Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 24.djvu/79

Rh VAN D Y C K 63 him may be applied what Opie says of Titian, &quot; that he combines resemblance with dignity, costume with taste, and art with simplicity.&quot; We are particularly struck with the thorough and immediate identification of his talent with local tastes and exigencies. Charles I. and Henrietta Maria, although pictured by several other painters, are known to posterity exclusively through Van Dyck, not from a greater closeness of resemblance to the original, but from a particular power of expression and bearing, which, once seen, it is impossible to forget. Lodged at the expense of the crown, with a summer residence at Eltham Palace, Van Dyck was frequently honoured with the visits of the king at his studio at Blackfriars. Portraits now followed each other with a rapidity scarcely credible to those unacquainted with the artist s method. In fact, his mode of living and his love of pleasure sufficiently explain his great need of money. During the first year of his presence in England he painted the king and queen a dozen times. The first of these noble portraits is the admirable full length of Charles I., with the queen and their two eldest children, at Windsor Castle. The style he adopted in England is generally termed his third manner; we might better say his fourth, as he already had a very particular style before he set out on his Italian journey. l)e Piles gives us some account of Van Dyck s methods at this period of his career. He began with a small sketch on grey paper with black and white chalks, or a mono chrome in oils. This study was passed on to assistants in order to be copied on the required scale. When the clothes were sufficiently advanced by the pupils from those sent by the model, as well as the background and acces sories, the master was enabled in a few sittings of an hour each to complete the work. Van Dyck excelled in paint ing the hands ; he is said to have kept special models for this part of his work. It need hardly be said that a system of this kind, although employed by Rubens for his larger creations, was exceedingly ill adapted to portrait painting. In Van Dyck s later productions we too often detect marks of haste, as if the pencil were becoming a mere implement of trade. Nearly the whole of 1634 and 1635 were spent by Van Dyck in the Netherlands. 1 The archduchess died on 1st December 1633, and Van Dyck naturally wished to get his official title renewed by her successor, Ferdinand of Austria, brother of Philip IV. That Van Dyck s residence in Antwerp was only to be temporary is shown by the power given to his sister Susan for the administration of his affairs in Belgium (14th April 1634). On the arrival of the new governor Van Dyck was immediately called upon to paint his likeness, a picture now in the Madrid gallery, where the same personage is also represented by Rubens and Velazquez. Several other portraits of Fer dinand, either in his cardinal s robes or in military dress, by Van Dyck, occur elsewhere. One on horseback was exhibited at the Grosvenor Gallery, London, in 1887 as the duke of Alva (the property of Mr S. Kynaston Main- waring). Van Dyck was greatly in demand at this time, and his prices were correspondingly high, as the Antwerp municipality found when they asked for a portrait of the late infanta to decorate one of the triumphal arches for the reception of the new governor. The most important of Van Dyck s works, at any rate as a portrait painter, belong to this period. The picture representing in life size the members of the Brussels corporation, which was destroyed by fire during the siege of 1695, is spoken of with intense admiration by several writers. Bullart, for instance, is very enthusiastic about its fine colour and life like qualities. Among the religious paintings of undis- 1 It is not generally known that his brother, an Antwerp priest, had been called over by the queen to act as her chaplain. puted excellence belonging to the same period are the Adoration of the Shepherds in the church at Termonde, and the Deposition, where the body of Christ rests upon the lap of the Virgin, in the Antwerp museum. Among the portraits are the admirable full length of Scaglia, the king s frequent agent in the Netherlands (at Dorchester House ; a replica in the museum at Antwerp), the eques trian portrait of Albert of Arenberg (Arenberg Palace at Brussels), and a portrait of the same nobleman on foot, in the black velvet Spanish dress with golden chamberlain s key (long said to be Rubens) at Althorpe, the full length of Helena Fourment, Rubens s second wife (at St Peters burg), the beautiful duchess of Havre, Mary Clara de Croy, signed and dated 1634 (Mr Ayscough Fawkes), and other members of the same family (at Munich), Thomas of Savoy (at Berlin), an admirable half length of a lady in black (in the Belvedere at Vienna), and above all the grandiose picture in which John of Nassau is represented at full length, with his wife and children (at Panshanger). Several portraits of Brussels and Antwerp magistrates must also be mentioned, the most important being John Van Mer- straeten, a Brussels lawyer (at Cassel). After being chosen honorary president of the Antwerp guild of St Luke, Van Dyck returned to London before the end of 1635. In spite of the vast number of his later portraits, some of them deserve to be ranked among the most celebrated of his productions. The royal children in the gallery at Turin (1635), the portraits of Charles I. in the Louvre and in the National Gallery, London, the picture of the Pembroke family at Wilton House, Sir George and Sir Francis Villiers, and the earls of Bristol and Bedford, at Althorpe, as well as those of Francis Russell, fourth earl of Bedford, and Anne Carr, his consort, at Woburn Abbey (1636), all belong to the years immediately follow ing the master s return from the Netherlands. He now married Lady Mary Ruthven, daughter of Sir Patrick Ruthven and grand-daughter of the earl of Gowrie. There are several portraits of her by her husband, the most important being in the Munich gallery, in which she is represented in white satin, playing on the violoncello. She is also said to figure as the Virgin in a picture belonging to Lord Lyttelton. There is a capital engraving of her by Bolswert. In another picture, said to be Mary Ruthven (belonging to Mr J. C. Herford), an exceedingly handsome lady is represented as Herminia Putting on Clarincla s Armour. There can be no doubt as to the model having been Margaret Lemon, a celebrated beauty, whose portrait was engraved by W. Hollar and J. Morin and painted by Van Dyck at Hampton Court. &quot; She was,&quot; says M. Law, in his excellent catalogue of this gallery, &quot;the most beauti ful and celebrated, though far from being the only mistress of Van Dyck. The great artist, in fact, loved beauty in every form, and found the seduction of female charms altogether irresistible. She lived with him at his house at Blackfriars.&quot; The precise date of Van Dyck s marriage has not been ascertained. It was probably towards the end of 1639. The union is said to have been promoted by the artist s friends in order to save him from the con sequence of his pernicious way of living. Margaret Lemon resented the event most cruelly, and tried to maim Van Dyck s right hand. Van Dyck found few occasions in England to paint any thing but portraits. He seems to have been decidedly underrated by the king and queen as an imaginative painter. At the very time of his employment on the beautiful por traits of Henrietta Maria, destined to serve as models for Bernini s bust, Gerbier was secretly negotiating with Jordaens, by order of Charles, for the decoration of the queen s apartments at Greenwich (1639). There exists at Belvoir Castle a sketch by Van Dyck representing a