EYCK, HUBERT VAN. This celebrated old Flemish painter, the elder brother and master of Jchn Van Eyck, was born, according to Van Mender, in 1366, and probably at Eyck (now Alden Eyck), a small village near Maaseyck on the Maas. The two brothers established themselves first in Bruges and afterwards in Ghent. The name of Hubert Van Eyck is nearly lost in that of his brother and pupil John, apparently from no other reason than John alone is mentioned by Vasari in his story of the invention of the new method of oil-painting, while he takes no notice whatever of Hubeit ; John's name therefore appears as the principal or indeed sole name in nearly all subsequent investigations relating to the origin of this method of oil-painting, and the joint productions of the two brothers are generally adduced as the works of John alone. But the great probability is that much of the invention or improvement was the result of their joint experiments, and it is not unlikely that their great merit really con sisted in carrying forward to a much higher, point of success the practice of their predecesaors.
Van Mender says that the Van Eyeka must have painted in their new method as early as 1410, and as Hubert did not die till the 18th of September 1426, according to the inscription on his tomb in the church of St. Ilavon at Ghent, they worked a sufficient number of yearn together to completely devclopo it in practice. John Van Eyck cannot have been very old in 1426, as, according to an anthontic lottery notice of his widow, though alive in 1445, he died before the 24th of February 1446, and ho was still young when he died, according to Marcus Van Vaernewyck, who published a' History of Belgium' in 1565. This is somewhat corroborated by a portrait of John in the Museum of Berlin, dated 1430, lu which ho appears about thirty-five years of age. John was therefore about thirty years younger than his brother Hubert, supposing the latter to have been born in 1366, and accordingly be can have been at first little more than the aaaistant of Hubert in their masterpiece, the groat altar-picee of St. Bayou's, Chen; which was finished by John in 1432. Ilia name Is clearly subordinate to Ilubert's in the inscription on the work, which Is as follows, the last verse being a chronogram • " Pletor Ilubertna a Eyck, major quo nemo repertus Incepit ; pondruque Jahannea site seeundua Yeller perfecit, Judoci Vyd preee fretne Vera ',Ala Vos CoLLoCat aCta tVerL" The capitals in the but line, when added together according to their value as Roman numerals, make 1432.
The altar-piece is about fourteen feet wide by twelve feet high, and is In two horizontal divisions, each centre covered by revolving wings or doors, two on each side. There are twelve pictures in all : God the Father, with the Virgin and St. John the Baptist, as large as life, one on each aide in distinct compartments, constitute the upper centre ; the extreme wings of this division are full-length naked figures of Adam and Eve, Adam on the right and Eve on the left of the centre : the interior wins represent on the right hand angels singing, on the left, angels playing musical instruments. The lower centre represents in one picture the actual Adoration of the Lamb in small figures; the two wings to the right represent the just judges, Justi Judices, and the soldiers of Christ, Christi 51ilitea ; the two on the left, the holy hermits, Heyremiti Sti., and the holy pilgrims, Perigrini Sti. : there are in all about 60 figures and 300 heads. An elaborate copy of it was made by Coxie for Philip II. of Spain. [Cone, Mteneet,.] The colouring of the whole work is beautiful, and many parts are admirably executed ; and the painting is still in excellent preservation, owlog to the excellent oil-vehicle discovered by the Van Eyck!. The original
picture remained entire till the French obtained possession of Belgium. The clergy of the cathedral of St. Bayou succeeded in concealing eight of the twelve panels, so that only four were taken to Paris, whence they were brought back in 1315. Only the two central divisions however now remain at St. Bayou's, the wings having been euld and removed to Berlin, where they are now in the Royal Museum, united with a part of the copy made by Coxie for Philip IL The medium employed by the Van F.ycks was not merely oil: it was several oils mixed with resins, or some such substances, and pre pared by fire. Many useless and intemperate discussions have arisen from Vaaar's attributing the invention of oil-painting to John Van Eyck, but they are due chiefly to a careless or partial couaideretion of what Venni really says. In one passage in the Life of Antonello he fully describes, though in general terms, what the Van Eyck medium wee, but in others he merely terms it oil-paiuting, a term, after what he had said before, sufficiently characteristic and distinctive. The Cave Tambroni however in his preface to the treatise of Cenuino Cenuini (Rome, 182]), has, with much disingenuousness, argued solely upon the general impressions of 'Vaud, and ridiculed the story as an absurd fiction, because mere oil-painting was known in Italy before it was introduced by Antonello of Messina. [A NTONELLO DA Messice.] It is true that Cennino Cennini wrote his book in 1437, and it con tains five chapters on oil-painting, but he prefaces his remarks by the following observation :—" I will now teach you to paint in oil, a method much practised by the Germans." The oil-painting which Cenniuo teaches is no more that of the Van Eycks than temper?' painting is ; it is the very method which the Van Eycks superseded. An old German monk of the name of Tutilo or Theo hilts wrote on the same subject centuries before Cennini. [Term e.] The words of Vasari are—" At last, having tried many things, separately and com pounded, ho discovered that linseed and nut oils were the most siecative : these therefore he boiled with other mixtures, and pro duced that varnish (vehicle) which he, and indeed every painter in the world, had long desired." This is what the Cave. Tambroni and others have treated as an assertion that John Van Eyck invented and introduced the practice of mixing colours with oil. Sir C. L. Eastlake, after an elaborate investigation of every passage of contemporary or nearly contemporary authority which in any way bears on the snbject, arrives at the conclusion that their new vehicle was an oleo resinous one, the resin being probably amber or copal ; and that the use of that iu conjunction with a great superiority of technical skill would be amply sufficient to account for their works appearing eo much finer than those of their predecessors and contemporaries, the painters in temperh and plain oil, as fully to explain the fact of their being termed the inventors of a new method.
Several interesting notices of the brothers Van Eyck appeared in the Messager des Sciences et des Arts, Gaud., 2524 ; and in the Kunsblatt in 1821 and 1826; see also Passavant, Xunstreise, &e. (in which there is an outline of the altar-piece of Ghent); and Rathgeber,,1 nnalen der Niederldndischen Malerei ; see also Eastlake, Materials for a History of Oil-painting, chaps. vii. and viii.; and Carton, Les Trois Fr4res ran Ryck.