Page:Catholic Encyclopedia, volume 5.djvu/812

 EYCK

732

EYCK

ning the degree of doctor of canon and ci^^l law. He was also honoured by an appointment as chamberlain to Pius II. .\fter his return to Germany he resided chiefly at Eichstatt. In 1462 he became archdeacon of Wiirzburg, not, however, without encountering vio- lent opposition from the Bishop of Wiirzburg, who hated Eyb as a partisan of the Hohenzollern Margrave, Albrecht Achilles. Little is known of his last 3'ears.

Eyb's best kno-mi and most important work is his "Ehebtichlein" (Book on Marriage), in which he dis- cusses the question whether a man should take a law- ful wife or not. It was published in 1472. In 1460 he had written on the same theme in Latin " An viro sapient! iixor sit diicenda". The German work treats of the joys and sorrows of married life and general maxims of a moral or philosophical character are added. A decision is finally rendered in favour of the married .state. The popularity of the book is attested by the fact that between 1472 and 1540 no less than twelve reprints were issued. Another work of Eyb is the ''Margarita poetica" (Xiiremberg, 1472), a text- book of humanistic rhetoric, consisting of a collection of passages in prose and verse from Latin authors, to which are added specimens of himianistic eloquence. In 1474 Eyb finished his "Spiegel der Sitten" (Mirror of Morals), a lengthy work of ethical and moral con- tent, probably based on some Latin original. The book did not meet with the favour shown to the "Ehebtichlein" and was not printed until 1511. Ap- pended to it are German translations of two of Plau- tus's comedies, the "Mena?chmi"and the "Bacchides" as well as of Ugolini's "Philogenia". Eyb's writings have been edited by K. Miiller (Sondershaiisen, 1S79); the best edition is that of M. Herrmann, " Deutsche Sehriften des Albrecht von Eyb" (Beriin, 1S95).

Herrmann", Albrecht voti Eyb itnd die Frithzcit des dcutschen HiiTnanismits (BerUn, 1893).

Arthur F. J. Remy.

Eyck, Hubert and Jax V-^jn, brothers, Flemish illuminators and painters, founders of the school of Bruges and consequentl}' of all the schools of painting in the North of Europe. Hubert was born at Maes- eyck (i. e. Eyck on the Meuse'iin the Diocese of Liege, about 1366, and his brother Jan about twenty years later, 1.3S5. They had a sister named Margaret who won fame as a miniaturist.

A dociiment of 1413 makes the earliest mention we have of a painting by "Ma,ster Hubert". In 1424 he was living at Ghent, and he died there on the ISth of September, 1426. We have no further definite knowl- edge concerning the elder of the brothers. Of the younger we know that in 1420 he presented a Madon- na's head to the Guild of Antwerp, that m 1422 he decorated a paschal candle for the cathedral of Cam- brai, and that in 1425 he was at The Hague in the service of Jean Sans Merci. Afterwards he went to Bruges and to Lille to the court of Philip the Good, Duke of Burgimd)', as peintre et rarlel de chambrc. He was already a man of some influence at court, and he travelled in the embassy charged to ask the hand of Isabella of Portugal for Philip, and it was his privilege to paint her portrait "true to life", thereby fixing Philip's choice. This journey lasted from the ISth of October, 142.S, to the end of December, 1429. In 1431 he went to Hcsdin to superintend, for the Duke, the work going on at the castle there: and afterwards he returned to Bruges, which he .seldom left again. He married, and a child of his was baptized in 1434. In 1430 we learn once more that he received 720 livres on account of "certain secret matter", doubtless in con- nexion with some new mission or journey. He died towards thoend of June, 1441.

The most important work of the brothers Van Eyck, and the one that places their names among the great masters of painting for ever, is the famous altar- piece, "The Adoration of the Lamb", of which the

central portion is preserved in St-Bavons at Ghent, while the wings have found their way to the Museums of Berlin and of Brussels. It is one "of the enigmas of art. All the questions bearing on it may, however, be reduced to two: Who was its author? and, ^\■hat was its origin? As to its authorship, all we know depends on an inscription obscure enough, which is to be read on the edge of its frame : —

Pictor Hubert us e Eyck major quo nemo repertus Incepit pondus: qiiod Johannes arte secundus Suscepit letus, Judoci Vyd prece fretus Vers-V seXta Ma-I: Vos CoLLoCat .a-Cta tVerl. The faulty Latin of this crj-ptic inscription means: "Hubert van Eyck, the greatest painter that ever lived, began this work [pondus], which John, his brother, second only to him in skill, had the happiness to con- tinue at the request of Jodocus (Josse) Vydt. Bj' this line, on the 6th of May, you learn when the work was completed, i. e., MCCCCXXXII." That it m their joint work is certain, but it is impossible to distin- guish which portion belongs to each brother. Very soon Jan began to get all the credit for it. Diirer meii- tions only Jan in his "Journal" of 1521. But the inscription clearly states that Hubert began the work and asserts that he was the greater artist, his brother being called in only at his death, and in order to com- plete it. But how far had Hiibert progressed with it? How far back had he been commissioned to paint it? In 1426 were portions of it finished, or was it merely a sketch, a generaloutline when Jan took charge? Who suggested the subject? Who planned its treatment? Can we believe that a painter of any school living in a fifteenth century atmosphere coiild have elaborated by hunself from a few texts of the Apocalypse ( v, 6-14) such a wealth of detail, such SJ^nphony of symbolism and imagerj'? Who was the theologian who inspired this mighty poem as others had inspired the learned allegories of the Chapel of the Spaniards, and of the Hall of the Segnatura? And again, in the history of painting from the miniatures of the Irish Apocalj'pses (eleventh centurj-) to the Angers tapestries, what were the artistic sources of this great work?

This moral encyclopedia of the Middle Ages, if we may call it siich, treats of all things in heaven and on earth (there was a predella to it depicting hell, but it disappeared in the sixteenth century); it portrays God and man in all their historical and mystical rela- tions; it tells us of the heaveiily and the earthly para- dise, of the ages that have followed one another in the flight of time, of the Dogma of the Fall, and that of the Redemption, of Adam and Eve, and of the first sacrifices; of the death of Abel (type of Christ) ; of the years of expectation of the patriarchs and just men of the Old Law; of the mysten,' of the Incarnation; of the Trinity; of the world subject to the law of Christ; of the life of the Church in her saints, her heniiits, her virgins, her martjTS, her pontiffs, her confessors, her warrior princes ; of all Christendom in a landscape filled with cathedral spires (Rome, Jerusalem, Utreclit. etc.). And can we in reason be asked to believe that this wonderful pictorial epic reaching out from the begin- ning to the consummation of the world and ending in a glimp.se of the eternal life to come as full in conceji- tion and as orderly in arrangement as the " Divtna Commedia" itself; summing up the Old as well as the New Testament, drawing its inspiration from St. Augustine's "Civitas Dei", and Vmcent of Beauvais' "Speculiim Majus", as well as Jacobus de Voragine's " Legenda Aurea", and Dante's " De Monarchia"; a compendium of politics, history, and theology, and which crowns the representation of man's life on earth by a glimpse of the Infinite, can we in rea.son be asked to believe that this lofty expression of the ideals of Christendom in the Europe of the Middle Ages sprang Minerva-like, fully formed from the brain of a single artist? No one can adopt this supposition except for the