Josse Vyt, who ordered the picture, and whose portrait, with that of his wife, is painted on the shutters, no doubt explained exactly what he wanted, and Hubert sought to please him.[1] But although the design of the central panel was old-fashioned and symbolic, Hubert was able to do what he liked with the landscape, and with the individual figures.  They are real men and women with varieties of expression such as had not been painted before, and the landscape is even more beautiful than the one at the back of the ‘Three Maries.’  Snow mountains rise in the distance, and beautiful cypresses and palms of all kinds clothe the green slopes behind the Lamb.  There are flowers in the grass and jewels for pebbles in the brook.  Behind, you can see the Cathedrals of Utrecht and Cologne, St. John’s of Maestricht, and more churches and houses besides, and the walls of a town, and wide stretches of green country.

[Footnote 1:  There are reasons for thinking that the picture may have been ordered by some prince who died before it was finished, and that Vyt only acquired it later, in time to have his own and his wife’s portraits added on the shutters.]

Hubert van Eyck died in 1426, and the picture was finished by his younger brother John, of whose life, though more is known than of Hubert’s, we need not here repeat details.  Many of his pictures still exist, and the most delightful of them for us are his portraits.  He was not the first man to paint good portraits, but few artists have ever painted better likenesses.  It seems evident that the people in his pictures are ‘as like as they can stare,’ with no wrinkle or scratch left out.  Portraits in earlier days than these were seldom painted for their own sake alone.  A pious man who wanted to present an altar-piece or a stained-glass window to a church would modestly have his own image introduced in a corner.  By degrees such portraits grew in size and scale, and the neighbouring saints diminished, till at last the saints were left out and the portrait stood alone.  Then it came about that such a picture was hung in its owner’s house rather than in a church.  One of the best portraits John van Eyck ever painted is at Bruges—­the likeness of his wife.  The panel was discovered about fifty years ago in the market-place of Bruges, where an old woman was using the back of it to skin eels on; but so soundly had the picture been painted that even this ill-usage did not ruin it.  The lady was a very plain Flemish woman with no beauty of feature or expression, but John has revealed her character so vividly that to look at her likeness is to know her.  It is indeed a long leap from the Richard II. of fifty years before, with its representation of the outline of a youth, to this ample realization of a mature woman’s character.

John lived till 1441, and had some pupils and many imitators.  One of these, Roger van der Weyden by name, spread his influence far and wide throughout the whole of the Netherlands, France, and Germany.  How important this influence was in the history of art we shall see later.  Many of the imitators of John learnt his accuracy and thoroughness of workmanship, but none of them attained his deep insight into character.