J. Cyril M. Weale

“ 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. ”

“ 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 ”

“ In the “Last Judgment” at Danzig we have probably the least successful of his great efforts. The conception is not original, though admittedly one of the finest produced up to that time; also it is his earliest extant work, and in the style of a master from whose controlling influence he had not yet emancipated himself. But the fault lies rather with the subject. Many an artist has laboured at it, not always perhaps from choice; but the painter has yet to be born who will produce a convincing picture of that unrealised tragedy. ”

“ In the light of all the compelling evidence of John's consummate love of Nature, amply displayed in the mass of landscape work that enriches many of his finest productions, one cannot help but be struck by the fact that he never appears to have realised the possibilities of seascape as an avenue of Art. ”

“ The impellent craving after realism of the materialistic school of to-day is but a perverted form of the love of truth which was the keynote of all mediæval art, its cult of the sensuous but a depraved phase of a love of the beauty in virtue and godliness which characterised the latter: the great touch of faith is wholly wanting. ”

“ THE GREAT POLYPTYCH
So, back to Maaseyck and to Maastricht: to family rejoicings and the generous welcome of old friends, no light matter when ordered on the good old Netherlandish scale. Anxiety there, of course, and much curiosity here, as to how the promise of early talent would be justified by the ripening fruit. Nor could the issue have been long in doubt. The indispensable test triumphantly passed, the customary formalities duly complied with, and Hubert van Eyck took his place among the master painters of his time, soon to claim rank among the élite of them all. ”

“ These critics, on the contrary, look for the betrayal of fear and anguish, for the manifestation of human suffering: but, like the martyrs of the early Church, we find these victims of the ruthless Huns not alone meeting their death in a spirit of resignation, but welcoming it with abounding peace and a joyful self-surrender, strong in the hope and faith of the hereafter: as the artist himself was wistfully looking forward to the day and the hour that would reunite him there to the one he had loved best on earth. ”

“ Of wife or children not a whisper, but in an age when civism spelt patriotism, and marriage was recognised as one of the prime moral obligations of a loyal citizen, it is inconceivable that a man of his sterling sense of duty should have done other than conform to the established practice. His home and workshop were from the outset probably cheered by the presence of his younger brother John, fired by the born artist's enthusiasm to follow in his senior's footsteps. ”

“ For just as all succeeding literatures found their spring and inspiration in the magnificent literatures enshrined in the great dead languages of Rome and Greece, so likewise has modern art, unconsciously if you will, but none the less assuredly, derived the essence of its loveliness from the mediæval art it affects to despise. Art of any kind to be great must have realised its greatness through the vivifying power of the art that had gone before. ”

“ 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 sifting from the mass of popular fiction which had gathered round Memlinc’s name the few grains of truth embedded in it, the ceaseless delving among municipal and ecclesiastical archives for a chance record of some incident in his career, the slow process of authenticating the genuine from the ruck of doubtful and spurious works associated with his name, half a century of unswerving devotion to the task has not yet brought us within measurable reach of its accomplishment. ”

“ John van Eyck scorned to grovel at the feet of Vanity, and with this acknowledgment of the sense and honesty of his sitters he combined the fulfilment of a duty to posterity, for with the true instinct of genius he knew that he was painting not for his own brief day, but for all time, and that, as the founder of a great school of portraiture and the father of landscape art, it behoved him to set an example of the cardinal principle which should direct them. ”

“ Any attempt that falls short of conveying to the mind and soul of man the awe-full warning it should express necessarily bears the stamp of failure; and when, as too often is the case, it but provokes a smile by reason of its incongruity, the effort it cost stands unjustified. Not that Memlinc’s conception errs conspicuously in this sense: but it lacks conviction, and not all the beautiful work it exhibits can close our eyes to the fact. ”

“ The new court painter was something more than a master of his art: a man evidently of sterling qualities of mind and heart, of wide accomplishments and business capacity—in every way persona grata at the most brilliant court of the age. Not many months after his appointment he removed to Lille by order and at the expense of the Duke, by whom also was paid the rent of the house he occupied there from 1426 to 1428, from midsummer to midsummer. ”

“ But even so, what an advance from half a century since, when the personality of the painter was but the sport of idle legend, and loomed vaguely on the horizon in the distorted outlines of a loathsome caricature! If dearth of information is a powerful incentive to the imagination, then the evolution of the Memlinc legend goes far to establish its potency. ”

“ John's love of domesticity is abundantly displayed in all the detail of the work—the chandelier, with lighted taper, dependent from the ceiling, the aumbry with its couple of oranges, the cushioned bench by the window, the dainty pair of red shoes on the carpet by the bedside, the pattens of white wood with black leather latchets in the foreground, even to the dusting-brush hung on the arm-chair, and the pet griffin terrier, all helping to heighten the intimacy of the scene ”

“ As an unconnected story for the amusement of simple-minded folk the fable is not without merit of a sort, but what a libel on the Christian artist who transcends all the painters of his age in the interpretation of deep religious feeling, and the shaping of whose whole life must have been a novitiate to this end! We have travelled a long road since the days when this preposterous legend was exploded. True, the exhumation of Memlinc’s individuality from the burial-ground of lost memories has been a slow and arduous process ”

“ Truthfulness, it has been observed, was the dominant note of their art, and by their sedulous cultivation of Truth they dominated the art of their age. With John this love of truth amounted well-nigh to a [79] passion; and the reproach of the carping critic to whom beauty of feature alone makes for beauty of portraiture fails of its effect on the true artist mind, to whom the faithful record of all trifling blemishes of the face is but an added testimony and guarantee of the fidelity of the portrait as a portrait of the inner as well as of the outer man. ”

“ In contrasting the lives of mediæval and modern artists one cannot escape a feeling of regret that the former should so utterly have neglected the literary side of their calling. What a revelation to us would have been the discovery of the personal recollections of but one of these great masters of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, and what a world of trouble they would have saved the art students of after generations! ”

“ It is a disconcerting experience to encounter primarily the lifework of two such eminent painters at a stage when they were already in the plenitude of their powers, and an experience that must always tax the ingenuity of the student and critic of their art. ”

“ Every scene that lends itself to the treatment has its beauty enhanced by the beauties of Nature. The one sorrowful incident in the whole story, the Massacre of the Innocents, is a mere suggestion of this cruel episode. Memlinc’s nature shrank from the interpretation of evil, and in this particular instance has admirably succeeded in commemorating the incident of the massacre without involving it in any of its horror. ”

“ This painting, too, will afford the critics who love to find fault with the Flemish school for its alleged inability to do justice to the winsomeness of child life an opportunity of reconsidering their judgment by the light of the Infant Jesus whom Saint Christopher is bearing across the ferry, and once more we are met in every portion of the picture with brilliant exemplifications of the artist’s special aptitude for interpreting the beauties of Nature. ”

“ It is not given to us to be all swayed in the same way or to the same extent by Art in any of its forms; but few who have been led to contemplate the masterpieces of the Netherlandish school will fail to pay the tribute of admiration these wonderworks evoke, and bear testimony to their educational value. For Hans Memlinc it is not claimed that he surpassed in each department of his art all the other painters who helped to build up the fame of the Netherlandish school: in some material respects his methods differed widely from theirs, and he elaborated a technique distinctly his own. ”

“ Even a great painter may enhance his present popularity and widen his clientèle by a flattering suppression of personal disfigurement, but only to the injury of his fame and the hurt of his own self-respect. ”

“ 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 [32] 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. ”