THE JOURNEY TO ITALY
It was the habit of most Northern artists at that time to make a journey in Italy. The renown of the works created during the preceding two centuries by the Italian Renaissance had spread all over Europe, and no young artist considered his education complete without having spent a few years in studying them. Moreover, they found that patrons patronised them better if they had been through this Italian training. These ideas were rather dictated by the prevailing fashion than by any solid good to be derived by the artist who underwent it. We have innumerable examples of Dutchmen and Flemings whose natural genius became perverted upon Italian soil. Nicholas Berchem and Karl Dujardin were striking examples of the sad results which frequently accrued from thus transplanting themselves into a country with which their temperament had nothing in common. It is probable that had Karl Dujardin remained in Holland, the world would have been enriched by a landscape painter of the first order, for he had gifts far above even the average painter of his time. But immediately on reaching Italy he succumbed to the influences surrounding him, and endeavoured to get rid as far as possible of his early training, and to see things and render them in the Italian way. The result was, that whilst he never threw off the Dutch character of his scenes and figures, he enveloped them with a conventional atmosphere as monotonous as it is untrue.
We have already seen the results the Italian journey had upon Rubens. There was no inducement for Van Dyck, comparing, as he would be able to, his master's pictures painted before his journey to Italy and those which he executed afterwards, to undertake the same trouble. It is rather to be thought that he was decided to see the artistic Mecca for himself, by the glowing accounts of its treasures that he heard from time to time from Rubens' own lips. For the latter, small as had been the influence of the great Italian masters upon his work, was nevertheless of a disposition peculiarly adapted for keenly appreciating merit whenever it was brought under his notice. We can quite imagine that during those early days in Antwerp his pupils whilst at work would hear innumerable accounts of the beauties of this or that picture, and the more enthusiastic of them would consequently only be the more eager to judge of its beauties for themselves. During the execution of the large canvasses that were turned out in such quantities from the studio, Rubens doubtlessly prefaced alterations he made by referring to many a master's method, and recounted how the masterpieces upon which his comments were framed had been brought to completion.
During the latter portion of the time Van Dyck stopped with Rubens he was only acting as his assistant, and consequently would be free to leave when he liked. He would probably be quite aware that his technique was the equal of his master's, and would realise that he had received all the tuition he possibly could in his present situation. Ambitious as he was, there is no doubt that he yearned for an opportunity to learn for himself the message the great masters had to impart to him. Whilst we can quite imagine that Rubens would be sorry to part with so capable an assistant, there was not any evidence that he did not do everything in his power to assist him to carry out his project.
In 1623—when he was but twenty-four years of age—Van Dyck left Antwerp on his journey southward. He appears not to have got any further than a village near Brussels, where he succumbed to the attractions of a certain young lady named Annah van Ophem. At her instigation he painted two pictures for the parish church there. In one, representing St. Martin sharing his cloak with a beggar, he took himself as a model for the saint. The parish authorities being, it is said, of a mercenary turn of mind, had it valued, and, hearing that it was worth 4000 florins, sold it to a M. Hoët. The people of the village, however, hearing of the sale, determined to prevent the removal of the picture at all costs, and when the purchaser arrived he found not only the peasants, but their wives and children, armed, and was obliged to escape ignominiously through the priest's garden and return to Brussels without his prize. Whilst still residing at the village, Van Dyck painted the portrait of Annah van Ophem, surrounded with the dogs belonging to the Infanta Isabella, of which either she or her father had charge, and a picture of the Holy Family, in which she figured as the principal personage.
PLATE IV.—PORTRAIT OF VAN DYCK (OR THE ARTIST)
(In Lord Spencer's Collection, Althorp)
One of the most striking portraits of the artist. Painted at a fairly late date in his career, it shows the painter prosperous and rich and by no means ill pleased with his lot in the world. Full of life and gaiety, his joyous face gives us a good idea of the gratification he found in life almost to the end. Indeed, a deal of the fascination of his art arises from his approaching his subjects in this happy frame of mind.