The brothers Van Eyck

by Paul G. Konody

COLLABORATION OF THE BROTHERS

When piecing together the lives of the brothers van Eyck, it is necessary to delve into a confusing mass of conflicting statements—evidence which is only in part to be relied upon, and the theories of those who have devoted a vast amount of time and labour to the unearthing, sorting, and arranging of such evidence as they have been able to lay their hands upon. Incomplete as the records are, we must, until further evidence has been discovered, accept the obvious conclusions from the indisputable data left to us.

We have ten unquestionably genuine signed pictures by Jan, and a small group of others which may, from internal evidence, be safely ascribed to the same source. We know that the great Adoration of the Lamb, though designed in its entirety by Hubert, is the combined work of the two masters. We know also that the Copenhagen panel of Robert Poortier was in Hubert's studio at the time of his death—perhaps unfinished. The remaining pictures generally accepted as genuine van Eycks have been variously ascribed to Hubert, or to Jan, or to their united efforts. In view of the fact that not a single really authenticated work by Hubert alone is known, special significance must be attached to a statement, several times repeated by early writers, that Hubert and Jan "continually painted on the same works."

In trying to solve the difficult question which part of the extant oeuvre is Hubert's and which is Jan's, our knowledge of Jan's journeys to the South assumes considerable importance. For Hubert's travels we lack proof—they are mere conjecture. But there is documentary evidence of Jan's journey to Portugal in 1428, in addition to which Mr. Weale has, I understand, recently unearthed some further documents which establish another and earlier journey of Jan to Spain. On these travels Jan must have become well acquainted with certain plants peculiar to the South, and especially the dwarf palm or palmetto, which is confined almost exclusively to Spain and Portugal. It is therefore not unreasonable to assign to him those portions of the disputed pictures in which this palmetto appears. Some authorities hold that Jan did not have any independent artistic career before Hubert's death, and that in the division of labour Hubert's share was, as a rule, the general design and the painting of the figures, whilst Jan filled in the landscape and architectural backgrounds.

The collaboration theory has been advanced by Mr. A. Marks, whose knowledge of Flemish art is profound, and whose deductions are as conscientious as they are convincing. To him we are indebted for an interesting paper upon the subject, which is at once exhaustive and reasonable. To retail all that Mr. Marks advances in support of his theory would be to reprint his treatise in toto; but though it is impossible here to follow all his arguments, it is equally impossible to avoid reference to the valuable correspondence between him and Mr. James Weale in the Athenæum, between November, 1902, and April, 1903. This correspondence arose from an article by Mr. A. Marks in the Athenæum in May, 1900, in which attention is drawn to the presence of the palmetto in the picture of St. Francis receiving the Stigmata (now in possession of Mr. J. G. Johnson, Pennsylvania; a copy in Turin), which picture had been formerly variously ascribed to Henri met de Bles, Joachim Patinier, and Mostaert. Mr. Marks has since supplemented and explained his views in the essay mentioned; whilst Miss Frances Weale has published an excellent study on the "van Eycks," which, in a concise and interesting form, presents her father's views on the subject.

It is, of course, likely that nothing is proved as to the authorship of certain paintings by the presence or absence of the exotic plants or other details ascribed to one or other of the brothers. Supposing the assumed visit of Hubert to Southern Europe to be a fact, Jan may have made use of his brother's studies to embellish his landscapes; or Hubert may have utilized Jan's studies. But either supposition is extremely unlikely. We have certain proof that Jan did several times visit the South, while Hubert's sojourn in these parts is pure surmise; and not only is it likely that, rather than make use of second-hand material, Hubert left portions of the pictures to be painted by Jan, but the examination of the various pictures reveals the same hand in the painting of the recurring details. We must, then, take the facts and the most likely deductions in preference to deductions drawn from data which are merely conjectural.

Documentary evidence proves that Jan, immediately after his reception by the King of Portugal on January 12, 1429, began the work of painting the portrait of the Infanta, which, by the way, was executed in tempera, and not in oil. This painting is, unfortunately, lost, and though there are several portraits of Isabella now extant, of which one at least may be a copy of Jan's picture, there is nothing in any of them that can be traced to this master. He took a month over its completion, and while the Court and Embassy were awaiting the decision of Philip, to whom the picture had been sent, Jan and his colleagues had time to visit several places of interest and people of distinction. They travelled to the north to see the shrine of St. Iago of Compostella; then to the south, where they were received in turn by the Duke of Arjona and the King of Castile; and then to Granada, in the extreme south, where they visited the King of that city. It is stated that they also visited many other places; and, as from Granada they returned to Lisbon, they must have passed through the country lying between Cordova and Seville.

Now, through the whole of the south-eastern portion of the peninsula the palmetto, or dwarf-palm, flourishes abundantly, and Jan could not fail during his tour to become well acquainted with it. In a letter which Mr. Marks quotes in his paper read at the Royal Society of Literature, June 24, 1903, Mr. Luffmann, Director of the School of Horticulture in Melbourne, says that the triangle formed by Seville, Cordova, and Osuna, is "a piece of country which is literally overrun by the plant," and that the root of the palmetto is commonly used in those parts as fuel. In Italy it is but of rare occurrence, though it grows in some of the islands of the Mediterranean; whilst in the parts of Spain and Portugal visited by Jan it is almost impossible for the visitor to avoid seeing it.

Failing, then, even the probability that Hubert ever saw the palmetto growing, we must credit Jan with the painting of this plant, which, like all the other exotics, must have been carefully studied from nature, for they are represented in most minute, careful, and conscientious manner, and are absolutely true to life. The palmetto occurs in the picture of St. Francis receiving the Stigmata (above referred to); in the St. Anthony with the Donor at Copenhagen; and in The Three Marys at the Sepulchre in the collection of Sir Frederick Cook at Richmond. The portions of these paintings by Hubert van Eyck, where the palmetto occurs, may therefore be safely ascribed to the hand of Jan.