The Minoan and Mycenaean element in Hellenic life / [Sir Arthur Evans].
- Evans, Arthur, Sir, 1851-1941.
- Date:
- 1914
Licence: In copyright
Credit: The Minoan and Mycenaean element in Hellenic life / [Sir Arthur Evans]. Source: Wellcome Collection.
54/68 (page 1616)
![The Van EycKs. Hubert Van Eyck was born about a.d. 13GB. and worked prin- cipally at Bruges and Cdicnt. The subject matter and symbolism of his paintings are still quite media.‘val, but the actual incidents, costumes and types, architecture and landscape, are lovingly and faithfully cojoied from the scenes which he had daily before his eyes, and set clomi with painstaking precision, which was only surpassed in minuteness by the work of his brother Jan. The “ Adoration of the Lamb ” is their chief work. Rogiei' van der Weyden, born in a.d. 1400, was a little less literal in liis transcripts of nature, and more emotional in expression. Hans Memlinc, a Bruges painter of German origin, born about 1430, is the most lovable painter of a school which too frequently delighted in the realistic representation of scenes of tortures and other horrors. In him the realistic tendency of the school finds expression in the wonderful rendering of landscape and accessories, but he was an artist full of tender feeling and poetry, with a rare sense of feminine purity and inno- cent grace. Gerard David, who was born about 20 years later and worked at Bruges at the end of the century, was much influenced by Memlinc, and is dis- tinguished by a glowing sense of colour and beauti- ful line. Quentin Matsys, born 146C, practised portraiture and genre, besides religious art, and marks a decided advance in expres- sive modelling. With Mabuse, who died in 1532, and even more with his con- temporary, Raphael’s pupil, Bernard van Orley, the Italian influence begins to filter through the local tradition, and in the case of the latter is to be detected in a more ample sense of design and a departure from the severe exactitude of the-earlier masters. But what had been the result, in Italy, of centuries of slow development, could not be transplanted in its mature form to foreign soil, and became mere mannerism with the later Flemings, until a new era of superb artistry dawned with the advent of the great Rubens. Rubens. Rubens (a.d. 1.577-1640), too. had drunk at the same source of Italian art, and his early work in particular evinces his love of Venetian colour, but he brought into his painting a strong, virile, and altogether personal tempera- ment that could never have been content with mannered imitation. A colourist of tremendous power, Rubens excelled above all in the jiainting of flesh, in which he stands unrivalled to this day. One may be rei)elled by the coarse, fleshy type of his women, but the mastery with which lOlG he expressed with bold, sweeping strokes of luminous paint the roundness of form, the tex- ture of the skin, and the very blood couiiiing under the skin, irresistilily compels one’s admira- tion. The passionate movement, the vigour and verve of his w'ork, seem to exclude the possi- bility of a deliberately calculated design, and yet the noble disposition of his figures, the effec- tive massing of light and shade are as “ scientific ” as the movement and . sensuous colour are instinctive. Rubens was the most worldly of all painters, yet he could treat a religious subject with a very reverent spirit. He was equally great in portraiture, in genre, in landscape, and in animal painting. But it should be remembered that in accordance wuth the custom of the period, he had a horde of assistants working under him, and many of the inferior pictures that pass under his name owe to him merely their conception, while the execution is entirely due to his pupils. Van Dyck. Much the same remark applies to the greatest of his pupils, Van Dyck (a.d. 1599-1641), who, as Court painter to Charles I.. exercised so potent an influence on English art that he may rightly be considered the real founder of the great English school of portraiture. Indeed, many of the paint- ings turned out from his studio at Blackfriars during his English period are the work of his numerous assistants, save for the first sketch and the finishing touches. Van Dyck, too, studied for some years in Italy, where, like his master, Rubens, he fell under the spell of the Venetians. An accom- plished courtier and man of the world, he became the favourite of society in his native country, as in Genoa and in England. His pictures are a perfect mirror of the English aristocracy of his day, reflecting their taste and distinction and effeminate elegance. As a colourist, he was more subtle and refined, if less vigorous, than Rubens. The coarser side of Rubens's art attracted Jacob Jordaens. whose lack of refinement is scarcely atoned for by his great technical skill and good humour. Franz Snydcis (a.d. 1579-1657) was a brilliant animal jjaintcr. whilst Jan Fyt and Jan Weenix excelled in still life, generally of dead game. iMelchior Hondekoeter devoted himself almost exclusively to the bird life of the farmyard. All these masters were great colourists, and stand su])reme. each in the narrow range he imposed on Ins art. Growing Popularity of Art. The eailicst Dutch painters, among whom Dierick Bouts and Lucas van Leyden arc the most THE CHILDREN OF CHARLES I., BV VAN DYCK](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b24878959_0054.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
