§ 4. Van Eyck (1370/85—1441)

Realism became a force that gave new life to art in the whole of Europe during the early fifteenth century, and one of its lead­ing figures was the Flemish painter Jan van Eyck.

Jan van Eyck discovered for himself that the illusion of real­ity could be heightened by a systematic arrangement of light and shade which subdued the colour of the object and created atmos­phere.

The paintings of Jan van Eyck have an enamel-like surface giving an almost jewelled effect; the particularly shiny and trans­parent quality is due to the use of the newly-developed oil-and-egg emulsion. The rooms are filled with atmosphere that seems so real as to be almost tangible. This atmospheric effect is a constant feature of Flemish painting. Along with the luminous detail and highly polished finish of the various objects, it turns up once more in the Dutch painters of the seventeenth century like Vermeer.

Van Eyck's great masterpieces are the paintings for the altar at Ghent: "The Betrothal of the Arnolfini" and "The Rollin Madonna" (or "The Virgin with Chancellor Rollin"). He reached his greatest triumph in the painting of portraits which stressed the unique human features of each individual.

§ 5. Botticelli (1445—1510)

Botticelli is one of the great poetic painters — sensitive, withdrawn from the world, interested in the expression of a deli­cate and exquisite feeling unmatched in his or almost any time. In strong contrast to the sculpturesque scientific method of the Giotto-Masaccio tradition, Botticelli's work is a gentle, lyrical, poetic style worked out with flat picture surfaces and decorative flowing linear effects. Emotionally it is never brutal or over­powering, but diffident, reserved, subtly suffering.

"The Birth of Venus" is the poet-painter's evocation of the goddess of love out of the sea. In a remote and self-absorbed way, she stands on a cockleshell, blown shoreward by breezes represented on the left. The semicircular composition is completed by the woman on the right who eagerly waits to receive the nude goddess. In spite of this arrangement the pic­ture is not balanced in the monumental Masaccio manner; it is rather a series of twisting, turning lines and forms. The painter is not interested in stressing the three-dimensional or sculptural quality, but rather in evoking emotional effects through the restlessness of outline and mood.

The movement begins with the intertwined forms of the breezes as they fly toward the right, their draperies blowing wildly and wings tensely arched. It continues with the deliberately off-centered Venus and her curling, snake-like hair. Finally it ends in the forward-moving, draped woman and the sinuously curved, almost metallic covering she holds ready for the goddess. The eye of the spectator follows the restless curving lines and constantly changing movement from one side to the other and from top to bot­tom. Although Venus is the central figure, the artist has placed her far enough to the right to lead us in that direction. Nor is she the dramatic centre of the work, for the energetic breezes and the eager young woman at the right are just as significant.

A special place in the treasury of world graphic art belongs to Botticelli's superb series of pen drawings for Dante's "Di­vine Comedy" which date from about 1485—1490. His other drawings rank just as high.

Botticelli's exquisite, poetic drawing of "Abundance" has long been looked upon as perhaps the most beautiful Florentine draw­ing in the world. It is not a study for a painting, but a drawing done for its own sake and highly finished. It is a fine pen drawing with brown wash on a light reddish ground heightened with white. The horn of plenty and the children on the left are done in black chalk. While as a rule we speak of Botticelli as a linearist, it is clear that in this masterpiece there is added a tonal effect which is the result of a skilful combination in the use of brush and pen.