he translates these spirit beings into purely human frames, but with a nerve system attuned to material sensations. In these angels there is no suggestion of trance-like ecstasy in contemplation of the Beatific Vision; they are angels materialised whose features reflect the strain of sustained effort and the underlying sense of pain which in man is inseparable from the sensing of intense joy. Evidently the master had fathomed the secrets of the human heart: the sense possibilities of the spirit world were without his ken, so he humanised his angels and evolved types understandable of the people, and at the same time one of the finest angel groups of all art. So inexpressibly realistic are his conceptions that to the poet-biographer Van Mander, at any rate, it was actually possible to discern "the different key in which the voice of each is pitched." But poets are privileged beings. Accompanying the Choir in their song of praise with organ, harp, and viol are the balancing group of angels in the corresponding compartment of the sinister shutter, types that, strangely enough, are in striking contrast to the former, their features moulded in placid contentment. The extreme panels of this zone are occupied by life-size presentations of our First Parents after the Fall, nude figures painted from the life, with absolute fidelity to nature and masterly conception of type: in a demi-lunette over the figure of Adam we see Cain and Abel making their offerings unto the Lord, and in that over Eve the slaying of Abel at the hands of his brother. There is a tradition extant that the altar-piece was originally furnished with a predella painted in distemper, a picture probably of Limbo or of Purgatory, but no trace of this remains.

PLATE IV.—PORTRAIT OF THE PAINTER'S FATHER-IN-LAW

(By John van Eyck)

The subject of this painting has only within recent months been identified as the father of Margaret van Eyck, with whose portrait, reproduced in Plate VII., it should be compared. The framework bears along the upper border the Painter's simple motto "Als ich can," and at the foot "Iohannes de Eyck me fecit anno 1433, 21 Octobris." No. 222 in the National Gallery, London. See page [66].

The closed shutters display, filling in the full width of the middle zone, the scene of the Annunciation. The Ethyrean Sibyl and the Cumaean Sibyl occupy the demi-lunettes above the middle portion of the Virgin's chamber, the lunettes above the lateral divisions showing half-length figures of the Prophets Zacharias and Micheas. Of the four compartments of the lower zone the inner ones contain statues in grisaille of St. John the Baptist and St. John the Evangelist, the outer ones figures in the attitude of prayer, eminently life-like, of the donor, Jodoc Vyt, and his wife, Elizabeth Borluut. Jodoc was the second son of Sir Nicholas Vyt, Receiver of Flanders,—a wealthy citizen who owned the lordships of Pamele and Leedberghe, besides several mansions in Ghent, of which city he was burgomaster in 1433-34, after filling various minor municipal offices: by no means a handsome type, though manifestly a capable and kindly burgher, well-set, with a somewhat low forehead, small grey eyes, and a large mouth with broad under-lip; neither do the short-cropped hair and growing baldness or the three warts on upper-lip, nose, and forehead make for attractiveness. In respect of looks his wife is the better favoured, striking the beholder as an indulgent lady, with much of the homely dignity and serenity of the finer type of Flemish matron.