It must be admitted, that although Vasari, and after him Van Mander, fix the date of the occurrences first described in 1410, the talent of the family must have been known before that time, and the experiments and accidents mentioned have covered a very great number of years. The means of painting and preserving pictures from a variable climate, imperfectly known to the painters who preceded the Van Eycks, and even to their contemporaries, must have been a source of early study in the studio of Hubert Van Eyck. It was a question, indeed, which was agitated in Germany and Flanders long before it arose in Italy. The testimony of Cennini, of Filarete, and of Summonzio, is in favour of this statement, and the results obtained in Flanders are almost a proof of it. Assuming, however, for a moment, that the date be a correct one, and certainly the improvements in question must have been partially made about that time, we find Hubert Van Eyck older by about twenty years than his brother, head of a school in Ghent two years after, and admittedly having expended his utmost endeavours to give his brother John an education worthy of them both. John Van Eyck, on the other hand, can hardly have attained his nineteenth year, and may not have been older than fifteen. Hubert, at that time full of years and experience, no doubt directed his school, and may have left the manipulation of experiments to his pupils. Among these, no doubt, was John, who, though young, must have been of precocious and clear mind, and was an adept, as we are told, in science. But even though the material manipulations of these experiments may have belonged to the younger man, the directing

mind was that of the elder, and to him we must look for the earliest applications of improvements in the use of oil. Chemistry was a necessary part of the daily labour of the old schools of art, where the painters had to provide their own materials and make them up for use; and, no doubt, John Van Eyck laboured in that branch, and learned practically to conquer those difficulties, and complete the system which time and long experience only brought to maturity.

The first practical example of the new manner, it must be borne in mind, is a picture by Petrus Cristus, of the year 1417, painted in a manner which convinces the spectator that the author of it was the pupil of Hubert Van Eyck. If it be assumed that the earlier improvements were complete in 1410, then Cristus would have had five or six years to perfect himself in them. It is not till 1420 that John Van Eyck became connected by fame with the discoveries of oil-painting. It was in that year, and not earlier, that he was present at a gathering of painters in Antwerp, where he exhibited in triumph a picture representing the Saviour; upon the beauty of which he received the utmost compliment, not only because of its intrinsic merit, but because it was painted in oil-colours. But the admiration of the Antwerp

1 See further, Life of Petrus Cristus, p. 120.

2 In't yaer 1549 is er doer den Antwerpshen adel enen drikbeker vereert aen deze school. . . . . Waerop verbéeld waren Jan Van Eyck, in het jaer 1420 ni eene vergaedering een hoofelt toonde, door hem met Olie vermengde verf gemackt, waer over hy gecomplimentiert is Geworden. . . ."-Extract from the registers of the Brotherhood of St. Luke, Antwerp. Van Kirchhoff. Notice sur l'Académie d'Anvers, 1824, in Michiels (A.) Histoire de la peinture flamande et hollandaise, Bruxelles, 1845, vol. ii. p. 148.

painters may have been owing less to the novelty of the discovery, than to some notable improvement introduced by John in the practice of the new system of painting in oil; and we may safely suppose that at last, and after the death of Hubert, the practical difficulties of the question were finally resolved, and that for this John Van Eyck was hailed everywhere as the discoverer.

The panels of Hubert Van Eyck are an evidence of his superiority. It was not till he died that John became the first in art. He admits this himself in the epitaph to his brother, which is found on the picture of the Mystic Lamb. John Van Eyck completed that picture after his brother's death, and showed his inferiority in immediate contrast. There is no picture in the school which possesses such vigour of conception and colour as those parts which are executed by Hubert. But the method in which the panels are painted prove also that John Van Eyck became more perfect in the mechanical and chemical portion of his art. John Van Eyck's panels indisputably offer to us a greater knowledge of the fusion of tints, greater finish and accuracy in the minutia than those of his brother.. They have a less brown and less dark tinge of shadow, which proves that progress had been made in the discoloration of varnishes; and these improvements he, no doubt, made and successfully carried out. It is, perhaps, for these reasons that Facio, the friend and follower of Alphonzo, king of Naples, called him' "prince of all the painters of his age; and not merely great in art, but also learned in

1 Facius (Bartolomeus) De Viris Illustrib. 4to. Flor. 1745.

geometry and all the arts which appertain to the ornament of painting, because he had discovered many things in the properties of colour, of which he had found the source amongst the ancients by the reading of Pliny and other authors." Facio, it must be recollected, was a contemporary of John Van Eyck, whose pictures he, no doubt, admired in the palace of his master. Giovanni Santi, the father of Raphael, wrote a chronicle in rhyme, in which he praised Van Eyck;1-the verses run as follows:

"A Bruggia fu tra gli altri piu lodato;

Il gran Jannes, e'l discepol Rugero."

Santi was fully qualified to speak upon the subject. He lived at Urbino, when Justus of Ghent, a pupil of the elder Van Eyck, painted for the Duke of Montefeltro. Filarete, the architect of Florence, whose treatise we have noticed, and which is still preserved in manuscript at Florence, at the Magliabecchiana library, says: "In Flanders, they work extremely well in oil, but the painters who have used these colours best are Giovanni da Bruggia and Maestro Ruggiero.' "2 Filarete was a contemporary of John Van Eyck. Many Flemish authors also give similar testimony. Marchant wrote, in 1596, before Van Mander, and spoke, in his description of the Netherlands, of "Joannes Vaneichus, summi nominis, qui primus oleo ex lini seminibus extuso, cepit picturæ colores Brugæ miscere, ac perpetuare."3 Vaernewyk, the author

1 Ottobon MSS. Vatican at Rome, apud Pungileone Elogio storico de Giov. Santi. Urbino, 1822. Pp. 72–74.

2 Vasari, ut sup. Com. alla vita d' Anton. da Messina. Tom. v. p. 99. Filarete's treatise was written about the years 1460-64. 3 Marchantius. Flandria Descripta, p. 132.

of a history of Belgium, often quoted here, wrote in a similar strain, as likewise did Sanderus, and the chronicler Opmeer.

Tradition also preserves his fame for inventive genius in chemicals. Le Vieil, the glass painter, says,' that he discovered the secret of enamel colour applied to glass, and the method of abrading the coloured surface of coated glass. He did this so as to expose the whole substratum, whenever it was necessary to obtain white or yellow glass surrounded with colour, without leading in a piece of white. As regards enamel, Van Eyck's invention may be doubted; but as regards abrading surfaces of coated glass, there is no doubt that the discovery was made in his time, and it may therefore be his.

In the meanwhile a period had arrived, as we have said, when the patronage of art could scarcely remain confined to princes and noblesse. The wealthy corporations of the Belgian cities vied with them in splendour and in riches, and pursued the arts which seemed a medium for display with a vigour and pertinacity even greater than was exhibited by their princely rivals.

During the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, Belgian cities had risen to great commercial wealth. The ports were neutral by general consent; and Ghent and Yprès manufactured what Bruges imported. Here the French, the English, the Italians, traded and exchanged commodities; whilst the arts, developed by accumulated capital, vied with manufactures to please the public taste. A middle class rose up, devoted to the wants of the

1 Le Vieil. Der kunst auf glas, aus der Französischen. Nurenberg, 1779. 4to. Pp. 69, 70.