Hubert van Eyck

“ The solemn grandeur of church art in the 15th century never found, out of Italy, a nobler exponent than Hubert van Eyck. His representation of Christ as the judge, between the Virgin and St John, affords a fine display of realistic truth, combined with pure drawing and gorgeous colour, and a happy union of earnestness and simplicity with the deepest religious feeling. In contrast with earlier productions of the Flemish school, it shows a singular depth of tone and great richness of detail. ”

“ Painting, which is epic in the hands of Hubert Van Eyck, becomes idyllic in those of Hemling and almost worldly in those of Quintin Matsys. It gets to be pathetic, interesting and pleasing. The charming saints, the beautiful Herodias and the lithe Salome of Quintin Matsys are richly attired noble dames and already laic; the artist loves the world as it is and for itself, and does not subordinate it to the representation of the supernatural world he does not employ it as a means but as an end. ”

“ As translated by Sir Charles Eastlake, in his "Materials {13} for a History of Oil-Painting," this epitaph runs as follows: "Take warning from me, ye who walk over me. I was as you are, but am now buried dead beneath you. Thus it appears that neither art nor medicine availed me. Art, honour, wisdom, power, affluence, are not spared when death comes. I was called Hubert van Eyck; I am now food for worms. Formerly known and highly honoured in painting, this was all shortly after turned to nothing. ”

“ The pictures of Hubert van Eyck are stronger than those of Jan, who was really the founder of a school remarkable for delicacy and fine finish rather than for power. It was after the death of Hubert that the fame of the new colors spread abroad, and thus it happened that it was to Jan that other artists went to learn his secrets. ”

“ Every line of his face is sharply defined. In real life air softens all lines, so that even the edge of a nose in profile is not actually seen as a sharp outline. The figures in Richard II.'s picture stand in the most exhausted vacuum, but Hubert van Eyck had already begun to render the vision or illusion of air in his 'Three Maries.' In this respect he had learnt more than the early painters of the Italian Renaissance; but Raphael and the Venetians, especially Giorgione and Titian, sometimes bathed their figures in a luminous golden atmosphere with the sun shining through it. ”

“ At Hubert van Eyck's death, on the 16th of September, 1426, Jodocus Vydts engaged Jan van Eyck, the younger brother and scholar of Hubert, to finish the picture in the 166incomplete parts.14 A close comparison of all the panels of this altar-piece with the authentic works of Jan van Eyck shows that the following portions differ in drawing, colouring, cast of drapery, and treatment, from his style, and may therefore with certainty be attributed to the hand of Hubert:—of the inner side of the upper series, the Almighty, the Virgin, St. ”

“ He encouraged art, science, and literature. The brothers, John and Hubert Van Eyck, were attracted by his generosity to Bruges, where they painted many pictures. John was even a member of the duke's council. The art of oil-painting was carried to great perfection by Hubert's scholar, John of Bruges. An incredible number of painters, of greater or less merit, flourished at this epoch in the Netherlands, heralds of that great school, which, at a subsequent period, was to astonish the world with brilliant colors; profound science, startling effects, and vigorous reproductions of Nature. ”

“ The Great Polyptych had not yet reached completion when, on the 18th of September 1426 Hubert van Eyck passed away after a painful illness. How much of the work remained to be accomplished none can tell with any hope of approach to certainty. A whole volume would not suffice for a critical examination of the mass of contending theories that for the best part of a century has been squandered in the endeavour to allocate to the two brothers their respective shares in the execution of the picture. ”

“ In matters of art, Flemish and Walloon collaborated during the fifteenth century and together produced a real Belgian art. The masters of this period were the Flemings Jan and Hubert Van Eyck and the Walloon Roger de la Pasture or Van der Weyden.
Since the end of the thirteenth century Belgian art had become completely original. It was the wealth of city life that rendered that phenomenon possible. The wealth of the burgesses served to found many art industries. Sculpture, painting, and the goldsmith’s art were no longer exclusively religious; they became more and more secular. ”

“ Great art still, as great as one can find elsewhere, and with all the mastery of methods, all the confident certainty, all the triumphant colour and the exquisite design and the faultless craftsmanship of the painted “Beatific Vision” itself. There once were many other pictures by Hubert Van Eyck, but all now are gone, destroyed by the savage hands of Calvinists and Revolutionaries, and the “Adoration of the Lamb” remains alone as an isolated miracle.
Jan was of another sort; equally great as a craftsman, he was a fine gentleman, a courtier, the friend of princes, and a diplomat. ”

“ John van Eyck certainly wished to guard against an error which ill-informed posterity showed itself but too prone to foster, the error that he alone had composed and carried out an altarpiece executed jointly by Hubert and himself. His contemporaries may be credited with full knowledge of the truth in this respect, and the facts were equally well known to the duke of Burgundy or the chiefs of the corporation of Bruges, who visited the painter’s house in state in 1432, and the members of the chamber of rhetoric at Ghent, who reproduced the Agnus Dei as a tableau vivant in 1456. ”

“ It is with a feeling almost of relief that we come down nearer the earth and confront the masterpieces of Jan Van Eyck. With Hubert we are taken into a kind of seventh heaven of mystical revelation; with his brother and those that follow we come back to what is more human, more in scale with experience. ”

