Part 2

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; on His right is the Mother of Christ, testifying to the full the lowliness of the handmaiden of the Lord, on His left St. 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 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. Justified by the warrant of Scripture, he translates these spirit beings into purely human frames, but with a nerve system attuned to material sensations. In these angels there is no suggestion of trance-like ecstasy in contemplation of the Beatific Vision; they are angels materialised whose features reflect the strain of sustained effort and the underlying sense of pain which in man is inseparable from the sensing of intense joy. Evidently the master had fathomed the secrets of the human heart: the sense possibilities of the spirit world were without his ken, so he humanised his angels and evolved types understandable of the people, and at the same time one of the finest angel groups of all art. So inexpressibly realistic are his conceptions that to the poet-biographer Van Mander, at any rate, it was actually possible to discern "the different key in which the voice of each is pitched." But poets are privileged beings. Accompanying the Choir in their song of praise with organ, harp, and viol are the balancing group of angels in the corresponding compartment of the sinister shutter, types that, strangely enough, are in striking contrast to the former, their features moulded in placid contentment. The extreme panels of this zone are occupied by life-size presentations of our First Parents after the Fall, nude figures painted from the life, with absolute fidelity to nature and masterly conception of type: in a demi-lunette over the figure of Adam we see Cain and Abel making their offerings unto the Lord, and in that over Eve the slaying of Abel at the hands of his brother. There is a tradition extant that the altar-piece was originally furnished with a predella painted in distemper, a picture probably of Limbo or of Purgatory, but no trace of this remains.

The closed shutters display, filling in the full width of the middle zone, the scene of the Annunciation. The Ethyrean Sibyl and the Cumaean Sibyl occupy the demi-lunettes above the middle portion of the Virgin's chamber, the lunettes above the lateral divisions showing half-length figures of the Prophets Zacharias and Micheas. Of the four compartments of the lower zone the inner ones contain statues in grisaille of St. John the Baptist and St. John the Evangelist, the outer ones figures in the attitude of prayer, eminently life-like, of the donor, Jodoc Vyt, and his wife, Elizabeth Borluut. Jodoc was the second son of Sir Nicholas Vyt, Receiver of Flanders,--a wealthy citizen who owned the lordships of Pamele and Leedberghe, besides several mansions in Ghent, of which city he was burgomaster in 1433-34, after filling various minor municipal offices: by no means a handsome type, though manifestly a capable and kindly burgher, well-set, with a somewhat low forehead, small grey eyes, and a large mouth with broad under-lip; neither do the short-cropped hair and growing baldness or the three warts on upper-lip, nose, and forehead make for attractiveness. In respect of looks his wife is the better favoured, striking the beholder as an indulgent lady, with much of the homely dignity and serenity of the finer type of Flemish matron.

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. Remember that it had already been some ten years in the making, and that, although it did not receive its final touches from the brush of John van Eyck until 1432, nearly six years after his brother's death, this period of John's life, as we shall presently discover, was too fully occupied in the service of Duke Philip of Burgundy to have allowed of his spending any considerable proportion of it in the task of completion. Remembering also that John's art had been closely modelled on that of his brother, that none better comprehended his ideals or was more intimately acquainted with the working out of his conceptions, mindful, moreover, of the deep veneration in which he held his master's genius, we must suppose that he realised the obligation of conscientiously adhering to the art and technique of the picture as he found it, any obtruding originality in violation of which would have amounted almost to sacrilege: all this further enhances the difficulty of differentiating between the work of the two painters. Indeed, if so minded, the reader is probably as well equipped as the writer to solve the puzzle.

