The Great Van Eyck Is Hung In A Chapel On The
South Of The Choir, And The Services Of The Verger Must Be Sought
For Its Exhibition.
The paintings on the shutters are merely
copies by Coxie, six of the originals being in the Picture Gallery
in Berlin.
Their restoration to Ghent, one hopes, will form a
fractional discharge of the swiftly accumulating debt that Germany
owes to Belgium. The four main panels, however, are genuine work
of the early fifteenth century, the reredos as a whole having been
begun by Hubert, and finished by Jan van Eyck in 1432. The centre-
piece is in illustration of the text in the Apocalypse (v. 12):
"Worthy is the Lamb that was slain to receive power, and riches,
and wisdom, and strength, and honour, and glory, and blessing."
One may question, indeed, if figurative language of the kind in
question can ever be successfully transferred to canvas; whether
this literal lamb, on its red-damasked table, in the midst of
these carefully marshalled squadrons of Apostles, Popes, and
Princes, can ever quite escape a hint of something ludicrous. One
may question all this, yet still admire to the full both the
spirit of devotion that inspired this marvellous picture and its
miracle of minute and jewel-like execution. There are scores of
other good pictures in Ghent, including (not even to go outside
St. Bavon's) the "Christ among the Doctors" by Francis Pourbus,
into which portraits of Philip II. of Spain, the Emperor Charles
V., and the infamous Duke of Alva - names of terrible import in
the sixteenth-century history of the Netherlands - are introduced
among the bystanders; whilst to the left of Philip is Pourbus
himself, "with a greyish cap on which is inscribed Franciscus
Pourbus, 1567." But it is always to the "Adoration of the Mystic
Lamb" that our steps are first directed, and to which they always
return.
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