Henri Simon Hymans and Paul George Konody

“ As in later years Van Dyck gives us a striking picture of the higher classes in England, so at this stage he makes us acquainted with Italian beauty and style; and at no other period is his talent more advantageously shown than in some of the glorious portraits he painted at Rome, at Florence, and, above all, at Genoa. At Rome, whither he journeyed after a prolonged stay in Venice, he resided with Cardinal Guido Bentivoglio, who had been papal nuncio in Flanders from 1607 to 1617. ”

“ Of Rubens’s abilities so far back as 1604 we get a more complete idea from an immense picture now in the Antwerp Gallery, the “Baptism of Our Lord,” originally painted for the Jesuits at Mantua. Here it may be seen to what degree Italian surroundings had influenced the household painter of Vincenzo Gonzaga. Vigorous to the extreme in design, he reminds us of Michelangelo as much as any of the degenerate masters of the Roman school while in decorative skill he seems to be descended from Titian and in colouring from Giulio Romano. ”

“ There can be no doubt as to the model having been Margaret Lemon, a celebrated beauty, whose portrait was engraved by W. Hollar and J. Morin and painted by Van Dyck at Hampton Court. “She was,” says Mr Ernest Law, in his excellent catalogue of this gallery, “the most beautiful and celebrated, though far from being the only mistress of Van Dyck. The great artist, in fact, loved beauty in every form, and found the seduction of female charms altogether irresistible. She lived with him at his house at Blackfriars.” The precise date of Van Dyck’s marriage has not been ascertained. ”

“ Never did the Flemish school find a second Rubens. None of his four sons became a painter, nor did any of his three daughters marry an artist. According to Rubens's will, his drawings were to belong to that one of his sons who might become a painter, or in the event of one of his daughters marrying a celebrated artist, they were to be her portion. The valuable collection was dispersed only in 1659, and of the pictures sold in 1640 thirty-two became the property of the king of Spain. The Madrid Gallery alone possesses over sixty of his works. ”

“ That he was at the time a portrait painter of the rarest merit may easily be seen from the portrait of “Van der Geest” in the National Gallery (London) , and from his own likenesses of himself when still quite young and beardless, in the National Gallery, in the Pinakothek at Munich and in the Wallace Collection. In this last admirable specimen the young painter has represented himself in the character of Paris. Early paintings by Van Dyck are certainly not scarce in British galleries; at Dulwich there is his admirable Samson and Delilah, ascribed to the school of Rubens. ”

“ Another series had been begun, when Ferdinand wrote to Madrid that the painter was no more, and Jordaens would finish the work. Rubens breathed his last on the 3Oth of May 1640.
More fortunate than many artists, Rubens left the world in the midst of his glory. Not the remotest trace of approaching old age, not the slightest failing of mind or skill, can be detected even in his latest works, such as the “ Martyrdom of St Peter ” at Cologne, the “ Martyrdom of St Thomas " at Prague, or the “ judgment of Paris " at Madrid, where his young wife appears for the last time. ”

“ Van Dyck was himself an incomparable etcher, and with the needle arrived at a degree of excellence scarcely inferior to that exhibited in his paintings. Such prints as the portraits of Vorsterman, John de Wael, Snyders, Josse de Momper, Adam van Noort, and above all his own effigy, bear witness to his prodigious knowledge of design. Print collectors pay extravagant prices For a first proof taken from the plates engraved by Van Dyck himself. Van Dyck also employed some of the best engravers of his time for the production of a gallery of illustrious heads, men and women, of different countries. ”

“ I In no other school do we find these animated hunts of lions, tigers, and even the hippopotamus and the crocodile, which may be reckoned among the finest specimens of art, and here again are life and nature displayed with the utmost power. “His horses are perfect in their kind, ” says Reynolds; his dogs are of the strong Flemish breed, and his landscapes the most charming pictures of Brabantine scenery, in the midst of which lay his seat of Steen. As a portrait painter, although less refined than Van Dyck, he shows that eminent master the way ”

“ Though Van Dyck’s reputation greatly suffered through the numerous copies he allowed his pupils to take from his works, the case is otherwise with engraving: Vorsterman, Pontius, Peter de Jode, P. Balliu and S. Bolswert were seldom more fortunate than when under his guidance. De Jode’s “St Augustine,” Bolswert’s “Ecce Homo” and “Crucifixion,” Vorsterman’s “Deposition,” and especially Pontius’s “Herman Joseph” rank among the masterpieces of the art of engraving. ”

“ In the Madrid Gallery we find a general view of the church in all its splendour. The present church of St Charles in Antwerp is, externally, with some alteration, the building here alluded to.
Rubens delighted in undertakings of the vastest kind. “The large size of a picture,” he writes to W. Trumbull in 1621, “gives us painters more courage to represent our ideas with the utmost freedom and semblance of reality. . . . I confess myself to be, by a natural instinct, better htted to execute works of the largest size.” ”

“ With the exception of a short visit to Antwerp at the time of his father’s death in 1622, Van Dyck spent the next five years in Italy. No master from beyond the Alps ever took up a higher position than Van Dyck among the most celebrated representatives of Italian art. ”