Hubert van Eyck was laid to rest in the crypt of the chapel for which he had painted his masterpiece, but in 1533, when chapel and crypt had to make way for a new aisle, his remains were transferred to the churchyard, all except the bone of the right fore-arm, which was suspended in an iron casket in the porch of the Cathedral. The brass plate bearing the well-known epitaph was at the same time placed in the transept, only to become the spoil of the Calvinist Iconoclasts in 1578, when already the casket had somehow or other long since disappeared. But what of the painter's fame, to whose workshop laymen of the highest distinction had felt it a privilege to be admitted, about whose easel journeymen painters had flocked, and whom the leading contemporary artists of the Netherlands had been proud to call master? During his lifetime, and for a considerable period after his death, his was a dominating influence in the Art of the North, and Van Mander has it on record that whenever the polyptych was freely exposed to the public gaze crowds flocked to it from morning till night "like flies and bees in summer round a basket of figs and grapes." But in the stress and turmoil of succeeding generations his memory gradually faded away; his work, uncared for, lost hold on the imagination; even his great masterwork narrowly escaped destruction. Even so it did not escape dismemberment, or profanation at the hands of the "restorer." Saved from the fury of the Iconoclasts in 1566, and subsequently rescued from the Calvinist leaders who contemplated its offer to Queen Elizabeth in acknowledgment of her subsidies, it eventually became the spoil of the French Republicans; but after the battle of Waterloo restitution was effected, and the main portion of the altar-piece, all that remains of it in Ghent, was reinstated in its present position. The Adam and Eve panels, which in 1781 had offended the unsuspected modesty of Joseph II., and in consequence been deferentially removed, were ultimately ceded to the Belgian Government, and now rest in the Royal Gallery at Brussels; while the other six shutter panels, which had been safeguarded through the French occupation, were shamelessly sold to a dealer in 1816 by the Vicar-General and churchwardens--in the absence, it is right to say, of the Bishop--for a paltry 3000 florins, subsequently changing hands for 100,000 francs, and eventually becoming the property of the Prussian Government for four times that amount.

IV

IN THE SERVICE OF BURGUNDY

During the five years that followed the death of William IV., Count of Holland and Zeeland, the usurping John of Bavaria had so far succeeded in asserting his power as to be able to permit his interest to wander to the lighter occupations of life, the while the niece he had dispossessed was supplementing the tale of her political woes with all the domestic misery attendant upon a succession of unhappy marriages. Thus in 1422 we find John van Eyck attached to the Count's household as painter and "varlet de chambre," and, as we gather from the prince's household accounts, engaged in the decoration of the palace at The Hague from the 24th of October in that year till the 11th of September 1424. Another member of the household at the time was his kinsman, Henry van Eyck, the record of whose faithful services won him in February 1425 the post of master of the hunt to Jacqueline's second husband, John IV., Duke of Brabant. John of Bavaria died on the 25th of January 1425, and, as might have been expected, civil war immediately broke out. The situation proving uncongenial, the whilom court painter lost no time in taking the road to Flanders, where Philip III., Duke of Burgundy, was lording it as the most munificent patron of the arts and sciences and of letters. With a keen eye for available talent, this princely despot at once enlisted him in his service. No doubt he had become acquainted with the Van Eycks during his residence at Ghent in the days of his heir-apparentship and before the younger artist's removal to The Hague; probably the portrait of Michelle of France, the Duke's first wife (who died in July 1422), copies of which exist, was painted by John: at any rate we have Philip's own words for the fact that it was personal knowledge of John's skill that determined his appointment on the 19th of May 1425 as painter and "varlet de chambre," with "all the honours, privileges, rights, profits, and emoluments" attaching to the office; moreover, with characteristic prudence, he secured a first lien on his services by awarding him a retaining fee--call it salary or call it pension--equivalent to £5, 11s. 1-1/3d. in contemporary English currency, or anything from ten to twelve times that sum at the present day.

Having made good his position, John's first move apparently was in the interest of his kinsman, for whom he secured the position of falconer in the ducal household. As we have no further concern with this member of the Van Eyck family, it may be said that in 1436 he was employed by the Duke on a secret mission of some importance, that on the occasion of his marriage in 1444 to the daughter of the master-falconer Philip made him a present of 100_l._, and that in 1461 he became baillie of the town and territory of Termonde, continuing in that office, with the additional distinctions of councillor and chamberlain to the Duke, besides a knighthood, until his death in November 1466.

