[10] Yet for Vasari there was some further magic of crimson in the lips and cheeks, lost for us.

THE ADORATION OF THE LAMB

(VAN EYCK)

KUGLER

Hubert van Eyck was born, according to the common acceptation, in 1366.  John van Eyck was his junior by some unknown number of years.  Chroniclers of the Sixteenth Century vaguely suggest that the two brothers settled at Ghent in 1410.  There is every reason to believe that all these dates are incorrect; that Hubert was born after 1366, and that the date of his migration to Ghent must be placed later in the century.  It is credible that both the brothers were court painters to Philip of Charolois, heir apparent to the throne of Burgundy, who lived with his wife Michelle de France at Ghent between 1418 and 1421.  In the service of the prince, painters were free from the constraint of their guild, but on the withdrawal of the court the privilege would cease; and this explains how the names of the Van Eycks were not recorded in the register of the corporation of St. Luke till 1421, when, on the death of the Countess Michelle, and as a tribute to her memory, they were registered as masters without a fee.  John van Eyck soon found employment in the court atmosphere, which seemed congenial to him, whilst Hubert remained at Ghent, received commissions from the municipality (1424), and became acquainted with Jodocus Vydts, for whom he composed the vast altar-piece known as the Adoration of the Lamb.  It was not fated that he should finish the great work which he was then induced to begin.  He probably sketched the subjects that were to adorn the panels, and completed some of the more important of them.  At his death in 1426 he was buried in the chapel, the decoration of which had been the last occupation of his life.  We may sum up the qualities which distinguished him, and the services which he rendered to the art of his country, in the following sentences:—­

[Illustration:  THE ADORATION OF THE LAMB.
        Van Eyck.]

He carried the realistic tendency, already existing in the Flemish masters, to an extraordinary pitch of excellence, whilst in many essential respects he adhered to the more ideal feeling of the previous period, imparting to this, by the means of his far richer powers of representation, greater distinctness, truth of nature, and variety of expression.  Throughout his works he displayed an elevated and highly energetic conception of the stern import of his labours in the service of the Church.  The prevailing arrangement of his subject is symmetrical, holding fast the early architectonic rules which had hitherto presided over ecclesiastic art.  The later mode of arrangement, in which a freer and more dramatic and picturesque feeling was introduced, is only seen in Hubert van Eyck’s works in subjection to these rules.