John Eck

“ 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. ”

“ John laughed. “Look out, old man,” said he; “only a poet is allowed to fall in love with his own creation. Never say I have not given you fair warning. Ten Eyck was very attentive to her at one time; and the world believed that she wanted to marry him. But he was appointed chargé d’affaires at London; and left her without bringing matters to an issue. Since then, when he has been back in New York once or twice, he has entirely dropped her.” ”

“ 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. ”

“ A little later than the earliest Cologne masters appears Hubert van Eyck, born near Maestricht at no great distance from the Rhineland capital, who with his younger brother, Jan, heads the Early Flemish school of painting. Hubert is one of the great names in the history of the art, and is chiefly responsible for the altar-piece of the “Adoration of the Lamb” at Ghent, the most important masterpiece of the northern schools before the 17th century, and the earliest monument of the then newly developed art of oil painting. ”

“ There is a tradition, which does not seem to be well founded, that Roger van der Weyden was at one time the pupil of John van Eyck. If this were so, he was certainly not much influenced by his master's manner of painting. John delighted in serene immobility, Roger in tragic action. His tall, wan, emaciated figures always live and feel; and though he could, when he would, depict tranquillity, and his portraits are as calm and collected as any of those which were painted by John van Eyck, unlike Van Eyck's, they are almost always ascetic-looking, and very often sad. ”

“ The chief events in the life of Jan van Eyck can be gathered fairly accurately from contemporary records and documents. In 1422 Jan entered the service of John of Bavaria, at that time Duke of Luxembourg, whose household accounts show the payment of a weekly wage to the artist, from October 25, 1422, till September, 1424, for the decoration of the palace at the Hague. ”

“ John Ericsson's birthplace in Sweden is marked by a large granite monument erected in 1867. His father was a mining proprietor, and his mother an energetic, intellectual, and high-spirited woman. His brother, Nils, one year older than himself, was trained as an engineer, became chief of the construction of the system of government railways in Sweden, was created a baron, and retired in 1862 with a pension larger than any before bestowed upon a Swedish subject. His sister Caroline, born in 1800, was a girl of unusual beauty. As a boy John was the wonder of the neighborhood. ”

“ If I hadn’t gone to live with him at Axcombe, I might still have been a miner—if there are any miners left on Mendip—or perhaps a gardener like your Uncle Will. And where would you have been, Eddie? He was careful, and I think very wisely careful, not to turn my head. ‘Ambition,’ he would say to me, ‘is all very well in moderation. But don’t be too ambitious, John. Happiness is more important in this life than success, and very few men have a full share of both. ”

“ That remarkable personage seems to be quite amused at the coming of John. He is accustomed to seeing daring games played by the men whom he has business with, and there are times when he can admire the nerve that is needed to carry them through. All the while he keeps one eye on the door. There is not a moment that he does not expect a message of some sort, letter or telegram, having left instructions behind for either coming to his address to be delivered at once.
There are other elements in the game which Aleck has not forgotten, and he is forcibly reminded of this fact. ”

“ The gentlemen of the army pretend that no horse can be good that has not what they call blood; but Jack and Moses are both of the Dutch breed, and the Schuylers and the Ten Eycks will never own there is no “blood” in such a stock. I have given each of these animals my own name, and call them Jack Ten Eyck and Moses Ten Eyck.”
“I hope you will not exclude the Littlepages and the Mordaunts from your list of dissenters, Mr. Ten Eyck,” observed Anneke, laughing, “since both have Dutch blood in their veins, too.” ”

“ Don’t you think, either, John,” the older lad concluded very soberly, “that I don’t see the danger we are in. I see it big and strong all around us; but we’ve gone too far to turn back unless we have to. If we can come out ahead of Lone-Elk just once, there will be no danger of his ever troubling us again. Pipe and all the Delawares will be our solid friends for all time. We don’t want to sacrifice all we have done here and the good start we’ve made, do we, John?” ”

“ Ultimately he fled south to Edinburgh, where he arrived on 23 March 1683. Thence he went to Berwick-on-Tweed, and finally he took refuge in Holland. He returned to Scotland in April 1688, and after the revolution obtained a post in the customs in Edinburgh. Subsequently he was appointed treasurer of the city. He died 6 Aug. 1709. He had four sons and a daughter. Of the sons, John, like his father, was a member of the Edinburgh town council, and treasurer of the city. ”

“ There is much force in this view, but at the same time it is impossible to deny to the Van Eycks the credit of technical improvements. For one thing, an artist who has an exceptional feeling for colour, texture and delicacy of finish will certainly pay special attention to his technical media; for another, the Van Eycks had a reputation long before Vasari’s time for researches into these media. ”

“ His father, William Law, great-grand-nephew of James Law [q.v.] , archbishop of Glasgow, was a prosperous Edinburgh 'goldsmith,' a business which then included money-lending and banking. He acquired the estate of Lauriston, a few miles from Edinburgh, in the parish of Cramond, and died in 1684. John was educated at Edinburgh, and was early remarkable for his proficiency in arithmetic and algebra. He grew up a handsome, accomplished, and foppish young man of dissipated habits, and a great gambler. ”