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. Of his professional work at this period nothing is known. The chroniclers in the Duke's service did not concern themselves with such minor matters. As De Comines himself boasted, they wrote "not for the amusement of brutes and people of low degree, but for princes and other persons of quality," little bethinking themselves what store the after ages would have set by their gossip had it busied itself with the doings, for example, of court painters. In other respects, however, we are better served, and in the early part of 1426 we find John van Eyck commissioned, after the pious custom of the time, to undertake a pilgrimage in the interest of the ducal health, and in August of the same year despatched on some distant foreign mission. His return was saddened by tidings of the death of his brother Hubert, who had passed away in his absence. Further tokens of the ducal favour in 1427 took the form of presents of 20_l._ and 100_l._ respectively.

Duke Philip's matrimonial ventures hitherto had not been crowned with success. Neither his first wife, Michelle of France, nor Bonne of Artois, whom he wedded and lost within the ten months (she died in September 1425), had provided him with an heir. Anxious to secure the succession in the direct line, towards the middle of 1427 he despatched ambassadors to the court of Alphonsus V., King of Aragon, to obtain for him the hand of Isabella, eldest daughter of James II., Count of Urgel, and John van Eyck was attached to the mission. Arriving at Barcelona in July, only to find that the earthquakes in Catalonia had driven the Court to escape by sea to Valencia, the embassy followed in the royal track and reached this city early in August, in time for the floral games and bull-fight with which the Jurats honoured the King. The mission led to nothing, not even to a portrait of the princess, who in September 1428 was married to Peter, Duke of Coimbra, third son of John I., King of Portugal; but it is interesting to find Alphonsus V. in later years acquiring paintings by Van Eyck for his collection. The return journey included a short halt at Tournay, where the magistrates very appropriately paid Van Eyck the compliment of a wine of honour on the 18th of October, St. Luke's Day, the local guild, moreover--Robert Campin, Roger de la Pasture, and James Daret doubtless distinguished among its members--being favoured with his company in the celebration of the feast of its patron saint. A like wine of honour was presented to the ambassadors on the 20th.

An illuminating dispute between the Duke, the Receiver of Flanders, and John van Eyck helped to relieve the tedium of life in the intervals of employment on foreign missions at this stage of the painter's career. Philip's munificence was largely tempered by prudent frugality in the ordering of his household, and in the process of curtailing his domestic expenses in 1426 he published an edict bearing date December 14 regulating its constitution and the wages of its members. By some inadvertence John's name was omitted from the new roll, and the Receiver of Flanders summarily stopped payment of his salary. An ineffectual protest was lodged, complaints followed reinforced by threats, to such good purpose that eventually, though not until after many months' persistent badgering, the aggrieved party emerged with flying colours from the triangular duel, securing letters patent under date March 3, 1428, confirming his appointment and commanding the payment of all arrears.

