Van Dyck

BY PERCY M. TURNER

ILLUSTRATED WITH EIGHT
REPRODUCTIONS IN COLOUR

LONDON: T. C. & E. C. JACK
NEW YORK: FREDERICK A. STOKES CO.

CONTENTS

I. The Early Days
II. The Journey to Italy
III. The Second Flemish Manner
IV. Van Dyck in England
V. Van Dyck's Position in Art

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

Plate

I. Charles I. . . . . . . . . . Frontispiece
          In the Louvre

II. Charles Louis of Bavaria and his brother
        Robert, afterwards Duke of Cumberland
          In the Louvre

III. Prince d'Arenberg
          In Lord Spencer's Collection, Althorp

IV. Portrait of Van Dyck (or The Artist)
          In Lord Spencer's Collection, Althorp

V. Philippe le Roy, Seigneur de Ravel
          In the Wallace Collection

VI. Portrait of one of Charles I.'s children
          In the Academy of Fine Arts, Rome

VII. Portrait of the Artist's Wife
          In the Pinakothek, Munich

VIII. The Marchese Cattaneo
          In the National Gallery

I

THE EARLY DAYS

No painter has remained more consistently in favour with both artists and the public than Van Dyck. His art marks the highest achievement of Flanders of the seventeenth century. In making this statement the claims of Rubens have not been overlooked, although the latter has been, and probably will always be, considered the head of the Flemish school.

It is perhaps not too much to say that Van Dyck possessed in a greater measure than Rubens those qualities which go to make a great artist. We can never overlook the seniority of the latter, and to him will always belong the credit of having evolved the style which revolutionised the art of a nation, and there is no doubt that the pupil owed to him much of the knowledge he so well utilised in after-life.

PLATE II.—CHARLES LOUIS OF BAVARIA AND HIS
BROTHER ROBERT, AFTERWARDS DUKE OF CUMBERLAND

(In the Louvre)

As an example of direct portraiture this picture would be hard to beat. It shows Van Dyck in one of his happiest moods dealing with a subject which peculiarly appealed to him.

Plate II.

In comparing those two great men it would be well, at first, to rid ourselves of the confusion which often arises through the application of the terms "artist" and "painter." In relation to painting they are only too often considered synonymous, but a little consideration will show us that a man whose technical abilities are of a high order need not necessarily be a great artist. In fact, one of the most truthful charges urged against the best contemporary art is that it demonstrates an astonishing poverty of invention, a lack of message, if you will, coupled with an extraordinarily highly developed technique. To screen as much as possible the dilemma in which he finds himself, many a modern painter has recourse to creating those outbursts of meaningless eccentricity that are so familiar upon the walls of our exhibitions. It is true that some few of the men who are living to-day are equipped almost, if not quite, as well technically as the great majority of the old masters. In a word, they could meet them on nearly equal terms as painters, but they lack invention and conception in which to bring their powers into legitimate play, and consequently they cannot rank with them as artists.

It was in the possession of these very qualities that Van Dyck surpassed Rubens. I do not suggest that the latter was devoid of power of conception, for, if I did, would not the great "Coup-de-lance" at Antwerp, or the "Fall of the Damned" at Munich (the drawing for the latter in the National Gallery gives an even better idea than the finished picture) be there to refute me? Van Dyck, however, though being quite the match of Rubens in technique, even in his early days—though still working under him—surpassed him in his middle period. Anybody who has closely studied the noble religious pictures at Courtrai and Malines—the latter, unfortunately, irreparably injured by damp and neglect—can but be impressed with his stupendous power in this direction. Granted that he does not appeal in the same measure to our emotions from the spiritual side as do the early painters of Italy and Flanders, he yet brings the brutal aspect of the scene before us in an intensely human manner.

In most subject pictures Van Dyck painted before his visit to Italy it is apparent that Rubens had been his sole guide, and he was impelled only with a desire to emulate his master. But, after his return, the influence of the mighty painters he had studied south of the Alps had wrought a wondrous change in his method, and although he found himself