276 REVIEWS AND PAMPHLETS ON ART

of so mixing it should have presented itself to Van Eyck more than to any other painter of the day, and Vasari’s story of the split panel becomes nugatory. But we apprehend, from a previous passage (p. 258), that Mr. Eastlake would not have us so interpret him. We rather suppose that we are expressing his real opinion in stating our own, that Van Eyck, seeking for a varnish which would dry in the shade, first perfected the methods of dissolving amber or copal in oil, then sought for and added a good drier, and thus obtained a varnish which, having been subjected to no long process of boiling, was nearly colourless; that in using this new varnish over tempera works he might cautiously and gradually mix it with the opaque colour, whose purity he now found unaffected by the transparent vehicle; and, finally, as the thickness of the varnish in its less perfect state was an obstacle to precision of execution, increase the proportion of its oil to the amber, or add a diluent, as occasion required.

22. Such, at all events, in the sum, whatever might be the order or occasion of discovery, were Van Eyck’s improvements in the vehicle of colour, and to these, applied by singular ingenuity and affection to the imitation of nature, with a fidelity hitherto unattempted, Mr. Eastlake attributes the influence which his works obtained over his contemporaries:-

“If we ask in what the chief novelty of his practice consisted, we shall at once recognise it in an amount of general excellence before unknown. At all times, from Van Eyck’s day to the present, whenever nature has been surprisingly well imitated in pictures, the first and last question with the ignorant has been-What materials did the artist use? The superior mechanical secret is always supposed to be in the hands of the greatest genius; and an early example of sudden perfection in art, like the fame of the heroes of antiquity, was likely to monopolize and represent the claims of many.”-Ib., p. 266.

This is all true; that Van Eyck saw nature more truly than his predecessors is certain; but it is disputable whether this rendering of nature recommended his works to the imitation of the Italians. On the contrary, Mr. Eastlake himself observes in another place (p. 220), that the character

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