Percy Moore Turner

“ Many of the priceless possessions of foreign galleries formed part of his collection, and if England had only been in a position to retain her hold upon them we should no doubt to-day be in possession of the finest assemblage of Italian art in the world. I need only enumerate the sumptuous portrait of Alfonso of Ferrara and Laura d'Dianti and the "Entombment," by Titian, in the Louvre; the portrait of Erasmus, by Holbein, in the Louvre, and the marvellous portrait of a young woman, for so many years wrongly ascribed to the same master, at the Hague ”

“ He cast aside as speedily as possible the silveriness and coolness which had characterised his palette when working in Antwerp, and endeavoured to assimilate in as great a degree as possible the golden luminosity and subtle handling of the mighty Venetians. It is probable that Titian held the first place in his estimation, for it is rather upon his method that all his subsequent developments in technique are based. But perhaps full justice has not been done to the influence Moroni had in moulding his youthful genius. ”

“ The experience he had gained both in Italy and in Spain, where he had seen and copied many of the greatest works of the Italian Renaissance, served to develop a genius which in itself was of the first order, and the fruits were immediately visible upon his arrival in Antwerp. We can well picture to ourselves the effect of the masculine vigour, nay, more, the bravado of his brush-work upon the staid and homely Flemish artists. ”

“ From his earliest days he worshipped the great Fleming, and that the spell never left him may be gauged from his dying words: "We are all going to Heaven, and Van Dyck is of the company." Even prior to his departure for Bath, his portraits possessed many of the qualities of Van Dyck, but after arriving in the western city, then the centre of a rich and fashionable world, he had manifold opportunities of studying his favourite master. His brushwork became at once more refined, his colouring more transparent, and his method in every way more facile. ”

“ In the studio of so staid and sober a painter he would not be brought into contact with any of those pyrotechnics which have wrought such havoc with the art of young artists when encountered at the onset of their careers. ”

“ There never was a time in the history of the English Court when such opportunities for advancement were presented to an artist possessing the genius of Van Dyck as during the reign of Charles I. He was one of the few monarchs of England who recognised the civilising influence of art on the nation and encouraged it in a manner quite beyond his means. ”

“ Certainly the finest portrait of Charles I. in existence. It shows Van Dyck in his most attractive aspect as a painter of the aristocracy. Executed before the marked decline in his technical powers, which marred, from an artistic standpoint, the later pictures of his English period, it yet possesses the dignity and distinction he knew so well how to infuse in portraying the nobility of our country. It is one of the best examples of the artist's powers as a colourist, and as such will bear comparison with the productions of the mighty Venetians. ”

“ We live in an age of comparison, and as opportunities for its exercise, owing to the cheapening of travel, are so manifestly improved of recent years, a more just estimation exists in the mind of the public regarding an artist's worth than formerly. Van Dyck, as I said at the beginning of the opening chapter, has never fallen from the high position he occupied in his own day. He has always appealed to the student and the artist of every nationality, and if we survey portrait painting since his day, we shall see that he has exercised more influence than any other artist who has ever lived. ”

“ As an historical painter he takes a very high rank amongst seventeenth-century masters; he was far ahead in vigour of treatment and in strength of brushwork of any of his contemporaries in Italy. The school of Bologna, whilst possessing a refinement he never attained, is effeminate in comparison with him. Their very eclecticism prevented them giving free rein to their fancy, and consequently the great majority of their works possess a restraint of feeling, coupled with a perfection of execution, which neither Rubens nor Van Dyck surpassed. ”

“ Until the advent of Wilson and Gainsborough, portraiture was the sole art, at any rate, as far as painting is concerned, that flourished in England. Its patrons were all of the upper classes, and the Van Dyck manner, which by this time had become a tradition, was recognised by both artists and sitters as the best suited to their purpose. It was only in the eighteenth century that the general financial and educational uplifting of the middle classes called into being that naturalist school which finally drove all others from the field. ”

“ It is true that some few of the men who are living to-day are equipped almost, if not quite, as well technically as the great majority of the old masters. In a word, they could meet them on nearly equal terms as painters, but they lack invention and conception in which to bring their powers into legitimate play, and consequently they cannot rank with them as artists.
It was in the possession of these very qualities that Van Dyck surpassed Rubens. ”

“ The exceeding negligence with which it has been kept, coupled with the continual covering up of the picture, thus depriving it of light, which every oil-painting requires for its preservation, has contributed to render it a wreck of its former self. The subject, to which we are so accustomed that we are but little moved when we encounter it in the great galleries, is here presented to us in a most terrible and essentially human aspect. ”

“ V VAN DYCK'S POSITION IN ART
During the past twenty years the public has become so educated in matters artistic that it wishes at once to definitely assign a certain position to an artist with whose works it is familiar. ”

“ The worship of Velazquez is quite a modern institution, and it is not at all unlikely, in the opinion of well-informed critics, that if his influence, which has now reached a decadent stage, is not curtailed it will create as much havoc amongst modern portrait painters as the example of Constable has had upon certain phases of landscape painting.
It can never be laid to the charge of Van Dyck that any period of his art has exercised a permanently baneful influence. ”

“ Many of the portraits of the king and queen which were sent as presents all over Europe were but the productions of his studio.
PLATE VII.—PORTRAIT OF THE ARTIST'S WIFE
(In the Pinakothek, Munich)
A remarkably good example of Van Dyck's power of depicting female character. Whenever he is faced with a sitter in whom he is interested he suited his technique to the points he wished to emphasise. It is the possession of this versatility which enables him to infuse so much seductive charm into his women portraits and such trenchant vigour into those of men. ”

“ The extraordinary expression of physical pain infused into the heads of the two thieves, one on each side of Christ, together with the energy of their efforts to detach themselves from their awful position, will cause a shudder to creep over even the most phlegmatic person. ”

“ It shows Van Dyck in one of his happiest moods dealing with a subject which peculiarly appealed to him.
Plate II.
In comparing those two great men it would be well, at first, to rid ourselves of the confusion which often arises through the application of the terms "artist" and "painter." In relation to painting they are only too often considered synonymous, but a little consideration will show us that a man whose technical abilities are of a high order need not necessarily be a great artist. ”

“ Sir Joshua Reynolds regarded it as one of the masterpieces of the world, and there will be not a few who will concur in his judgment.
Van Dyck was not, however, content simply to exercise his powers in this way. An innumerable series of portraits date from this time, notably the well-known series representing the most prominent contemporary artists of Flanders. These productions are well known from the engravings executed after them; the originals are now distributed throughout the world. ”

“ Jans in the Imperial Gallery at Vienna, to demonstrate the quality of his many possessions. In England we still have retained a few of his treasures. Conspicuous among them are those masterpieces of Andrea Mantegna, the "Triumph of Julius Cæsar," at Hampton Court, the Albrecht Dürer, and the Lorenzo Lotto, in the same gallery, together with the "Mercury, Cupid and Venus," by Correggio, in the National Gallery. ”

“ 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. ”