By her side the Chevalier Bladelin, dressed all in black, with his equine type of face, his shaven cheeks, his dignity, at once priestly and princely, is lost in contemplation, far away from the world; he is praying in good earnest.  And Saint Joseph, opposite to him, represented as a bald old man, with a short beard, and wearing a red cloak, comes forward as if amazed at his happiness, and scarce daring to believe that the moment has come when he may adore the Messiah born at last; he smiles, deferentially, mildly stepping with the almost clumsy care of an old man who would fain be serviceable but fears to intrude.

To make the whole thing more than perfect, above the figure of Pierre Bladelin extends a wondrous landscape, cut across by the High Street of Middelburg, the town founded by this nobleman, a street bordered by castellated houses with battlements and church towers, and vanishing in a country scene lighted up by a clear sky, a blue spring day; above Saint Joseph a meadow and woods, sheep and shepherds, and three exquisite angels in robes, one of pinkish yellow, one of purple like a campanula, and one of greenish citron hue; three really ethereal beings, having no relationship with the pertly innocent pages invented by the Renaissance.

If we sum up the whole impression produced by this work, we are led to the conclusion that mystical art, still dwelling on earth, and not restricted to scenes in Heaven, as Angelico had chosen to limit it in his “Coronation of the Virgin,” has produced in Roger van der Weyden’s triptych the purest effluence of prayer to be found in painting.  Never has the Nativity been so gloriously set forth, nor, it may be said, more artlessly and simply expressed.  The masterpiece of the Christmas festival is at Berlin, just as the masterpiece of the Deposition is at Antwerp, in the agonized and magnificent work of Quentin Matsys.

“The early Flemish painters were the greatest that ever lived!” said Durtal to himself, “and this Roger Van der Weyden, or Roger de la Pasture as he is sometimes called, crushed between the fame of van Eyck and of Memling—­as Gherard David was later, and Hugo van der Goes, Justus of Ghent, and Dierck Bouts—­was in my opinion superior to them all.

“And after them what a falling away!  Theatrical Crucifixions, the fleshy coarseness of Rubens which Vandyck tried to mitigate by making it leaner.  We must leap into Holland to find the mystic accent once more, and it reveals itself in the soul of a Judaizing Protestant, under an aspect so mysterious and eccentric that at first sight we hesitate, feeling ourselves, as it were, to make sure that we are not mistaken in regarding this as religious art.

“Nor need we go to Amsterdam to verify the truth of this impression.  It is enough to go to see the ‘Disciples at Emmaus,’ in the Louvre.”