Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 24.djvu/77

Rh VAN D Y C K 61 lie was fortunate enough to have as sitters than in any desire to follow individual predilection or prevailing fashion. As in later years Van Dyck gives us a striking picture of the higher classes in England, so at this stage he makes us acquainted with Italian beauty and style ; and at no other period is his talent more advantageously shown than in some of the glorious portraits he painted at Rome, at Florence, and above all at Genoa. At Rome he resided with Cardinal Guido Bentivoglio, who had been papal nuncio in Flanders from 1607 to 1617. For this patron were painted several works of very great import ance, the most renowned being the prelate s own portrait, now in the Pitti Palace at Florence. Another work was a Crucifixion, representing Christ dying on the cross with uplifted eyes. Most probably the picture spoken of by Bellori ought to be identified with the admirable edition now in the gallery at Naples, catalogued as &quot;Scuola di Van Dyck,&quot; unsurpassed by any of those at Antwerp, Paris, Vienna, Rome, or elsewhere. Besides these he painted religious subjects and portraits, several of which are reckoned among his finest examples, such as the portrait of Francis Duquesnoy, the famous sculptor, belonging to the king of the Belgians, and those of Sir Robert Shirley and his wife, in Persian attire, now at Petworth. Bellori tells us of Van Dyck s prepossessing appearance, of his elegance and distinction, altogether so different from the habits of his compatriots in Rome, who formed a jovial &quot;gang,&quot; as they termed their association. Van Dyck seems to have kept out of their way, and incurred in consequence such annoyance as made his stay in Rome much shorter than it would otherwise have been. In the company of Lady Arundel, who tried to persuade him to return to England, he travelled to Turin, and perhaps produced some of the paintings now in the royal gallery there, such as the spirited portrait of Thomas of Savoy on his splendid black charger. But he was eager to reach Genoa, where Rubens had worked with great success some twenty years before, and where his Antwerp friends, Luke and Cornelis de Wael, for many years resident in Italy, now were. Van Dyck remained their guest for several months, and their portraits, now in the Pinacoteca Capitolina at Rome (en graved by W. Hollar from the monochrome at Cassel), may be supposed to have been one of his first Genoese pro ductions. Though several of the palaces of the &quot;superb&quot; city no longer retain their treasures, and among the speci mens of Van Dyck s genius still left too many have been greatly injured by cleaning and retouching, Genoa can still boast of a good number of his most attractive productions, portraits of the beautiful ladies and haughty cavaliers of the noble houses of Doria, Brignole Sale, Pallavicini, Balbi, Cattaneo, Spinola, Lommelini, and Grimaldi. It would scarcely be possible to speak too highly of such works as the portrait of the lady in white satin and the Durazzo children at the Durazzo Palace, the Balbi children at Panshanger, the Marchesa Balbi at Dorchester House, the equally beautiful portraits of the Lommelini and of the knight in black armour, buff jacket, and boots in the national gallery at Edinburgh, or the Marchesa Brignole Sala at Warwick Castle. Van Dyck s &quot; Genoese manner &quot; is a current expression, and indeed his Genoese portraits are remarkable for their richness of tonality and what might be called royal splendour, perhaps never before at tained in works of the kind. This we may suppose to have had its origin, not only in his recent study of Titian {Van Dyck having, it is said, first spent some time at A enice), but also in decorative necessities, the size of the palatial galleries and the rich hues of the Genoese velvets, on which these portraits were to find their place, obliging the painter to find a most uncommon strength of contrast. It must also be acknowledged that the beauty and distinc tion of Van Dyck s models are greatly enhanced by a splendour of costume entirely different from the dulness then prevalent almost everywhere else. In Italy, more over, he found the reality of those gorgeous backgrounds, flowing draperies, beautiful gardens, ornamental pillars, marble terraces and balustrades, which elsewhere must be regarded as fictions merely. Here, finally, he was for the first time called upon to paint some of his grandest equestrian portraits, and the often-recurring grey steed with flowing mane (an admirable study of which belongs to Lord Brownlow) was first employed for the portrait of Antonio Giulio Brignole (still at Genoa) and for another picture which we may suppose to represent the same per sonage at Stafford House. As with Rubens, Titian seems to have been paramount in Van Dyck s regard. Copies in great number we know he possessed of the master s best works, and several little sketches in the British Museum bear proof of his devout study of the great Venetian. Some of Van Dyck s earlier paintings, religious and mythological, the Tribute Money (Brignole Palace), Holy Family (Turin), Virgin and Saints (Louvre), Virgin (Grosvenor House), Martyrdom of St Lawrence (S. Maria dell Orto, Venice), Bacchanal (Lord Belper), engraved at Genoa as early as 1628, St Sebastian (Edinburgh), are certainly Titianesque in the extreme. Still the master s individuality is not obliterated, and the gallery at Parma has a Virgin with the Infant Asleep which may be termed a marvel of realistic simplicity. Van Dyck is said to have sailed from Genoa to Palermo and there to have painted several persons of rank, includ ing the viceroy, Emmanuel Philibert of Savoy. While in Sicily he became acquainted with the painter Sofonisba Anguisciola (or Angussola), who was then over ninety years of age and blind ; and he was wont to say he had received more valuable information from a blind woman than from many a seeing man. No important works of Van Dyck are now to be found in Sicily. Bellori tells us that a plague broke out and compelled him to leave abruptly, taking with him an unfinished picture of St Rosalia, destined for a confraternity of that name, and which was completed in Genoa. The composition was repeated in Antwerp for the Bachelors Brotherhood, a picture now in Vienna. Van Dyck most probably re mained in Genoa till 1627, and here in all likelihood he met and painted the sculptor George Petel, whose portrait is now in Munich, and who was frequently employed by Rubens ; the De Jodes, father and son, the celebrated en gravers, who are represented together in a masterly por trait in the Capitol at Rome, the companion picture to the brothers De Wael; and Nicholas Laniere, musician-in-chief to Charles I., a painting spoken of in Van der Dort s cata logue as &quot;done beyond the seas.&quot; Laniere was in Italy precisely at this time and it was through his portrait (now at Windsor Castle), Walpole assures us, that Van Dyck attracted the notice of Charles I. Embarking for Marseilles, Van Dyck is said to have stopped at Aix with Peiresc, the famous scholar and friend of Rubens, and thence to have gone to Paris, where most probably he painted the beautiful portrait of Langlois the print-seller (belonging to Mr W. Garnett), a work still influ enced by Italian reminiscences, and had the opportunity of meeting Callot, Simon Vouet, and Dupuy, the king s librarian, all of whose portraits were engraved from his drawings in Antwerp. According to some authors, he also worked in Holland before returning to his native town ; but the supposition rests entirely on two portraits in the museum at The Hague, dated 1627 and 1628, and repre senting a lady arid gentleman, Avith the Sheffield arms. The lady is easily identified by a well-known print by Clouwet as Anne Wake. The Wake family resided in