“ Under his direct guidance Soutman, Vorsterman, Pontius, Witdoeck, the two Bolswerts, Peter de Jode, N. Lauwers, and many others of less note, left an immense number of beautiful plates, reproducing the most celebrated of his paintings. To give an idea of what his influence was capable of accomplishing, pictorially speaking, it might be sufficient to notice the transformation undergone by the Antwerp school of engraving under Rubens; even the modern school of engraving, in more than one respect, is a continuation of the style first practised in Antwerp (see Line Engraving) . ”

“ Among these early works are the “Martyrdom of St Peter” (Brussels) , the “Crowning with Thorns” (Berlin) , the “Betrayal of Christ” (Madrid and Lord Methuen) , “St Martin dividing his Cloak” (Windsor Castle) ,—a magnificent production, generally ascribed to Rubens, but easily identified through Van Dyck’s admirable sketch at Dorchester House.
It is unnecessary to dwell on a number of tales connected with Van Dyck’s early life, all of which have on closer examination proved to be apocryphal; but one story has been too frequently told to be altogether ignored. ”

“ The religious paintings—“The Invention of the Cross,” “The Crowning with Thorns” and “The Crucifixion”—are to be found in the hospital at Grasse in Provence (Alpes Maritimes) .
At the beginning of 1603, “The Fleming,” as he was termed at Mantua, was sent to Spain with a variety of presents for Philip III. and his minister the duke of Lerma, and thus had opportunity to spend a whole year at Madrid and become acquainted with some of Titian’s masterpieces. Of his own works, known to belong to the same period, in the Madrid Gallery, are “Heraclitus” and “Democritus.” ”

“ It often requires a very discriminating eye to distinguish some of these copies from the original paintings. Nevertheless, after Van Dyck’s death many of his coadjutors produced works of undeniable merit. No school more strikingly reflects the influence of Van Dyck than the British school. ”

“ While openly they declared themselves devoted sons of the church, a list of the followers of the Reformed creed, headed by the name of Anthony Van Stralen, the burgomaster, got into the hands of the duke of Alva. This was a sentence of death for the magistrates, and Johannes Rubens lost no time in quitting Spanish soil, ultimately settling at Cologne (October 1568) with his wife and four children. ”

“ This proof of Van Dyck’s personal reputation is fully confirmed (17th July) by a correspondent of the earl of Arundel, who speaks of Van Dyck as a young man of one-and-twenty whose works are scarcely less esteemed than those of his master, and adds that, his relations being people of considerable wealth, he could hardly be expected to leave his home. Van Dyck was, however, thus persuaded, for on 28th November Sir Toby Mathew mentions the artist’s departure to Sir Dudley Carleton, adding that he is in receipt of an annual pension of £100 from the king. ”

“ The paintings of Rubens are found in all the principal galleries in Europe: Antwerp and Brussels, Madrid, Paris, Lille, Dresden, Berlin, Munich, Vienna, St Petersburg, London, Florence, Milan, Turin exhibit several hundreds of his works. ”

“ The first of these noble portraits is the admirable full-length of Charles I., with the queen and their two eldest children, at Windsor Castle. The style he adopted in England is generally termed his third manner; we might better say his fourth, as he already had a very particular style before he set out on his Italian journey. De Piles gives us some account of Van Dyck's methods at this period of his career. He began with a small sketch on grey paper with black and white chalks, or a monochrome in oils. This study was passed on to assistants in order to be copied on the required scale. ”

“ Whether all were taken from life is questionable. Gustavus Adolphus and Wallenstein he can hardly nave met. Du Breucq, the architect, he never knew. But all the sketches and drawings were done by himself, and are often met with in public and private galleries. ”

“ Rubens received 2400 iiorins for this picture. In many respects, Italian influence remains conspicuous in the “Descent from the Cross.” Rubens had seen Ricciarelli's fresco at the Trinita de' Monti, and was also acquainted with the grandiose picture of Baroccio in the cathedral of Perugia, and no one conversant with these works can mistake their influence. But in Rubens strength of personality could not be overpowered by reminiscence; and in type, as well as in colouring, the “Descent from the Cross ”may be termed thoroughly Flemish and Rubenesque. ”

“ The correctness of this appreciation he was very soon called upon to demonstrate most strikingly by a series of twenty-four pictures, illustrating the life of Marie de Médicis, queen-mother of France. The gallery at the Luxembourg Palace, which these paintings once adorned, has long since disappeared, and the complete work is not exhibited in the Louvre. ”

“ This picture, painted in Antwerp, at the town's expense, in 1609, had scarcely remained three years in the town hall when it Went to Spain as a present to Don Rodrigo Calderon, count of Oliva. The painter has represented himself among the horsemen, bareheaded, and wearing his gold chain. From a letter written in May 1611 we know that more than a hundred young men were desirous to become his pupils, and that many had, “for several years,” been waiting with other masters until he could admit them to his studio. ”

“ Lionel Cust, Anthony Van Dyck (London, 1900) , an abridgment with emendations, Van Dyck (1906) , and A Description of the Sketch-Book by Sir Anthony Van Dyck . . . at Chatsworth (London, 1902) ; Max Rooses, Chefs-d'œuvres d'Antoine van Dyck (Antwerp, 1901) ; Antoine Van Dyck (Paris, 1902) ; Frank Newbolt, Etchings of Van Dyck (London, 1906) . (H. H.; P. G. K.)
↑ Of the Cattaneo portraits, originally eight in number, seven were privately sold out of Italy in 1906, and in the following year one, a half-length “Portrait of a Man,” was acquired for the National Gallery, London, for £13,500. ”