PAINTING. 129 
latter Lessing, Achenbach, Funcke, and many others have distanced the 
best productions of any previous period. 
5. Tam Neraertanps. Contemporaneously with the schools of painting 
in Westphalia and Cologne, there was formed in Ghent and Bruges, and 
throughout the Netherlands, a peculiar school of strict naturalists, rich 
- indeed in fancy and deeply imbued with ecclesiastical and Christian sym- 
bolism, but wholly incapable of or indisposed to the production of ideal 
forms. Their historical and sacred personages are pure portraits from 
nature, their very costumes being borrowed from the time of the painter. 
In consequence of the defective models that presented themselves to the 
painters, their representations are not wanting in defects: the proportions 
are faulty, the several parts of the body are meagre and often unhandsome, 
and even the draperies are characterized by hardness, having an angulax 
appearance and being broken up into many little folds. The accessories on 
the contrary are depicted with a marvellous exactness and truth to nature, 
so that one often feels tempted to take a microscope and follow the drawing 
into its minutest details. Through the invention of John Van Eyck, who 
was the first to use oil for mixing his colors, a totally different enamel, « 
fire, and a depth of coloring were attained, such as artists until that time 
had been able to arrive at only with the greatest trouble and labor. Re 
specting the masters of this school our information is in some respects still 
very imperfect, so that to this moment the names of the authors of several 
of its finest productions have not been positively ascertained. 
We will begin with the brothers Hubert and John Van Eyck 
(1866-1426 and 1370-1441), both of whom received instruction in the art 
of painting from their father. John was the inventor of oil-painting and 
is altogether the more celebrated of the two. His chef d’ceuvre is the altar- 
piece in the church of St. John in Ghent, a picture on which there are over 
330 heads, each with a different expression. This picture became exceed- 
ingly celebrated, and Philip I. of Spain had it copied for himself by 
Coxcie. John was likewise a portrait and landscape painter, and his pic- 
tures are found in various galleries. One of Van Eyck’s pupils was Rogier 
of Bruges, the accounts respecting whom are not free from contradiction, 
and by whom there are several pictures in Italy. At the same time lived 
also Hugo Van der Goés and Hans Hemling (not Memmelink, as Van 
Mander calls him), of whose life little is known, but whose works show him: 
to have been an excellent painter. Many of his pictures are found scattered’ 
about in galleries, and there were some of them in Italy even in the middle 
ages. Of a somewhat different and more secular character were the works of 
Quintin Messis (1450-1529), known by the name of “the smith of Antwerp,” 
as he was a blacksmith in his youth, which are still met with in many 
churches and private collections; there were also those of Robert Van der 
Weyde, who sought to introduce into painting a purer and nobler taste; those 
of Luke of Leyden, whose best pictures are in Vienna, Berlin, and Munich; 
and many others. At the beginning of the 16th century, when painting in 
Italy was gaining its highest triumphs, the artists of the Netherlands endea- 
vored to make themselves familiar with the advances which had there been 
ICONOGRAPHIC ENCYCLOP 2DIA.——-VOL. IV. 33 513 