“ Robert Aske, as we have seen, had two brothers, Christopher and John. In the hot struggle the ties of blood were of little moment, and when the West Riding rose, and they had to choose the part which they would take, 'they determined rather to be hewn in gobbets than stain their allegiance.' Being gallant gentlemen, instead of flying the county, they made their way with forty of their retainers to their cousin the Earl of Cumberland, and with him threw themselves into Skip ton. ”

“ It was the breakfast call.
“I’ll say about Eck Flagg,” he stated, when he hung the gong back on its hook, “that he ain’t so much to blame for his sour temper as some folks are bound to have it. Old Job of the Bible had nothing on Eck for troubles. No matter what he has done, Eck has been a square fighter. Probably you ain’t interested, even to the extent of a hoot, in gossip about the neighbors. But Eck had a bad one put over on him years ago. He hasn’t been right since that time. Square dealing is his religion. ”

“ Brass should go with him, but the Honorable John wanted to “take things easy” for a while. He had been doing well for a considerable time past, and wished to employ a few months in learning to shoot and in getting an idea of golf. Be it remembered, this was in the Honorable John’s early days. Hence he had decided to relieve the nobleman of his company for a while. He had already relieved him of more than enough money to pay the expenses of his “rest.”
Suddenly the telephone on the table at Lord Fortworth’s elbow gave a musical imitation of an agitated rattlesnake. ”

“ It is true, I would not have purchased a horse on his recommendation, if he owned the beast; but we all know how the best men yield in their morals when they come to deal in horses. I should scarcely have expected Mr. Worden to be orthodox, in making such bargains. But, on all other subjects connected with money, Guert Ten Eyck was one of the honestest fellows I ever dealt with.
The contractor took the sleigh, harness, and skins, at seven more half-joes; making twenty-three for the whole outfit. This was certainly receiving two half-joes more than my father had expected ”

“ JOHN had not walked far when he saw a horse galloping down the street: the people shouted, which only made the horse [13] run the faster; but just as he reached the corner, John made a spring, and, catching the rein, in a moment he was on his back. John’s time, when he lived at the fishing village, had been divided between riding ponies and paddling boats; but he had never ridden so fine an animal as this,—his skin shone like satin, and his saddle and bridle were so handsome, that the little boy concluded he must belong to some very rich captain indeed. ”

“ The sad loss to Art sustained by John van Eyck's death on the 9th of July 1441 is accentuated by the unfinished state in which he left the great triptych on which he was engaged for Nicholas van Maelbeke, Provost of Saint Martin's at Ypres, his largest painting and, had he but lived to complete it, in every respect his [77] masterpiece. As a member of the Duke's household John was buried within the precincts of the collegiate church of St. ”

“ Anneke even attempted, once or twice, to divert her father from certain comments that he made, in which he spoke rather lightly of such sort of amusements, in general.
“That Guert Ten Eyck is a character!” exclaimed Bulstrode, “and one I am sometimes at a loss to comprehend. A more manly-looking, fine, bold young fellow, I do not know; and he is often as manly and imposing in his opinions and judgments, as he is to the eye; while, at times, he is almost childish in his tastes and propensities. How do you account for this, Miss Anneke?” ”

“ John Ek, too, belongs to the category of frontier soldiers who delight in converting the forest into fields of gold and smiling gardens. He was born in Sweden and came to Cedarhome, 1890. Round the village live a number of good citizens and industrious farmers ”

“ 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 ”

“ On his return from his second visit he was the prime mover in the promulgation of the Bavarian religious edict of 1522, which practically established the senate of the university of Ingolstadt as a tribunal of the Inquisition, and led to years of persecution. In return for this action of the duke, who had at first been opposed to the policy of repression, Eck obtained for him, during a third visit to Rome in 1523, valuable ecclesiastical concessions. Meanwhile he continued unabated in his zeal against the reformers, publishing eight considerable works between 1522 and 1526. ”

“ Jack.
John. What is it?
Elphick. [With an empty expression of face and voice.] Don’t do anything weak.
John. Get out! [Elphick disappears. John hurriedly glances round the room and arranges a displaced chair. Then he discovers that Elphick has left the banjo upon the settee, and he seizes it impatiently.] Oh—— [Going to the door of the library and drawing aside the portière.] Here! Peter! catch! [He throws the banjo into the room, and readjusts the portière. The instrument is heard to fall with a crash to the floor. He looks into the library, hastily.] I beg your pardon, old fellow. ”

“ Then Erec said that he wished to defend the hawk on behalf of his daughter; for surely there will be no damsel who is one hundredth part as beautiful as she. And if he takes her with him, he will have good and just reason to maintain and to prove that she is entitled to carry away the hawk. Then he added: "Sire, you know not what guest you have sheltered here, nor do you know my estate and kin. I am the son of a rich and puissant king: my father's name is King Lac, and the Bretons call me Erec. I belong to King Arthur's court, and have been with him now three years. ”

“ Five minutes longer on the ice of the main channel, and we should have been swept away. Even as we still sat looking at the frightful force of the swift current, as well as the dim light of that clouded night would permit, I saw Guert Ten Eyck's sleigh whirl past us; and, only a minute later, Herman Mordaunt's followed; the poor, exhausted beasts struggling in the harness for freedom, that they might swim for their lives. Anneke heard the snorting of those wretched horses ”