“ But at this epoch, that is, at the commencement of the fifteenth century, in a city of Flanders, a new luminary made its appearance, which was destined to eclipse the brilliancy of the somewhat weak German innovation. Two brothers, Hubert and John van Eyck, together with their sister Margaret, established themselves in the “triumphant city of Bruges,” as it is called by an historian; and very soon all the Flemish and Rhenish regions resounded with the name of Van Eyck, their works being the only representations which were admired and followed ”

“ Now, the absence of the palmetto from this picture points to one of two conclusions—either the work left for Jan to do in the completion was comparatively trifling, or that the greater part of the picture, including the design of the landscapes, was already finished before Jan met with the palmetto.
That the work of the younger brother was not insignificant is distinctly stated in the text {44} of the inscription: "The painter, Hubert van Eyck, greater than whom none is to be found, began [the work] ”

“ If Joes van Eyck and Margaret van den Huntfanghe, who are entered in the register of the Ghent Guild of Painters for 1391, are the parents of the two masters who have made the name of Van Eyck immortal, we should have proof of their descent from artistic stock, which may be taken for granted in view of the fact that not only Hubert and Jan, but also a third brother, Lambert, and a sister, Margaret, devoted themselves to the art of painting, though Lambert—if he really be responsible for the pictures which stand to his credit—was a man of but mediocre talent ”

“ The high development of realistic feeling as it first appears to us in the pictures of Hubert and Jan van Eyck is thus partly accounted for, especially when we also consider the wholesale destruction of larger works of art that took place in the disturbed condition of the Netherlands in the sixteenth century. ”

“ Here, in the quaint old city—a large part of which we still describe as mediaeval—in an atmosphere totally unlike that of Italy, beside her devout brothers, Hubert and Jan, was Margaretha. When we examine the minute detail and delicate finish of the pictures of Jan van Eyck, we see a reason why the sister should have been a miniaturist, and do not wonder that with such an example before her she should have excelled in this art. The fame of her miniatures extended even to Southern Italy, where her name was honorably known. ”

“ A Flemish renaissance underneath Christian ideas, such, in effect, is the two-fold nature of art under Hubert and John Van Eyck, Roger Van der Weyde, Hemling and Quintin Matsys; and from these two characteristics proceed all the others. On the one hand, artists take interest in actual life ”

“ HUBERT AND JOHN VAN EYCK:
Their Life and Work. By W. H. JAMES WEALE. With 41 Photogravure and 95 Black and White Reproductions. Royal 4to. £5 5s. net.
SIR MARTIN CONWAY’S NOTE.
Nearly half a century has passed since Mr. W. H. James Weale, then resident at Bruges, began that long series of patient investigations into the history of Netherlandish art which was destined to earn so rich a harvest. When he began work Memlinc was still called Hemling, and was fabled to have arrived at Bruges as a wounded soldier. The van Eycks were little more than legendary heroes. ”

“ 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. ”

“ He was born about 1366, at Maeseyck, under the shelter or protection of a Benedictine convent, in which art and letters had been cultivated from the beginning of the 8th century. But after a long series of wars—when the country became insecure, and the schools which had flourished in the towns decayed—he wandered to Flanders, and there for the first time gained a name. As court painter to the hereditary prince of Burgundy, and as client to one of the richest of the Ghent patricians, Hubert is celebrated. ”

“ His death in 1440/41 at Bruges is authentically recorded. He was buried in St Donat. Like many great artists he formed but few pupils. Hubert’s disciple, Jodocus of Ghent, hardly does honour to his master’s teaching, and only acquires importance after he has thrown off some of the peculiarities of Flemish teaching. Petrus Cristus, who was taught by John, remains immeasurably behind him in everything that relates to art. ”

“ It is therefore not unreasonable to assign to him those {33} 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. ”

“ The bridles and trappings of the horses are richly jewelled, and altogether the best is made of the opportunity of rendering with goldsmith-like precision all manner of gorgeous materials, costly and beautifully emblazoned banners, and armour and trappings of beautiful design. Tradition has it that two of the Judges are portraits of the painters, the one in a black garment with a red rosary, who is turning towards the spectator, being the younger brother Jan. To strengthen the theory that this figure was painted by Jan after Hubert's death, Mr. ”

“ The colours of our modern artists cannot compare with those of the old Flemish school in respect to durability, which is seen in some of the works of the Victorian period in England.{198}
The other paintings by Jan Van Eyck are “The Virgin and Child, with St George and St Donatus,” and “A Head of Christ,” dated 1440. Of these two pictures, the former is by far the more representative of the painter’s genius.
J. Van Eyck died, and was buried in Bruges, in a church which the French destroyed. There is a poor statue of the painter on the ground whereon the church stood. ”

“ Let us once more consider a picture by Jan van Eyck. In so far as accurate observation suffices, his art is perfect, especially in facial expression, the material of the dresses, and the jewellery. As soon as it becomes necessary to reduce reality in some sort to a scheme, as is the case when buildings and landscapes have to be painted, certain weaknesses appear. In spite of the charming intimacy of his perspectives, there is a certain incoherence, a defective grouping. The more the subject demands free composition and the creation of a new form, the more his powers fall short. ”

“ Jan van Eyck was matter-of-fact in his realism, but avoided ugliness, whereas in Germany in the 15th and 16th centuries we find action and expression exaggerated to contortion and grimace, and all artistic qualities sacrificed to a mistaken idea of force. German art was, however, saved by the appearance of some artists of great genius who more than made up for the national insensibility to beauty by their earnestness and truth. ”