Of the many paintings executed by John van Eyck to which no precise date can be attached not one can with certainty be ascribed to this period, and yet it is difficult to believe that his duties in the three years he had already spent in the ducal service were exclusively of a non-professional character: surely the lost portrait of Bonne of Artois as Duchess of Burgundy, a copy of which is preserved in the store-room of the Royal Gallery at Berlin, was his work. The years immediately following, however, yielded a rich harvest of brilliant pictures, first among which, chronologically, two portraits of the Infanta Isabella of Portugal. Philip, on matrimonial projects still intent, was now turning his attention from the Courts of Spain to the neighbouring one of Portugal, and in the autumn of 1428 he decided on an embassy to John I. The mission was a princely one: at its head Sir John de Lannoy, councillor and first chamberlain; associated with whom were Sir Baldwin de Lannoy, governor of Lille--at some later date, too, a subject for our painter's brush--high dignitaries of the court and some of the leading gentry, a secretary, cupbearer, steward, clerk of accounts, and two pursuivants, and last, but not least, John van Eyck, whose relative standing may be gathered from the fact that in the distribution of gratuities at the ceremony of leave-taking only that of the chief ambassador exceeded his, the respective sums being 200_l._ and 160_l._ The mission, distributed between two Venetian galleys, sailed out of Sluus harbour on the 19th of October and arrived the next day at Sandwich, where three or four weeks were spent awaiting a further escort of two galleys from London. Forced by contrary winds to seek shelter, first at Shoreham and then at Plymouth and Falmouth, it was not till the 2nd of December that the convoy sailed out into the ocean. Nine days later they were at Bayona, a small seaport of Galicia, where they delayed three days, their long sea journey at length terminating on the 16th at Cascaës, whence they travelled overland to Lisbon. In the absence of the Court a letter explaining the object of the mission was entrusted to the herald Flanders, who pursued the King from Estremóz to Arrayollos and Aviz, in the province of Alemtéjo, where the embassy at last had audience of his Majesty on the 13th of January and presented to him the Duke's letters soliciting the hand of his daughter Isabella. The while the ambassadors were discussing their master's proposals with the King's Council John van Eyck was at his easel painting the Infanta's portrait, two copies of which were executed and despatched to the Court of Burgundy, one by sea and the other by land, the better to ensure safe delivery, with duplicate accounts of the mission's doings to date. The Duke's reply did not arrive until the 4th of June. A pilgrimage to Saint James of Compostella, and visits to John II., King of Castile, to the Duke of Arjona, a prince of the same royal blood, and to Mohammed, King of the City of Grenada, agreeably filled in the interval of waiting, Van Eyck naturally missing no opportunity of acquaintance with the leading painters of the day, enlarging the scope of his own observation, and no doubt leaving behind him the impress of his mastery. That the name of Van Eyck was already one to conjure with in these distant realms appears from the traditional ascription to him of a mass of painting certainly in his manner, but vastly too great to have ever been conceived by him within the limits of his stay in Portugal. Take that finest of all pictures there, the "Fons Vitae" in the board-room of the Misericordia at Oporto, and the series of twelve paintings in the Episcopal Palace at Evoca, locally claimed for Van Eyck; likewise the pictures in the church of S. Francisco at Evoca, in the round church of the Templars at Thomar, and elsewhere, which are at any rate thought there to be not unworthy of his technique, and scarcely inferior to his best masterpieces for brilliancy of colouring and beauty of portraiture. The one regrettable circumstance in relation to this visit to Portugal is that both portraits of the Infanta are to be numbered among the lost certain treasures of his art.

On their return to Lisbon in the closing days of May the embassy rejoined the Court at Cintra on the ensuing 4th by special request of the king, and the Duke of Burgundy's reply came to hand the same evening: the princess's portrait had been to the Duke's liking. All the preliminaries being now in order events sped on apace, to the signing of the marriage contract at Lisbon on the 29th of July and the solemnisation of the espousals a day later; and after a period of brilliant festivities the bridal party, to the number of some two thousand, set sail for the land of Flanders. A fortnight later four weather-beaten ships, the Infanta's of the number, lumbered into Vivero harbour in Galicia, followed later by a fifth: the remainder of the original fleet of fourteen, after battling with contrary winds, had been effectually dispersed in the subsequent storm. Again a start was made on the 6th of November, but the state of prostration to which Sir John de Lannoy had been reduced by sea-sickness compelled a further delay of over a fortnight at Ribadeu. Here the convoy was reinforced by two Florentine galleys, also bound for Flanders, and on the 25th they eventually made good their leave of Portuguese waters. The afflicted ambassador, with members of his suite, had meanwhile transferred to the Florentine galleys, a step that nearly cost them their lives, as these vessels narrowly escaped shipwreck in the vicinity of the Land's End. The other five ships put into Plymouth harbour on the 29th, but the Florentines pushed on to Sluus, where they cast anchor on the 6th of December, Sir John de Lannoy making all speed to the Duke with the glad tidings of the Infanta's safe arrival in English waters. The preparations for her reception were quickly followed by the coming of the bride, who safely accomplished her long journey's end on Christmas Day. In the midst of a carnival of popular rejoicing the union was solemnised at Bruges on the 7th of January 1430.