nature." *

Animals, trees, flowers, birds, every kind of inanimate object, rocks, the tiles of a church, the stuff of a dress, the grain of wood,-he painted. all with equal care and equal fidelity. As regards the eulogy of his landscapes, we cannot doubt that it was inspired by those of the Ghent altar-piece. Other works of the painter may have been sent abroad, but these were present to the writer of the epitaph. Moreover in the whole series of the pictures by the Van Eycks there are no landscapes to compare with those of the Ghent altar-piece in importance. In the epitaph, therefore, we have distinct evidence that John Van Eyck was recognised by his contemporaries as a great master of landscape painting. By inference, the epitaph claims for him the landscapes of the Ghent altar-piece. This seems to be the view taken by Sir Charles Eastlake, who, in commenting on the epitaph, says, "The allusion to his treatment of landscape is more characteristic."

Van Mander also praises John's landscapes. He says, "John also painted many portraits from life, executed with the greatest patience; to them he often added, as backgrounds, agreeable landscapes." + Van Mander probably refers here to pictures such as that of the Louvre. But we shall find reason to believe that the landscape background and accessories of this picture are alone to be ascribed to John.

We are not yet at the end of our evidence to show that John Van Eyck executed the landscapes

of the Ghent altar-piece. A remarkable instance of John's "extraordinary capacity for seeing nature" is found in two panels, The Pilgrims and The Hermits, in the sky of which we see a number of birds disporting themselves. They are not the conventional birds we generally find in pictures. Different kinds are recognisable; some are swallows or martins. All are evidently the result of careful study. Among them we note a flock of wild geese flying, according to the habit of the bird, in two lines converging at an angle. This flock of geese is John's; we find it in one of his signed pictures, the St. Barbara of the Antwerp Museum.

We shall find the same flock in nearly every picture of the Van Eycks into which it could possibly be introduced. As regards the class of pictures we are at the moment considering, we find the flock in The Three Marys and in the St. Francis of Turin. I should have expected to find it in the Heytesbury St. Francis, but Mr. Johnson tells me that he cannot discover it in the picture.

Before we leave the landscapes of the Ghent altar-piece, I desire to call your attention to a very remarkable and interesting feature occurring in the panel of The Soldiers of Christ. In the extreme distance we see snow mountains. Where did John Van Eyck see snow mountains? They must be some portion of the Alps. We must try to forget the ease and frequency of visits to mountainous. districts in our own day, and go back in imagination to the time when travel was a costly and arduous affair, not to be lightly undertaken. On what errand can John have been bound when he

VOL. XXIV.

21

came within sight of the Alps? No explanation offers itself but this-that he was on his way to Italy. We shall presently find in the pictures evidence of such a visit. Meanwhile I ask you to note that we find these snow mountains in no fewer than six pictures-in the panel just mentioned of The Soldiers of Christ, in the Berlin Calvary, in The Crucifixion of St. Petersburg, in the Louvre picture,

Snow mountains in the Ghent altar-piece.

in that of the Rothschild collection, and finally in the Dresden triptych.* These snow mountains are especially interesting as being, if I am not mistaken, the earliest representations of the Alps. Mr. Josiah Gilbert, who has made an admirable study of the landscapes in the early masters of painting, praises

*The landscape of the Dresden triptych, seen through a window, is extremely small, two inches high and half an inch wide. Dr. Woermann, who was so kind as to examine the landscape for me, expressed himself somewhat doubtfully as to the presence of snow mountains, but I have since found that Mr. Gilbert speaks positively on the subject (Gilbert, Josiah, Landscape in Art,' p. 153).

mountain.

highly these mountain scenes. He suggests that the mountains may be those of Savoy, perhaps even Mont Blanc among them. But Mr. C. E. Mathews, the veteran Alpinist, tells me that, so far as he can judge from photographs, he cannot identify any John Van Eyck may have sketched the mountains in the saddle, just as, a hundred years later, Erasmus crossing the Alps wrote in the saddle his poem on old age.* The circumstances would not be favourable to exact delineation, but Mr. Gilbert assures us that the mountains in The Soldiers of Christ show appreciation of the beauty of mountain form.†

We will now go on to consider the pictures having backgrounds of architecture or containing architectural features. In the following pictures we find architecture of a peculiar character:

The Virgin and Child, with Saints and a Donor, the triptych of the Dresden Gallery.

A Carthusian Monk, with Saints, in the Rothschild collection.

Chancellor Rolin, with Saints, in the Louvre.

Architecture of the same character is found in the altar-piece now in the Museum of Bruges, signed by John Van Eyck, and dated 1436.

The architecture in these pictures is Romanesque, with round-headed, stilted arches, resting on the richly carved capitals of columns of rare marble. In the Rothschild picture, where the architecture

* Nichols (Francis Morgan), The Epistles of Erasmus,' p. 416. + Gilbert (Josiah), ‘Landscape in Art before Claude and Salvator,' 1855, p. 53. See also pp. 146, 150, 153, 164, for references to John Van Eyck's snow mountains.

merely forms a frame for the landscape, the arches are wide, the other characteristics being the same. The architecture of these pictures is not a real architecture, that is, it has not been copied from any actual examples. My friend Mr. G. H. Birch, the Curator of the Soane Museum, thinks that it is based on Lombardic forms. Others would trace the capitals to the architecture of the Rhine churches.*

But agreement is general that it is an architecture invented, not merely copied. It may be described as a Gothicised form of an earlier style. Whether the suggestion came from Italy or from the Rhine, from southern or northern types, is immaterial to my argument. There is no difficulty in either sup

See, for instances, Moller (G.), 'Denkmäler der Deutschen Baukunst,' pl. ix (from Mainz); pl. xvii (from Worms). Also King (T. H.), The Study Book of Medieval Architecture,' 1868, vol. iv, pl. ix (from Worms).