St. Matthew says: 'As it began to _dawn_ towards the first day of the
week, came Mary Magdalene, and the other Mary, to see the Sepulchre.'
Even in this point Hubert wished to be accurate. The rising sun is
hidden behind the rocks on the left side of the picture, for it was
not until years later that any painter ventured to paint the sun in
the heavens. But the rays from the hidden orb strike the castles on
the hills with shafts of light. The town remains in shadow, while the
sky is lit up with floods of glory. An effect such as this must have
been very carefully studied from nature. Hubert was evidently one who
looked at the world with observant eyes and found it beautiful. When
he had flowers to paint, he painted the whole plant accurately, not
the blossoms individually, like the painter of Richard II. He liked
fine stuffs, embroideries, jewels, and glittering armour. He was no
visionary trying to free himself from the earth and live in
contemplation of the angels and saints in Paradise, like so many of
the thirteenth and fourteenth century artists.

In this new delightful interest in the world as it is, he reflected
the tendency of his day. The fifty years that had elapsed between the
painting of Richard II.'s portrait and the work of the Van Eycks, had
seen a great development of trade and industry in Flanders. Hubert
was born, perhaps about 1365, at Maas Eyck, from which he takes his
name. Maas Eyck was a little town on the banks of the river Maas, near
the frontier of the present Holland and Belgium. He may have spent
most of his life in Ghent, the town officials of which city paid him
a visit in 1425 to see his work, and gave six groats to his apprentices
in memory of their visit. Where he learnt his art, where he worked
before he came to Ghent, we do not know for certain, but there is reason
to think that he was employed for a while in Holland by the Count.

John, his brother, concerning whom more facts have been gathered, is
said to have been twenty years younger than Hubert. He was a painter
too, and worked in the employ of Philip the Good, Duke of Burgundy
and Count of Flanders, the grandson of Philip the Bold, who was one
of those four sons of King John of France mentioned in our last chapter.
Philip the Good continued the traditions of his family and was in his
time a great art-patron. His grandfather had fostered an important
school of sculpture in Flanders and Burgundy, which culminated in the
superb statues still existing at Dijon. Like his brother the Duke of
Berry, he had given work to a number of miniature painters. The Count
of Holland also employed some wonderful miniature painters to beautify
a manuscript for him. This manuscript and one made for the Duke of
Berry were among the finest ever painted so far as the pictures in
them are concerned. The Count of Holland's book used to be in the
library at Turin, where it was burnt a few years ago, so we can see
it no more. But the fortunate ones who did see it thought that the
pictures in it were actually painted by the Van Eycks when they were
young. The Duke of Berry's finest book is at Chantilly and is well
known. Both this and the Turin book contained the loveliest early
landscapes, a little earlier in date than this landscape in the 'Three
Maries' picture. So you see why it is said that the illuminators first
invented beautiful landscape painting, and that landscapes were
painted in books before they were painted as pictures to hang on walls.

The practical spirit in which Hubert van Eyck worked exactly matched
the sensible, matter-of-fact Flemish character. The Flemings, even
in pictures of the Madonna, wanted the Virgin to wear a gown made of
the richest stuff that could be woven, truthfully painted, with jewels
of the finest Flemish workmanship, and they liked to see a landscape
behind her studied from their own native surroundings.

No man could try to paint things as they looked, in the way Hubert
did, without making great progress in drawing. If you compare the
drawing of the angel appearing to the Maries with any of the angels
wearing the badge of Richard II., you will see how much more life-like
is the angel of Hubert. The painter of Richard II. was not happy with
his figures unless they were standing up or kneeling in profile, but
Hubert van Eyck can draw them with tolerable success lying down, or
sitting huddled. He can also combine a group in a natural manner. The
absence of formal arrangement in the picture of the Maries is quite
new in medieval art.

The painter of Richard II. had known very little about perspective.
The science of drawing things as they look from one point of view has
no doubt been taught to all of you. You know certain rules about
vanishing points and can apply them in your drawing. But you would
have found it very hard to invent perspective without being taught.
I can remember drawing a matchbox by the light of nature, and very
queer it contrived to become. Medieval artists were in exactly that
same case. The artists of the ancient world had discovered some of
the laws of perspective, but the secret was lost, and artists in the
Middle Ages had to discover them all over again. Hubert van Eyck made
a great stride toward the attainment of this knowledge. When you look
at the picture the perspective does not strike you as glaringly wrong,
though there was still much that remained to be discovered by later
men, as we shall see in our next chapter.

The brothers Van Eyck were, first and foremost, good workmen. Few other
painters in the whole of the world's history have aimed at anything
like the same finish of detail. In the original of this picture the
oriental pot which the green Mary holds in her hand is a perfect marvel
of workmanship. There is no detail so small but that when you look
into it you discover some fresh wonder. A story is told of how Hubert
van Eyck painted a picture upon which he had lavished his usual
painstaking care. But when he put it in the sun to dry, the panel cracked
down the middle. After this disappointment Hubert went to work and
invented a new substance with which colours are made liquid, a 'medium'
as it is called, which when mixed with colour dried hard and quickly.
It was possible to paint with the new medium in finer detail than before,
and the Flemish artists universally adopted it. While very little was